Grief.exe said:What's interesting to me is I know these large publishers are using focus tests with the lowest common denominator to create their games.
Why can't they satisfy people on both levels?
Create a great game, then use various modern gaming tropes to dumb it down for your typical person.
- quest markers
- forgiving AI
- constant pop-ups and reminders
- regenerating health
- path on the floor to show objectives
- highlighted objects
- anchor points for good rope arrow placement
Why can't games start with an interesting basis, then allow players to turn on/off options to cater to the lowest common denominator?
Instead of just giving up entirely and creating an, overall, mediocre game to encompass the entire audience?
It's not that simple. If you do that you're basically creating a 1.5 game. And all that extra crap have to be QAed and bug fixed and so on. A lot of extra work for a questionable result.
The actual problem is making a game with a team of +150 people. Putting things in a different perspective....a lowest common denominator (mostly) ensures that those people still have jobs in the future. A high risk project made by that many people is simply a risk most companies aren't willing to take.