Are modern gamers getting worse at video games?

[nintega137]

I've noticed recently that if I give a kid, or in some cases a teenager, a game that is not the ordinary shooter or race sport, and all the other games these days, they can barely pass the first level at all. 

 

Now too be fair most of the time these may be platformers, something they may not be entirely used to, but it always puzzles me. I may sound arrogant but while I may not have been as good at video games as I am now, I was still good enough to pass several levels or even beat entire games. 

 

Nowadays though, people seem different. Maybe I'm just too judgmental. But do you think that this might be the reason games are getting easier these days, or are they not really its only perception?

 

What are all of your thoughts?

[Spin Attaxx]

I think this belongs in the Video Games or Chit Chat section.

[nintega137]

I think this belongs in the Video Games or Chit Chat section.

oh my bad. 

[nintega137]

I've noticed recently that if I give a kid, or in some cases a teenager, a game that is not the ordinary shooter or race sport, and all the other games these days, they can barely pass the first level at all. 

 

Now too be fair most of the time these may be platformers, something they may not be entirely used to, but it always puzzles me. I may sound arrogant but while I may not have been as good at  I am now, I was still good enough to pass several levels or even beat entire games. 

 

Nowadays though, people seem different. Maybe I'm just too judgmental. But do you think that this might be the reason games are getting easier these days, or are they not really its only perception?

 

What are all of your thoughts?

[WhoWhatMan]

oh my bad. 

 

Don't worry, a mod probably gonna move it to that section.

[Diogenes]

Modern day young gamers have a different skillset from us, a different mindset from us, and less tolerance for obtuse bullshit because "omg when i press button he moves!" isn't amazing enough to keep you playing through the bullshit anymore. Not worse, just different.

[Abominal SnowTaz]

You have to request a mod to move the topic, not make another one.

 

edit: Still the wrong section btw...

 

edit #2: Well this is chit-chat so, idk...

Edited October 26, 2013 by Abominal Deadpool

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

I think the issue is really just one of perspective. It's not so much that modern audiences are any worse so much as the video game market expanding. The casual gamers and such that are being introduced through iPhone stuffs and Call of Duty 27 are a newer addition to the wider game audience as a whole, they just happen to be easy to bump into nowadays, which is where the confusion stems from. If you looked at the number of people who enjoy and know the ropes the more "core" games, I'd say they're about relatively the same in number. Does that make any sense?

[nintega137]

You have to request a mod to move the topic, not make another one.

 

edit: Still the wrong section btw...

 

edit #2: Well this is chit-chat so, idk...

ok shoot. Clearly there's alot I don't know. Sorry guys I'm new here.

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

ok shoot. Clearly there's alot I don't know. Sorry guys I'm new here.

 

It's alright, we all make those mistakes. Welcome to the forums, by the way. Hope you enjoy your stay.

 

You may want to take a look at the rules to help you understand the place better:  http://board.sonicstadium.org/index.php?app=forums&module=extras&section=boardrules

Edited October 26, 2013 by Sixth-Scream Soma

[JezMM]

I think patience and time has a lot to do with it.  I couldn't pass the first level of Super Mario Bros. 2 as a kid when I first played it and the only reason I got better at it was because it was the only game that I owned and therefore played it endlessly.

[Abominal SnowTaz]

ok shoot. Clearly there's alot I don't know. Sorry guys I'm new here.

No probs brah!

[Nepenthe]

You guys can't do this to me on my off day. I was so confused for a second at the report and things. OKAY! Topics merged and moved.

 

For future reference: If you place a topic in the wrong section, simply send a report asking for a move and staff will get to it. Also, all non-Sonic video game discussion belongs in Computer Games. x3

[Emmett L. Brown]

I beat a lot of obscenely difficult Nintendo, Sega and Commodore Amiga games as a kid, and I admit that when I tried the game again as an adult via emulation I couldn't believe I'd managed to beat them. But honestly, even as a child, it took me a summer's worth of daily attempts to beat Super Mario Bros, and over a year before I was able to consistently play through Battletoads. Modern games don't enforce Game Overs of the kind where you have to start the entire thing over, and for the most part they try to avoid trial-and-error gameplay. Certainly you could argue that makes the games easier, but for the player it's a huge benefit that I don't want us to ever give up.

 

I don't see modern gamers missing out by a lack of games that require you to brute-force your way by memorizing every hazard. There's plenty of genuinely hard modern games with plenty of reflex requirements that the kids these days seem to manage just fine.

[Autosaver]

I can't imagine how modern gamers that prefer the hand-holding, easy gameplay would react to Megaman.

[Mando-Whirl-Wind]

I can't imagine how modern gamers that prefer the hand-holding, easy gameplay would react to Megaman.

