gaming became less about stealing your quarters and a couple of hours out of your afternoon and more about becoming an entire replacement life

Mark’s so hardcore he’s conducting an orchestra simultaneously while filming this video.

Dude, this just made me realize something huge: In the past like 10 years I play new games hoarding cash/items/etc throughout the game anticipating it to pay off dividends in the later sections, but like 90% of the time I just beat the game with a bazillion OP unused items in my inv. I totally thought it was completely a *me* problem, but well...

Arcade gaming is more fun and more convienent. Less bloat and more game play.

Great video man. It's unfortunate that so many gamers have essentially been conditioned into thinking a game having roadblocks, stress or even a moment of frustration or confusion is an error on the developer's part. But at the same time many developers have also started to think this way, including indie developers. I also agree with your points on timers. Even generally easy to deal with "timers" like the heat system in Lost Planet get backlash. The timers in Dead Rising, Majora's Mask or even Crazy Taxi can be stressful, but that's the point. That's a factor of the game that you're meant to deal with as apart of the experience. I would love it if I could get more new games that forced me to play by its rules rather than feeling like every game is trying be accommodating at all times.

I used to think I hated timer mechanics, but then I thought back and realized some of my favorite games enforced strict timers. As it turns out, I was just taking it for granted. Nowawadays I think that they really should make a comeback.

It was sad when Masahiro Sakurai made a video saying to get into the action straight away and there were so many comments disagreeing with him. Modern gamers and developers suck

"Pac Man REALLY gets good after the 20th quarter!" - If Bethesda existed in 1982

I think a lot of people take arcade game design for granted when in reality it's a pretty specific style of design that was made possible by a collection of inter-dependent factors that are probably never going to happen again. It's more akin to local music scenes that give birth to influential movements that spread across the world rather than something that designers gravitate to naturally. If anything, games like Diablo, Cow Clicker (and its spinoffs) along with the rise of gacha and successful attempts at gamification (Duolingo, soc media) show that design trends in the opposite direction if left to its own devices - it trends towards progression systems, gambling-like systems, fostering a sense of ownership via sunk cost & other types of manipulative brain hacks. Fundamentally all games are just brain hacks, but with the arcades you had some natural limits of the designers' excesses - saving was uncommon so there was no clean way to create long term progression & ownership, the games earned money through difficulty so optimizing around flow state wasn't viable, and because the games were always competitive gambling had to be more explicit or else it harmed scoring. You can see that once these things loosened even arcade games started adding progression & ownership elements via stuff like the Initial D driver's license system, though ofc they still have to hold back due to a variety of factors. It's why arcade design has to be consciously & aggressively promoted because it *will* get lost over time. The only big exception to this are competitive multiplayer games, you can see that they keep elements like timers, remove exploits & make sure to eliminate cheese when designing levels. Because unlike singleplayer games, degenerate strats don't just affect the player who is playing, they affect everyone else's enjoyment too - so the practical necessity drives design.

I wish this was common sense among the gaming community. Despite being a very good opinion and a very coherent game design, not only the players but also the developers don't even know what an arcade/retro game is due to the generation difference, having already grown up in a post-PS2 era and already at the door of the era of DLCs and IAPs. They think that just because they use pixel art their game is instantly retro. It's even funny to think that while people endorse the soulsbourne formula, which is the only genre nowadays that fits the description of "a game that pushes its limits the entire game without seeming unfair", they despise the arcade formula, which is literally the concept of souls on steroids, simply because the "game is old". It is important to note, however, that this is also the result of the rise of eSports. Of course, single-player games remain very popular, but it is undeniable that nowadays climb for ranking in competitive games is usually what keeps players interested, as the desire to surpass another player is usually greater than the desire to surpass a machine.

Hi there, I make indie games. I've watched this 3 times now. I almost came to this conclusion over the past few months, by going down this rabbit hole. Asking myself why everything I played has felt devoid of meaning. But you really hit the nail on the head here. You reached the logical conclusion before I could figure it out myself, which was like a lightbulb going off in my head in a way. I'll be sharing this video everywhere I can, and I really hope this catches on.

Great topic. This whole video explains pretty succinctly why I started playing shmups a few years ago; I was tired of how painfully easy games had become. And I'm not even great myself, I would consider myself a low-mid level skilled player. But mainstream games normal modes offer 0 challenge. Rarely even their hard modes, and if they do, it's usually jank after thoughts. Then I redsicovered arcade games and have a hard time playing anything else. People look at my like I'm crazy like I'M the one wasting time because it doesn't have some GRAND (actually very shallow) rehashed epic sprinkled over 100 hours.

You nailed everything. Sonic Superstars is genuinely an old school arcade-style platformer: it has an in-game timer, a proper scoring system; level design more reminiscent of the Mega Drive titles with little to no automation; and is not afraid of being difficult - Superstars will not hold your hand. And is not bloated: what you see is what you get. And what happened? It got destroyed by critics over Mario Wonder, a platformer that abandoned its arcade roots over modern game design. I've seen a lot of articles about how removing the in-game timer and scoring system in Mario Wonder was the best thing Nintendo has even done. For me it just removed all the depth of the game. Now it is just a matter of reaching the end of the level, but not how I reach the end.

Good video as usual Mark. I feel the current softness of video games is partially because of the reasons you stated (companies making concessions to design in order to drive value to a wider audience), but I think another element is that video games have never recovered from Roger Ebert claiming they are not art. An entire generation of game development started chasing after the respect that film gets, leading to the drive towards AAA "Hollywood" games. The cinematic movie games that cater to as wide an audience as possible, culminating in The Last of Us. I love TLoU as much as anyone, but matching planks to holes and walking into ambushes clearly marked by the chest-high walls that serve as cover marked a regression in design. Part of From Software's current lead in the games industry is finding a nice middle ground of constantly engaging the player in an uphill climb through both reflexes and knowledge, while simultaneously giving the player pretty vistas and play archaeologist. The current trend of roguelike indies as the nu-arcade experience show that people WANT to pushed (or are gambling addicts without realizing it). Modern games putting parry into everything may be clumsy, but hopefully it's early growing pains of a new wave of games backed by game theory.

I don't even play modern games. I only come here so I don't have to break the habit.

The reason games suck now is because people value the length of a game over quality. Lengthy game= good even if it’s mediocre and padded out. Short = bad even if it’s the most tightly crafted game.

I don't necessarily disagree with what you're saying, but I think some of these things are specific to certain games. Scores and timers are not really relevant to an RPG for example. Even adding a score and timer to specifically action games isn't going to automatically improve games. I agree that these sorts of things forced developers to make quality games, and there's definitely a major issue with padding for gameplay time, but there are many quality games that went against these gameplay philosophies and would be inferior if they stuck strictly to these things. It's about learning from the spirit of these conventions is what matters. You used Shovel Knight as a frequent example, but it is a great game that's fun and packed with content per second and doesn't need to rely on every strict convention of the arcade days to make it a fun and engaging game. Even if it's "easier" than those games, it still provides a strong challenge, especially for those who want to get all the in-game achievements. So yeah, I get what you're saying in this video, but I think the argument comes off as an indictment of basically every game that's come out since consoles became the primary medium, and don't think it's the real answer to the problem of modern video games.

