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The trend of accessibility and why devs pay attention to it
Rusque
Member RarePosts: 2,785
Up front, plenty of people do, in fact, point out that games because "casual" or "dumbed down" because as gamers age they tend to have more real world responsibilities and less time to play. However, a lot of people still seem to think there's some nefarious plot to ruin their favorite pastime. The other day Ghostcrawler shared a bit about exit questions and why people say they quit a game, here's an excerpt:
"Developers do care if you stop playing their game and they want to know why. However, for games like WoW and LoL, the answers are almost always "I have less time to play now (job/school/family and "My Friends don't play anymore." (I'm basing that on having seen a lot of data - it's not super open to debate.) ...
Dropping a game because of a specific design change (despite what you might read on forums/Reddit) is actually pretty rare. I know it happens, but if you're stack ranking the reasons why people quit, those specific responses end up being so far down the list that it is hard for a development team to take actionable feedback. It's really rare you see "Wow, that change we made cost us 10,000 players. Let's revert it!" ..."
We see a lot of people posting about 'Why don't they make games like this ____" or "We need to go back to ____" or "Game X was best during _____ era." The reality is, is that gamers have changed.
If you're in your 30's, you are the "original" gaming generation - sure there were games before then, but truly we were the bulk of gamers during gaming's formative years. NES to PS2, Gold Box to Warcraft 3. So when we were gaming in UO or EQ, gamers were young males. That's moved upwards as we've aged and taken our favorite hobby along for the ride.
We drove the average age of gamers up, as well as introduced to medium to the mainstream and . . . people with lady bits!
Basically what I'm getting at is, when you ask for the "old school" style of hugely time intensive gaming experiences, it's mostly a pipe dream because you can't fight reality. I mean, you can try, but it probably won't work. The people who have infinite time to play games are fewer than those of us who have been gamers since always and still spend our money on games.
And so you have more accessible games. Bite sized, jump in, jump out because that's what people keep [indirectly] asking for. Which brings me to my next point. Be careful what you say your reason is for giving up on a game. If you tell a developer "I can't play because of time restrictions." They really only have one way to interpret that, which is, "We need to make our game playable in shorter increments of time to retain people like this."
Single player games are obviously less affected by this and have continued to offer robust, deep, and complex gaming experiences, but it's been very obvious in online gaming, esp in MMOs.
"Developers do care if you stop playing their game and they want to know why. However, for games like WoW and LoL, the answers are almost always "I have less time to play now (job/school/family and "My Friends don't play anymore." (I'm basing that on having seen a lot of data - it's not super open to debate.) ...
Dropping a game because of a specific design change (despite what you might read on forums/Reddit) is actually pretty rare. I know it happens, but if you're stack ranking the reasons why people quit, those specific responses end up being so far down the list that it is hard for a development team to take actionable feedback. It's really rare you see "Wow, that change we made cost us 10,000 players. Let's revert it!" ..."
We see a lot of people posting about 'Why don't they make games like this ____" or "We need to go back to ____" or "Game X was best during _____ era." The reality is, is that gamers have changed.
If you're in your 30's, you are the "original" gaming generation - sure there were games before then, but truly we were the bulk of gamers during gaming's formative years. NES to PS2, Gold Box to Warcraft 3. So when we were gaming in UO or EQ, gamers were young males. That's moved upwards as we've aged and taken our favorite hobby along for the ride.
We drove the average age of gamers up, as well as introduced to medium to the mainstream and . . . people with lady bits!
Basically what I'm getting at is, when you ask for the "old school" style of hugely time intensive gaming experiences, it's mostly a pipe dream because you can't fight reality. I mean, you can try, but it probably won't work. The people who have infinite time to play games are fewer than those of us who have been gamers since always and still spend our money on games.
And so you have more accessible games. Bite sized, jump in, jump out because that's what people keep [indirectly] asking for. Which brings me to my next point. Be careful what you say your reason is for giving up on a game. If you tell a developer "I can't play because of time restrictions." They really only have one way to interpret that, which is, "We need to make our game playable in shorter increments of time to retain people like this."
Single player games are obviously less affected by this and have continued to offer robust, deep, and complex gaming experiences, but it's been very obvious in online gaming, esp in MMOs.
Comments
I have written my friends have left a lot of times but twice I actually explained about how WoW won't let me do the quests that are above my level as a reason .
While there might be an outcry not truly proportionate to the number of people that wish for the older more time consuming games these companies do not willy nilly change the gameplay of their games. They must be basing it off something they have the information on. Similar to how WoW initially exploded into the MMORPG scene they studied the market and provided what it needed and slaughtered the competition.
