Are gamers becoming lazier?

[7412]

Remembers when RTS were the most popular kind of game?

They got dethroned by MMORPGs in the mid 2000s.

Then MMORPGs got dethroned by MOBAs.

And now, MOBAs are getting screwed over by card games and shooters.

 

The more time passes, the fewer buttons you use as a gamer. Remember when the 12 button Razer Naga was a must-have if you wanted to play WoW competitively? Now the game has lost half its spells.

 

Thoughts?

[minibois]

Shooters have been very popular for years though, like Doom, Quake and Unreal Tournament.

The latter two are basically battle arena's, so your argument with that kinda falls away..

 

Games have become more casual in a way though, whereas you had to dedicate quite a bit of time to be okay back in the day at a game, everyone is okay right away.

To become the best has become more difficult..

WHat I mean to say, is that the learning curve changed. 'Being okay' has become easier, 'Being the best' has overall become more difficult..

[7412]

1 minute ago, minibois said:

'Being okay' has become easier, 'Being the best' has overall become more difficult..

The latter is a result of the first. If the game is made easier, if there are fewer mechanics to learn, then people who tryhard have fewer tools to demonstrate their superior skills.

It's tough to be the best at Pong, because there are only two moves you can do.

The more options, the more chances to pick the wrong one. I often hear people say that more buttons does not equal to more complexity, and those people are wrong.

[Niel_A]

The amount of casual gamers has increased but I think playing any game professionally seems very exhausting. 

[flashiling]

there are a lot more complex abilities in retail wow than classic.

(focusing more specificly on that statement)

mages mostly used frost bolt (at least during MC)

warriors spammed whirlwind and blood thirst and if they started to hit rage cap they used heroic strike and only spammed execute when the boss was at 25%.

there may or may not have been more abilities (not counting ranks but individual abilities) for many classes but you rarely used many of them (at least in PvE i'm not super familiar with PvP but i know that abilities were more diverse in PvP)

quite a lot easier than today where if you want best rotation you need to practice it a lot, maybe macros being less useful since things like stance changes aren't a thing anymore.

 

and yes while moba's focus more on the 5 main abilities (using DotA and LoL  as examples) 

there are a lot more things to focus on during the game than just the abilities and hitting your opponent. not to mention there are active items as well.

but there are so many small details you need to remember and constantly be aware of and know how to react to those small things and then know what the outcome will be immediately.

less buttons ≠ lazy 

[KonaKonaCube]

I blame RGB

[Roswell]

Shooters have arguably always been the most popular genre. Counter Strike, Doom, Quake and other various arena shooters we're wildly popular in the 90s. Then along came COD and to a lesser extent, BF in the 2000s among a litany of other franchises. 

[flashiling]

Just now, Vitamanic said:

Shooters have arguably always been the most popular genre. Counter Strike, Doom, Quake and other various arena shooters we're wildly popular in the 90s. Then along came COD and to a lesser extent, BF in the 2000s among a litany of other franchises. 

i agree with mooncake

[WereCatf]

28 minutes ago, 7412 said:

Remembers when RTS were the most popular kind of game?

They got dethroned by MMORPGs in the mid 2000s.

Then MMORPGs got dethroned by MOBAs.

And now, MOBAs are getting screwed over by card games and shooters.

That's an ignorant way of looking at things; the number of gamers has gone up an enormous amount over the years, so you can't just look at the popularity of any single genre and make such a sweeping statement from that alone. You have no data on e.g. how many people play RTS-games; the fact that some other genre has gotten more popular doesn't mean the number of RTS-gamers has dropped.

 

The point is, there are now more genres, more games in any given genre and more gamers to spread around all the available genres than there were in the past, so you can't just look at the popularity of one specific genre and compare it to what it was, unless you take the number of total gamers at any given period of time into account and the spread of those gamers over the then-available genres.

[7412]

7 minutes ago, flashiling said:

there are a lot more complex abilities in retail wow than classic.

 

True, but there are fewer in retail than there were in MoP. 

They started removing spell after spell just after MoP, that is: when MOBAs started become popular. 