When I was a kid in the 80s & 90s (I'm 40), gaming had a more socially competitive & sports-like atmosphere. Gamers were rough looking outcasts, gangsters, punks & goth types. It was a legit subculture. Most of us played games to "Conquer them". Which means 1cc since we were still playing in arcades. Modern gaming isn't about the game, it revolves around internet celeb online communities. I noticed that over half of modern communities don't even play the game, they just watch Lets Plays or twitch of popular nerds and they'll talk more about the damn king/queen nerd! Over the damn game! Modern gaming has been transformed into a Corporatized Nerd-chic which didn't exist when I was a kid. When I was a kid, damn near everything felt like a rebellion against the status quo from vidya gaems, comics & even attitude era wrestling. Modern culture, everybody conforms with the consensus, which includes how games are made. Which is why everything follows such a monoculture template of inoffensiveness for maximum corporate market value.

Great stuff. I've never heard anyone bring this up but I completely agree with you. I recently built a cabinet and I find myself going to it much more than my PS5. My PSA to my fellow arcade enthusiasts is this: To make arcade games fun at home is very simple. DO NOT give yourself infinite credits. When I'm done with work I give myself "50 cents" and play dodonpachi. It's insanely engaging that way. I'm sweating, yelling, laughing.. the whole gamut of emotions ha. That simply doesn't happen with modern games. Not even close.

I think there's still a place for more casual games, but we've been losing more and more of these important fundamentals due to this apparent dismissal of arcade games or anything that came before the modern day in general. Something gamers/developers need to remember is that we've been playing games thousands of years before video games were even invented. I often see people treat video games as this magical new thing completely separate from games and that the devs of old didn't quite understand this new invention and we've only understood it more as time passes. When in reality, a lot of these concepts are just as old, if not older, than the concept of language itself.

I think thats its funny that as a guy as young as I am I can recognize the flaws that have become standards in the design of modern gaming, and recgonizing that a good chunk of retro games, especially a huge portion of arcade games, have the key at least to some kind of degree. Ive found that I prefer retro games or indie titles that have that aspect of game design in quality retro and arcade titles, instead of FPS/generic RPG open world loot box extravaganza.

I remember installing the Neogeo and CPS2 emulator on my PSP. I ran through most of their libraries in less time than it would take to play a modern game. Mostly, not a single second of gameplay was bloated. The best thing about arcades, especially with the advent of emulators, is that they dont waste your time.

Arcade design is not dead, it is just called Mini Games nowadays!

I agree with your sentiment about classic arcade games being more fun than most modern games, but I disagree with the conclusions you're making. On a point by point basis: 1 - Difficulty Curve Is Gone - Wholly accurate, but it's a misattribution to claim that arcade games "perfected" difficulty. First off, Arcade games were designed foremost to keep the line of people moving in order to maximize profit. I would say console and PC games perfected difficulty curves better than Arcades for this reason alone, as once you bought the game, they had no incentive to keep you pumping quarters in or to move on to the next player. The term "quarter-muncher" exists for a reason, and it's a term that originated during the peak of the arcades in the 80's. 2 - Market Caters to Unskilled Players - True, however, arcades equally cater to unskilled players by allowing as many continues as you have money to dump into them, meaning anyone of even the lowest skill level can complete the game, given enough time and money, which eerily mirrors the Pay 2 Win model of modern games. 3 - Gameplay Density is Gone - This one, I have a major problem with. While it is true that in the 70's and early 80's, video games did used to be much shorter, for RPG's this was not the case at ALL. Even as early as Ultima 1 you had games reaching the 6 or 7 hour mark, and that's 1981. Fast forward only a few years to 1985 and you have Ultima IV being up to 30 hours long, and a few more years, and you have Wizardry 6 clocking in at over 40 hours in length, beating many modern RPG's which you claim to just be empty deserts of content. Using arcades as a scale to measure appropriate game length is also flawed since, again, they were aiming to maximize player-count, not maximize content, which they were sorely lacking in comparison to their console and PC brethren, since you were supposed to be designing games that were about 30 minutes long, with controls and choices that were simple and straight forward. You could not allow players time to explore and develop an impactful story or have complex multi-level game mechanics since you had people tapping their feet, waiting in line to be next up to play. 4 - The Arcade Allowed Innovation - Of all your points, this one I have the biggest problem with. Arcades were STIFLING for creativity, both specifically because of their limited gameplay mechanics in order to be as approachable as possible, limited gameplay length in order to rotate out the most skilled/money-laden players, and the constant need to be as punishing as possible to arrest progress for the player, and lastly, limited genre, since you would never see true RPG's or adventure games in the arcade. The closest to an Adventure Game you would find in arcades was Dragon's Lair, which was actually an Interactive Film, and the originator of the often looked-down-upon mechanic of "QTE's". Your comparison of Dark Souls gameplay originating in the arcades is also eye-raising, to say the least. I think Karateka has more in common with Dark Souls than any of the examples you cited, and it is among the earliest examples, and it first came out on the Apple II. I'm not saying arcades didn't innovate, but their innovation was somwhat isolated. Defender for example was hugely influential, but like-wise, Zork was even more influential, arguably, and would have been impossible to do in arcades. 5 - We've Lost Good Scoring Systems - Scoring was abandoned for multiple reasons. One of the reasons DOOM abandoned scoring was actually because of realism, as the "arcadey" aspect of simply trying to achieve as many points as possible was seen as contradicting to the tone of the game. I think a lot of developers chose to slowly move away from point-based gameplay because it trivialized player actions by incentivizing nonsensical strategies only to game the system for the highest amount of points. Although, technically, scoring has kind of merely changed in nature overall. I could argue that scoring simply transformed into the Achievement system, where now instead of comparing scores, you compare achievements, which can then be compared to all other players on the platform and how many of them have completed said achievements. Unfortunately, a lot of achievements in games nowadays equates to simply progressing through the game normally, and not actually achieving anything of real merit. So in that sense, you have a good point. Point systems/achievement systems could be done much better. 6 - Timers Need To Make A Comeback - Timers have - no pun intended - A time and a place to exist. They can be inserted into games at key points to increase the intensity of a situation or to emphasize something that needs completion, but overall, timers should not be inserted whole-sale into every game, and especially not become the entire basis of the overall game, unless that is a specific stylistic choice that has significance to the plot, because...Timers. Are. Annoying. Imagine if Breath of the Wild had a timer, so now instead of exploring the world and figuring out all the puzzles within it, now your time within the game world is limited and you need to act quickly in order to beat the game within a specific span of time, all to simply artificially force the player to replay the game to experience other parts of the game world that they could have normally and more enjoyably experienced by not having some god awful timer stressing them to move on to the next area as soon as possible. It would have been hated, and rightfully so, because it has this huge world to explore, and it's actively punishing you for exploring it instead of going the most direct route. And while many people may cite Majora's Mask as a counter-example, that timer reset and the game never ended when the timer ended. It was a groundhog-day game, where there technically was no timer, but instead a mechanic that complimented the unique story-telling aspect of the game, where once you "ran out of time", the game didn't end. I can think of a plethora of other action games where timers would never work, games like Ghost Recon, Diablo 2, STALKER, Dark Souls, Jedi: Fallen Order, and so on. 7 - Force Players To Engage - They are already engaged if they are playing the game in the first place. If I bought the game, there's no reason the developer should be "pushing" me to finish it in a certain amount of time, unless a specific section of the game requires it. The only reason that mechanic exists is to encourage players to make heavy risks which in turn results in them inevitably taking damage, in order to "quarter-munch" them. Again, reciprocating what I said in the previous paragraph, if a game has a specific section that forces you to act in a certain way or within a specific time frame, as long as it is justified in-game due to the circumstances, then it is understandable. Even if it is understandable though, that does not mean it still cannot be obnoxious. Imagine how much less fun Half-Life would be if you had a timer in the bottom corner of the screen constantly ticking away, and ironically that game has more than enough of a justification for including one, but it doesn't. Because Valve are genius developers that know what they're doing, and they know that including a timer in their game would completely screw over the player and the game world they created, and pull the player out of the immersive field they were in. They were intelligent in how they created specific sections of the game that incentivize the player to move forward, at key intervals, such as the first headcrab you encounter before you have any weapons, the sniper section, the moment you get topside and are constantly being assaulted. But then those sections end, and you go back to slowly making your way through the facility, perfectly punctuating the high-octane moments with more atmospheric segments. They compliment each other, which is what gameplay needs. It doesn't need some random NPC to pop out of the side of the screen to stupidly throw bombs at you for no reason. It needs internal justification, and even then, only periodically at best. What I believe is truly the reason for games becoming less fun is the same exact reasoning behind why movies have become less entertaining - They are all appealing to streamlined corporate formulas. Publishers are no longer letting studios develop the games they want to make, or letting them take risks, which is why all of the interesting games are nearly all indie titles nowadays. If you want to fix video games, it's the same solution as fixing movies; lessen corporate oversight.

