I was talking to a VGGer on Steam today about my patience with gaming. I downloaded and started playing a game for the first time this afternoon. About 5 minutes in, during the first mission, I came to a jump that I couldn't make. Each time I missed and I died and then the game would restart me a little ways back. On the fourth missed attempt I let out a little "Oh come on!" at the screen and then stopped playing. I was frustrated enough that I uninstalled it.
So they guy I was talking to recommended a different game to try. So I installed it and gave it a go. About 30 minutes in I found myself greatly tempted to stop playing. I guess I was in the mood for some action and didn't really want to keep reading unnecessary dialog that the game was giving me. Now, I'm going to force myself to stop whining and keep on playing because I've heard how good this game is.
Looking through my Steam list, I have quite a few games that I installed and then uninstalled after less than 30 minutes of play time. When did my patience for games get this bad? Does anyone else do this?
I think it's that people who play videogames for years and decades develop a keener sensitivity to the sort of "bullshit" that often goes with game design. Games simply are not getting fundamentally better at anywhere near the rate that developers and the industry at large believes. The hardware cycle routinely undermines design at the expense of audio-visual presentation.
The way I look at it, we've played a LOT of really good games in the last 15-25 years. It's hard not to feel like developers should "know better" when you run into something that tests your patience (not necessarily the same as encountering something that's difficult or tests your skill).
Obviously, sometimes you're in the mood for one kind of game or another.
I think games, in general, have become FAR easier in the last 10-15 years.
Playing the PS3 update of GoldenEye really drove that point home, lol. Talk about difficult!
Anyway, maybe your tolerance has adjusted because of the base-line shift?
GoldenEye Reloaded? Originally that was on the Wii and I don't remember it being that hard. I think I beat it on every difficulty. It wasn't easy per se but didn't stick out in my mind as particularly challenging. I wonder if there were some tweaks in the HD versions that succeeded it?
I think games, in general, have become FAR easier in the last 10-15 years.
Playing the PS3 update of GoldenEye really drove that point home, lol. Talk about difficult!
Anyway, maybe your tolerance has adjusted because of the base-line shift?
GoldenEye Reloaded? Originally that was on the Wii and I don't remember it being that hard. I think I beat it on every difficulty. It wasn't easy per se but didn't stick out in my mind as particularly challenging. I wonder if there were some tweaks in the HD versions that succeeded it?
Yeah, the Xbox 360 and PS3 update versions were not the same game as the Wii update version.
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It all depends. For instance I started losing my patience more for gender then games itself. I now rarely play RTS anymore. I got feed up with them. And strategy games like Civilization, which I enjoyed very much.
In my opinion, and personal experience, I think getting older has changed my patience for some games, that is why buying the right game is that more important to me now.
As much as I hate to admit it, often it's just simply the mood I am in that can kill a game for me forever. Some games I could well have enjoyed have been relegated to the dustbin of forgotten memories just because I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for it, and my financial investment is usually so low (less than $10 in most cases).
I think games, in general, have become FAR easier in the last 10-15 years.
Playing the PS3 update of GoldenEye really drove that point home, lol. Talk about difficult!
Anyway, maybe your tolerance has adjusted because of the base-line shift?
GoldenEye Reloaded? Originally that was on the Wii and I don't remember it being that hard. I think I beat it on every difficulty. It wasn't easy per se but didn't stick out in my mind as particularly challenging. I wonder if there were some tweaks in the HD versions that succeeded it?
Yeah, the Xbox 360 and PS3 update versions were not the same game as the Wii update version.
Well, the first 20 minutes of play are identical:
Scanned the metacritic page, found this:
Quote:
GoldenEye 007 Reloaded has taken a risky jump from the relatively starved Wii FPS climate to the well-established PS3/360 market in exchange for a better online experience and some shiny HD visuals.
When you say they're not the same game, are you referring to the multiplayer?
I haven't played all the way through either the Wii or X360/PS3 versions, but I could have sworn that the X360/PS3 versions were more than just an upgrade of the Wii version and were even more faithful to the original than the Wii version is...
But upon closer look, it appears that it really just is a matter of updates to the graphics and controls, along with some better multiplayer. So I guess the new versions aren't as different from each other as I though they were.
I guess the reason I was thinking that is because all the reviews I read said that the X360/PS3 versions were a much better way to replay the game than the Wii version - but really just based on the even better graphics and much better controls.
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Depends on the game and how interested I am in it. I just played Gish a few days ago that I got in a humble bundle. I played about five minutes and did not enjoy the control scheme at all. I highly doubt I will ever play it again.
On the other hand, I started ICO today, which is a game pretty much in my favorite genre action/adventure. And I have heard lots good things about it. I got to one room I couldn't figure out and kept at it for at least an hour if not longer. Finally got past it though.
If I have a reason to keep trying, I will. If the game is a whim I paid cents or nothing for, and have no reason to think it will be rewarding I am unlikely to keep at if it is bothersome.
I'm the consumer. I'm also old and impatient. I don't have the time that I had as a kid to invest in games. I'm not there to stroke the developers' ego. The burden is on the game to entertain me, especially at $60 a pop when half the time all you're getting is derivative pap liberally sprinkled with consolitis bullshit and checkpoints placed after long dreary cutscenes in place of where a functioning save routine used to be. If all a game does is piss me off, away it goes, and to get to the original question, yes, I too have popped out a game or uninstalled it after five or ten minutes. (I'm even harder on demos.) I can list on one hand the frustrating games I've given more than one or two chances.