 I started with a N64, and I just got megaman1,2 and X on my wii-u this summer, and I will admit, they can easily kick my but, although I do need to put more time in them as well

[Nepenthe]

I'm not sure older games being as notoriously difficult as they were is inherently a good thing now for a medium that has exploded relatively quickly in terms of revenue being passed around and relevance in pop culture. It speaks more of the developmental process of games at the time than anything, where focus testing was basically non-existent. When you're close to a project, you lose the ability to be objective about it, so what's easy to a developer might already be hard for the average person going in blind. And when they think it's easy, they simply ratchet up the difficulty more without that broader context, which isn't a good thing. And yes, some of that harder difficulty was due to shitty controls and game design; the fact that anyone got through them isn't any inherent testament to brilliance on part of the developers.

 

I also think it's a bit flawed to compare a new gamer's skill to an old gamer's skill, when the games, controllers, information, and input methods are vastly different. You can see the disparity in this if you are lucky enough to have parents like I did who played some of these older titles. I realize this is anecdotal, but I think it illustrates the point: while my Mom can personally boast of actually beating the original Contra, she cannot fathom the type of skill needed to play the Day Stages of Sonic Unleashed, which most gamers would consider the easier game. She wouldn't even try it, because to her, the speed, graphical fidelity, and increased number of inputs were simply overwhelming. It's a different environment then, I think, that cannot be simply be compared fairly on the basis of the perceived difficulties of the games at the time. Gamers today are skilled, but we are skilled in a different way. We can manipulate characters and objects within three-dimensional environments with control schemes that use upwards of ten buttons. That is impressive in its own right!

 

So while games are easier or at least different today, and that players have naturally adapted to this, I don't think the kind of closed development that led to them being harder is healthy for today's market because I don't believe such an environment would be able to produce the Portals, the Bioshocks, the Modern Warfares, the Grand Theft Auto 5's, the games we have today that are just as amazing as some of the older ones regardless of their difficulty thresholds. I also think that modern games today still require skill, but different skills, and that it is a bit of a disservice to them to blow them off or downplay them simply because they are not riddled with the twitch gameplay and unforgiving parameters of games of old.

Edited October 27, 2013 by Necropenthe

[Mr Loopone]

It really do depend on the type of game and the type of person. Since gaming has expanded throughout the years, that means that there are more people playing games than say 20-30 years however some players are either very young and need a bit of help or don't have time to play a long game. Some games have button prompts, QTEs and tutorials meaning that a player experiences the mechanics, the story (if there is one) and the gameplay all being accessible, depending on the game it is done for cinematic purposes, marketing, focus testing or to aim to as many people as possible. In my opinion Sonic Lost World needed a better tutorial, it was lucky that I've managed to read the instruction card and played around with the game a bit. Another reason why games have these is due to reducing or removing instructions from games so a player has to known what button does which, doesn't help since the PS2 consoles had lots of buttons on the controller that some games required every single button, click and both analog sticks. There are also other accessability factors; game saves are in most games with some games save within a checkpoint, there are FAQs around for a game due to easy access to the Internet for free and some games have done away with lives and Game Over so when a player dies it goes to the beginning of a stage or a checkpoint.

 

There are still harder games in this current generation but the developers do that by different angles, usually enemy placement or level design or a dreaded bug that slipped in the game. Online multiplayer is also considered a challenge that many people are very skilled at so a skill will be on reaction times moving a gun and shooting someone as quickly as possible or reaction timing driving a car to get the best lap times/1st place, something that older games either didn't have or were restricted and even then it was more of a fun and game than it is being pure competitive now. Also bullet hell shooters are more common in the shoot em up genre than the older style that were common is now a shorter supply. Current games also have a few cheats if at all so while older games can have infinite lives or health, it is harder now with less cheat codes and no Action Replays (people would rather cheat in multiplayer than on a game).

 

Sonic and the main Mario games are probably one of the few main series that keep towards the 3 lives and Game Over pattern of the older days however they do save at every stage though and in the case of Mario, more powerups (with a guide after dying 5 times) per stage and plenty of lives to the point where triggering Game Over is harder than completing the game (it is possible though) however saving is restricted to certain points or free save when completing the game.

 

Then again a lot of games pre-PS1 era were actually pretty tricky to complete due to various factors. First of all apart from selected games and most of the save enabled ones were RPGs/adventure or very long games, games didn't have save functions and were lucky to get a password option (sort of like a save but you can cheat). Then there the fact that either games were arcade games, arcade ports or had arcade gameplay (there were RPGs and adventure games but they mainly were in Japan or on computers), due to limitations regarding ROM space meaning that games couldn't hold much data so to get as much gameplay time as possible games were usually made at a harder difficulty. That reason also applies to companies as well to get more rentals from console games and as much money from the arcade operators.  It meant that people practised until completing the game so a 20-40 minute game might seem like 2 weeks worth or more due to 3 lives, possible Continue, Game Over, start from the beginning pattern unless they had a cheat cartridge. Another reason why it is harder was due to the earlier games had no bug testing so games could have had problems with a possibility of not able to complete the game at all (someways modern gaming publishers have cut down on QA so this is starting to creep back in with patches fixing some but not all problems, there are cases like Skyrim on the PS3 where it was unplayable until many many patches). In the early 90s, gaming companies started including Quality Assurance and bug testing so games got more reliable.