I released a $3 racing arcade game for the Xbox and on my KZfaq trailer someone commented "imagine boasting about 3 tracks" which showed to me that there are a ton of gamers that expect games to hold a higher price with "more" content. I put more in quotes because those three tracks are incredibly dense in terms of design. Could have separated each of those tracks into three different tracks but instead I decided to have an easy, medium, and hard difficulty within those tracks with the track getting harder as it progressed. Though I did bend to the pressure and made the game easier in its first patch because too many people were having trouble with it. The people that stuck with it and progressed loved the difficulty. So it was a bit of a tough choice because you had some people that absolutely loved it but a whole lot of people that found it too hard. So I patched it. I think arcade game approaches can actually reduce the price of games because you're getting rid of a ton of extra features when you focus on the core gameplay mechanic. I don't have any upgrades or tuning or even manual transmission in my game. It lets me focus on polishing the controls to perfection and spend more time on track design which is core to making a fun racer. And I was able to release it for $3 (I actually gave it away for free, when COVID first hit, for people stuck at home).

It's always better to frustrate your player than to bore them.

Another thing about modern game design that, I swear I feel like I'm the only person on the planet who noticed because I haven't seen anyone talk about it, is that games nowadays are designed almost entirely around social media. Think about it, why do games cater to games journalists so much these days? Because then they would give it high scores, then said high scores would go straight into Metacritic, which then not only the publishers would use that on social media to show how great their game is, but also whoever played said game will celebrate this "achievement" on social media and will use it to deflect any criticisms on the game, therefore only "positivity". And here is where the snowball effect starts going, why do you think games nowadays spend so much money on marketing, more often than not more money on marketing than on the actual game? Because by making their games sound bigger and better than what they actually are, and by stretching information on the new game for as long as possible, each and every time they showcase something new, you bet that's gonna be trending on Twitter, and when it trends multiple times before the thing comes out, you have made your game "the next big thing". There is a ton, and I mean a TON of other examples I could use, but to not make this comment a 64 paragraphs rant on why I hate social media, let's just say arcade game design goes against EVERYTHING that social media revolves around. Journalists hate that style of design, it won't get good review scores, these kinds of games aren't stream-worthy because they're so short and streamers usually play a game once and move on, the mainstream revolves around "muh story" and arcade games usually don't have much of a story. Do I need to go on?

This video should be a requirement for game journalists. You have brilliantly put into a concise video what I have been warning people about and trying to explain to my friends and peers for years regarding the departure from arcades and its impact on the core design of games. Take the way newer games are patched constantly and new content is added, often game breaking, in order to incentivize purchasing it is just one example of many - also the way difficulty is approached (or lack of real challenge) in newer games, etc. Bravo. Excellent essay. I will be sharing this with as many people as I can. I hope you can have an influence on future game devs to keep games actually challenging and, damnit, GOOD!

the "quarter muncher" strategy is exactly the same as the "rental" where the first two levels are polished and forgiving, designed to suck you in, but not let you get too far. then the curve ramps up through the roof. it's by design, and either love it or hate it, but it is a product of its era. ideally though, the rental-era gave us a way to eventually skip those first two levels, with passwords that we'd get after completing the level. ^_^ at least until you can endure the punishing curve and pwn the game like a bawwwws

I hate how everybody criticizes Doom Eternal as "TOO cartooon ARCADEY!" when that's exactly why it's fun. The combat actually has a complex rule set. I thought Doom 2016 was just ok, I beat it in Ultra Hard & died like only twice. I'm constantly getting murdered in Eternal but I just want more of it because the combat loop is so damn fun. It reminds me of the risk vs reward mechanics of Streets of Rage 4 except the entire Doom Eternal campaign is basically SOR4's Survival mode.

I kinda dislike this whole industry- and culture-wide idea that arcade-style experiences are "inferior" to what AAA studios put out in this day and age. Like this whole idea that first- and third-person shooters are "objectively" superior to rail shooters because they provide freedom of movement, ignoring that the player limitations of rail shooters allow for narrative dynamics and flow that one can't really get if they can just freely walk around wherever they want.

Having time limits and timers in games is such an unfairly hated mechanic in games nowadays. I definitely agree that limiting how much a player can do creates more interesting choices and pressure that in the end makes a much more compelling experience at times, rather than just moseying around collecting all the resources and doing all the sidequests. As much as people hate that a game like Persona 3/4/5 is tied to a school calendar, the fact that it is creates unique stories and experiences for each player to make it more personal rather than everyone just doing everything at a leisurely pace.

