Nowadays, it is not uncommon for people to gather around at
midnight in stores like Best Buy or Walmart for the midnight release of games
such as Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed. This should not come as a surprise
because games nowadays are becoming highly popular and the demand for them has
gone up.
Although I am not really into videogames, I do have several
friends who are, and they always tell me their epic tales of how it took them a
week to beat a Zelda game, or sometimes even as much as a weekend to beat
another game. And even though my friends' tastes in games are different from
one another, the one thing they have in common is the fact that they all
believe that older games are harder to beat.
The more I thought about it, the more it seemed true. I would
often hear them talk about beating the newer videogames, but the older the
game, the harder it is to beat. The only conclusion I have for this change of
difficulties is that videogame developers realized that the only way they could
make more money was by making games easier to beat. How does this work?
Well, the faster a person finishes a game, the more they will
crave another game, and the more games they will buy from that saga, which will
give the companies more money, and more reasons to keep making games. The
harder the game is, the more time it will take to beat (if possible), and it
will take longer for the gamer to get a new game. This may explain why there
are so many games from the Grand Theft Auto, Call of duty, and Assassin's Creed
saga, but not as many as for Pac-Man or Contra.
You make an insightful connection between video game difficulty and consumers' desires. Sometimes people say the same is true for cars and applicances - the older models are more reliable and the newer models are built cheaply so that you will have to buy another one in a few years. Of course, with material goods the manufacturer is walking a fine line. If the company's goods break down too easily, it will get a bad reputation. I wonder if the same is true for video games - are the ones that are considered "too easy" not likely to sell?
ReplyDeleteThis is very true. I had never taken the time to realize this. I believe that quality in products being sold overall has gone down in the last ten years simply because sellers have become obsessed with quantity as opposed to quantity in order to make more money. It is a sad fact but I see it happening in all aspects of manufacturing. Very interesting point!
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