Nah, I save myself that 30 minutes of hassle by buying the game and then not ever getting around to installing it. *sigh*
Huge +1, that is too true and too funny!
I find this a product of the digital download age: when I get a disc, I can't wait to pop it in the drive and spin that baby til it melts! Or, you know, until the entire game is on the hard drive. But with the digital games, I never have that excitement about having a new game, and can let it sit forever before i actually do anything about it.
If I have a reason to keep trying, I will. If the game is a whim I paid cents or nothing for, and have no reason to think it will be rewarding I am unlikely to keep at if it is bothersome.
+1, I agree completely.
Most of my game purchases come in under $10. The few I spend close to full retail for are the ones I am likely to push through the frustrations factor.
Taoist, Pittsburgh Sporst fan, and welcoming to people who are kind, from any walk of life.
I have been playing since the Atari 2600, Candy Land, Chuttes and Ladders, Go Fish, and the Apple ii.
I mainly buy a game based on three things:
1) I love the established franchise that the game is published under (Marvel, DC, D&D, Dragon Quest, Golden Sun, Mortal Kombat, Middle Earth, Star Wars, Wizardry, etc.) These games get a +1 to slack. If on a scale of 1 to 10 high, I refuse to play anything that is not a 6 in general. Yet these franchises will hook me with a 5 level game because of the franchise. 4 level is reason not to buy or reason to uninstall upon discovery. Still, even as much as a fanboy as I will be, I don't brake my rule for buy-in for any videogame. Spend $25 or under, or wait years if need be for it to get there.
2) I hear ridiculously great reviews. The Portal franchise, which was way out of my comfort zone, worked its way into the reason #1 by living up to the reviews. Well reviewed games are on an even par. You had better be a 6 on my scale to stick around. The first portal was, second even moreso. Torchlight was another good example of great reviews, and it might have sold the game if that is the path by which Torchlight came into my notice, but Torchlight made the roster by Merit of the 3rd reason.
3) And that reason is the price is right when I'm bored enough to desire a game. I would place a game's likelihood of maintaining a spot on the roster at -1 for a value priced game. You better bring a 7 to the table, because I'm not invested. I wait years after a games release to pick it up on the cheap for franchises I actually like, so your out of my usual genre and cheap appeal to try it better have merit.
So if you can't Ring one of these three bells, I'm not giving you two seconds at all, let alone sticking through the non-entertaining part of any game. I have dropped games whose franchises I liked quicker than a heavy rock. DC Online Free looked like it hit 2 out of three chimes, but the poor camera control in the introductory level didn't save it for more than 3 hours including character creation. Maybe 20 minutes of actual gameplay underway when it was doomed to exile.
I'm the same way, Tickmanfan and I think that John Ray Jr. as usual has hit it right on the money.
I find that the main gameplay design issue/flaw that leads to this level of frustration is the whole inability to save anywhere thing that's become so prevalent in recent years.
It leads to that sort of annoyance. That and when a company has really crummy Quality Control and playtesting teams who think that just because they lucked out on that one jump and only had to do it one time, that this particular jump is just fine. So annoying.
I think the repeated missing jumps etc. made me abandon that genre all together
Yes, if something doesn't work out as it's supposed to be, I'll leave the game and pick up another. However, in a number of games (sims) I play, things aren't supposed to be easy, and I keep coming back to them. I've made the first torpedo attack (basically a learning mission) in Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific numerous times. And when finally all my calculations were correct up to the point where I actually sank that IJN cruiser, it was a great reward.
So I guess for me it depends largely what sort of game, and what sort of challenge you're facing. If the game frustrates because of an action sequence (missing that jump) I'll drop it pretty quickly. If the game frustrates because of some mental challenge, I'll stick to it. At least a lot longer.
uninstalled after less than 30 minutes of play time. When did my patience for games get this bad? Does anyone else do this?
Yes. I read something (blog/article) a while back that basically justified the ever shortening game lengths because most people never even finish them anyway. This was based off of collected statistics from actual gameplay patterns.
Unfortunately that doesn't really tell the whole story. When I find a game that really engrosses me I will play that thing start to finish while others that I find mildly entertaining may not get completed.
I get frustrated quite easily but I play games just for fun, not really to have a very big and complex challenge, I always play my games at the easy level so I defenitly don't want it to be hard to get through. But in general I do want to finish what I start, like I just ranted about the scene I got stuck at, I think I played it about 50 to 60 times before I got it. Next to that Airwolf, still have to figure out how to land the damn thing (what is it with me and helicopter?) without crashing, got frustrated and quit te game after the crashes.
Some insightful comments in the thread, and as usual, I agree.
One factor I haven't seen in the comments I read so far, is the habit of releasing buggy programs and then patching post-release. I don't have the patience to wait around for months while they sort out the problems, or be a "paid beta-tester", so if that is the problem, I'll shelve a product unless it is something I'm super-interested in.
Taoist, Pittsburgh Sporst fan, and welcoming to people who are kind, from any walk of life.
I have been playing since the Atari 2600, Candy Land, Chuttes and Ladders, Go Fish, and the Apple ii.
Michael Dorosh wrote:
Some insightful comments in the thread, and as usual, I agree.
One factor I haven't seen in the comments I read so far, is the habit of releasing buggy programs and then patching post-release. I don't have the patience to wait around for months while they sort out the problems, or be a "paid beta-tester", so if that is the problem, I'll shelve a product unless it is something I'm super-interested in.
This is the main reason why I wait for the cost of a game to come down. I get reasonably priced entertainment, and hopefully stability from the studio's post release support of their product.
San Diego bound!
*sigh*