I might not care for punishing arcade difficulty, but I do care for short, dense games that I can pick up and finish in 2-3 hours. To me, games that hit that note are incredibly rare and immensely replayable. When I finished Sonic Mania I already have the urge to play it again because it's short and to the point. Same with Freedom Planet. This sort of replay value is largely lost and games like that are often criticized for being "too short". All that matters is "time to complete" and playtime only counts so long as you are working on an arbitrary checklist of things to do, be it progression, collectibles or achievements. Why would anyone play a game _for fun_?

Really good analysis, I especially found the observation that developers don't take as many chances on experimentation due to the different business models of arcade vs. home consoles interesting, but honestly most older people playing games are probably just too tired from or invested in their real lives to want to go through the trouble of developing skill in a video game that is brutally difficult in their free time. I mean that's SO many people in general... I'm older and not in that camp, I still like intense, challenging gameplay, but not many people my age would probably feel the same way... And if not that, then probably that younger people, who maybe should have more free time and energy to spare, are just increasingly these days being coddled into total laziness, that they don't even want to bother really developing skill in much of anything, so why would they bother either, when they can just watch their favorite streamer do it instead, or they can get stoned and play the newest AAA movie game that holds their hand the entire time? All this new technology is honestly spoiling the crap out of people, to the point where I think we are even seeing the negative effects of it in people's gaming tendencies...

This is really descriptive of how I approached the game design in my own game. Constantly forcing the player to engage, making scoring high the most mechanically rewarding way to play the game, and making sure that the player is constantly challenged.

Your bit about density is spot on. Games have such tremendous downtime and you might think its your attention span but honestly, like...the downtime is REALLY boring after a while. Long forced tutorials... like get me the hell outa there. I want to open a game and be enthralled for 60 minutes or so, not like... slowly reading text and opening menus. SF6 world tour mode is an example of an absolute abomination. It could have just been a beat'em up mode. Would've costed them less and been more fun.

Gotta agree about the in-game timer. Sometimes people will say that a game like Pikmin is so easy that the timer doesn't matter, but even in that case I think it is great. Instead of pressuring you with failure it acts as a sort of scoring mechanic in itself. You can say, "I got all the parts in 10 days", then try to improve that score by optimizing your runs. In Pikmin 3 it felt rewarding to see 70+ juices lined up by the end of the game and was a big driver in my playthrough. I was going to start Pandora's Tower soon since I heard it has a similar timer mechanic that affects what ending you get. I think it can also end your entire playthrough too, if you aren't careful.

The main reason arcade philosophy doesn't work anymore is the size of the gamecenter. Back then, when you were going to your local arcade for like 2 hours or so, you had access to a limited amount of games. Arcade games needed to be engaging with their running demo, instantly fun, and hugely replayable. That was the key to being successful. You would just come back to the cabinets you liked the most. But now, the gamecenter is enormous. It's like you go to your local arcade for 2 hours but now there are hundreds of cabinets. So you just put one coin into each machine and by the end of your two hours, you still haven't experienced a tenth of the place. When I advice to someone "replay it in this higher difficulty", "aim for S rank", "try the trial mode" or whatever, the answer I'm most confronted with is "I've litterally hundred of new games in my wishlist/backlog I've yet to experience, why would I keep playing that game? I've seen every levels already". In the 90's, you were attracted to the gameplay and challenge and difficulty modes because you would play that game dozens of time. Now when people buy an "arcade-style" game, it's usually for 5 bucks or so thanks to sales, they're looking for a stress-relief disposable adventure between 2 slices of that 60 hours long AAA experience. And that's shaping the market. Basically, everyone is becoming a profesional journalist, with a ton of games to evacuate more than engage with. So instead of having dense short hard highly replayable games where the goal is more to improve your score than necessarily reach the end, we have more and more stories to discover, worlds to explore, basically new things to see. We switched from being mainly actors to mainly spectators. Even bosses are designed as new visual experiences first, so we cut a lot of interactivity with them because it's paramount to let them show everyone of their patterns.

having grown up in the 80s, i definitely recall with great nostalgia those old dark pizza parlors with the animatronic thingies and the dark hallways filled with arcade cabinets. i cant put my finger on it, but there really was a classic arcade aesthetic, that even home consoles couldn't replicate. something about the tinny music and the ultra colorful sprites that was specific to those cpu boards. the only way i can even reexperience that is through a MAME emulator, which i am thankful for.

One thing I always hated when the gaming-sphere was when the design shifted from players adapting to the game to the game adapting to the players. I understand why, from a purely business perspective the former worked back in the day (and the tech to constantly change a game wasn't there either), and now catering to the most amount of people is the more profitable method (well actually whaling is, but assuming the game doesn't go that route). I'm just tired of seeing games I like changed in the name of "accessibility" Also one thing in regards to score, I think a score + time limit would be interesting. Score alone is boring since you can max it out via endurance, time alone is just annoying in most context, but a "How many points can you score in X minutes" are usually rather fun.

13:47 I love karl jobst, love speedrunning… but this is definitely a downright chilly take I see a lot. “Truly the archaic dark age of arcade score attack was dreary where you had to do whatever the game wanted to get a high-number-is-ideal score like in bowling” “Thankfully we live in the halcyon golden age where we have the freedom to…. do whatever the game wants to shave time and get a low-number-is-ideal score like in golf” Corporate needs you to find the differences in player instrumentality in these things… oh wait, they’re the same bang-on, nuanceless, precise, exact, 1:1, thing. >buh guh glitch hunting! Exist in score attack >buh wuh wacky unintended gameplay! Exists in score attack… >wuh tuh, tas community! Exists in score attack >wuh suh streaming! …exists in score attack? Speed running is score attack where the score is the time number instead of the point number and less number is judged better. That is quite exactly the one minor difference with every single aspect of one existing in the other and the level of self challenge and instrumental gameplay being exactly the same. Very few things in life are this clear cut, nuanceless with no room for variety of conclusion but this is. The only subjectives here are which you might prefer doing or watching. 😂

Hey, you should showcase games that follow that old arcade design philosophy.

I think one of the biggest differences with arcade gaming is the ability for a player to try a new game for very little upfront cost versus nowadays having to buy a full game for $70 or whatever. I could see arcade-style games possibly making a comeback under a subscription model; there would just need to be enough consumer demand for it.

Great takes and insights in your videos, as always. Outside of the first few Tony Hawk's Pro Skater games I have rarely seen console games where scoring was the main focus and where the system was intricate, intuitive and well implemented enough to reflect it. Shmups, rhythm games and other indie and doujin games notwithstanding,

Totally agree the gameplay density thing. Im so sick of playing games that has 10min cutscene, 10min walking talking before the actual gameplay.

I feel like the biggest issues with arcade gaming comes from the media and its unfortunate slide into a more promotional approach for frankly mediocre titles. I laughed when i saw when article noting that starfield gets good after 14 hours! They have a major part to play in influencing peoples desire to play, and this usually includes treating arcade style efforts as 'lacking value'. Scoring systems always add value in my opinion.

