So why play?

If some of you haven’t heard Nintendo has a patent (it can be found here) That will essentially “allow a player to freely play and enjoy the game to the end…a [system] for preventing a player who desires to clear a game by him/herself from losing his/her interest in the game.” (via Mike).There’s also other articles. One here translates what it would sorta look like if it was done. They seem to aiming this at the Zelda series.

Here’s the issue at hand what is the point of playing at this time? I understand mass appeal. I think it is a beautiful idea to make gaming accessible to everyone at the same time wouldn’t that take away from the experience of gaming.It is a very slippery slope. You cannot make things too easy because then you will lose target audiences however if you do make it real easy you can target a broader audience. Nintendo coming out with this seems right in the sense because Wii is the broader audience system. Xbox360 and Sony’s PS3 are more targeted at the ‘hard core’ market. ( I despise using these sort of terms but easiest way I can describe it).

I think the right action would just be to release titles that feature a difficulty that is accessible to everyone. This past Friday I was speaking with a school teacher from Brooklyn and he was excited about the upcoming release of Street Fighter 4. He is older than me but we both understand the significance of going to the arcade, playing that game etc.The interesting thing is that his students who are younger we not as excited because ‘Street Fighter takes too long to get good at’. Which might mean this in game faq might not be such a far fetched idea given the current state of things. Entertainment, especially gaming, I feel is a microcosm for society. And I think as a whole we’ve all become a bit too impatient. Everyone seems to need a bailout and a quick fix to beat the recession. So it should not come as much of a surprise that there are going to be quick fixes in games as well.

What do you think?

No More Heroes + ez mode =??