Featured Discussion: Gaming Covered Under the ADA?
So in preparation for my first featured post I did all sorts of research. Yet no matter how much I looked I couldn’t find anywhere in either the original ADA or any of its more recent iterations that covered gaming. Lots of stuff about ramps, buildings, hiring practices… But nothing about gaming.
Okay so maybe I should start a little farther back. Recently in anticipation of Mass Effect 2 I dived hard into Mass Effect 1 to make sure I’d have a nice complete Sheppard to transfer in to the new game. Now I should preface that this ability is the coolest most functional concept I have ever seen. The concept of a fully fleshed out character that grows through the series based on MY decisions is great. Mass Effect was a great 3rd person sci-fi shooter RPG. Now the fact that RPG is capitalized has nothing to and everything to do with the importance of that word in the sentence. Like all RPG’s Mass Effect 1 had an in depth inventory system, impressive squad control and customization, and an extensive experience system with squad abilities and powers. Mass Effect 2 on the other hand is best described as a third person shooter rpg. Without me going into a whole lot of detail (others have already done that) the RPG element of the first game takes a ridiculous back seat. The reasoning for this is questionable considering how popular the first game was. It is not often that a hugely successful game, the first of an announced three part series, completely changes the core of its game play. Yet a quick look at the interviews with the game developers and even the manual for the game quickly discovers why. The manual when describing some of the key differences between 1 and 2 uses the phrase “accessible”. These changes were made to make the game more accessible.
Now I already know I’m going to hear things like: what does it matter if it is fun, what about the conversation system that didn’t change (i.e. Penny Arcade’s justification), or why does it even matter? More and more every day we see this concept infecting games across the gaming world. Starting with the Wii as a whole developers and console manufacturers have made the decision that the traditional gamer alone is not enough to sustain their world. Maybe this is due to the hardships of the economy, the rising cost of development, or just plain greed. Games are doing anything and everything to become more mainstream. In some cases this means simplifying the games. I think very few would argue that the difficulty of New Super Mario Bros. Wii was anywhere near as difficult as past entries in the series. The same could be said for many series out there. Even a game such as Madden has made efforts to make their game “easier” for the casual gamer. In the case of Madden and many sports games it is through the creation of an entire new game mode where many of the standard controls and game play elements are simplified or eliminated in order to keep a novice gamer on a similar level to an expert. This is similar to the “bubble boy” concept in the previously mentioned Mario Bros. entry. And in cases like Mass Effect it means rewriting the rules as to what defines an entire genre. Some would applaud the elimination of complicated inventories and squad maintenance and an extreme simplification of character skill maintenance. (Mass Effect 2 for example drops the number of skill per character from close to 15 per character to 5.) I disagree. This “accessibility” craze does no one good.
Gamers are a special group. Just like any other group of people that are involved in a hobby or special skill we enjoy being able to handle something that others can’t. It helps to make us feel special. The ability to do something that someone else can’t not only makes us gamers, but adds to our sense of pride. Even within the “gamer” tag we separate ourselves based on the genres we can play and play well. One of the things that disturbs me the most about this is best described with a line from Disney/Pixar’s The Incredibles. When the villain is describing his reason for killing off all superheroes he says, “When everyone’s super, no one will be!” The ADA is all about providing equal opportunities to people with disadvantages. Now I know that it isn’t exactly the most direct comparison and I will probably get ripped for making the comparison, but what is happening to gaming should follow that example better. For years we had the ability to change difficulty levels as a way of trying to ease things and give those who wanted to try a chance without eliminating the challenge for those who need it. Now we live in a world where. Instead now we are forced to play something easier to make everyone feel like they can be a part of it.
Unfortunately I don’t see a change to this in the future. Society as a whole is headed in the same direction. School courses are made easier, children are coddled to make them feel better instead of being disciplined or “failed”, and making someone feel good is more important than true success and failure. The change was inevitable I guess. All media seems to suffer from this as they cater to the lowest common denominator. Mass produced bands, movies changed from source material to cater to the “it” crowd, and creative television eliminated due to a lack of mass appeal. It’s unfortunate that gaming is headed in the same direction.