 

Plus many people who had home computers in Europe actually took their time to learn the game and even found games such as Contra pretty easy due to that computer games were actually harder in some ways whether it is due to limitations, intentional or bugs and console games sometimes felt more solid with the controls or collision detection. Not every game on the Spectrum/C64/CPC/Amiga/Atari ST were hard though. If people wanted help; there were guides, helplines and cheats in magazines but all required money.

 

To be honest I am quite rubbish at games both of the older type and the more modern type and have been that way for years.

[Shikushi]

Modern gamers are not bad at games, they should just try stuff that isn't you know what series, like play older games, like Sonic 1.

 

My skills at games greatly improved when I started playing games that didn't really tell you what this enemy or that button does. 

Edited January 25, 2014 by SonicDude

[Nepenthe]

Why pigeonhole the millions of people who play games today into this tiny little bitter hole that is the stereotype of people who only like Call of Duty? Why??? 

[Da Blu Hedgie]

Why pigeonhole the millions of people who play games today into this tiny little bitter hole that is the stereotype of people who only like Call of Duty? Why??? 

To be fair it's what we observe;I knew would only talk about cod and assassins creed 3.

[Nepenthe]

I don't know how you can possibly observe that the only thing modern gamers know about is Call of Duty when, you know, other games sell too. It's a demeaning and ignorant stereotype, and I say this as someone who actually plays Call of Duty. =/

[RK64]

What an interesting question.....while I don't think that's the case, the more experience one has with games the greater they get at them. I look at myself with this, as I recently gotten the PS1 Sypros of PSN; when I was little I got so frustrated with them that I broke the first game's disk (snapped it in half ...) but I am much better at the games now, completing 4 worlds in a row on Spyro II.

 

I think it has to do with modern gamers lack of pacence; games today are much more cinematic, linear and take a lot of control from the player, so when a game demanding of greater skill comes along that isn't streamlined (I guess Sonic Lost World is a good example of this; reviewers hate the more complex controls), then they get quickly frustrated and call the game bad, even though they just didn't learn the games mechanics yet.

 

I honestly don't have a good answer for this, but my guess is that newer games lack pacence, making them unaccepting of more complex games.

[MegasonicZX]

What an interesting question.....while I don't think that's the case, the more experience one has with games the greater they get at them. I look at myself with this, as I recently gotten the PS1 Sypros of PSN; when I was little I got so frustrated with them that I broke the first game's disk (snapped it in half ...) but I am much better at the games now, completing 4 worlds in a row on Spyro II.

 

I think it has to do with modern gamers lack of pacence; games today are much more cinematic, linear and take a lot of control from the player, so when a game demanding of greater skill comes along that isn't streamlined (I guess Sonic Lost World is a good example of this; reviewers hate the more complex controls), then they get quickly frustrated and call the game bad, even though they just didn't learn the games mechanics yet.

 

I honestly don't have a good answer for this, but my guess is that newer games lack pacence, making them unaccepting of more complex games.

Yeah, just got spyro 2 again myself and it was a whole lot easier than I remembered back when I first played it which was when I was 6 or something (my brother broke the disc) but it was still pretty fun to go through though.

[Sonic The Badass]

I'm 15 and I play platformers with ease, but I grew up playing a verity of games.  I notice alot of people around me are dedicated to first person shooters (my age) and when i throw a game at them that isn't their usual they can't, like you said, get through the first stage. My nephew used to suck at sonic badly, he could play cod but he sucked at sonic and mario and what not, he couldn't even play generations. but he could play streets of rage though

 

EDIT: I think this is what separates the casuals from the hardcore. casual audience likes games that are simple and easy, and notably, not fantasy or unrealistic. And platforming can be alot harder than shooters and sports games ( they most of the time are) these are also people who take less shit and perform the almighty rage quit within 5 minutes in games that they are GOOD at. and the popular thing to say is "hacker!" or "noobkill" or "camper" etc to damage control there lack of skill and ignore/deny the fact that opponent have skill. then rage quit the game. (plus alot of casuals don't even play story mode just multiplayer. singleplayer tricks and traps from a platformer and what not could piss them off. the fact that alot of them deny when another person has skill and rage quits shows they have no endurance or tolerance on games that don't take much skill compared to other games (and I'm talking popular games that are easy like sports games CoD etc) that take a crap load of skill. If your raging about a game that you consider your self good at and a game you know well your obviously not going to take an even more challenging game that's in foreign territory well. 

Edited October 27, 2013 by Insane121