[!] UPDATE 06.01.2015 [!]
Sorry this post disappeared for my Blogspot readers. (I got one email
about it being inaccessible from the RSS feed, so kudos on you, my one
RSS reader, for even seeing that.) For those of you who came from the PS
Insider site, welcome! I'm the writer that was featured there, and this
is the original post. For everyone else, please enjoy this revival with
some new additions/commentary from the PSI forums.
----
There's
something that's been on my mind for a while. I get reminded of it
every so often when I pick up a magazine or when I watch a video. What
brought this topic to my mind this time around was something I saw on YouTube. It brings up a great and very basic question: why do/ gamers hate easy modes?
Before
I get into deep thought, let me first apologise for however long this
post ends up being. Whenever I think about this, I usually feel that's
my only chance to yell into a void. I'm usually, quite literally,
muttering out loud to myself, but thankfully, now I have a platform
where I can talk out loud with a few more ears nearby. So, let me use
this time to reflect on this mode and where I stand reflect. I'm sure
you can already guess, but allow me a chance to explain regardless.
I love playing games, but depending on the genre, I wouldn't fool myself into thinking that I'm great/ at them. I play on whatever equates to a medium setting and I can usually power through just fine. If I'm playing a game I'm already familiar with, I will absolutely test fate and god by playing on whatever equates to hard, but if I'm getting terribly frustrated, I will absolutely turn to a game's easy mode just to get past whatever hurdle is in front of me. It may not happen often, but I won't sit here and pretend that it never/ happens.
That's what that mode means to me. It's just a tool I use to get to where I need to be if I really feel it's necessary. For other people, I can understand why it's a default.
Hard as it may be for Gamers-with-the-ever-important-capital-G to believe, there are people who only like to play games casually. They want the experience without the frustration. Depending on the genre, console, or even mindset, that can prove to be challenging enough. (A fact that depends even more critically on who developed the game.) These aren't people who are actually terrible at games who made their profession off of putting their opinion on the big WWW. These are every day people who want to find joy in whatever way they can without raising the bar of difficulty to do so.
And that- is- fine.
03.19.2014 addition: Thank you all for helping me put this section together a bit more concretely.
user GodInTheMachine says,
I can see I'm already in the minority here but I feel that playing things on easy mode takes away from the expierence. Games are meant to be completed with a certain amount of skill and that unlocks that feeling of accomplishment. Easy mode denies players of that experience. I can understand not wanting to struggle just for the sake of enjoying a game but having that option has always felt reductive to me.GITM, we ended up talking in DMs about this, so I feel okay with saying this out in the public. I think that is a very interesting stance to have, but I find it inherently flawed. On one hand, you acknowledge player agency by choosing/ that mode themselves, but then you sweep in and cut them down by insinuating that they're not finding joy through their chosen method.
I won't get the same kind of dialogue with other people who feel this way, so it was enlightening to get this opportunity to try and understand this point of view from the source. Thank you to GITM for allowing me to screencap and share!
By playing video games, we are already developing different skills: hand-eye coordination, problem solving, observation/perception, situational awareness, and more. There are a number of articles and think pieces I was surprised to find about how beneficial games have been towards building hand-eye coordination. Here's one that I found. (07.2014: Thank you, Clefable, for pointing me to this one as well!)
Yes,
when a game is tougher, it becomes more demanding. It requires more
focus and emotional investment to get the payoff you're looking for. For
people like GITM and myself, getting that win, beating that boss, or
overcoming that obstacle is just the kind of high we're looking for.
It's cathartic even. However, there are people who just do not feel that
way. The experience of the game is enough. They're just as happy
playing Duck Hunt as we are playing in a crowded Halo Lobby.
I've
seen and heard it argued here and there that people can "feel" when an
Easy Mode has been added or when a game has it because it doesn't
respond very well or it adds a bad taste in their mouth. Quake has been pointed to as a perfect game because it makes fun of people who choose an Easy setting.
I've never played Quake or Doom or System Shock.
I only know about them in passing, but holding any of them up as the
saving grace of Gaming culture does a disservice to other well-made
games that don't do that such as The Witcher II, Portal 2, and even Dead Space 2. (....Lot of twos this year. Also, Geralt. My friend. Why are you XBox exclusive? Imean,Icanstillplayitbut).
