Games for Everyone Else

[Low Key]

So, I see the latest issue of PC Gamer at the local Dillons/Kroger the other night. It's got a shiny cover on it flouting it's coverage of HL2:2, TF2, and, more importantly to me, Portals. (Yes, to me, HL2: episodes 1 and 2 will be the bonus for buying portals.. the original is just that cool to me) BUT WAIT! This thread is not about PC games. So calm down, console jockey.

This issue had an article written by Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games (google takes 0.14 seconds to get his result, do the leg work yourself) talking about what it is that makes games inaccessible to the same general public that has so much time to spend on movies, and tv, and books, and music.

His basic premise is that these particular art forms immediately and unpunishingly reward the patron. There is no work involved. No instruction manual to read (though I did go over our TiVo manual, and I live a better life for it), no complex series of buttons to mash to enjoy it. Just the reward, no work, no punishment (zomg, you died!).

This covers the first four paragraphs of the article. (And if you're including the current one, the same can be said of my post) The rest of his writing is about how games should strive to be more like the overly accessible, previously mentioned forms of entertainment.

At one point, and I swear this is not taken out of context, he even says, "We must never punish the player-never,ever." We shouldn't have game over screens (here I'm talking about the game designers), we should cut tutorials down to nothing, and we should keep dialogue and narrative to a minimum. He thinks this should be done because players are, ultimately, "who we, the game developers, work for."

He apparently sees dumbing down gaming as the way forward. Granted, to a degree, this has worked, financially at least, for the Wii. (Yeah, I was just going for 5 commas in that sentence, does it show?) But does making something more accessible and simpler count as evolution? If it does, is that what we, the gamers, want?

I'm slightly reminded of a review of Peggle on The Escapist, by my new favorite everything, Zero Punctuation. The middle part, really. It just seems like this whole thought process will push regular games into a more niche market, and niche games into an even more niche market.

I guess the only real reason I worry is that I don't want to end up playing Captain Bland's Monotonous Adventure. (It's at the end, for all ye who can't tolerate seeing Halo 3 insulted)