New-age games: Getting easier to play than before?

For old gamers, this has been a nagging curiosity for sometime. Some like to believe years of gaming has made their reflexes very sharp and it keeps on getting better with more gaming and time. However, there are some who think that though there might be an element of truth in that story, there must be something more to it. They can't help but ponder whether gameplay is becoming easier than it was before notwithstanding the dramatic improvements in graphics, complexities in themes etc, etc.

Rick Healey has a very interesting article on this. He says in an attempt to get what he termed as - 'nostalgic kicks' he and his mate tried playing some old games and was alarmed to have found that they were being very difficult indeed. He couldn't help but think if his reflexes were deserting him. Playing old games such as Final Fight, Commando, Son Son, 1942, Ghosts & Goblins, and so on - he constantly had to continue every couple of minutes.

He says that games these days he needed to continue just 10 times to complete a game as opposed to over 30 times in the average games before.

final fight ss

He analyzes why this has happened; why the games have become easier than before. And guess what? He hit the nail right on the head! He truly attributed this to the arcade culture where gamers flocked to play the latest games. It wasn't until the middle of the 8-bit era that the home experience could rival the arcade. Invariably, the latest games hit the arcades before. Now, arcades made profits by the number of quarters the gamers put in the slot. The more difficult the games are to finish, the more the continuations and the more the inflow of quarters. Gamers didn't want to replay the game they just beat and game manufacturers knew this, so they programmed the games to be hard to beat.

Modern-day game manufacturers are now focused on the home market. After gamer purchases a game, the manufacturer can expect no future profit from him. So companies try to get as many customers as possible. Once a customer is focused on one game rarely jumps for another game unless of course if it is a title they he was dying for. This gives the reason to the industry to make the games easier, so as to let people finish games quicker and thus progress onto the next game. But the industry knows well to keep you off from feeling shortchanged if a game is too easy to finish. 'Thus,' Rick analyzes, 'while the game industry wants people to be able to buzz through a game quickly, they also need to make it long enough so that it doesn't feel too quick, and so that people will have reason to come back to it (which is why unlocks and extra difficulty levels exist in games). The goal of the video game industry, at least it seems to me, is to make a game in which you feel you can easily make progress, but you need to make a lot of progress before you finish.'

So, if you are an old gamer who had been thinking that your reflexes have grown better and faster, think twice. While we might agree with you to some extent, the main reason for you to finish off the latest games in less than half the time as it took to finish Final Fight is simply this - the newer games might be more dramatic and visually sensational, but they are quite a few shades easier than the old classics.

Thanks Rick