Gaming Wisdom of the Crafty Banana

This was originally going to be a very different post. Riled by an increasing number of blogs, forums and professional articles claiming that games were being made ‘too fun’ or ‘dumbed down’, this was going to be a rant about how the minds of the sort of folk who routinely make those claims are clouded by nostalgia for a golden age that never was and that, whilst the degree to which games have been improved might be debatable, only the most heavy duty of light red oracular devices could lead one to thing they were getting worse.

Actually, though, I’ve changed my mind. I think what’s needed is for everyone, on both side of this debate[1], to pipe down and grow up. And I include myself in that.

The problem with these arguments, and the reason that they’re doomed to go round in circles for all time, is that they’re based on the idea that some types of game, or styles of gameplay, are inherently good, and others are inherently bad. They assume that an individuals subjective preference is somehow instead die-cast, objective Truth.

That’s hardly an uncommon attitude on the internet, but gamers seem to have a particular pre-disposition towards it. In part, I think it’s due to the fact that the industry is so heavily technology driven. For most pieces of technology, you can easily assess them against objective criteria. If you’re choosing a tv, or an anti-virus programme, or whatever, you check the available products against your particular criteria, see which best fulfils those criteria, and go with that. Different people with have different criteria, of course, but preference doesn’t really enter into it.

There was a time when games were like that as well, when the technology was making such massive leaps, not necessarily in graphics but in scope and interactivity, that technological superiority often did equal a better game. That’s not so much the case now: the returns on technological improvements are starting to level off. But it’s left us as gamers viewing games as things which are either good or bad, successful or unsuccessful. Instead, we ought to be looking at them in the same way we look at books and films. It’s commonly accepted that while some films are truly bad, others (indeed, the majority) will appeal to particular tastes, which doesn’t make them inherently ‘worse’ than those that appeal to different tastes.

Take point and click adventures. I hate point and click adventures[2]. Dragging my cursor across the screen desperately looking for the interactive bits is like some kind of gaming purgatory. The way you sweep up everything not nailed down because you know, you know, it’s going to be useful later, regardless of the fact that no sane person would ever have picked the damned junk up, kills my suspension of disbelief[3]. Round that off by asking me to bash said objects mindlessly against each other until I hit upon whatever random combination of items a stoned designer decided was the ’solution’ to the current puzzle, and I’m pretty much at the swearing and monitor smashing stage.

So I really don’t like point and click adventures. But those who do, those who hold them up as the very hight of gaming joy, aren’t wrong[4]. They’ve just got a different preference to me. We don’t have to flame war to the death over who’s right.

I guess what I’m really saying is just chill, y’all[5].