Are Modern Games Being Dumbed Down?

Bring in a system that"s a logo on the box D for Dumbed-down NN not for newbies or just H For Hard.

Ps Jess is still HOT.

The only thing i want is more time to play and finish my games. Because i have a job and everything else...

But when i sit down and play, i just want to relax and have a good time.

I'm a casual player after all...

I blame developers, at the end of the day it's developers who make these "easy" games for the sake of getting the most out of sales. At the end of the day there are a handful of "hardcore gamers" which i consider myself to be and they are out numbered 4:1 by the "casual gamer". So as a business developers try to cater to the larger number of casual gamers because there are more customers to make money off of which is a risk because there is the potential that they will buy but it angers and sometimes loses the hardcores in the process. Easy examples just look at some systems franchise over this generation of consoles and how they've progressed Cliff's Gears, a personal favorite but having played all the the gears anyone who plays multiplayer will know what I mean when I say multiplayer for that game changed. Part 1 consisted of a shotgun heavy skill based game that really only hardcore gamers got into because it was otherwise too difficult. Then around the time of the launch of gears 3 even stated by Cliff himself that he wanted to make the game accessible to all levels of players and to anyone who plays gears 3 knows that gnashers no longer dominate and made every other weapon far more powerful. Ninja Gaiden a game that prides itself on it's difficulty proving to be challenging even on the normal difficulty level was almost laughable during the release of newest one. Another example Mass Effect. If you played all 3 like myself remember how much more open and free roaming the first installment was with the option of exploring wide open planets though while tedious was more free. With the 2nd and 3rd installment however they took wide open exploration and toned it down to a handful of hub worlds and treated each new mission as a stage rather then let you explore the area before finding your next objective. I could go on naming a ton of games following this trend and I'm not saying it's good or bad because regardless I enjoy games but it's simply a conscious decision being made by devs for more money by catering to majorities

There are no more penalties in games. Save anywhere anytime. Cliff Bleszinski said it best. Everyone is just trying to one up each other at E3. It's not about the games anymore. People pirate these games more often now. We do not think 60$ for a game is worth it. We are living tight now days, we don't have money. We would rather spend the money on gas then a game. I hate it, but what can you do? I just hope something changes.

The attention span of people today is shorter than ever.  So in a sense, people are dumber.  Making games that are dumbed down seems like a logical transition.

Sorry, I don't understand a word Jani Karttunen is saying.

With the very rare exception (Demon Soul's/Dark Souls), triple A games are not where gamers go these days to find difficult, compelling games. Independent games have invaded this niche and are now the number one place to go for this. There is an independent game revolution game going on right now because of the dumbing down of games in the triple A game market. 

I think there are quite a number of factors that are really creating this issue. 

One is that gamers are older and more experienced than they were 10 or 15 years ago. 

Two is that most developers are no longer willing to drop a gamer into the fire, they have to hold the gamer's hand through tutorials and suffocate them with gameplay prompts. 

Three is that complex gaming mechanics, such as skill, character, and equipment management, peaked a few years ago before crashing back down to cater to the "casual" audience that made the Wii so successful. (That's not a jibe against the Wii, I love mine.)

Four is that we are being nickle and dimed out of our minds.  That is one of the biggest problems.  I no longer feel like I'm getting a full product in a box for $60.  It doesn't matter whether or not there really is more content in the retail box, the fact that you have to shell out more money to get the entire gaming experience tarnishes the product.  I've never had a problem with buying an expansion a year later.  Something significant that feels like it's worth the price.  When you spend $60 for a game that lasts you 30 hours or so, and then a DLC comes along for $10 or $15 that lasts only a couple of hours... that doesn't feel like a value... it feels like you just got ripped off.

I like challenging games but not if it keeps the game boring, like when RPGs expect you to grind 20 levels. I just want the game to be interesting, whether it comes from the story, gameplay or both.

im surprised everyone pointing fingers only at the difficulty. the difficulty in most of the games im playing can be adjusted in the game settings to "hard" or "very hard" etc... to be hard and challenging as any other old school game.

the problem isn't the lack of challenge but the lack of complexity. alot of game franchises getting simplified while losing their deep and complex mechanics that once made them successful.

The more important aspect of dumbing down isn't difficulty, this just shows how little these people know.