Loved this video, and allow me to give my take on the subject. I don't think it's just the classic Arcade game that developers have abandoned in modern AAA games, I also think it's the fear to punish the player for playing poorly. To me, games, not just video games, all forms of gaming, are a challenge and/or competition of risk vs reward. A lot of modern video games focus too much on the rewards for that dopamine effect without providing a sense a risk to overcome which would make earning that reward feel all the more satisfying once you earn it. For example, I played A Hat In Time, a 3D Mario-style platformer, for the first time earlier this year, I liked the game despite my issues with it like the poorly done horror level everyone went crazy about. What is interesting about A Hat In Time however is that even though you have checkpoints in the game, what you don't have are extra lives. You can die infinitely in A Hat In Time and still respawn at a checkpoint with nothing lost but small amounts of time and progress. This does not fly in games like Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine, both of which A Hat In Time are clearly inspired by. I've tried talking about this in A Hat In Time's subreddit and got lambasted for it because to them, extra lives are an "outdated" mechanic and would've made the game more frustrating, even though A Hat In Time is arguably easier than it's main source of inspiration. To me, there's no such thing as an outdated mechanic or an outdated game design, not even something like extra lives. Extra lives incentivized you to play smart and carefully because you got punished for not doing so by losing a life, and losing all your lives meant that you had to restart the whole level all over again, which you didn't want. That's what made the Mario games fun; The challenge of navigating the levels and platforms, the risk of falling/dying and losing a life, and the reward of collecting a star/getting to the flag. A Hat In Time has the challenge, it has the reward, but it doesn't have the risk. EDIT: After playing Snatcher's challenges, I'm actually glad AHIT doesn't have extra lives LMAO.

Hey, a Dev here. You know, I gotta say you've encouraged me to add a timer to a game I never thought I would. And thankfully, I got the perfect premise for it too. Lets see how well it goes. Thanks for this video, you've given me quite a lot to chew on.

Excellent video mark. Longer games will always be easier than short ones, and its kinda sad that games with mechanics and difficulty condensed in short gameplay sessions are almost impossible to sell these days.

To add to what I had already said, I think Helldivers 2, despite its shortcomings, perfectly fills the OG classic arcade style of dense gameplay that you've laid out.

I don't agree with the evidence of this video much. It feels more about things that arcade games had that modern games don't and makes that out as the reason arcades/classic genres don't exist. Difficulty: There have been easier and there had been harder arcade and classic games. Using Shovel Knight as an example of a modern retro game that doesn't feel like a classic game because it's too easy feels like a bad example. Admittedly, I'm not good at platformers, but I didn't find Shovel Knight any easier than any of the Super Mario Bros. games or even the later NES Mega Man games. I'd say they are about the same. And there were certainly easier games than that on the NES, SNES and Genesis. Gameplay Density: Gameplay Density is not a universal positive of game design. Just like jokes per minute isn't for a comedy movie. For some genres it works great, for others it doesn't. Golden Tee was a very popular arcade cabinet. It didn't have tons of gameplay density. I think there's a conflation of arcade games wanting to be brief to change out players to game density. And when you move to consoles, that need to have high drop rates isn't there. There was still the desire for 'Nintendo Hard' both as to keep players from renting the game and beating in 3 days and the game isn't very long, so make it really hard so the player gets their money's worth or doesn't find out how short it actually is. Scores: Scores matter less outside of arcades or games that have a definitive conclusion. I don't think I really cared about my score on any home console since the Atari 2600/ Magnavox Odyssey II days. Scores only matter if you have competition to try for higher scores. On home consoles, that largely meant other neighborhood kids. And since most of didn't have the same games unless they were wildly popular or sports games, there was no competition. As for the popular titles like SMB2, SMB 3 or whatever, it more down to who beat it first. Which is just as much a genesis for speed runners. 30-40 years on, I care even less for proving myself to be elite with any video game. I'd be hard-pressed on many games that are made better with timers. It's basically arcade racing games and fighting games. Racing games like Out Run generally allow for more play time (if played to go as fast as possible) with a timer over say a number of crashes early on. And fighting games have to have that timer to deal to people stalling doing anything. I think Kid Chameleon is made lesser with a timer limiting exploring the game. Just as SMB, SMB3 and the Castlevannia games with timers would basically be unchanged. I've beaten Castlevannia II and Metriod a bunch of times, but I never really bothered rushing the experience to get the 'good' ending. I can't fathom how Blaster Master, Bionic Commando or both Legend of Zelda I/II could better with timers. None of them are considered easy titles that I'm aware of. Simply put, arcades went away for the same reason video stores went away. Customers could get product of comparable quality at home without them. And once these games were played largely at home, things needed to keep players paying to play weren't needed. A lot of these classic/retro elements were just evolved away from as there weren't pressures for them to be there anymore. Which is why modern retro genres don't really have them: they are not important to most people that want to recapture the feeling of playing retro games. You can hate the term quarter munchers. But there absolutely were arcade games full of beginner's traps and other elements that required the player to either try again and again or feed another quarter to continue. I don't see anyway that someone could walk into an arcade cold and just play Truxton II on a single credit. They might be able to do that with practice, but guess what? That's how they game munched their quarters. It's not the single credit clear run that possible that makes a game a quarter muncher. It's all the quarters it takes to get there.

Something that's been on my mind for a while now is how I think the "rise of rogue-likes" is because people are missing these sorts of arcade design elements from modern AAA games. Arcade games and rogue-likes/lites share a lot in common: high difficulty, a focus on tossing you into the action ASAP, forcing the player to master the game (the arcade 1cc is similar to clearing a roguelike playthrough), gameplay density, etc. The key difference is that rogue-likes are palatable to modern tastes by recontextualizing "you died, now you have to play the game from scratch" as "you died, now you need to play a game that is 95% similar and you're 1% stronger." And while that change loses some of the magic of arcade design, it does a TON to help modern gamers mentally accept the game design. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the genre someday dude. I think you'd bring such a great perspective. Most YTers covering those games come from a modern AAA mindset

Tetris The Grandmaster is such a beautiful example of how the arcade environment shapes a game. Sega Tetris was super popular, but way too easy. Mihara turned the basic concept into the fantastic game that is TGM1, and soon polished it into the absolute masterpiece of game design that are TGM2+ and TGM3. Tight, focused, relentless, with the most amount of gameplay density you can achieve within a game. I mean, Gameboy and NES Tetris are fine. But while I enjoy these versions of Tetris, TGM turned what used to be fun distractions into one of my favorite games of all time. Without the arcade focus, I don't think they would have turned these games so hardcore and uncompromising! In Tetris DS, you can just keep rotating the pieces, stalling the game until you thought about your next move. In TGM, the pieces lock faster and faster not matter what - forcing you to keep improving. It seems like such a small detail at first, but it changes the entire game.

