Day 31: Learning New Mechanics Is Hard...So Why Bother?

So I recently acquired a copy of Darksiders. While I have my likes and dislikes I'll reserve judgement as I haven't ventured too deep into the game...I think. However, its similarities to other noteworthy action/adventure titles got me thinking.

Why is it that so many games are adopting similar if not nearly indistinguishable styles of play? The most talked about are FPS games. Every year there's dozens of high profile, AAA releases and dozens more garbage or niche releases. Most of them are indistinguishable in their controls, game mechanics and overall feel. Of course, the biggest and best developers make the smoothest, most full featured titles overall but if all you want is to run around, point, aim down sights and shoot at targets? There's tons of new games every year to keep you satisfied in case the big ones don't satisfy you enough. This begs the question, why are there so many shooters in the first place, especially if they all mostly function identically? Are developers out of fresh ideas? Possibly. Do publishers push them because they sell well? Surely. Are they boring yet? Obviously not otherwise they'd be selling less per year rather than more.

I believe the core of any game is its fun factor. Pointing a virtual gun at a virtual target in a virtual world is still just as fun today as it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago even. In fact, I'd say it's even more fun today thanks to improved technology and enhanced cinematic capabilities. When shooters stop being fun then they'll stop being made, simple as that. Beyond that though there's great satisfaction in the development of skills through the game. Then we, as gamers, can take skills developed in one shooter and apply them to another, new game without having to endure the training phases and having our asses handed to us by AI and other players. For instance, one could play a Battlefield game and directly apply many basic skills learned towards Call of Duty. One could play Unreal Tournament and apply those skills, to a degree, in Counter-Strike. Since there's a perpetually unending flow of new shooters coming out in the foreseeable future there'll always be a progressive reward system for playing shooters now in anticipation of shooters later. Having played a wide variety of shooters I could be given any foreign shooter and apply my reflexes towards it and have success. I couldn't have done that if I'd only played strategy games all my life, but in that alternate reality instead I'd be awesome at Starcraft 2 without trying.

Which brings me to my point: learning new things is hard work. Rarely a game comes by that makes the tutorial phase as fun and integral as any other part of the game. An example of this would be Portal. Although it's technically a shooter, no amount of shooter skill provides an advantage over a relative novice. This is why I think some genres, like shooters, are so plentiful today. A lot of people played some shooters, loved it, got really good at them, and wanted to just make and play more games to demonstrate their skills while being able to try new things. The basic premise of run, aim at bad guy, shoot, and cover hasn't changed much if at all in all these years. They've just added more colors, bigger maps, online competition, crazy weapons, vehicles, aim down sights to reduce recoil, improved physics, chest high walls, shields, etc.

No matter how fun a brand new type of game may turn out to be it's always frustrating at first when you're not good at it. The idea with gaming today is to convince customers that 'our game is the one for you.' If you play a lot of shooters then chances are you'll grab a shooter. You can bypass the training wheels, jump right into the good parts with the skills the developers intended and have a great time with no growing pains outside the tiny quirks that make each title somewhat unique. If you play a lot of RPGs you'll likely grab another RPG because you're good at calculating stats and forming combat strategies.

I think all games that base themselves on established ideas should adapt control schemes as close to the norm as possible. For the most part game makers already do this. You can pop in any modern shooter and you'll probably know pretty much all the buttons before you even start. This one aims, this one shoots, this one sprints, this one jumps, this one reloads, this one melees...etc. Customizable control loadouts should be the norm for every game and I don't mean just a list of pre-made presets because most of those are garbage.

I don't think every game should conform to a short list of norms. However, most popular games are so similar that in some cases the only difference in controls are the actual button layouts, as if the developers were ashamed of being so similar and decided to shuffle the buttons to hide it. If you've got a new idea that requires a new mode of play, like a Rock Band or Katamari Damacy, then go for it. But for the rest of us retreading old ground, keep it simple, because learning new things is hard and games are there for fun. Why can't they be fun right from the opening without having to re-establish in our minds that what we used to feel was our grenade button is now our melee button.