Gaming is dying, here is why...

Games are becoming easier and easier and insulting the intelligence of the gamers. It's like the developers are targeting that new generation of gamers that gives up after one death at a boss. I don't know about you, but if I can beat a boss my first try then the game is too easy, and there is nothing worse than a game that is too easy. As I play modern games on current and next gen consoles I feel as though my skill and determination are not being properly exercised.

I remember the countless trials of beating games in the pre 2000's but even the sixth gen started to get dumbed down. Me and a friend could co-op halo and run through it in a day. If I were to die I don't have to restart the level, I just respawn at a checkpoint and continue to run through. It's really frustrating that games are requiring less and less thought to beat.

Lol no, that's a sign you're playing the wrong games then.

Dark souls comes to mind.

If you cared enough about gaming, you would keep the classics that kept you up all night fulfilled with fun.

This is a forum, not a blog.

How is gaming dying when #1 famous person on YouTube is a gamer who play games

IMO - the hardest games ever had NO save points, ONLY checkpoints that reset when you turned off the console.

Games like the original Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, etc... for the NES.

I got to Dracula on the original Castlevania ONE time on my own and couldn't beat him without using a Game Genie cheat thingy.

I NEVER made it to the end of Ninja Gaiden. Never.

games that are optimized for simpletons usually sell too good. sad truth.

there are gems like the aforementioned Dark Souls too. you need to keep an eye out for them.

PS4- 1 million consoles sold in one day.

GTA 5 Sales Hit $1 Billion, Will Outsell Entire Global Music Industry

So no.

Making games more accessible does NOT mean games are being dumbed down! The checkpoint system in games respects a gamer's time. I don't want to replay 30min of a level I already mastered to get to the one part where I died anymore.

If a games to easy bump the difficulty or play games that knowingly spike the difficulty for the group of gamers that like that experience.

i hear you on the checkpoint system, but i personally hate handholding. it makes me feel like a dummy.

which is precisely why I stick to retro games, shmups, and underground scenes. you want a challenge? try and 1 credit clear dodonpachi saidaioujou.

difficult games are still being made... you just have to look for 'em. CAVE games aside... Gunlord released last year. You just need a dreamcast or neogeo (aes/mvs) setup to play it.

i've gotten to the final boss of NInja Gaiden but I stopped there after not being able to beat the second form. It looks like most of you have been brainwashed and dumbed down by easy games. I remember when all games were at a good difficulty, now your able to mention that one title that is at the difficulty that all games should be at.

This is why we have online multiplayer.

haha yep, it's actually never been stronger. PC gaming is also getting bigger and bigger lately with huge strides in tech and the consoles in this new gen are no slouches

Yeah they were brutal but lets not forget that that was the time of the arcade influence. If you got gud the games were really short. You could beat most of them in one sitting.

Like arcades they were designed to be replayed over and over again, learn enemy position and tactics by trial and error. In a sense dark souls resembles the old games a lot. Back then games were played almost exclusively by kids with too much time in their hands. Most games today are made for the average 25-30 years old gamer that has a job, family and can barely find the time to play games so starting from the beginning is not an option anymore. Looks like games grew old with their userbase. Now is mostly about that cinematic experience, daughter/wife simulators alla TLoU/Bioshock/ME.

Although is not fair to put every game in the same basket. You can still find plenty that are good.

I guess i just miss the golden age, why did it have to end. GTAV was too short and too easy my score 75/100.

Games like League of Legends, WoW, Call of Duty (eww), GTA V, TLOU (had to put it in there), Pokemon X/Y and numerous other high selling/rated games the past decade say "No, gaming isn't dying, so get over your piss poor nostalgia and grow a pair".

I disagree with you on nearly every level.

Ninja Gaiden

GTA V ($1 billion) says no

Long live the PC bro. You know how it goes.

He's talking about quality, not that I agree. In terms of sales this is their golden age. I doubt the industry has ever been as big as it is today.

1 title?

etc...then insert all the "known" difficult titles from this gen.

I guess i just miss the golden age, why did it have to end. GTAV was too short and too easy my score 75/100.

sounds like the western devs are the only ones who make the too easy games

There were a few (keyword=few) games that recently bucked this unfortunate trend like the Souls franchise and XCOM.

Hopefully we'll see more. Gaming is not dying, it's just that you're becoming disillusioned with casualized games.

I don't blame you.

for the most part, yea. though I stuck primarily to the genre I knew, there's still a fair share of difficult western titles. most of the blisteringly difficult titles are niche in Japan tho :P

Difference between real challenge and artificial challenge.

Real difficulty is a test of the games mechanics and systems on the player to create a real challenge.

Artificial challenge, aka the challenge from back in the day, is challenge used by bad game designers to make their game difficult without having to effectively design the game. Taking out save points is an example of something thrown in there to discourage dying rather than posing an actual challenge. That sort of challenge just creates frustration rather than an actual challenge. Only people who with an odd liking of that frustration and the tension it creates are fans of them.

@ conkertheking1

I agree 100% but you know nothing about human beings, they love this crap, therefore gaming is not dying.

Also your philosophy of whats difficult is stupid, You're gona love Dark/Demon Souls

Dark/Demon/Contra Souls

is not difficult. Its cheap, and it uses a "positive feedback loop" so it actually gets easier the longer you play it regardless of the player's input.

I agree, there is a difference between old games (90s - 00s) to games these days.

