Gaming Patterns – the price of entrance to enjoy a game? - Part 1

I’m been playing a Tower defence game recently called “PixelJunk Monsters” (yeah I know its old news for you Playstation owners out there but it’s just too good). What I really enjoy about this game flow/structure with enemy patterns that continuously engage you placing me “in the zone” (or what I prefer to say is, plugged in) and that’s a rare experience for me these days.

Why is that? Am I getting old? Played too many games and I can see through the patterns presented to me making the experience unchallenging and boring? Well I certainly experienced this with certain titles I’ve played recently like “Resident Evil 5” which I thought was stuffed with predictable enemy patterns embracing typical counter tactics for your survival. You could argue that this game isn’t flawed in this area but just the simple fact that my knowledge/ pattern recognition for shooters is more developed than the game is actually designed for (casual gamers) and I require more advanced mechanics/patterns, etc to fulfil my needs as a gamer. Thinking about this got me thinking about the “price of entrance” for games. Is my knowledge/skills of gaming too high to enjoy “Wii Sports” (linear patterns and information) or too low to enjoy “Total War” on pc (complex patterns) due to my lack of experience playing historical Strategy games. As a gamer/observer I find myself within an odd position where I’m questioning myself what is my “price of entrance” to enjoy a game?

With modern games design approaches, there is a very obvious transparent line between Casual and Hardcore games where developers either add further complexity to established core mechanics towards genres like MMO’s or FPS’s appealing to the core fanbase/elite or developing relatable non-offensive subject matters with simple functionality emulating real like actions. I personally don’t think players should have to have previous knowledge or the desire to enjoy a game for its purpose and end goal result, (getting fit, learning French, building army whatever the subject matter/context is) I feel that a game should provide the knowledge and inspire the desire or an interest within the subject matter/themes that the game explores. The obvious target of such an example would be non-gamer/casual games market which (although debatable) do intend to undermine the primary purpose of why video games co-exist in the first place; to simply challenge and provide our brains with new info and patterns despite the fiction (theme/presentation). It’s easy to forget that us gamers have had years of training (playing games) to see through the fiction to master underlying mathematical patterns and objectives of the game system itself, It’s easy for us to criticize such an change of primary purpose for these games but then obviously the target demographic hasn’t had the gaming education/knowledge/background that we have obtained over the years.

Looking into this perspective further; games are effectively teaching tools although I wonder how much prior knowledge would be required to fully interact/learn and master a game or more specifically mastering the game’s patterns, rewarding the player’s effect? For an example, if I asked you to do me a painting, this may be too demanding for you but if I ask you to draw me a stickman, what would you possibly learn and experience from that or isn’t that sort of boring? This could be one of the simple reasons why typically non-gamers feel that video games are time wasters compared to other alternative mediums such as TV/film which passively informs, engage and possibly challenging them on broad levels.

Jonesy

(P.S read part two as well - I have a lot more to say!)