Are ‘easy mode’ video games putting our entire planet at risk?
Video games have had occasionally had easy modes for less-skilled players since the dawn of home console systems. However, a totally scientific study of “just guessing” has shown that the amount of easy games, or even easy modes in what have traditionally been core game franchises, is now on the rise. This runs the risk of creating a new crop of unskilled players who are nevertheless enjoying games.
So, what’s the problem? Well, it’s very basic… players who use these so-called Easy, Casual, or Automatic modes may be having fun, but, are they really developing the skills that they’ll need when the world is about to end?
As an example, take the video game Bayonetta. It’s well-known for blistering difficulty at the high levels, but also for including a “Very Easy Automatic” mode that practically plays the game for you, executing complex and appropriate combos with a single mash of the same button.
That’s all well and good, and may give a novice player some sense of mastery, allowing them to experience the good feelings associated with ripping the heads off of evil but angelic beings. However, if the End Times were to happen tomorrow, and horrifying hosts of angels really were to drop down from the sky, raining fire and doom on all of mankind, will these so-called casual gamers falsely believe that they have the real skills needed to take them down? Skills that, in reality, involve pressing both the Y, and B buttons, as well as timely stick moves and dodges, in rapid succession? This blogger’s bet is that the casual players will find themselves lining up to become Angel Chow, while those of us with the guts and manliness to play video games on Normal or higher will be the only gamers who are likely to survive this Doomsday scenario.
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…Okay, The Onion I’m not, so that’s all the satire I’ve got, but it’s kind of funny to watch core gamers get all bent out of shape when there is an easy mode for a hardcore game available. See also this Shoryuken Thread complaining about the addition of an automatic mode in Marvel Versus Capcom 3.
These days I play most games on Normal or higher. In case you can’t tell, I fired up Bayonetta this last week and I’m really having fun; the intense and over-the-top action just sort of makes me want to scream with joy a lot of the time. I’m not real good at the game yet and get a lot of bad “scores” when I fight stuff, but I do get a small sense of pride playing it on the Normal mode which carries a greater risk of screwing up and requires more mastery. That being said if someone wants to shout “weeeeeeeeeee explosions” while pounding buttons in Very Easy, it’s pretty wicked fun and I don’t really see the problem, especially since Achievements and online leaderboards and everything else can verify which difficulty you’re playing the game at.
I don’t know if the Simple Mode in MVC3 will really get more people playing the game, though it would be cool if it did, since more people playing games is a good thing in my mind. But one advantage that MVC has with this sort of mode that Bayonetta does not is that MVC3 is a 2D game. I’ve watched a lot of game novices get super confused with how they’re supposed to navigate with two sticks, or keyboard-and-mouse, in a 3D environment, and no amount of automatic combos can make that particular skill easier. In fact I’m afraid that might be an impossible barrier for some people to get around. Yes, it gets much easier with practice, but it’s not the kind of practice that a lot of people who otherwise wouldn’t game would bother to do when there are other things they enjoy more. And as I point out above in a backward sort of way, learning to get better at very difficult games is an awesome route to a deeper experience and new levels of “hard fun,” but, they aren’t cultivating life-or-death skill sets.
…Or are they? (dramatic sting)
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