[7412]

9 minutes ago, flashiling said:

and yes while moba's focus more on the 5 main abilities (using DotA and LoL  as examples) 

there are a lot more things to focus on during the game than just the abilities and hitting your opponent. not to mention there are active items as well.

but there are so many small details you need to remember and constantly be aware of and know how to react to those small things and then know what the outcome will be immediately.

And all those factors exist in RTS games, except it's 15 times harder. The MOBA genre is a dumbed-down RTS at its core.

[flashiling]

Just now, 7412 said:

True, but there are fewer in retail than there were in MoP. 

They started removing spell after spell just after MoP, that is: when MOBAs started become popular. 

are you pointing out that when mobas started to get popular blizz started to remove abilities?

because games like league had already been out for 2 years and was considered a "bigger" game in 2012 with 32 mil monthly users

[flashiling]

Just now, 7412 said:

And all those factors exist in RTS games, except it's 15 times harder. The MOBA genre is a dumbed-down RTS at its core.

rts are very different from mobas.

so i feel that this is like comparing speeds of road cars with motor cycles.

[Mark Kaine]

38 minutes ago, 7412 said:

Remembers when RTS were the most popular kind of game?

Honestly?  No?

 

(idk even what that is) 

 

 

I also don't know what a "Moba" is. 

 

I also don't understand why people like FPS games which seem to be extremely popular in all kinds of variations,  it's all the same to me...  No immersion whatsoever, and pew pew pew,  only the weapon skins and rules seem to change. 

 

And lastly,  "shooters" have been extremely popular since 20 years or so,  they currently don't dethrone anything,  they're the undisputed king (of shallow mass entertainment) 

[Roswell]

6 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Honestly?  No?

 

(idk even what that is) 

 

 

I also don't know what a "Moba" is. 

 

I also don't understand why people like FPS games which seem to be extremely popular in all kinds of variations,  it's all the same to me...  No immersion whatsoever, and pew pew pew,  only the weapon skins and rules seem to change. 

 

And lastly,  "shooters" have been extremely popular since 20 years or so,  they currently don't dethrone anything,  they're the undisputed king (of shallow mass entertainment) 

You personally not liking a genre doesn't mean it's "shallow mass entertainment". Not everybody wants to get "immersed" in a game all the time, many enjoy competition, which is what online shooters provide.

[Mark Kaine]

25 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

You personally not liking a genre doesn't mean it's "shallow mass entertainment". Not everybody wants to get "immersed" in a game all the time, many enjoy competition, which is what online shooters provide.

That's a really weird reply though,  you kinda don't agree with me, while somehow still confirming I was right... 

 

 

It's indeed as shallow as "football" , "soap operas" and " Hollywood blockbusters", which are all mass entertainment. 

 

And they're shallow because they're extremely predictable due to their very nature,  football for example never changes,  only the players do but it's the same up and down, run, run, run, every time (similar to FPS games, only slight variations if any) if that's not "shallow" then idk what is... 

 

You may not agree (because you like this sort of entertainment) but you can surely see how these things could be labeled as shallow? 

 

Me not liking this sort of thing is completely secondary,  it's designed to be shallow because that's exactly what people like about it,  nothing to complicated,  something you can do after a hard day of work without thinking too much about it... 

[7412]

50 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

Honestly?  No?

 

(idk even what that is) 

 

 

I also don't know what a "Moba" is. 

You don't know what RTS and MOBAs are? Do you know what a videogame is?

[Roswell]

38 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

That's a really weird reply though,  you kinda don't agree with me, while somehow still confirming I was right... 

 

 

It's indeed as shallow as "football" , "soap operas" and " Hollywood blockbusters", which are all mass entertainment. 

 

And they're shallow because they're extremely predictable due to their very nature,  football for example never changes,  only the players do but it's the same up and down, run, run, run, every time (similar to FPS games, only slight variations if any) if that's not "shallow" then idk what is... 

 

You may not agree (because you like this sort of entertainment) but you can surely see how these things could be labeled as shallow? 

 

Me not liking this sort of thing is completely secondary,  it's designed to be shallow because that's exactly what people like about it,  nothing to complicated,  something you can do after a hard day of work without thinking too much about it... 

I'd hardly call football shallow for the same reason I wouldn't call competitive game titles shallow, the strategy involved can and often is extremely complex. 