That is not saying there is no market for another more time consuming game and that it cannot do modestly well as it will attract the people that like that type of time commitment. However to continue to rail against companies that have changed things in ways they felt were more in line with how gamers changed is not productive either.
Of course you can find a type of game with the largest fan base - fps games being a good candidate for this. Does this mean we should get rid of all the other type of games only because they won't sell as well as fps games? Of course not, that would be silly.
Also, i find this very excuse 'i don't have time to play' a bit strange. We're living the era of mobile device technology. In order to play games you don't have to stay at home and by your desktop computer or console. You can take the games with you anywhere you go, yet they complain they don't have time and all games should be designed for 'jump in, jump out' kind of gaming. We should accept that not all games are suitable for this kind of gaming.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
We have a drought in AAA MMORPGs because companies want to cater for EVERYONE instead of MMO gamers, and for this reason their games are horrible mess with features from multiple genres.
I have a feeling people will just select that as an answer because it's an easy answer to give, thereby skewing results. It is a rather broad complaint imho. Don't have time for what in particular? That's what I'd really like to know. On top of it that, it doesn't really differentiate between someone who can barely scrape time together to play in general vs someone who doesn't feel that they're able to accomplish enough in 2-3 hours.
Perfect example of what I'm going on about:
DotA2 - I've seen reviews and comments in all sorts of places about how DotA2 games take "too long" and that people don't have time for it. But they DO have time to play 2-3 LoL games. So we see that "don't have time" vs "I want to spend my time differently" are not the same. And because of these complaints, we've seen an effort to make DotA2 games shorter.
But what's the real problem? Is it actual discretionary time availability? Or is it more that playing a single game that takes longer feels like worse value (esp if you're losing) than being able to play 2 or 3 times as many in the same amount of time? That speaks less to accessibility and more to how people feel while they interact with your product.
This is probably where MMO's get things muddled. Things that are time consuming are not always fun, the difference between tedium and effort is in value gained. Someone might be inclined to state they don't have time to farm 100 logs of wood, but that's less because of the time spent, but more because of how it feels (aka the time has been wasted). That same person might spend the same amount of time playing minecraft, which also has you gathering 100 logs of wood, but the feel like it was a valued effort as they visibly saw a result from engaging in that activity.
I think part of the equation here is not just because people got older and have less time but it's also that people who have played at least one MMO become less willing to put themselves through stuff that isn't enjoyable just for the sake of shiny pixels.
It's the <been there, done that> syndrome. In your very first MMO you're probably a lot more willing to put yourself through a lot of bullshit to get that next upgrade, and the next, and the next, and so on even if the stuff you're doing to get the upgrades isn't much fun. But after you've done that in one game the lust for pixels loses some of it's power over you.
For every one of us there is a line to be crossed somewhere at which we'll feel like, "It just isn't worth it." The line is surely in a different spot for each individual but one thing is certain: For almost everyone the line moves as they play MMOs and it moves away from the end of the spectrum which is time intensive and involves jumping through lots of hoops.
So here we are at a time when the vast majority of people playing MMOs have played at least one game already and many have played multiple games. Our collective tolerance for putting up with un-fun bullshit has decreased dramatically. Any developers who fail to recognize this are fools.
Finding the right formula is a lot tougher than many seem to think it is. As it's not just about finding an audience, the bigger issue is finding a large enough audience to justify the scope and budget of a massively multiplayer game.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
People have different values they attach to their time expenditure and different significance to that importance. That is why the two sides cannot agree on this point but that is why you cannot make one game for these two disparate groups of players as they have different expectations for their time.
I kind of agree a lot what you say, and i even admit my biggest concern regarding Pantheon was exactly this issue of playtimes in grouping heavy game. There's always this guy in 6-8 man group who says in the middle of the dungeon 'sry guys g2g wife's mad at me', but i think games have gone too far in trying to be accessible and casual.
I still play vanilla WoW on daily basis, so i'll use that as an example. There are lots of dungeons with some kind 'short cut mechanic'. There's backdoors that let you skip the beginning of an instance, there are teleports acquired from dungeon quests to get to the middle of the dungeon, there are winged dungeons with several different smaller instances, and clever players have found ways to skip parts of dungeons in order to save time (the infamous lava run in BRD). And that's great, i admit not every run in Sunken Temple is fun and engaging experience, since you're more or less forced to clear everything inside, which takes 2-3 hours easily.
