It is no
secret that video games have been in a constant state of evolution.
Unlike books, movies, and music, our medium is still very much a
young one. We are constantly pushing the limits of what interactivity
with media can do. As gaming continues to push and grow, it has begun
to demonstrate a very clear trend in recent years. Rather than strive
complex, intricate systems that require a lot of patience and skill
to master, most games have opted for simpler, easier to pick up and
play systems. Many people lament this change. They feel that games
are being “dumbed down” and think of it as a worsening of the
medium as a whole. I disagree with this assessment. I believe that
simplification is a good thing for our industry. In this week's post,
I will explain my reasoning.
The
primary reason simplifying games is a good thing is that it leads to
a bigger audience for them. Before you moan about all the “f***ing
casuals” or “'hardcore' Call of Duty players,” please take a
moment to listen to my point. Bigger audiences allow developers to do
more, since their sales are likely to be much higher. A degree of
risk can be taken and further innovation can be made if sales of
other projects can be virtually guaranteed. As much as we complain
about the dullness of yearly release schedules for games like Call of
Duty (and let's be honest, the yearly release does negatively
impact Call of Duty games), the profits on these games could be used
to fund other projects that are more risky and may not be as well
received. (They are not, usually, because of the way AAA companies
work, but they could be.) Look at Valve for an good example of the
positives of guaranteed profits. The near monopoly Valve has over PC
gaming thanks to Steam virtually assures them that they will make
profits no matter what they do with their money. Because of this,
they are able to take (Valve) time to plan out, tweak, play-test, and
re-tweak all of the parts of their games to ensure that they are of
high quality. While people do bemoan the how simple modern games have
become, they do help to attract these revenue streams that allow for
more risky projects to be developed to advance the medium and cater
to other tastes.
The
other benefit of this extended audience, due to simplified systems,
is that it brings in a more diverse and interesting set of viewpoints
into the industry. This may seem something unimportant, but it is
crucial to the advancement of the industry. Most people who have
knowledge of the industry are aware that it is pretty much dominated
by 20-30 something white men. While this should not be unexpected, it
is detrimental to the industry. There is only so many ways 20-30
something white men can look upon a subject or topic. If we can bring
in more demographics and people, each with their own perspectives,
viewpoints, and biases, then we can broaden both the types of games
that get released and their themes and topics. In any sort of
entertainment industry, injecting new people and experiences will be
a good thing. It helps to avoid stagnation and keeps things fresh and
exciting for people. Different demographics are inherently going to
have these new viewpoints due to the fact that they live different
lives. Having a higher audience increases the number of people
interested in games, which leads to more folks wanting to make a
career out of it. This influx will invariably lead to more diverse
people simply due to the law of averages. With that, we could see
some much needed diversity in video games.
The
second advantage to making systems simple and discarding complication
is the way that it reduces tedium in game mechanics. This is
something most people are at least aware of, even if they do not
exactly know it, but it needs to be said anyway: Just because
something is complex does not make it deep. On the other hand, just
because something is simple to pick up and play does not make it make
it shallow. Depth comes from the degree to which one can learn and
master the systems at play. Though not, strictly speaking, a video
game, Chess is the ultimate example of this. The game itself is
simple to understand. There are only a limited number of rules one
must need to know. However, everyone knows that chess is a game of
intricacies and depth. There are hundreds of thousands of possible
permutations of the game board and equally as many tactics to
experiment with. While anyone can play to moderate success, someone
who is an expert of the game will easily defeat a novice or
intermediate player. We have seen video games with similarly simple,
yet deep mechanics. Final Fantasy V is a good example with its job
class system that has many different combinations. Another
demonstration of this would be the recently released Dishonored. The
game has a fairly limited tool-set that the player can use. However,
the level design and game systems encourage experimentation and
combination of these tools to efficiently and skillfully get passed a
number of different situations. Like the other games in that fit this
description, it falls into the category of “easy to learn, hard to
master, ” which is something I whole-heartedly encourage. If
developers keep mechanics simple, it forces them to use them in more
creative and unique ways, rather than bloat their games with
unnecessary filler.
While I
support this trend of keeping games simple, I must confess that we
must be careful with it. There is such a thing as
over-simplification. Some games do benefit from a slight amount of
complexity. It depends on the game in question. Other times, the
mechanics are so simple and the level design is so mediocre that it
makes for a generally bad experience. It is necessary to balance
simple systems that any player can use with depth that allows others
to go into the system and try to fully master it. Depth is what is
most important, not complexity. Developers need to make deep
experiences in order to attract people. We do not need excess
complexity in games anymore. That is a thing of the past.
