Casual players are dumb...

[Collector]

I came across this Let's Play on another board. It is Emerald City Confidential done by the game's developer. He was approached by casual game publisher Playfirst to make an adventure for their casual gamer customers. He notes how the causal gamer testers reacted to the game, but had trouble grasping basic concepts of adventure gaming, such as not being able to figure out how to open a locked door with a crowbar beside it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-QGb735afg

[DeadPoolX]

I wouldn't say so-called "casual gamers" are dumb, they just haven't played an Adventure. Even an easy Adventure (like ECC) requires the gamer to think and play differently than say... Bookworm Adventures or Bejeweled.

It's really no different than putting someone who's only played Adventures into an RPG or FPS and expecting them to grasp the concepts immediately. Every game is different, let alone entirely separate genres.

I know you wouldn't call a die hard Adventure gamer "dumb" because he or she couldn't play Dragon Age or Borderlands immediately, right? So what's the difference here?

[Collector]

Oh come on. When a crowbar is right there they can't figure it out?

[DeadPoolX]

Oh come on. When a crowbar is right there they can't figure it out?

Tell you what: how about we play a Flight Sim together? I'm looking for a good laugh.

I'm sorry if I seem rude here, but this is a major pet peeve of mine. Why would ANYONE know how to play a game (or do something in general) if they've never experienced it before? That makes no sense.

[Rath Darkblade]

Hmm. I think you both have a point. I've played and programmed games since the '80s (admittedly not very good ones, but that's only because I programmed these games in the '80s, and all I could use was BASIC on the Commodore 64. Later on, when I was learning to program in VB, I tried taking on the classic programmer's challenge - teaching a computer to play tic-tac-toe - which is far more complex than it seems! However, that's about as far as I got in game programming. Anyway, I'm digressing).

Collector, I agree with you that it's not very complicated to open a door when the crowbar is sitting right there where you can see it. However, I agree with DPX that, if a person has never played a type of game before, trying it for the first time can be confusing. My first RPG was Neverwinter Nights, and I was very puzzled by all the options and things about customising my D&D character. (Of course, doing it the second and third times, etc., was easier). By the time I'd played Dragon Age: Origins for the first time, I was a fairly experienced RPGer (so character creation was easier), but even so, I was a little bit lost with all the information about Thedas that I was trying to grasp. (And don't tell me that, when you first played DA:O, you instantly knew all there is to know about Thedas, because I won't believe it). Playing adventure games is like everything else in life: the first time is always the hardest, and it gets easier with experience.

And now I think I'd better stop being so goddamn reasonable and say: even so, what the hell were they thinking?!?

[Rudy]

Oh come on. When a crowbar is right there they can't figure it out?

Since there's no aliens crawling around, and they're not playing as Gordon Freeman, the crowbar is utterly useless

[Collector]

Tell you what: how about we play a Flight Sim together? I'm looking for a good laugh.

I do OK with flight sims, thank you very much. But that is not the point. For some game genres you may have a point with anything that has a learning curve. We are not talking about developing reflexive skills. Some aspects of adventure games may not be intuitive like combining inventory items, but that is not what I was talking about.

HOG players are used to finding things on the screen. ECC constantly has instructions that popup on the screen, hand holding the player through the game. If you had bothered to watch the video before trying to attack me you would have seen that there were places in the game that had a popup with the different actions that the player could try and it never even occurred to these casual players to read them.

I'm sorry if I seem rude here

Then don't be rude.

[Tawmis]

Oh come on. When a crowbar is right there they can't figure it out?

Tell you what: how about we play a Flight Sim together? I'm looking for a good laugh.

I'm sorry if I seem rude here, but this is a major pet peeve of mine. Why would ANYONE know how to play a game (or do something in general) if they've never experienced it before? That makes no sense.

Aye. To some degree, however.
I never played first person shooters, until I played Doom.
It didn't take much to figure out.
I had never played adventure games, until I played Leisure Suit Larry.
Read the manual that said pick up everything that's not nailed down, and use everything everywhere (worse thing that's going to happen is you're going to get a funny response).
I never played an RPG until I played Wizardry.
Didn't take much to figure out.
I never played a flight SIm until Red Baron.
Took a bit to figure out, but did pretty good, pretty quick.
I never played Sims, till Sim 3.
Didn't take long to figure out.
Never played an RTS until Warcraft.
Didn't take long to figure out.

The point being - it's not like these people were shoved right there. With no clue. The manual probably gives you a brief idea of what to try. What to do. What does what.

I would think, that at least seeing a crowbar, you'd try it on the door - just to see if you get any response.

That said, the guy who did the video - was boring as Hades. And I couldn't make it more than about 4 minutes into the video before I was starting to nod off.

There's people who are naturally funny, and there are those that try entirely too hard to be funny.

I think he was trying entirely too hard.

[gumby]

It's not that the casual player didn't know that they needed to open the door with the crowbar, but how. The user interface totally confused them.

Tell you what: how about we play a Flight Sim together? I'm looking for a good laugh.

Interesting. Perhaps a better analogy instead of someone's first time playing a flight sim would be someone's first time playing a text adventure game. I'd bet if you put some graphical point-and-click adventure players (not players familiar with interacting with a parser) in front of a text adventure, they'd struggle in much the same way.

I remember my first experience with a graphical adventure game (specifically KQ4). I had no clue that I had to move the ego with the arrow keys or the mouse. Coming from a text adventure background, I just kept typing commands like 'go west'. And the damn parser just came back with 'Go ahead and do it'.

