Topic: Majority of Gamers Today Can’t Finish Level 1 in Super Mario Bros. (Satire article)

Sounds like the OP would be better off sticking with retro games.

I enjoy modern games. Some are a bit too easy (Bioshock Infinite was pretty linear in some parts, but still provided some challenge, & so far (haven't bothered to finish it just yet), the story has been very good. Minecraft lets you do just about anything, & you can be challenged to setup a safe fort & then find yourself challenged to build a automated farm to have more time for building bigger, better stuff. Fire Emblem Awakening has lots of difficulty settings & even w/ permadeath off (I did that & chose normal difficulty to refine my strategy) it can be challening. Normal difficulty can really be quite intensive on how to succeed. I like the article's humor, but it's greatly exaggerated. Not nearly that many gamers are like that.

Mostly...yep. But I am still on the lookout for challenging, upcoming games. They do exist. But today you have to specifically LOOK for them. Not so in the past.

I know I prefer "retro" games and modern games that look and sound like them, but I don't care about challenge so much. Most games can be easy and still fun, with few exceptions (Dance Dance Revolution? No one can stay in the easy difficulty for long) , but I see the point about feeling a bit let down by modern games. A lot of them are easy, with not a lot going on otherwise. Kind of like Dance Dance Revolution's one-foot difficulty setting.

But easy doesn't always equal boring! Sometimes it's nice to just play through an entire, well-made game in a few hours. I like Solatorobo for that, personally.

Listen to this man:

I also believe that it is done from a business point-of-view. If you create "games" (ahum) which almost everybody can complete, then those people playing it can say that they have "mastered" this "game"; it gives those people a completely false sense of actually achieving something...

And here I was playing video games to have fun. Sucks to find out that apparently I've been doing it wrong all there years.

But...but who plays games for a sense of achievement? I mean, there's a thrill in, say, catching all Pokemon, but is there anyone who thinks that actually has meaning? Games are fun, and it's okay to be good at them, but I just don't know if it goes any farther than that because of what everyone else said. It was never about skill. It has always been about patience and not putting your controller through a TV.

@cheetahman91 No, original poster would be better off playing the Cheetahmen. Now there's your sky-high challenge.

And now...the Cheetahmen.

This sounds rather passive aggressive you know.

@World: Interesting that you bring up Dance Dance Revolution — the 'easy' and 'normal' settings that get boring for the single player looking for a straight 'hey is it possible for me to do this' challenge are often what competitive DDR players use when creating dance routines. It's one thing to watch someone AA a crazy hard song like Max300 (in the original 1.5x reverse no-recovery 'extra stage' mode no less), but it's another to watch a skilled team bust out a complicated dance routine while still nailing even an easy-mode song together.

Sorry, but it looks like some of you do not even know what a game actually is. LOL

A game consists of a challenge. You have a challenger, and the challenged (the game vs. you). If you take the challenge away, there is simply no game to speak of.

That's what the fun of a game is: being challenged. And beating it, through your own effort.

I could swear this pic also works for FF13 and MGS4.

@JGMR: That's your personal definition of the word. Dictionary definitions include 'A form of play or sport', 'activity engaged in for diversion or amusement', and 'activity providing entertainment or amusement'. You can define a word however you please, but you can't really complain when the rest of the world disagrees. :3

@JGMR
It looks to me like you don't know what a game actually is yourself. A game isn't just about challenge, it's about having fun and enjoying the experience. That's what video games are supposed to be, fun. If you find more challenging games fun, then good for you, but some people may want something easier so they can just relax and enjoy playing a game. Each person is different, so you can't just come out and say that games that aren't difficult are garbage since they don't appeal to you.

@theblackdragon This is amazing! But actually, I can see that. The easier songs do lend themselves to more liberal movements. But I always assumed the really slick players were just playing on some untouchable Expert mode all the time! That's good to know. I'm the only dancer in the family and I used DDR as kind of a bonding tool, but we all eventually left it alone because it wasn't dance-y enough.

@JGMR Actually though, a game is technically just a series of choices with varying levels of complexity. From Go to Call of Duty, that is all a game really is. (Help me out here, game theorists).

This IS pretty worrying... Epic Yarn? Pretty much the easiest (on the eyes as well) game ever? It's innocent fun in it's most polished, widely enjoyable way imaginable.

But then when violence comes in and handholding is... well, hidden in a every-five-step-checkpoint-system amongst other tricks, they are self-entitled 'hardcore gamers'...

When last I played CoD Blops2 I could reload my gun a few feet away from three enemies during all-out combat, on hard difficulty, and still come out victorious. Only to die a few seconds later by a grenade of another enemy. All that to find out the last checkpoint was three steps before I engaged in virtual combat with the earlier three.

It's so random and hectic sometimes, but dying is completely un-penalized... Meaning: modern games let you die a lot more, taking away the true challenge of managing health and making no mistakes throughout the entire level/world/game, but absolutely sucking at gaming doesn't mean you won't get to see the ending anywhere else but on youtube.

I don't even know if that's a good or a bad thing... It's a grey zone...

I am outta here. I am not getting through to you people. Best of luck with your passive attitude which is destroying one of the things I hold in high esteem. Thanks! Keep on embracing it.

Goodbye.

@World: I used to be kiiiinda active (not really) with a group of local DDR players that all hung out at the same arcade back when the game was big years ago — that arcade was the first in town to have a 1st mix machine, then they upgraded to 3rd mix (korean v2 no less, my personal favorite version of the game~), then they upgraded to a 7th mix machine, then 8th mix. I miss those days, we used to all hang out for hours just playing and playing and playing haha,. There were a few of us who competed, and the ones who did had some really cool routines (usually on a Double stage), but i remember they always kept the difficulty at normal or easy when they were working on a routine.

@JGMR: I'm sorry we don't agree? :3

That's the thing. You can't force your opinions into others' mouths. I'm sorry that you're getting worked up over the simple fact that certain people play games for different reason than the "Self sense of achievement", but people have different views. Gaming as a whole is subjective, you can't just clump people into two groups and call it a day. Anyway, thanks for this thread, it was certainly "interesting" to read.

@theblackdragon I think the one at my arcade might have been a modified machine with Stepmania or something? Because the songs kept changing. But my favorite is 5th Mix. If only for the full-length version of b4u! No one really does the arcade thing where I'm from though, so mostly I played the Playstation 2 ones with my friends and family (now here's a game that's accessible to everyone). I think X was my favorite of those because the boss songs actually sounded like songs. Also, hooray DJ Mixes!

But this is interesting...I had no idea actual dance + DDR was a legitimate thing. The possibilities! I might have to fire up Easy Mode and see what's up.