Adridos, on 14 May 2012 - 10:45 AM, said:
Red October, the time has changed. back then, PC's were pretty damn expensive and not so many people had them. People who had them had some degree of maturness, as it was probably their work that made having PC possible. Then, as they got used to computers, they started having hobbies of making games. They started competinjg as with everything in life from board games to proffesional competitions.
Then, gaming got to teens by consoles and they became their main audience. Games started to get more easier to find more customers and the people enjoying competing started having troubles. Today, people who enjoy competition have only a handful of video games (CS, SC, DotA, Quake and probably a few more I never heard of).
At least joining House Liao gives us a bit of challenge, because, well...
I'd have to disagree with you. Back in 'the day', PC games were easier to make and many basement-coders were churning out games, but alot of the games were designed by people who were coders first, gamers second. The sad truth is a great gamer is no more enclined to build a great game than a stock-car racer is at designing engines. What happened what designers got smarter at developing games that could teach the player how to play the game, and develop mechanics that were not requiring a text-book of research to jump in on.
Example of this was MUDS, which was great for anyone already involved in the scene, but trying to jump into one of these text-based RPGs was terrible to control, with a great emphasis on the player already knowing the game inside and out before even beginning to play.
Another example is the classic Doom, which at the time had the production crew that could fit in a phonebooth, and was shown off as free-ware. It wasnt expensive to make, nor expensive to distribute. This is what the PC market was, and things are alot more expensive now to create and maintain.
Where I do agree somewhat (not completely) with your thoughts on the console scene, I do not see games being 'easier' as much as they have become more 'intuative' and smarter design/gameplay had been developed. The
Jimquisition had an interesting video on difficulty which you may enjoy.
As far as competitive multiplayer, that comes as a game by game experience. Some games find trying to be competitive in a head-to-head method, and fail because the a single method of play becomes overwhelmingly powerful, where others find a dynamic that draws itself from two competing players. The people who enjoyed competing started having troubles with the explosion of online console multiplayer and the players who then found PC gaming is more coming from the increased player-base and the wider array of opponents.
Personal experience: I use to be very good (in my mind) at Street Fighter 2. I'd use M.Bison to devastate just about every player I encountered in my local scene (Which was junior high at the time). Then it expanded to include online competition in Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, and I found myself getting destroyed, despite the previous time where I felt I was near untouchable. The community expanded, the player base being larger also brought about it more tricks, tactics, and more so the demand for higher levels of competition. The game itself could support the development of increased multiplayer demand, and the larger player base brought the demand to the player to increase their own abilities.
To make the claim that games where some kind of hard-core thing back in the day is a fraud, they were poorly designed and the players were working with that they were given, but the industry has evolved, as has a large amount of it's consumer base.
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