Do Gamers Want Simpler Games?

[wraggster]

A recent GamePro article sums up a lesson that developers and publishers have been slowly learning over the last few years: gamers don't want as much from games as they say they do. Quoting:
"Conventional gaming wisdom thus far has been 'bigger, better, MORE!' It's something affirmed by the vocal minority on forums, and by the vast majority of critics that praise games for ambition and scale. The problem is, in reality its almost completely wrong. ... How do we know this? Because an increasing number of games incorporate telemetry systems that track our every action. They measure the time we play, they watch where we get stuck, and they broadcast our behavior back to the people that make the games so they can tune the experience accordingly. Every studio I've spoken to that does this, to a fault, says that many of the games they've released are far too big and far too hard for most players' behavior. As a general rule, less than five percent of a game's audience plays a title through to completion. I've had several studios tell me that their general observation is that 'more than 90 percent' of a game's audience will play it for 'just four or five hours.'"

http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/0...-Simpler-Games

[Krisando]

Heck, i'd be lucky to play a new game for 30 mins.

I quit instantly if the interface is too complex or heaps of learning popups. I also find games boring from the start feeling extremely commercial and silly *Cough Mario & Nintendo Games*.

Also game developers like to make games challenging, abit too challenging. I played a snes fighting game, I lost in 5 seconds, it was the most nuts fast paced game i've ever seen.

These are the real reasons people pirate games, they have a 99% change of been utterly boring.

[VampDude]

'more than 90 percent' of a game's audience will play it for 'just four or five hours.'

That's how long it took me to complete The Lost and Damned, before not playing it anymore after... Although it was the best episode.