@ lx_theo

Precisely ! :D

But I don't want it to go away. I just wish developers and "hardcore" gamers would be more honest with themselves and stop lying about their so called difficult games, Theres definately a market for cheap game design, they just gotta cut the bullsh!t and embrace the sadomasochism enthusiasts they really are.

Oh and Dark Souls sucks ! Haha :D

Let's not forget money. Some games had cheap design, which meant if you either wanted to keep playing or stay alive, you keep shelling out the quarters. There were some games that were games and some that were money makers.

@ psymon100

Its an RPG, which means it has "character progression" which is just a dumb term for leveling up/upgrading. Anyway heres what happens in a positive feed back loop, you play, you get rewarded in the form of stat upgrades or better weapons or leveling or some other form of a boost in your characters proficiency, thist in turn makes the game easier to play, which makes it easier to level up, which makes it easier to play and so on. Luckily most devs have the decency add alil balance in the form of longer intervals between leveling and constantly adding new enemies with higher stats. But it turns very ugly if you fall behind because if you suck it only gets harder when the new enemies get introduced without you leveling up or in the case of Dark Souls it makes things harder if you have the wrong build, it basicly amplifies how good or how crappy you are, and then theres level scaling which totally defeats the purpose of character progression.

And then theres negative feed back loops, these are my favourite, if you suck at them, they are easy, if you get better they get harder. Some examples include Left 4 Dead's AI Director, even Batman follows this principal, its easy when you button mash because you suck but as you get better and try to use Batman's other features it gets harder, stylish Hack n' Slash games like DmC and Bayonetta follow a simular philosophy with negative feed back loops.

keeping that in mind, its safe for TC and I to assume RPGs are whats killing the industry.

Over opinionated people are what is killing the industry.

casual gamers like you are what is killing the industry

I am far from casual.

@ AMD655

I take back what I said, crappy game design is whats saving the industry, I'm not being sarcastic, eversince games have gotten dumber more people have started to play them.

Oh and that thing with the RPGs is just the tip of the iceberg, theres many more flaws not only in the games but in the genre itself. I love pointing them out. Its a very time consuming hobby because its just so damn broken, :D

It depends, a lot of RPG's are hit and miss these days, i enjoyed Fallout/Elder scrolls games, they involve levelling, it's not the ease of play that made me continue though, it was the setting, the world has a tonne to offer.

That should end the thread.

how so? I personally enjoyed The World Ends With You, The Dark Spire, Resonance of Fate, Baroque, Mother 3, Little Kings Story (wish this was more popular so that Kimura would go on to make more games like Moon: Remix RPG Adventure and L.O.L.: Lack of Love), etc...

wish I was able to get a hands on with Pier Solar, but I'll just have to wait for the HD remake that I contributed to.

The only issue with a couple of the games were the convoluted battle systems and/or steep learning curve.

^ ^ This. OP makes wild claims that are contrary to what is actually going on in real life. In reality games have never been bigger than they are right now.

@ Some-Mist

I Already explained it.

Positive Feedback loops

@ AMD655

Which brings us to another funny thing about RPGs.

A game doesn't have to be good or even decent for it to be a damn good RPG, Fallout being a great example.

Even excluding the bugs, give some thought to what it is you're really doing when in combat or in conversations, its actually quite stupid. I'd explain but you'd just be against the idea even more, better if you figure it out for yourself.

It is called time wasting, or at least thats why i choose the most stupid answers in those games.

Many of the games I've listed aren't affected by "positive feedback loops". actually, The World Ends With You promotes leveling down to increase pin drop rates.

baroque is insanely difficult and leveling (even grind leveling) doesn't make any noticeable changes to the difficulty of the game.

If you're not good at strategizing your attacks in resonance of fate, you're not going to get anywhere. If you level a weapon too high, enemies will retain the same painful difficulty but will not yield experience like with your weaker guns (which using your weaker guns in turn makes the enemies again... more difficult, but is required).

The only two questionable games are Mother 3 and Little Kings Story... both of which are by incredible teams that provide outstanding story telling.

so I guess you would have to alter your statement to say that RPGs with "positive feedback loops" are killing the industry... which is still a ridiculous statement in itself.

PC 4 LYF SON!

@ AMD655

Hmmmmm..... Yeah I can't work with that. Anyway its been real ! Ciao !

@ Some-Mist

I take back the "killing the industry" part.

Anyway...... If it doesn't get easier Then it suffers as an RPG, simple. :), over and over again people have put emphasis that Progression is part of what makes an RPG good, so there goes that Idea.

also the game doesn't necesarily have to get easier for it to be a positive feed back loop, simply using leveling to stop the game from getting harder or to to decrease the ratio at which the game gets harder is still a positive feed back loop, its like choosing the lesser of two evils. I believe the more accurate description would be a "Negative/Zero Sum" game with a Possitive Feed backloop.

Also Strategy Games are way above my pay grade, I need to study exactly the are if I'm going to be able to find the flaws in that. But for now I can say RPGs suffer a cognitive and a (complexity) reinforcement problem when executing strategies. But the theory only works for all other types of RPGs with strategy as a secondary feature, it doesn't seem to work with Strategy RPGs, and I don't know why. :(

Who is the #1 famous person on Youtube?

Thats weird, correct me if I'm wrong but is it safe to say games with negative feed back loops are easier if you suck at them, I said it before but it didn't sound weird until just now........ Uhm yeah........ Mind ****.