It's about deep, complex, easy to learn hard to master game mechanics involving customisation, expansive sandbox and coop play creating a pro social, dynamically customisable world with high replayability that keeps the game going.Skyrim felt like a shallow rinse and repeat of Oblivion with snow and an even crappier inventory system.

Borderlands 2 felt like Borderlands 1.5

X-Com pretty much just had all decent aspects of it dumbed down or removed.

This is the "Console Cripple?" and it's caused by developers selling out for $$$

I enjoy a challenge as much as the next guy, but I HATE when games are difficult in a way that feels artificial and unauthentic. 

I am dealing with this problem on Uncharted right now, because there is literally so much gun play its jarring. Like how can Drake be the good guy? He's slaughtered like hundreds of African mercenaries for material gain lol

Q: Are Modern Games Being Dumbed Down?

A: Yes of course, and if you can't tell then you must be blind, or wearing dirty batman underwear over your face.

:D

The greatest problem I see isn't that games are too easy, or too difficult, the problem usually is that the difficulty is often very unbalanced. I think this entire problem would be at least partially solved when each game would have five or more difficulty settings. And I mean not just having less life/time/tries or more enemies, but the entire game should be worked around it for every difficulty separately.

The game should train you, force you to learn and study how to play it, lead you to be faster and more accurate and smarter. You should have option to restart the current goal/checkpoint, or change difficulty at any time, and ideally on the easy difficulty have guide who tells you what to do best at the situation and why. Understanding the situation or controlling the game is the main key element to the fun itself.

Another great idea (from my intelligent friend) would be giving wider options to the difficulty, for example: easy puzzle, hard enemies or hard puzzle, easy enemies. In generall, the more options the developer will give you how to modify your experience, the better. Gamers are generally people who after a few tries are able to set the game to their own liking and enjoy it.

Why watch the entire video? Most of us already know the answer: YES. 

There hasn't been a game that's left a lasting impression on me recently outside of fighters like Tekken and Street Fighter, as well as Arkham. All other titles I'm a fan of have been around forever (Mario, DKC, Pokemon, F-Zero, Metroid, so on and so forth). The industry has disappointed me so much recently it's embarrassing. I now rely on multiplayer games for my fix when I want a challenge.

Back in older generations, these were some AWESOME titles:

- F-Zero GX (unlocked almost every damn thing in that game. Fk mission 7 XD)

- Star Ocean 3

- FF XII

- DKC 1 and 2

- Metroid Primes 2 and 3 (especially 2)

I'd have to say that those games left the longest lasting impressions on me. I look back on the experiences I had with those games all the time. They felt so...complete. I play some games now and I'm "wtf...it's over ALREADY? I'm ALREADY at post-game content? Wait...I have to BUY THE POST-GAME CONTENT?!?!?!" 

Games peaked between 95 and 2003. For some reason the modern games are less complex and seem juvenalized for casuals. I shouldn't say "casuals" because I'm now a casual due to a dearth of games. Used to buy a new game every month or two, some periods more than one a month; now I'm lucky to enjoy 2 games a year.

It's sad. At least there are still devs like CD Projekt Red and Creative Assembly who still care about adults. The kiddies these devs are appealing to will move on in a few years and choose free-to-play over these devs.

I think the change in difficulty over the years is not just because of wide appeal. Say the original super mario brothers, you have a goomba in from of you, you have to jump on him or over him. In say mario 64, you could run around him staying 40 feet away at all times. The level of control and complexity of worlds gives a whole different dynamic. You can actually use intelligence and preparation to get around pure perfect execution challenge. Though poorly designed difficulty curves,just tunnelish game design, and dumbing down for mainstream are the other reasons.

I used to buy 3-4 games a month.  Now I buy 1 game every 6 months on ave.  The reason for this is my faith and trust for Developer and Publishers is gone.  Good games peaked in about 2004 and have slowly but surly began losing content, complexity, and depth over time.  The core of the gaming market has been falling away.  The gamers that actually were regular, lifelong customers saved their money for other past times.  

Ask any politician and He/She will tell you, "The more people you try to please at the same time, the more people you make angry at the same time."  Games need to progress and change with the times, but not by sacrificing quality or content.  All the new marketing ploys to try and bleed every last penny out of us Gamers is noticed believe me and very much not appreciated.  Profit focus over quality is not going to grant longevity nor customer satisfaction in our current market.  We gamers are onto you!!  Multilayer gaming has made word of mouth an easy and fast way for a lot of gamers to skip out on buying shallow or unfair game titles which in the future can be a 'game ender'  on the pocket book's of Publishers.

