EA Exec: Games Are "Too Hard to Learn"

All I'm gonna say is that I miss the days of raiding Sunwell Plateau in WoW. M'uru was a bitch...
 
Skripka said:
Any of the older Elder Scrolls games had learning cliffs. As did the early Fallout games. To name a few, OTTOMH.
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Um... Fallout 1/2 did NOT have a learning cliff. It was pretty damn straightforward.
 
Instead of worrying about how hard the game is, how about finishing you damn games and releasing your products in a playable state?

Call me crazy, but that should be a priority over worrying about how hard it is.
 
Most games these days substitute deep play mechanics with unending cutscenes. I do believe most game developers are failed movie makers.
 
If it takes 2 hours to learn how to play a 10 hour game, there 'may' indeed be something wrong with the learning curve on that game.

Investing 2 hours into learning to play a game I'm going to play for 50 or 100 hours is a different thing altogether.


...now, if you're going to bring out a FPS and use PLO0 for the movement keys and a triple scroll key click to fire, well, you might need to reevaluate you design team decisions...
 
win_button_icon350.jpg
 
nilepez said:
Wow this entire thread is like a flashback to 1990, when everyone was bitching that Kings Question V let you choose a response to a question instead of entering a statement in a text box (which made games more challenging, but also meant you sometimes were searching for the exact keyword(s) the parser was looking for.

Those who loved text games in the 80's felt this was the end of gaming. As it turns out, games evolved, found new ways to become even more complicated, while drawing in a larger audience.
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There comes a point that instead of raising the standard of the game, the game ends up dumbed down for the common denominator.
Which then causes the common demoninator to drop in intellectual capacity for gaming, furthering the drop in standard.

Better idea is to improve the game then people will be compelled to learn about it.

I dont mind evolution in gaming, but it needs to be for the better.
 
Wait a minute, wasn't EA one of the companies pushing the viewpoint that learning how to play the game was part of the entertainment value?
 
This thread has become quite the circle jerk.

Not sure exactly what the exec was referring to, but I think there's a lot to be said about games being too complicated these days. Games should be easy to pick up, difficult to master.

Look at all the PC games that you enjoyed playing in the 1999-2004 era. They did not have pages and pages of collectibles, upgrades, abilities, journals, stats, etc. I started playing Dragon Age: Inquisition and had a headache after an hour trying to remember all the information that was being presented to me.

Again, easy to pick up, difficult to master. Most modern games are needlessly complicated in a way that doesn't always contribute to the games overall impact.
 
Killa|3yte said:
This thread has become quite the circle jerk.

Not sure exactly what the exec was referring to, but I think there's a lot to be said about games being too complicated these days. Games should be easy to pick up, difficult to master.

Look at all the PC games that you enjoyed playing in the 1999-2004 era. They did not have pages and pages of collectibles, upgrades, abilities, journals, stats, etc. I started playing Dragon Age: Inquisition and had a headache after an hour trying to remember all the information that was being presented to me.

Again, easy to pick up, difficult to master. Most modern games are needlessly complicated in a way that doesn't always contribute to the games overall impact.
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Well that took me about 3 mili seconds:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_III

Next puzzle...
 
I find this true with their sports games. I have tried and tried to get halfway acceptable at Madden and Fifa and I just don't have it in me. Best left to the screaming 15 year olds I guess.
 
nilepez said:
FWIW, you might enjoy Trine.
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I played some Trine 2 with a friend. It's a good game, for sure. Fun, and has a lot of fun, easy puzzles. The physics engine is a treat, too. It takes a bit of learning, but they streamline it quite a bit. I'd say that's a good example of a well-designed game. Deep, complex mechanics that are somehow very easy to pick up. The wizard is overpowered, though. As he gets all of his abilities unlocked, his usefulness skyrockets.


Anyway last game I beat just recently was Disgaea D2. They've streamlined the process a lot since I played Disgaea 1, but uh. There's learning involved. A lot of learning. Especially for postgame (if it's your first in the series; the experience does build up, which is pretty satisfying).


But I find it funny how no one has mentioned MOBA games when they're currently one of the most popular variants. They take several hours to learn how to properly play for the average gamer, yet they're exceedingly popular. Perhaps time to learn doesn't matter as long as someone can have fun doing it?
 
Advil said:
You just push a button over and over and soon you have progressed through the game?



.
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Hold on the "W" key to run...and push Mouse button "1" to shoot. Thats all we need to know. DUH! NEVER LET GO! :p
 
EA is right. Seriously, watch average people and you'll totally realize that you need to make stuff really, really easy to learn. Lots of people only manage to finish high school and asking them to spend like 20 minutes reading an instruction manual or doing a tutorial is too much for them. They need like a D-pad and two buttons (maybe four if you count "start" and "select") to keep things comprehensible and have them not go outside to rob stores and steal peoples' purses instead.
 
Skripka said:
He might have a point...most users might be idiots. If your users are so time limited and stupid an hour or so tutorial level is asking too much...maybe you as a game maker should just stick to Angry Birds.
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or .................

Target a different game demographic :D
 
I agree. When I was a kid, I had hours to dedicate to learning a game (few took that long to learn back then save for RTS types). Now grown up, married, job, kids. I don't have that kind of time anymore. I prefer FPS, driving games, hack n slash because there is very little learning curve.
 
haz_mat said:
Maybe include a game manual. Oh wait those days are long gone.
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I play Battlefield 4 all the time and I am still baffled at a lot of the icons and official game types. There is no EA documentations anywhere on what these things are. All the documentation comes from fan based stuff (mostly on youtube which makes it useless). The digital user manual for BF4 really says nothing, just tells you what each button does.
 
Staples said:
I agree. When I was a kid, I had hours to dedicate to learning a game (few took that long to learn back then save for RTS types). Now grown up, married, job, kids. I don't have that kind of time anymore. I prefer FPS, driving games, hack n slash because there is very little learning curve.
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Look, if you can't be bothered to take a couple hours to learn some basics in a game, that is fine. You are perfectly welcome to enjoy games with no learning curve, jump into action immediately, etc, and nobody reasonable is going to look down on you for it.

The idea that deep, complex games should be thrown to the wayside entirely, though, is completely crazy. I have little time to play myself compared to the hours and hours and could spend when I was younger. Still, I appreciate those few games that reward deep understanding, patience, and strategy.
 
There's a huge problem with the amount of time a game is produced, and even more of a problem of how much time it has to be tested and improved before release. A game developer understands the game from a different perspective than a first time player of the game, so it's safe to say that most games' "tutorial" sucks and needs to be reworked after focus group tests or something.

Just sayin. EA's Exec is a douche deflecting the company's main problems.
 
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