> Maybe it's just me, but I find work to only suck when there is a long commute time and it's 2015 and our stupid company is still running Ruby 1.8 on rails 2.3, there is no automated testing, the javascript is an unreadable pile or .rjs mess, and literally every bug is some variant of "undefined is not a function" happening at run-time (for which I get yelled at).
That's why you come home and program in a perfect world of Haskell (or some other toy), just like the farmer chooses the virtual farm over the real one.
> The article calls this "the realities of work" and that the inherent difficulties and uncertainties are natural to the problems of the "real world" and must be accepted.
In a certain sense, you're correct - the challenges to overcome in a game can have the same magnitude. In other sense, you're not. At the end of the day, game is still a game. Maybe it is the responsibility that you feel that makes the difference. In the real world, the stakes are higher; cannot that be the ultimate reason why the work sucks?
This is insightful in that games are engineered so everyone wins. The participation trophy effect has become stronger over time... in the 80s you could actually lose computer and video games, but now all you do is grind up a little slower, which is pretty lame. Aside from subcultural experiments like roguelike games which most participation trophy participants don't like.
The real world success rate is extremely low and on a long scale approaches 0 unless you're in the 1% in which case the rate approaches 1 of course, because they rig the rules, and their quislings get REALLY angry when anyone points it out.
Every time I hear a variant of the "games did X when I was younger, they don't anymore", I have to wonder what do they mean by "games". There is a ridiculous amount and variety of games made today, specially when compared to the eighties. All genres, difficulties and philosophies of design that existed back then still exist today. Most of them in the same amount, even. But when the pie gets very big, as it has, slices that don't grow start looking smaller. Both the "just grind some more" and "you lose you die" games existed in the eighties, and both exist today.
I think there is a real shift though. People talk about "nintendo hard" because most of the games of that era were that hard. Five or ten years ago health was a carefully managed resource in any "AAA" FPS; nowadays regenerating health is very much the norm.
I agree. All you have to do is watch videos of today's kids playing games from the previous era. I've seen some where a handful of kids were unable to finish the first level of Super Mario Bros after several tries. But to be fair, most people never say the third board of Donkey Kong.
Although, I do also agree that there are extremely hard games today. I just think they are aimed at people like me for nostalgia reasons but also the current players that actually want a challenge. Otherwise, the mechanic goes against the current trends best suited for making money in the market.
As for health being a carefully managed resource, there were also the games where you get hit once and you die. In those cases lives were the carefully managed resource. Which that type of game was common. They don't seem as common these days.
But I think most of the hard factor of games of the past was a holdover from arcades where the goal was to kill you within a few minutes so you would insert another quarter. Games at the time tended to mimic that mechanic.
> the goal was to kill you within a few minutes so you would insert another quarter
This is at the heart of "nintendo hard". Games were limited in content and scope, and ramping up difficulty was the only way to ensure the experience would last long enough to justify the cost.
Not true, they are engineered to be fair, and that is a very key distinction. A gamer can be reasonably certain that with a good deal of persistence they will eventually be able to overcome any hurdle, even if it is made to appear insurmountable at first. Some examples would be the Dark Souls games and the recent Bloodborne.
Fair would be a game like monopoly. Or tic tac toe. Or chess, go. Yet its quite possible to lose a game of tic tac toe.
Its comical to think of a 2015 video game implementation of player v computer chess, where you never get checkmated, just have to move yet another piece, and never run out of pieces, until you finally win.
If you lose a game of chess, you can set up the board again and play another game.
If you lose a boss fight in Dark Souls, you reload your save and fight the boss again.
If you lose a game of Counter-Strike, you wait three minutes in freelook and try not to get AWPed next round.
The only area of video gaming I can think of where your complaint applies is mobile, where you win by paying thousands of dollars for energy crystals or some such.
Fair only means that it is possible to win, not that it is guaranteed.
There's been a lot of talk about games nowadays being "too easy", but they have difficulty selectors for a reason. Gamers choosing an easier difficulty because they would prefer to experience the story with minimal frustration are still valid gamers, they are just tuning their entertainment experience to their preferences.
Disparaging gamers with those preferences by calling them a part of "participation trophy" culture is unfair and uncalled for. Their entertainment preferences are just as valid as your movie or book preferences, regardless of how "difficult" it is for you to experience the media.
I honestly apologize, in retrospect I think my analysis of the facts is spot on but I was a overly harsh and judgmental in commenting on those specific observations. For example I was absolutely correct in identifying them as part of "participation trophy culture" but I was absolutely incorrect about making fun of them for it. If they're having fun doing their thing and I'm having fun doing my thing thats OK. I'm generally very libertarian (small L) and that was pretty far out of character for me.
The extremely small number of game creators can result in restricted choices and frustration. I guess I've always got the indies, at least, even if dominant AAA style holds little appeal to me.
I appreciate your opinion and your apology, however I still don't follow or agree with your reasoning about "participation trophy culture". Certainly there are games out there that are hard to fail at, but ultimately it all boils down to the difficulty setting, doesn't it?
It sounds like you're proposing the Game Over screen come back and boot people back to the title screen to start all over, which doesn't suit many gaming formats, especially those formats developed or popularized in the last decade or two like RPGs and adventure games.
> Its comical to think of a 2015 video game implementation of player v computer chess, where you never get checkmated, just have to move yet another piece, and never run out of pieces, until you finally win.
That might actually be interesting. Most chess games are decided by blunders even at Grandmaster level. I'd love to see people try to work on a "perfect" game, with unlimited retries. Maybe we'd finally see whether White has a winning advantage.
1. Old games had to be hard because if they weren't, they would be too short. People would finish them straight away and exclaim "wait... that's it?".
2. The point of playing games isn't always to "win" or "lose". Sometimes the point is just to have an experience. To roleplay, to see a story unfold, etc.. Then a ruthless difficulty can get in the way of that experience. Or it might not - but the point is that difficulty and achievement aren't always the biggest points. At least not to me.
3. A lot of hard games are hard in a lame or lazy way. Or just in a "fake" way[1]. Games should be hard in a way that forces you to be more cunning, agile, faster and smarter. Not just blindly double the HP of all enemies, or make progress depend on an obscure secret which can not be guessed from the game, forcing you to buy some gaming magazine in order to progress further in the game.
That's why you come home and program in a perfect world of Haskell (or some other toy), just like the farmer chooses the virtual farm over the real one.
> The article calls this "the realities of work" and that the inherent difficulties and uncertainties are natural to the problems of the "real world" and must be accepted.
In a certain sense, you're correct - the challenges to overcome in a game can have the same magnitude. In other sense, you're not. At the end of the day, game is still a game. Maybe it is the responsibility that you feel that makes the difference. In the real world, the stakes are higher; cannot that be the ultimate reason why the work sucks?