Wise up Gaming market!  I am not even going to bother to upgrade my computer anymore until I start seeing games that are worth my time and money.  You see, the software gaming market is not the only area that is going to feel the pinch here if things dont change.

most games nowadays have several degrees of difficulty so i dont see how games are being dumbed down, people play the way they like. so games actually offer more choices.

I actually do not mind games being easy because unlike in my childhood and teen years, as an adult with a child and full time job I don't have nearly enough time to play games. When I do get a chance to play I want to have fun, not become frustrated and bogged down while trying to repeatedly overcome a challenge. What I do think is unwise for developers is not letting players choose a difficulty setting from the beginning.

Follow Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim.  Though some could argue minilmal streamlining there is a lot more dumbing-down, restricting, and hand-holding.  You could find any armor and any weapon at its max raw strength (save personal attribute/skill manipulation) and use it...as long as you had the absolute bare minimum to do so.  This is kind of the tip of the iceberg but it shows what's been lost in the series.  Imagine Skyrim without the level controlled encounters and leveled equipment - true freedom.

Ever wonder why modders have always sought out remaking Morrowind with the Oblivion and Skyrim engines?  Why is Morrowind the priority for them?  Why do players want to go back?

It's just another way to dumb us down. Just let the kids sit in their rooms, faces monotone, eyes fixated on a game that requires the ability to comprehend pulling a trigger or hitting a single button. Games need complexity, they were never meant to become the Cinemas successor. A video game needs to be so much more immersive than a film, A video game is intended to take you to a new place, a new world.This doesn't mean games like first person shooters need to disappear in order for difficulty and complexity to return to gaming. Just make shooters more than a mindless multi-player affair with a campaign consisting of "GO USA KILL TERRORISTS F**** YEAH" credits roll. I want to feel something, learn something, show me the realities of war instead of glorifying them.Now some may say only the "hardcore gamers feel this way" this is entirely untrue. Though I will admit earlier in my youth I was quite a hardcore gamer, I have over the years slowly gravitated towards the "casual"I've put 95 hours into Dark Souls, And I'm only nearing my first completion, with dating, finishing my senior year and preparing for college, Political volunteering, and fitting in time to chill and burn with my friends every once in a while. Gaming has simply had to take a back seat in my life. Even though I only game for about 4 to 5 hours 2 days out of the week I want to spend thoughs hours enjoying a game that leaves my mouth gaping and my brain massaged.For example even the Architecture in Dark Souls and Demon Souls make you ponder how it was created, by who, and for what purpose.Make us think Developers, even if you aren't pushing our minds make it wonder.Shooter fans, remember that first time you stepped out of the escape pod in Halo CE? You understood you were stepping into a new world. And while you walked amongst the forrunner artifacts and ruins you couldn't help but wonder who the hell created that. Thoughs thoughts continued even after you set down the game.        

It seems most everyone is realizing the industry is spiraling in a childish direction. But I have no idea what Jani said. That accent and background echo.

Deus Ex, System Shock, Morrowind, STALKER:SoC, HL1, Fallout 2, Majora's Mask.

These are smart games. They are not the only smart games, but it would take too long to list all of them. They don't hold your hand, you have to figure out what to do on your own, but guidance is there if you look in the right places.  Their storytelling requires you to be involved and to search for the details yourself. You either won't see the whole story the first time through, or you won't fully understand it the first time through.  They require problem solving capacity and insight.  They give you choices you may or may not even notice, they give you tests that you can fail without getting the game over screen.  There are no magic objective arrows, your health does not inexplicably regenerate, control is not taken from you to be forced to watch a pre-rendered explosion.  These games don't have cheesy hollywood endings, these games are not copies of other games.  These games are not being made anymore.  Yes games are getting dumbed down, and it has nothing to do with difficulty level.  Everything is dumber, and it has everything to do with the people demanding them.

OK, in most cases yes, games are easier nowadays. But there are games that have become harder or more complicated. Games like Pokemon, Street Fighter, and other competitive focused games have become more complex. Sure, some games like Tekken now have a better training mode of some sort so that players who are not so good can get better, but you're still gonna be humiliated when playing online, for example.

