Death of the Player (Gaming)

by Durandal, Monday, November 04, 2013, 15:01 (4040 days ago) @ SonofMacPhisto

The author is killing a straw man. She conflates indie games that are less about entertainment and more about providing a particular experience with massive AAA titles that are all about the fun factor.

Call of Duty, Halo, Battlefield, Starcraft etc, these games are meant for competition and entertainment. They are not making social commentary (in PVP anyway), and when they do, such as Bioshock, it tends to be more flavor for the gameplay then an object in itself.

When I play Destiny, I'm not looking to learn about how much life sucks when you have a dead end service job. I worked as a cashier at Radio Shack. I know how minimum wage sucks. I'm looking for a different experience. I want to be a hero, saving the world my way, and perhaps snagging some bragging rights from my buddies during a co-op carnage break. For that experience, the player is king. Every time I have to struggle with the interface to do what I want it detracts from the experience.

Every time my player gets stuck on walls in Mass Effect, or sniped by those damn Legendary sniper Jackals or Knights, it ticks me off. It is an arbitrary death, like a cutscene where my master ninja who just decimated 40 guards in close combat is taken down by a single mook with a taser in the back. Player centric design gets rid of those factors. It hinges on getting the game mechanics out of the way so the player can enjoy the actual gameplay.

Lauding the difficulty, or adding more barriers to your game for hipster artist credit does not impress me. Even the author's own game "EAT" is just an exercise in sympathy. It isn't a game to entertain, and shouldn't be lumped in as such.