-John
6 Comments On This Post:
Using one example doesn't really point to a trend. I haven't played ME1 or 2, but I have played games where the barrier to entry was so high (i.e. difficulty level) that I walked away and found better things to do with my time. While I understand the idea that games need to continue to be challenging, it is not a position that facilitates industry growth. In fact, unless games are accessible to a wide variety of people, the industry as a whole will founder. The problem is how to implement difficulties in games that are challenging to gamers as well as casual players. Most games have a difficulty settings right from the outset, and while this system isn't perfect, it works well enough. I would imagine that a game like ME2, while possibly not as challenging as the first game, still provides a great deal of enjoyment and entertainment. And for every ME2 that has been made more simplistic, there's a Ninja Gaiden that is still just as challenging as it ever was.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 10:55:00 AM CSTOf course, too much simplification results in the glut of "games" currently available on the Wii, and I do argue that such a situation is good for no one. It doesn't advance the industry and it doesn't help gamers grow through challenge.
The real solution is variety: as long as there continues to be games that cater to the more hardcore crowd, as well as games that are simplified for a wider audience, there will be a bright future for video games. And on the PS3 and 360, there's plenty of room for both kinds.
I worried that maybe my point may be lost and I think that this may be the case. The problem I have is when you take something currently in existance and modify it so thoroughly that it becomes a shell of it's former self. I have no problem necessarily with making games easier, but to dilute a genre to a point that it barely represents the genre it claims to be? ME2 is definately still a good game. (I beat it just last night.) Games like Ninja Gaiden were just ridiculous. Making a game so hard that it isn't fun is ridiculous. Yet imagine if Ninja Gaiden suddenly had no magic eliminate because managing magic and attacks was too much of an entry barrier to the "mainstream" audience. Or imagine eliminating boss fights in Mario because they impeded too many peoples adventure. When you eliminate key gameplay elements in a franchise or genre to appease a crowd that may or may not pick up the game at the detriment of those that definately will, you are not improving the industry. You are diluting it.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 11:04:00 AM CSTOk, I think I see what you're saying now. Sort of like adding a fifth down to football because it's too hard to advance the ball in only four downs. And from that standpoint, you're correct. But with BioWare investing tens of millions of dollars to create ME2, I do have to wonder if their decision to eliminate things like complicated inventory management was also based on a bottom line. I would think that if ME2 were not required to sell millions of copies in order for BioWare to make its money back, they would have left some of those elements firmly in place. That's just a theory, though (and probably a weak one at that).
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 4:38:00 PM CSTSo I have to throw this in here. If you are looking for a nice video explaining what was removed from the first to the second:
Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 12:19:00 AM CSThttp://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/1461-Mass-Effect-2
Thank you Yahtzee. And I don't know why, but I can't copy and paste a link into this comment box. So you all better check this link out cause I hand typed that.
Wow, that was a lot of work to copy and paste that link all the way up into my address bar. I think I need a coffee break.
Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 11:14:00 AM CSTSeriously though, John I think your overall point is valid in some cases, but I don't think it describes the industry trend as a whole. You mention New Super Mario Bros. Wii as an example of this, and I think you're somewhat off-base here.
What they did with Mario was essentially make two games in one. The first, and what you heard the most about on the internet, was the multiplayer, side-scrolling Mario, something that hadn't been done before. This turned a lot of heads initially with the whole "bubble" concept, where if you're stuck or something gets too hard, you just bubble your character and someone else can get you back out later in the level.
But I think that after playing Mario's multiplayer mode in a variety of scenarios with different groups of people under different circumstances is that it works, almost flawlessly. My wife and I beat the majority of the game together, using our combined talents and button-mashing skills to conquer every single level.
I've also played it with a group of people who don't play games that much, but did play Mario "back in the day" and they were able to get into it very easily, and (this is the point) have a great time.
Now, as far as the second game goes, I'm referring to the single-player experience. It's hard - period. It reminds me so much of Mario 3 in that each world is vastly different from the one before it, and they get progressively harder and harder. World 8 will have you playing levels repeatedly until you run out of lives and throw the Wiimote through your TV in frustration, only to pick it up the next day with even more determination. And that's a true "hardcore" Mario experience, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
I agree with Phil, there is playing NSMBWii with other people, and the bubble system is the only way anything like that would ever work and then there is playing the "real" game, by yourself. It is just as hard if not harder than SMB3 is some parts, I mean, just look at 8-1.
Sunday, February 21, 2010 at 6:17:00 PM CSTPost a Comment