[03.25.2014] user accentSpice says,
i like to play games whenever i get a chance but between work and starting my final year of college i cant get into it the same way i used to as a kid. when i forget where i am sometimes i just throw on easy mode just to remember how to even play the damn game!!! >.< it sucks that i've had friends mock me for having saves on easy. (my brother called it baby mode. :( i think thats really unfair)
This kind of thing isn't okay. It really isn't.
One thing I wish that Gamers would understand is that what works for you won't work for someone else. Just because you don't find this particular setting fun doesn't mean that it will dampen your enjoyment of a game. If knowing it exists is enough to bother you, you might want to look inward. Actually... Look. I'm going to say it frankly.
I don't think you're really a "gamer" at all if something as simple as that is enough to cause that much unrest with you. The fact is that no one is forcing you to choose it (unless you're a completionist; in which case, godspeed). Chances are you won't even remember that setting is available by the time you start playing/finish your game. If you're still fixated on it at this point, the problem solely lies with you. Something as innocuous as a difficulty setting on a video game should not bother you.
There's a weird disconnect here, and I'm not sure where it all begins. People have always loved grandstanding. They love to get the high score; they love to get pats on their backs and be cheered on by other people. (Aah, the years of arcade life...) But in the comfort of your own home, no one is there to give you brownie points for completing Metal Gear on No Shirt, No Shoes, No Health Pack mode. It's impressive to be sure, but if you only feel this satisfaction by putting yourself through the most suffering possible.
Well, one, I can understand why people like Dark Souls now. (One day I'll play it.)
And two: honey, you might be a masochist. I didn't expect for you to figure that out this way, but kudos. I'm proud of you. Find your neighbour sadist and get something interesting started. I wish you all the best.
I play games I'm bad at all the time. I may never be the Dance, Dance, Revolution champion who can take up both dance pads by myself at the arcade, but I can still enjoy the game. Even if it means I have to play on "baby's first block set" mode, I still feel as though I'm getting the best experience out of this game. But then I can play Britney's Dance Beat on the hardest difficulty without a prob— Yeah, I said Britney's Dance Beat. Oh, come on. We're all friends here.
The reasons why people play on certain settings are as various as the players themselves. To look down on anyone for the type of game they play and how difficult they make it for themselves is incredibly childish. Even though we always knew there were people out there who never found it fit to mind their own business, it genuinely disheartens me to see chunks of a community think and feel this way. I can only hope that things improve in the future and people can step back, take a breather, and think more critically about why they feel so passionately about something that won't impact them significantly or even negatively.
As I stated before, this is a tool. Difficulty levels have been programmed by their original creators on purpose. People don't wish for easy mode and then they suddenly appear, therein greatly unbalancing or upsetting the flow of an already established game. It comes down to balance in the end. It has been made in mind of removing or adding different challenges to create the optimal user experience. There are games that are made to be challenging by default (have y'all ever played point-and-click adventures from the 90s?), and then there are games that are created specifically to enrich you without holding the player's hand.
.... There's an argument that's been made about how tutorials do, in fact, hold players' hands, but this isn't the time or place to discuss that.Developers acknowledge the fact that new and inexperienced players will want to play their games. This mode is made explicitly to welcome them and other options are available to them as they develop at their own pace. This development is a sign that they are, in fact, building the skills that GITM so bravely said that they're missing out on. It never fails to amuse, bemuse, and sadden me how gatekeeping twists so violently onto itself. Trying to dictate the way people should approach their own games beyond friendly advise really is playing with fire.
"Well, you don't want to waste your first impression on a game by doing it the wrong way!" And I can give people that. You can never
experience a game for the first time again, so there's also no shame in
getting a choice in how it's experienced. It's not your place (and hell, it's not even my place) to take that choice away from someone else.
[!]Holy shit. Big footnote edit[!]
I'm so surprised at how this has picked up, and thank you to the people
who reached out through email to allow me to speak more about the
subject. Here's a YouTube video I'm in talking about Gamers and their vitriolic hate towards tutorials. Here's my post on Gaymer Goils talking more about this subject in depth with interviews with several developers. (It's an almost forty-five minute read. Love me!) Read my follow-up on Rude1's Gaming. (People can't chill, so the article is down, but thank you anyway to Rude1! :() Read my twitter exchange with the illustruous Kabal and indie developer Tycoon!
(Follow my responses if you want a straight forward narrative. We talk a
lot HAHA. They actually bring up some oldies that I don't even remember
or never heard of. Fake Gamer, amirite?)
