Controlling Complexity
A question from a certain flamboyant PR guru reminded me of a pet hate I have with modern games, especially those that are classified outside the “casual” label, as well as a few related things that I thought I might as well rant about at the same time.
First of all, seeing as it’s a minor quibble, but one I feel like there is a solution to – the lack of the option to customise controls in a game. For things like the DS, Wii and iPhone, where customising most of controls would serve no purpose other than to annoy both the developers and the players, I can understand it. But for games on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC there really are no reasons not to allow it, other than laziness! If I want jump to be the A button instead of the B button why can’t I change it? Being a programmer for many years I understand that it can add a small layer of complexity, but it’s not one that’s unmanageable. As I was writing this though, a thought occurred to me; perhaps it’s the Q&A department that bemoans features such as this?
Anyway, on to the real point of this post – control schemes as a barrier to entry for the more complex games (such as FPS and action/adventure games). Now, I’m aware that not all games on these platforms use all of the buttons on a controller (or keyboard and mouse), but when you hand a new gamer an XBox 360 controller I can only imagine that it’s quite overwhelming. As Dave Thomson, owner of Ludometrics, also mentioned, it can put off not only new gamers, but also not-so-new gamers too. It basically boils down to there being a lot of assumptions about who is playing the game.
Let’s take a look at the evolution of the controller (at least what I grew up with)...
As you can see in this handy image from Sleepy Gamer, the controller, with the exception of the Atari 5600 there, has gradually added buttons over the years. (I’m going to refer to things like the Start and Select buttons as supporting buttons as they’re not really used in gameplay).
Atari 2600 – One joystick and one button
NES – One D-Pad and 4 buttons (2 of which are supporting buttons)
Mega Drive (not shown) – One D-Pad and 4 Buttons (1 supporting button)
Mega Drive – One D-Pad and 8 buttons (2 supporting buttons)
SNES - One D-Pad and 6 buttons (2 supporting buttons)
... and so on ...
I think you get the picture. As I grew up as a gamer, buttons were added gradually and it was years between each increase, which gave me, and other gamers like me, time to adjust to all the extra information we needed to take in, as well as the extra dexterity required to manage more than a few fingers at a time.
Let’s take a look at modern console controllers...
XBox 360 – One D-Pad, two analogue sticks, 11 Buttons (3 supporting)
PS3 – One D-Pad, two analogue sticks, 11 Buttons (3 supporting)
Wii Remote – One D-Pad and 8 buttons (2 supporting, including the power button)
Wii Nunchuck – One Analogue Stick and one Button
DS / DSi – One D-Pad, one touchscreen and 9 buttons (3 supporting)
That’s a whole lot of buttons to learn to use! Most new gamers tend to stick to things like the Wii and the DS as the games there are very intuitive. Even although their controllers have a large number of buttons, some of them are hardly used and that’s because they have either a touchscreen or their controls are an extension of movements we’ve been making since we were born. I actually had to go and count the buttons on my (original, Japanese!) DS and nearly missed the two bumper buttons because I can’t remember the last time I used them. Imagine going from an intuitive touch based system (which doesn’t require much teaching to use), to a game like Battlefield: Bad Company 2 that uses ALL of the controls on the pad in some way, without a tutorial to help you. Sure there’s an instruction manual, but there’s no practice mode, you’re just thrown right in to it. To me, that would be very off-putting and it has been on several occasions.
Part of the beauty of older games (the 80s and 90s) was their difficulty, but the difficulty was not in controlling them. Sure you kept dying every 2 seconds, but it didn’t feel like it was the game’s fault, it felt like your fault for not being good enough! When you are constantly dying because the controls are either too difficult to use, whether that’s because they’re just badly implemented (I’m looking at you, Uncharted!) or there’s just too many to get your head around, it puts you off playing that game and if that’s your only, or first, experience in XBox or Playstation gaming, then you’re not going to come back for more.
So, in conclusion and in response to Mr Baglow’s original question, “If you had a highly-skilled pro research team you could call upon what questions would YOU be asking consumers/industry”?
Complex controls in the majority of big titles rely on years of assumptions and training in how to play a game and can be a very large barrier to entry for some gamers, so what exactly can we do about it? I don’t think including tutorial modes in these games is good enough, but what else is there, do we need to rethink some things? Or is it the case that we don’t want these new gamers to join our club and we’re happy to let them stick to their DS/Wii/iPhone/Mobile platforms? I am aware, of course, that not all gamers want to play these games, but shouldn’t we help them if they want to?
August 3rd, 2010 - 22:54
Can’t argue that most games are too complicated for people who aren’t used to them. There are a few games that I can think of which managed sidestep the issue by offering two completely different control setups. Viva Pinata was a pretty complex game but it defaulted to a paired down control sceme which used a fixed viewing angle and basically let the whole game be controlled by one stick and a couple buttons. Earth Defence Force 2017 used a similar trick by letting you choose between the Shooter setup (basically Halo controls) or the Arcade setup which reduced movement and camer control to the same stick.
Both these games enable players who couldn’t handle twin-stick controls to play the game without compromising the experience. It is worth noting though that both titles were early Xbox games, perhaps now that the developers know that there are enough experienced gamers with 360s/PS3s/whatever to make their game a success they choose not to complicate matters bytrying to balance two different control sets.
August 4th, 2010 - 10:21
I probably should have researched whether people have tried to do this before and it’s interesting to hear that some developers have had some success with this. I can see how it would work with certain types of games – but that’s never going to work with multiplayer titles, limiting your freedom of movement is going to be a huge disadvantage.
But, maybe you’re right, maybe it’s just not worthwhile for the developers to spend any time on this. The small number of extra gamers it would attract probably doesn’t make it worth the increased expense.