I guess single-player games have been dumbed down, but games that are naturally competitive have become increasingly harder.

Sadly, voting with our wallets doesn't work, when the masses they're trying to appeal to naturally outnumber gamers by such a huge margin.

Games being dumbed down is not just talking about difficulty levels. You completely ignore that. It's almost as if this video has been dumbed down. Being dumbed down also refers to the removal of features and abilities. Like the Elder Scrolls ever decreasing amount of statistics, or Simcity's new zones which no longer feature light, medium and dense. I don't know that these kinds of things really speak to "difficulty" so much as they speak to players who only want to push 1 button to win the game.

However, companies like Gamespot also have to take responsibility for this. The utter failure of main stream game review companies to take publishers and developers to task for dumbing down their games and assigning them appropriate scores as a result because they fear the loss of advertising dollars, review copies, etc. is another key factor. If an average game was 5/10 as it should be, and not like 7.5/10 , and games were given appropriate scores for being shiny garbage, then we might see change. The game review industry has been all too happy to go along with this shift in game development and to suck up to the companies and tell them what a great job they're doing. You want to get to the root of the story? Turn the camera around.

So true, games are being dumbed down and so are gamers due to it. 

Games back in the old days that have grown up with nintendo and watched the first Xbox come out are a MUCH better and more skilled class of gamers. Difficult games are what make video games so fun. 

Gamers are smart, we are the group of individuals that are known to figure things out. Easy games just aren't doing that, were playing games and were not figuring anything out. Just wasting a few hours.

I love that McMillin (sp?) calls Jay Wilson an asshole.

According to Dean Hall (creator of DayZ) in order for a game to be published on Xbox 360 the game needs to include tutorials and other such hand holding. https://twitter.com/rocket2guns/status/259061098689474560

I will refrain from making a snarky comment about what this says about the 360's user base :P

Yes, but then again you're asking a man who's playing Planescape Torment on an i7, GTX570 while my copy of dishonored is still untouched.

I LOVED every second I spent playing the first DMC on DMD mode. for me at the time it was an unbelievable challenge, the first GOW was also very difficult when i first tried god mode. Nothing is more satisfying than the scream of joy you do after killing some boss you've spent a week planning for as you lay your head on the pillow.But, mysteriousness and intentionally not explaining the game fully like RPG games do most of the time where you figure the whole thing out when you are in mid game or so is not my favorite. I started playing demon's souls but I didn't understand anything! I killed the first boss and I understood even less.

Also the difficulty has to be smart, not like a perfect fighter AI that ducks under every throw but just loves getting hit by some specific attack, so in short; difficulty? YES!!! just make it clear what I am supposed to do.

most games are like modern films from hollywood nowadays.They spent more money on marketing them with great in-game cut-scenes,by showing the scene with the best graphics and interesting dialogue.They put an average and repeated  story(mostly in FPS),relativily good graphics but AI is stupid and game is way too easy.The only "hard" game ive played that doesnt treat you like stupid,is black mesa.

The problem is hard games and complex games don't sell to a larger audience.  Dark Souls is amazingly challenging and does zero player hand-holding.  But it doesn't have the appeal of Modern Warfare, which is about as simple as a game can get.  I want a challenge.  I want complex game mechanics.  I want realism beyond graphics.  And some new IPs would be nice.  At least stop naming sequals "Game 2"  How $%^@ing lazy.

Dark Souls has the perfect difficulty 

Yes. Modern games have become filtered to the point of obscenity by marketing research groups and publishers exercising too much control over developers/programmers in a successful bid to lure more casual gamers into the hobby.Us older gamers have been shouting this from the rooftops for a few years now, only to be trolled by the younger less experienced so-called gamers and virtually ran off from every video game forum on the net. To the younger set: sit down, shut up, and let the experienced gamers help coax the industry back to putting the gamers first. Don't worry, we'll tell you what to buy, and what not to.

Games are definitely being dumbed down and becoming way easy. Difficulty levels help, for sure, but I would like to see the basic challenge of a game and the choices within made more interesting and making the game more worth while to play all the way through.  Bring the challenge back, for sure.

This issue is borderline retarded, just add multiple difficulty choices for all tastes. There, everybody's happy.