"gameplay density": great term. I've thought subconsciously about what it was regarding all the down time in newer games, and it's why I've always hated RPGs for their dreadful wasting of my time (if I want a story, then I'd prefer 100% "story density," aka a book or movie) and that phrase is perfect.

I agree with a lot of of your points. Except: Very popular games like MK2 ruined the perception of arcade difficulty because of input reading and blatant cheating.

Dude, I was *just* thinking about how I saw a video of someone saying "many mechanics of Dark Souls have been implemented into modern games, like RE4 remake." and thought, these mechanics have been in fighting games and brawlers since the cabinet age. 3rd Strike had parries, Garou had Just Defend, Last Blade 2 had parries, Samurai Shodown has evasive hops and dodges, King of Fighters has dodge rolls and the list goes on and on. There's nothing like the arcade experience, the games were so well-crafted and exciting. Amazing sound, pixel art, non-stop action and just the simple charm of patternization and hi-score chasing; they're still among my favorites. I was born in '90 when home consoles were becoming the "arcade experience at home" but I still remember being absolutely HYPED to go to the arcade, ANY arcade! You walk in and get dunked in a wall of noise and flashing lights, cabs lined up side-to-side - unmatchable experience. Big cheers!

Absolutely great topic. People are so dismissive of arcade games, I've seen many people claim that arcade genres or arcade game design are bad or outdated. But honestly I gotta defend Shovel Knight a bit lol, I think it's such a success story because it's not mind-numbingly easy or lame

I feel like knowing that you're supposed to 1CC arcade style games instead of just credit feed is important. It wasn't until I was a grown ass man that I'd even heard of the concept. Kinda wish there was a giant sing outside of all arcades that was like ""HELLO PAYPIGS, YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO 1CC THESE. THAT IS HOW YOU BEAT AN ARCADE GAME." (playing for score is always cool, tho, and I like it when arcade owner make a point to write down top scores) I like that youtuber can now spread the message, but it'd be cool if arcade owners and devs made a point to educate consumers as to why they should like arcade games.

Was pretty much agreeing with everything you said up until you brought up Pikmin 2. Pikmin 2 does not have a day limit, but individual days still have timers, and you are are incentivized to clear the game as quickly as possible because of new enemies that respawn and obstacles being rebuilt after several days pass. Additional pressure is placed on you in dungeons, where you can't grow any new Pikmin. The caves are procedurally generated, but the enemies, obstacles, and treasures remain consistent. Having two captains you can switch between opens up a lot more interesting routing options, much moreso than in the first game in my opinion. The problem with Pikmin 2, in my opinion, is that it tries to have it both ways. It has large overworlds to explore, and dungeons, when the whole game probably should've just been the dungeons. The overworlds just end up wasting your time and feel like giant level select menus. If you try playing Pikmin 2 at a faster pace, it's definitely the hardest and most interesting Pikmin game to play. The enemy and boss designs are way more interesting than anything in 1. The problem is that it doesn't give you a reason to do so in the campaign, you have to want to do it for your own enjoyment. The Challenge Mode, where you go through short caves with a limited number of pre-selected pikmin, and a timer, I think is the best showcase of Pikmin 2's gameplay. Pikmin 2 is not quite as elegantly designed as Pikmin 1, but the dungeon crawling aspect I think is something most people overlook. Either they complain it's too casual because you have infinite time (nothing is stopping you from standing around and doing nothing in Mario 64 or RE4 either), or they complain it's too unfair because of the randomization, which if you know what you're doing you can work around easily. I was excited for the concept to be expanded in Pikmin 4, but instead the caves in that game are mostly puzzle-focused instead of combat-focused like in 2. If you want to experience the pinnacle of Pikmin 2 gameplay, I highly recommend checking out the Colossal Caverns mod, which throws every enemy and treasure into a single giant randomized gauntlet.

funnily enough I started caring about scoring because of sonic project 06 lol especially with the shadow campaign where it's alot more fun to play for score due to its more "combat" focus of the original game, now expanded in project 06

I think it's unfair to compare rpgs with arcade games because rpgs were always like that. Fallout 1-2, planescape, baldurs gate 1-2, ultima 7, final fantasy 7. All these games are pretty old and can't be discribed as modern, but they take atleast 20 hours to beat. Good video overall. One of my all time favourite game is dead rising 1 and it's an arcade game by its nature.

This is EXACTLY echoing my own personal theory about why the fun has been seeped from games. Oh my gosh, you hit my own thoughts exactly on the nail. Great video! I'm actually stunned at how people these days measure a game's value on how many hours it will take to reach the end. BALONEY! It's about game DENSITY and REPLAYABILITY!

I agree so much on the second point. I feel like a lot of modern games waste my time. But I have always disliked when media is stretched out. I prefer short stories to novels for similar reasons.

18:40 Sega solved the timer issue with a compromise that worked for both groups back on the Genesis with Sonic. Have a timer that counts how long you take and rewards you for going quickly (thus raising the skill ceiling) while ditching a timer that ends your play (thus lowering the skill floor). It was a perfect example of inclusive gameplay where both skilled and unskilled players were catered to. That is the ideal - not Pikmin 1.

Players feel they are entitled to win the game and the game creators cater to that. There's no longer an enjoyable sense of a mystery of an unbeaten game. Players today won't accept a game over and a failure as one of the possible endings of a game story. Back in the day it was part of the challenge to accept that you might never win the game. Getting a bit further than before was a satisfying achievement even though that was still a long way from the end. Today people expect to win the game and that ruins a lot of the sense of mystery games used to have.

Video games are an *experience*, first and foremost. If everything has to adhere to arcade design, we wouldn't have Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley or Thief: The Dark Project. Besides, wasn't there a point about encouraging creativity in the Xenotilt dev interview? How compatible is arcade design with that?

The new Mario game “finally” got rid of its timer for levels. I saw a KZfaq community post of a youtuber dunking on a dude in the comments who said timers were important and everyone was digging on him. So sad

Don't forget the first building block question of any home console designed video game these days, how much money can we make from this.

my 7 year old son 100%'d Shovel Knight with Plague Knight when he was 6. I think it's a good game and it's fun but it definitely is too easy. He would have me beat bosses for him at first and I would show him that it wasn't that hard, and eventually he just ended up beating the whole thing on his own after starting over. He found all the green coins and unlockables and all that shit. I think it was a great game for him and he loved playing it. but guess what? If he plays an actual retro game like double dragon, ninja gaiden, castlevania, mega man, etc. he doesn't get very far. Gee, I wonder what the reasoning is? He even has a bite of A+ on Super Meat Boy levels. Whaaa???!? isn't that game SUPER HARD ? WHAAAA???? but but but but but but but but it's hard the reviewers told me so and it's brutal and i'm not good at games and oh wait

I think we can also coin the term "content density" for cases where game lasts 100 hours but video game movie lasts only 10 or so

Simple explanation: games nowadays focus too much on graphics/realism but lack good game play or fun!

