How developers lock gamers out of games

[Ted_Wolff]

Gamers are locked out of many games. What gives? Games are an interactive medium. Let us do stuff! What's more, we drop significant money on a console, more money to buy games, and then developers leave us twiddling our thumbs rather than operating a controller.

I get it. You spent thousands of dollars making the game. You'll make it how you want. But then, who do you want to continue to buy your games, and how big of an audience do you want to appeal to?

Question: What are some ways developers lock out gamers from games, and how could they fix these issues?

• Inaccessible contentâ€â€

 

[Longo_2_guns]

Shut up and stop whining. The only two of those that are actual problems are restricted online and exclusive content.

 

[Kijan]

Disagree with the long cutscenes part. I love MGS and FF just because of them.

Nothing feels cooler to me than seeing Snake in all his awesomeness during a well handled cutscene.

 

[De-Ting]

I like how you can't backup certain game saves. I'm looking at you, Ubisoft.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

Restricted saving

Don't buy Demon's Soul...that's all I can say.

 

[LinksOcarina]

Write a blog about this Ted.

That way I can comment better on how you are misconstruing the information.

 

[Ted_Wolff]

Look, I'm not saying all games should do differently. I'm saying too many games do this.

Have some variability. Allow your audience more control.

Go ahead and explain how I misconstrue. A forum is a perfectly fine place for that. That's why I posted this, is for discussion.

I'm just trying to compile a list of complaints I've seen over the years from gamers about how games alienate and shut them out, and offering possible solutions. And I'm asking people to contribute, which is why a forum is a good choice.

If you don't want "whining," you should probably get off the internets.

 

[LinksOcarina]

First off, is this the developers locking it out, or the publishers pushing for it?

Inaccessible content, saving restrictions, exclusive content, movie scenes and no tutorials are hallmarks of games from the past, and really don't need to be changed or addressed, except that the cut scene heavy games can ease up on it a bit.

Online I agree, but thats a no-brainer and it's heading there.

Lack of choices and unaffected stories really depends on the game more than the gamers taste. If you can choose which mission you wanted to do first in Halo 3, would the story have made sense that way? Or how about Bioshock and Bioshock 2? Sure you in the former you can go back to places you visited, but in the end you went a certain way for a reason, to enjoy the story. Also the stories are usually affected by in game events, and with linear stories that are usually good, why complain about that.

Id rather have a short, linear story over a mess that is an RPG, like Star Ocean is, or some Final Fantasies are. Just because you CAN make something branch out and be affected by your actions means you shouldn't, because it would make the game suffer. Plus games doing this well, like Mass Effect and likely Heavy Rain, give you that degree of freedom you need to make choices and branch the story out differently. The difference is the design made it so. A game doesn't have to be like that to be good.

As for exclusive games, that's first party developers and that is not going to change, because there needs to be competition, so the argument you made there will likely never happen. Hell, this is why we have third party developers, to bring experiences to life. Games like Halo and Mario and Ratchet and Clank will remain where they are, but games like Assassins Creed get to branch out.

 

[Ted_Wolff]

Could be developers, could be producers. I just used developers as a catchall, but we could just say developers. After all, when a game succeeds they get more of the credit.

I don't think tradition is an acceptable excuse for some of these design issues. If restricting saves, content, etc. aren't critical to the design, there's simply no reason to use them these days. If developers want to tap new markets of gamers they better cater to time preferences and knowledge levels and provide the ability to save whenever or in-game instruction/help.

Maybe playing Halo 3 out of order wouldn't make sense. But maybe I just want to play it out of order anyway. Why not? I can read any book or watch any move out of order, why not a game?

Certainly some of these depend on the game. Obviously if you can't tell a good story, making it linear or dynamic isn't going to make it any better. But games are an interactive medium. It seems pretty reasonable to assume I should be able to have an actual affect on how more games turn out.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I enjoy lots of these features. Heck, I wouldn't have sat through MGS2 again recently if I didn't.

But that doesn't mean I can't take a critical eye toward design issues to understand how they could work differently or more effectively or appeal to different audiences.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

Prepare for a wall of text, this will also be getting edited into my first rant/blog post.

It's feedback time, Ted! I both agree and disagree with you. I don’t know if you’re playing devil’s advocate or not, but you seem pretty polarized in your opinions on a couple of things. But another part of me thinks you’re just doing it for argument’s sake. So I’m going to recap some of your points with my thoughts and go off on a couple of tangents.

•Inaccessible contentâ€â€

 

[De-Ting]

Um, didn't read all of that, but I hope you know that this exists, Bret.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

Yeah, I'll keep my $15 bucks and spend it on take out, thanks.

 

[De-Ting]

Ha. I'll spend it on a week's worth of food.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

<--Family of four.

 

[De-Ting]

<--Family of five.

 

[Bretimus_v2]

^Dependent

<--Provider

 

[Insectavamour]

holy hell. exclusive content and pre-order dlc crap sucks. holy crap. i'm poor.

 

[MattAY]

On some games I love the manual! Like Street Fighter 4, nothing was better than having the manual in front of me to look at the moves whilst playing.

Well, a lot of things are actually better than that...but I liked it.

 

[GRColin]

^Dependent

<--Provider

And owner of fat kids if you keep feeding them take out .

 

[Bretimus_v2]

Grrrr.

First, I'm a parent, not an owner. They're kids not slaves. Second, we're practically vegetarians, eating out is an earned treat. Third, you don't make fun of people's kids, it's a no-no.

Next time I will use my free-flying privileges to settle the issue.



/sarcasm