[Tawmis]

I remember my first experience with a graphical adventure game (specifically KQ4). I had no clue that I had to move the ego with the arrow keys or the mouse. Coming from a text adventure background, I just kept typing commands like 'go west'. And the damn parser just came back with 'Go ahead and do it'.

Dude. You almost killed me when I read that.

[Rudy]

Another not-unlikely possibility is that the person who made the video (and designed the game) simply exagerated. For example when the protagonist was hanging from the bridge and the box with options popped up in the middle of the screen - I find it hard to believe that people would not try clicking the presented options for 5 minutes, instead desperately clicking all around the screen for something to happen, as he put it. Modern gamers may not be familiar with adventure games, but they're not retarded either. Same with the picked-up inventory items which the gamers supposedly couldn't find. I mean, HELLO, most modern non-adventure games have an inventory too. Same as picking up a weapon in any FPS or item in any RPG. I think the poster exagerated.

[dotkel50]

I was annoyed by his characterization of "dumb" casual gamers as soccer moms and grandmothers, as if these women didn't have a brain in their head. I think he highly exaggerated their reactions to game play as an excuse for the lame instructions that he has popping up on the screen. Is there a manual with this game? You know women read the manual!

[DeadPoolX]

Tell you what: how about we play a Flight Sim together? I'm looking for a good laugh.

I do OK with flight sims, thank you very much. But that is not the point. For some game genres you may have a point with anything that has a learning curve. We are not talking about developing reflexive skills. Some aspects of adventure games may not be intuitive like combining inventory items, but that is not what I was talking about.

EVERYTHING HAS A LEARNING CURVE! It doesn't matter how simple or complex it seems. You don't see the learning curve in Adventures because to you it's obvious.

When I first started playing Adventures years ago, I had no idea what to do at all. Granted, I was four years old, but my point is that it's not intuitive.

HOG players are used to finding things on the screen. ECC constantly has instructions that popup on the screen, hand holding the player through the game. If you had bothered to watch the video before trying to attack me you would have seen that there were places in the game that had a popup with the different actions that the player could try and it never even occurred to these casual players to read them.

There's more than HOG under the heading of "casual games." Try Bookworm or Bejeweled or word games, like Sudoku. Those are extremely popular games and none of those are remotely like an Adventure game.

I'm sorry if I seem rude here

Then don't be rude.

To be honest, that was more of a disclaimer than anything else. I don't feel I was rude at all and in fact, had to rewrite my post several times to make it more civil.

Yes, that's how angry I was. Why? Because you're attacking and making fun of a group that simply don't understand a genre you like. It's no different than FPS or RTS gamers laughing at the classic Adventure games and those who play them.

Oh come on. When a crowbar is right there they can't figure it out?

Tell you what: how about we play a Flight Sim together? I'm looking for a good laugh.

I'm sorry if I seem rude here, but this is a major pet peeve of mine. Why would ANYONE know how to play a game (or do something in general) if they've never experienced it before? That makes no sense.

Aye. To some degree, however.
I never played first person shooters, until I played Doom.
It didn't take much to figure out.
I had never played adventure games, until I played Leisure Suit Larry.
Read the manual that said pick up everything that's not nailed down, and use everything everywhere (worse thing that's going to happen is you're going to get a funny response).
I never played an RPG until I played Wizardry.
Didn't take much to figure out.
I never played a flight SIm until Red Baron.
Took a bit to figure out, but did pretty good, pretty quick.
I never played Sims, till Sim 3.
Didn't take long to figure out.
Never played an RTS until Warcraft.
Didn't take long to figure out.

Tawmis, you're also a more prolific gamer. Many so-called "casual gamers" play only a few titles a year, if that much. They don't have the same exposure to games and maybe just aren't interested in other genres outside casual gaming.

I think this is something you guys don't quite understand. We're not talking about your "average" gamer, who's played a few games from this genre and that genre. Casual gamers, by and large, limit themselves to word puzzles, match-3 puzzles and so on.

It's not that the casual player didn't know that they needed to open the door with the crowbar, but how. The user interface totally confused them.

Thank you! Gumby said it all right there! A game's interface can be a HUGE stumbling block to overcome, especially if it's something you've never seen before in a game genre you've played before.

[audiodane]

I remember my first experience with a graphical adventure game (specifically KQ4). I had no clue that I had to move the ego with the arrow keys or the mouse. Coming from a text adventure background, I just kept typing commands like 'go west'. And the damn parser just came back with 'Go ahead and do it'.

Dude. You almost killed me when I read that.

Holy cow- reading that not only cracked me up but major flash back! I remember when my brother and I picked up our first graphical adventure game and the same thing happened. We tried it a few times and then went to the booklet showing arrow key usage. "Wow!" we said, and went about our game. I had completely forgotten about the fleeting moment though until you reminded me about it...



..dane

[DeadPoolX]

I remember my first experience with a graphical adventure game (specifically KQ4). I had no clue that I had to move the ego with the arrow keys or the mouse. Coming from a text adventure background, I just kept typing commands like 'go west'. And the damn parser just came back with 'Go ahead and do it'.

Dude. You almost killed me when I read that.

Holy cow- reading that not only cracked me up but major flash back! I remember when my brother and I picked up our first graphical adventure game and the same thing happened. We tried it a few times and then went to the booklet showing arrow key usage. "Wow!" we said, and went about our game. I had completely forgotten about the fleeting moment though until you reminded me about it...



..dane

Yeah, that's happened to me. Maia's played a ton of Text Adventures (I think Zork might've been her first game) and had to help me out the few times I've played them.