I've been watching KZfaq videos breaking down video game design since 2008. This is the first video in a decade where I was surprised by your insights and genuinely felt that you were and to articulate thoughts I've been having for years. Appreciate the insights!

I think that there have always been toxic monetisation practices in video game development; the modern equivalent to actually-unfair "quarter munching" gameplay is probably free-to-play mobile games that offer extra tries or faster cooldowns for a fee. On consoles, back in the day, arbitrary difficulty spikes or arcane change-ups in the game mechanics to facilitate the rental market weren't uncommon - and I still believe that there's a place for easier, more approachable games. I can absolutely feel the loss of timers, good scoring systems, and gameplay density though; one of my most played games of all time is NiGHTS into dreams... which by all accounts is pretty easy, but the compelling score ranking system and tight, fun gameplay loop ensure its replayability, and ranking the player based on score *and* completion time offers a good balance between speedrun-type strats and score-attack gameplay. To me, good example of this is Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Heroes, which encourage routing through the levels in a way that achieves the highest score in the shortest completion time rather than just score or time alone. I'm kind of a SEGA-head, but I think that a drop in gameplay density and loss of a timer hurts Bomb Rush Cyberfunk pretty severely in comparison to the original Jet Set Radio; tightly-designed arcade action in an enclosed space offers a more engaging experience than sparse, repetitive open worlds populated by repetitive, boring gameplay objectives. If I lose at JSR, it's because I suck at the core gameplay loop - whereas I've never even died once in BRC, but I didn't finish it because I got bored with the grindy repetition of bland open-world traversal and item hunting. I think there's room on the market for easier games; I'm a big fan of Here Comes Niko, which is a 3D platformer collectathon in which you can't die, but it tightly paces its objectives in enclosed stages rather than diluting them across a massive open world. The traversal is made interesting with movement tech, too, so I guess the conversation there might also include the skill ceiling in the core movement (spam-dashing in Sonic Adventure 1), and stage objective density in discrete levels as opposed to open worlds. Great video, not sure I'm entirely with you on difficulty but your depth of original thought and knowledge on this stuff stands out as always.

So what you are essentially saying is that games needs more personality rather than just a product to satisfy a customer. (It's heavily simplified but I think it's the best way to say it)

It's because while Arcade games were made for kids and young adults to have fun with, modern games are made for dads of broken families. These dads have neither the free time or patience to play challenging games. All they have is the money to keep buying every new game that gets heavily marketed in their face.

Your channel is amazing. I’ve only discovered it a couple of months ago, but already found myself listening to this video on my way back from work. For a long time I had a similar opinion since I preferred retro games over modern stuff but couldn’t tell exactly why that is. I’ve just described as “If the game doesn’t put me into the action in the first 5 minutes (whether it’s because of plot exposition, long tutorials or boring tasks) then I lose interest and put it away”. This explanation puts into words precisely what I hate so much about modern game design.

Please make a video of modern games that are an exception and actually worth playing. Please.

Game density is the main reason i play retro games (arcade, Genesis, snes and PC engine). I love everything about those games starting from the graphics to the non stop action. I enjoy modern games mostly for the technical showcase but tbh i get bored very quickly with side missions, collectibles, upgrades and many hours spent just going from point A to B on the map.

I don't know, at the rate the AAA industry is going, calling something a "quarter eater" might be a compliment compared to the "paycheck eaters" that most popular titles are today. That aside, I think it might be more of games just being able to be made bigger. More room means more filler, more filler means less fine tuned game-play. How we communicate also matters since in the past, most people learned about an arcade being good usually from a friend who liked said game. Now we can see a mass audience of people we don't know review a single game and we normally accept if a game is "good or bad" based on those mass reviews. Then again, the market makes the decision on how a game is made, and if people want easier games, easier games are gonna be made... look at all the Harvest Moon clones on the indie market...

I think arcade design disappeared because the real-world constraints that made it necessary no longer exist. Back then, you had: - Limited storage space - Only physical distribution was possible - Making money via quarters - The need to turn players over so that no one can hog the machine - You can’t play at home Today, you have: - Gigabytes worth of storage - Digital distribution as a norm, incentivizing rushed development - Microtransactions (the only piracy-proof income stream) - Playing at home or on the go, so no need to turn players over quickly The technological landscape is far different from that of the 1980s, and thus game design has changed to reflect that. That said, arcade design is *perfect* for more casual experiences that don’t eat up your time yet still give you a fun experience (Shredder’s Revenge is a good modern example of this.)

Playing shmups like Cotton, Aleste, Thunder Force, and Gunbird, action games like Devil May Cry, or even rhythm games (Bemani and the the Project DIVA games comes to mind) feels like such a breath of fresh air with everything wrong with modern gaming. I like something that I can just pick up and play without having to worry about investing a massive amount of time into something that might not respect it. Would suggest to check out fan translations or the game library of more niche systems (like the Sega Saturn or PC Engine), so cool seeing older games that never really made it state-side. Especially if you don’t deal with culture shock.

Another thing is the importance if a strong 30 second gameplay loop, which a lot of AAA modern games just seem to lack.

As a guy in his 30s who started playing games on my Gameboy Classic, then went on to consoles and ended up being a PC gamer, I can relate to this video. I remember playing Super Ghouls and Ghosts with my neighbor on their SNES and I kid you not games with this kind of difficulty simply aren't being made anymore. The whole market now is oversatisfied with dull, but aggressively monetized experiences which are watered down so much that literally any idiot can beat these modern games. You could say the industry sold out to casual "gamers" while ditching the true hardcore gamers who had established their business in the first place. That's why games aren't fun to us anymore.

Racing games are even sadder. This is because most industries focus on simulation rather than arcade. What's annoying is SEGA, Namco did not announce a new Outrun, Ridge Racer, but personified it. For god's sake, Ridge Racer's rival, Cruis'n returned in 2017, Hot Wheels racing game returned in 2021, and LEGO racing game and F-Zero returned this year. Outrun's rival, Top Gear(Top Racer in Japan) returns next year. Even San Francisco Rush might return. I saw that Digital Eclipse and Atari were interested in San Francisco Rush. If you want to know the problems with racing games, watch Raycevick's I Love Racing Games, They Suck! It's a great video.

I think you're making too many generalizations based on your gaming preferences. In other words, none of the things you're talking about apply to the genres I play. What I mean is that you should look beyond the issues that your beloved genre experiences when talking about gaming as a whole.

Developers had to make a sale on the spot, with competing sights and sounds on the spot while tons of other machines were competing simultaneously in the same room/building. This video has points that are so relevant.👍🏿

The demand for story is also to blame for ruining gameplay. 90% of games should be games, and not overpriced movies. It's ok with 10% story games like in the past.