 

Just because competition and strategy isn't "immersive" for you doesn't mean it doesn't have depth. 

[The Torrent]

2 hours ago, 7412 said:

Remembers when RTS were the most popular kind of game?

They got dethroned by MMORPGs in the mid 2000s.

Then MMORPGs got dethroned by MOBAs.

And now, MOBAs are getting screwed over by card games and shooters.

 

The more time passes, the fewer buttons you use as a gamer. Remember when the 12 button Razer Naga was a must-have if you wanted to play WoW competitively? Now the game has lost half its spells.

 

Thoughts?

imo shooters are much more active than RTS's and moba

 

I mean compare clicking a few buttons in league to the full alertness and adrenaline filled twitch action sharp reflexes required for rainbow 6 siege.

League players gonna track me down now.

[Mira Yurizaki]

If anything, games got more complicated as developers tried to add more and more features to put on the back of the box. A lot of times, these new features didn't really add anything all that fun or exciting. And as time went on, some older features just started to seem more like a hassle than a benefit, with no real reason to keep them. For example, there's this RPG based around crafting. It originally started with a percentage success rate, but at some point they got rid of it. If anything, there was no real point in keeping it because you could just save scum if you failed the make something. All this random success did was waste people's time in the end.

[Bombastinator]

2 hours ago, 7412 said:

Remembers when RTS were the most popular kind of game?

They got dethroned by MMORPGs in the mid 2000s.

Then MMORPGs got dethroned by MOBAs.

And now, MOBAs are getting screwed over by card games and shooters.

 

The more time passes, the fewer buttons you use as a gamer. Remember when the 12 button Razer Naga was a must-have if you wanted to play WoW competitively? Now the game has lost half its spells.

 

Thoughts?

I don’t know if laziER is the right word.  Game development makes such things easier to indulge in.  Try zork 1 sometime.  Needs a whole keyboard.  And it’s just text.  More effort less reward. For depression era pre computer entertainment my dad once taught me how to make match stick darts.  Used available materials to make a not very good dart to play darts with.  Much easier than carving one.

[minibois]

2 hours ago, 7412 said:

The latter is a result of the first. If the game is made easier, if there are fewer mechanics to learn, then people who tryhard have fewer tools to demonstrate their superior skills.

It's tough to be the best at Pong, because there are only two moves you can do.

The more options, the more chances to pick the wrong one. I often hear people say that more buttons does not equal to more complexity, and those people are wrong.

You could argue that for sure.. A game that is too simple though will likely get luck related though (as you will have to predict your opponent's actions) so only to a certain point.

 

But to get back to your original statement: I think you might be experiencing what is called a 'bubble'. Where you think one thing is super popular, only because you yourself probably play that thing a lot.

As someone who only played a couple RTS games, no MMO's, no MOBA's, I do not feel like what you said is the full truth.

Sure, in certain regions or communities one genre has been more popular, but overall there have been many sorts of games popular.

[7412]

36 minutes ago, minibois said:

I think you might be experiencing what is called a 'bubble'. Where you think one thing is super popular, only because you yourself probably play that thing a lot.

I don't play those games though. I don't need to play Fortnite, League or Hearthstone to check what's popular on Twitch and comment on it.  

[minibois]

6 minutes ago, 7412 said:

I don't play those games though. I don't need to play Fortnite, League or Hearthstone to check what's popular on Twitch and comment on it.  

Twitch is not the only metric to judge a game's popularity though

Plus I was mainly referring to the past.

3 hours ago, 7412 said:

Remembers when RTS were the most popular kind of game?

They got dethroned by MMORPGs in the mid 2000s.

Then MMORPGs got dethroned by MOBAs.

Twitch has been a thing since 2011 and Justin.tv since 2007. So you're gonna tell me you could accurately judge the popularity of each of those genre before Twitch..?

[Harry Voyager]

i I'm trying to think, when was it that RTS were the dominant game genre? I do recall the Command and Conquer games being major successes back in the day, but I'm pretty sure during that time period, Side Scrolling platformers had most of the market share. 

 

I do however, recall when Point & Click Adventures were everywhere...