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The problem is...

by breitzen @, Kansas, Tuesday, April 23, 2013, 08:27 (3992 days ago) @ kapowaz

As ever, the devil is in the details. This is why I take issue with this kind of sweeping, generalising Cody decree: it has massive collateral damage for things that an awful lot of players do enjoy (consciously or otherwise), not only in modern games (as Cody would have you believe) but also in older generation games dating all the way back to coin-op arcade games. What is effect of the power pill in Pac-Man other than a reward? Mario's temporary invulnerability? Extra lives for reaching so many points? Smart bombs in shoot ‘em ups? History is replete with examples of positive reward mechanics in games.

I think the biggest difference in the older games (Pac-Man, Mario, even arcade shooters) is that it's all part of the primary mechanics (right?). I mean any reward your getting is to help you through the game, not getting you XP or whatever. So I agree that these are positive examples, but they are so because its part of a temporary game. You didn't have a medal chest or achievement list to show off. Only your name at the top of the list. You were never doing "secondary mechanics" because the game was king

As someone who played arcade games for only a few years near the end of their time, I'm doing a lot of speculation. It seems like the rise of these "secondary mechanics" that reward players is a fairly new. I love stat tracking, but when the secondary mechanics take over the primary mechanics I take issue with that. I feel like newer games with xp leveling is a big problem, (Maybe rankings in general?) because people can just grind. Reach was the first Halo game I felt like that, H3 had rankings, but it did take skill to reach high rankings, where as Reach and H4 both only require time to reach your visible rank.

Idk, I'm running on a Full Throttle right now so it's hard to concentrate! But there are some more thoughts!
Let me know if I'm wrong! ;)


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