http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/52/13

^How Complexity Killed the Audience^

Man, how true it is. The other day I was arguing with some friends about where videogames are going and how its a pity. I encountered something I didn't expect. Staunch resistance. My game conversationalists, at least one wannabe game designer, were giganticly in love with the things I rail against. The 16-button controller as a enigmatic stumbling block to neogamers, the fetish for realism and realistic graphics as obstacles to growth. Basically, videogames so caught up in themselves, that only those of that magic age of around 25 and younger can enjoy them because they grew up with games. People who were 5 or 8 eight at around the time of the Nintendo kept pace with the increasing complexity in games, more buttons, functions, systems, because they started with two buttons and a d-pad and received more buttons and complexity every couple of years. Of course we think that Halo or God of War isn't all that complicated. Its like starting with peppers when you're a toddler, eating jalapenos when you're 8, habeneros as a teenager and downing the entire nation of Thailand in your twenties. Acclimated, accustomed, etc. These young, male firebreathers with which I was speaking insisted that games today were not too complex and that they didn't care about designing games about designers for neogamers. When I asked about God of War and alienating women, they said that women didn't have to play all games and kind of chuckled. Lame.

My mother, the apogee of the non-gamer being a 50 year old female, plays three-ish different games: Donkey Konga, DDR, and Eye Toy Play plus a variety of yahoo games like backgammon and chess. The linking thing about these first three games is how simple the controls are. The interface is nearly devoid of buttons. To beat a drum, you hit a drum, to dance a step, you step on something, to make the 50-year-old lady on the screen move around...

The games online are just digital version of board games or "real games" if you prefer and so hardly count as videogames. But it goes to show you that a 50 year old is not opposed to playing a game competitively, intensely and for long hours (my mom at backgammon is a irritable demon) if you just give her the ability to play it. She missed the boat on the NES learning curve but she can still play the guts out of any game she knows how to play.

* * *
In semi-related news, I've decided to put up my first review concerning God of War, a game which I love to hate. In summary its not really a bad game, in fact the gameplay is excellent. Its just in every other facet of the game it pisses me off.

Most recent blog posts from Nathan Lane...
Creating a Canon

Feedback
	EmP - July 07, 2006 (08:31 AM) Before I forward said review for a critique, can I suggest you pull it from the queue and fix the spacing issues? The review is all squished together and needs spacing out. The blame for this falls on Jason.
	gladiator_x - July 07, 2006 (09:47 AM) I believe that I've corrected the now thrice-mentioned review. I wasn't sure what you meant by take it out of the queue, but I clicked ye old E button and spaced it out some. I would like to blame someone else, so Jason will do. Yes, it's Jason's fault. Surely twas he who removed my delicate and beautiful spacery.
	EmP - July 07, 2006 (03:45 PM) The edit doesn't work if a critiqued review is locked to a staffer -- yours was not so it worked fine. Hurrah! Anyway, good review; enjoyed reading it.