This issue becomes more problematic when accessibility comes at the cost of gameplay. The dungeons i mentioned above are now made easier, smaller, and you find groups and teleport inside automatically. All this because it makes your playtime shorter. Now you can log in, find a group in 1 min, teleport in, and clear the instance in 10 mins. But wait, there's professions i need to farm mats for, and it takes a lot of time. And i don't have gold to buy everything from auction house. No worries, says developers, you can make npcs in your garrison to farm mats and gold when you're offline.
So, the game sure is more accessible now and requires almost no time to play, but at what cost. Is it still the same game? Would you have bought it in the first place if it was like this in launch? Quite a few would say 'no', believe it or not. There are now even games where your character walks, turns in quests, and initiates combat automatically. Where goes the line when playing a game and watching a movie is pretty much the same experience? We're not very far from it.
I think the OP attempts to incorrectly tie in a response about whether users leave over specific design changes and use it as evidence of why the genre changed over time.
Players lives change, that's a fact. Today they have time to play, tomorrow they won't. But one day in the future they may return.
As one who was in the midst of a very active life when I first joined the genre, I found a way to "find the fun" in numerous MMORPGs while balancing real life, which meant there were some activities I could not do and I accepted this.
I feel most complaints from players who say today they have no time in their lives for these designs really mean they can no longer play without compromise.
As one who always has and still does have to balance between real life and gaming, I see no problem with more in depth, time consuming designs which well may mean content I sometimes can't do.
One of the worst ideas to come out of the post WOW era was content should be designed so every player can enjoy it, regardless of their real life or in game personal limitations.
Well except for maybe the concept which arose that every player has a right to spend real life cash to overcome said limitations.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Killers Buy P2W.
Explorers Buy Zone unlocks.
Achievers Buy P2W.
Socializers Buy "Cosmetics" and they don't play PvP games.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
MMO's are like ice cream. Hundred's of flavors and everyone likes a different type. To add to this, some players don't always like a certain flavor but like to change up from time to time. One week the focus maybe PvP, another week or other days, Pve, crafting, exploration, or questing. These things don't even take into consideration, player skill levels, past experience, and desire to solo, group, or both. If this is your very first MMO, your goals will be a lot different then if this were your 100th MMO. The parameters are constantly changing.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
I'd like to believe a true achiever would want to do so on their own efforts, maybe true of killers too.
I think you left out a category called "cheaters"
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I personally loath the way games are designed today. I log in and see a laundry list of tasks presented to me to complete. There is little in the way of creative freedom where you just explore and figure out what to do. That is another issue with today's culture. Everything has to be laid out and done in a specific way. It is all very robotic.
I'm not certain why people take enjoyment from such experiences, but it appears they do because they are playing and that's what keeps the games going the way they are.
1.) ESO Posted on forums the other day why there is no $100 package in crown store for buying house (No response yet).
2.) FFXIV not listening to players feed-back on housing or improving the game with glamours.
3.) Black Desert Online not listening to feed-back to increase pearl shop storage past $200 for heavy spenders.
4.) Arche Age, not listening to feed-back on reverting forced same faction PVP key function that enabled same faction griefing...
Developers usually don't listen unless your either (On the development team) or spend a huge portion in backing the games development we are talking over 20K + Investments.
Accessibility is great. Better sales and marketing to attract people, good tutorials and introductions, gradual learning curves etc....these are all great things for games in general and is a big reason for WoWs initial success - it was easily the most accessible MMO ever released. Weirdly, it is something that never seems to have happened to sandboxes....
However, too many people confuse accessibility with making it easier, including devs themselves. That is the problem I have with modern games. UIs have improved, tutorials have improved, starter zones are getting ever more engaging which is all fantastic. Yet, I find myself waiting for the games to get deeper and never having it happen. Between action combat, strict trinity / no trinity, quest markers, linear zones, vertical gear progression, there is just no challenge or depth left to the games. If there is any depth or challenge, it tends to be reserved for just a very small number of dungeons or raids.
The result has been (for me) that I just find myself bored for 99% of the game. You get your nice introduction and gentle learning curve, but once I reach mid-game i'm eager for more challenge, more learning, but it never arrives.
In themeparks aka easy MMOs the path is laid down for them.
It's not by accident that 99.9% of WoW players who start to play other MMOs FIRST question on any forum/ingame chat is: "what is the best class/way to endgame?"
-Because they need it explained to them.-
Easy accessible MMOs are mostly not sandboxes. Those ppl who like sandboxes are usually not the type of players that need devs to say "go here now and do quest 1, then 2...on to quest 94584754593943847453497457343 where you reach the end line."
They want to make their own content and experience a challenge.
Themepark players usually label sandbox games as "boring".
Themepark players just want a easy ride, sandbox players want a more deep experience.
That's why sandboxes are not the most accessible games.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"