I do agree with your most of the points in this video but I think there's something that's important to mention for this topic regarding traditional scoring systems and timers: Not all arcade games handled scoring systems/timers in a way that was polished enough to captured the attention of the playerbase, with plenty of scoring systems being overlooked over the 1CC as the more appealing "side-objective" outside of shmups. Actually integrating those 2 aspects into a game in a way that makes it worth the development time is easier said than done. Something like a shmup is simpler to code and to get all assets working than most genres, so there is more development time and resources available for polishing a scoring system while something like DMC might need more time getting all the weapons and moves to work and feel fun to use. By this I don't mean that scoring systems or timers are worthless but that developers might opt for flashier "side objectives" to incentivize skillful play that are easier to implement/more likely to get the attention of most players instead of traditional scoring systems. Using DMC as an example, both Kamiya and Itsuno love or worked on arcade games so it's likely they're aware of the appeal and purpose of a scoring system, however they might have found it more suitable to go for a different take over traditional scoring systems, with something easier to understand and that still accomplishes the main goal of a scoring system (incentivize skilled play, make the player feel good about performing well) while also giving the game its own identity. tl;dr I do agree that games need to incorporate more elements from the arcade era (lives/rewards for avoiding death, higher challenge, some type of incentive to take risks and play better or score) to make modern games less dull but traditional scoring systems/timers might not always make sense for some projects and implementing it in a way that's actually worth the effort is not simple.

it's not just action games that have changed. i was always an RPG fan as a kid, but i cant play the new ones. i cant really articulate why

I grew up with arcade titles since they always managed to scratch my itch for wanting something that was short sweet and full of action. I still play games like The Punisher, NBA Jam and Dodonpachi years later. I find myself enjoying these games even more as I get older.

I don't think either game philosophies are necessarily bad, we're just starved of one side. You do make a case for why some formulas that have been stigmatized as outdated can be great and missing additions, but I can't help but think you're throwing other things under the bus unnecessarily in places, to get that across. Shovel Knight imo is absolutely fine. The gaming philosophies it uses are little different to the likes of, say Gunstar Heroes, in that it has unlimited continues and no time limit. Yet Ive never heard of anyone complain that Gunstar Heroes has neither. I do think the reason scoring fell out of touch between arcade to consoles was because people challenged eachothers scores in the arcades. Having the highest score was a bragging right. But it became much harder to directly compare scores, when you'd have to visit friends houses to be confident that they were being honest. By comparison, if your score was legendary then it would remain in the arcade machine, for others to witness. I do agree that they're a great system and I also don't agree with people that consider it archaic, but I don't think every game needs them. Shmups and auto scrollers, as far as I'm aware never fell out of touch with using the points system; makes sense when their's hardly a point speedrunning those kinds of games. And 24:00, what are you talking about? lol the entire new super mario bros series has timers AND points. I don't think Wonder does, but it's incorrect to say ALL later Mario games. Heck the DK Country series, which is what you're showing footage of during that segment is what many people point to, when they say what they wished modern games were like. I do agree on some points, I just think your views are a bit rigid, no disrespect intended.

This is very well stated, and why I have said for decades that I blame gamers, consumers really, for the death of Arcades, Sega, etc. They never wanted a challenge, or to be pushed out of their comfort zone.

I read that "Easy mode is essential and I shouldn't have to defend it" article and god damn.. .that guy "I can't play souls games because they're so difficult, youre gate keeping and toxic!!!" So don't play them? There's nothing more privileged than thinking you have some unalienable right to be catered by everyone creating games to create games that fit just for you and your needs. There's billion games out there, go play something else. If souls isn't for you, it isn't for you. Accessibility is completely different conversationa bout color blindness, different language options, ability to remap controls, audio cues etc. difficulty is NOT one of those accessibility features. ARGH... self indulged and privileged people, ho think world runs around them make me so angry-

I love JRPGs and Western RPGs but I do not like just how many modern games take those leveling systems to artificially increase playtime in their games that do not need them. Take out the interesting character building and roleplaying, and all you have is a waste of time. Speaking of timers and scoring, I love the original Dead Rising. I recently completed my first “Perfect Run” i.e. best ending and all survivors saved/psychopaths defeated. This series is another example of how future games in the series, while still fun, are missing that secret sauce of mastering the gameplay. Once the timer and scoring are gone, what else is there to make it stand out from other zombie games?

Long, slow games have always existed, especially on PC, and I've always enjoyed them as well as short, intense action games. The problem is that for some reason we just can't have both. People who style themselves as "hardcore gamers" have a meltdown if they have to select the easy option, or if the game demands that you play the game on its own terms and master the mechanics. The problem you are going to run into here is that the majority of people who play video games want an interactive movie. There's no getting around that. Thankfully things aren't like they were in the 360 era and we have indie games catering to more niche tastes. As a side note, I don't know about timers though, man. Has anyone ever run out of time in Super Mario Bros other than that one maze castle that you can just look up the solution for? I think the timer is genre dependent.

DMC is about skill expression not efficiency. People are always gonna find combo videos of doing cool stuff (even if it’s ineffective) more interesting then just doing optimal combos for a fast time. Because of this dmc is never gonna catch on as a popular speed run game outside of dmc1 which is designed around speed

one of the relatively popular things coming from arcade stuff now is rhythm games with their scoring systems, autoscrolling and good gameplay density, they always have something to offer for the players with any level of skill. these games (beat saber, stepmania, osu) are driven by user-created content and deal with the difficulty curve problem by dividing the levels by hardness so that experts can play their expert++ along with newbies playing novice, and though there are some tools like bulletML, shmupmaker or danmakufu, it seems like there's no simple single platform to create/share/sort/rate levels easily and see the scores/replays. to me that look like a nice compromise between classic and modern difficulty and a good way to make an evolving game with a long lasting community, some opportunities for experiments with design, short concentrated game sessions with no saves and appeal to both skilled and newbie players. precision platformers like n++ or super mario maker are close to that model. even for the other genres the user-created content trend is kind of there, with popular long lasting games like minecraft or skyrim seem to be more of a mod/content platform than just a game, so it's easy to imagine something like this for shmups with different leaderboards for different pluggable scoring systems.

It depends on what you use gaming for. I play games to relax, so having some guy tell me “hurr you choose to play your single player game on normal” comes off as insulting to me. Because my hobbies like elsewhere, and I don’t consider gaming a part of my character. Sometimes I just wanna chill and play but in most cases I’d probably rather draw or paint The issue is that people can’t seem to be the change they want in the world anymore Instead of ignoring games they don’t like and buying ones that do - or rather making their own and bringing about change they’d rather demand devs who’re doing just that “making what they want” cater to their tastes in specific But if the current people up there don’t know what they’re doing, it’s up to YOU if you truly know what’s “good gameplay” to step out and show them how it’s done, and inspire your compatriots That’s how the art community works at least, long as you stay the f away from crapholes like X, TikTok and 4chinless

This is a take I've never actually heard before but makes the most sense. Essentially the fact that it was coin-op engendered better game design . More often people take the opposite approach. Honestly when I was a kid we used to think many games from 8 and 16 bit era were 'too hard' but those same games today (so many years later) provide 100 x more a rewarding experience than modern games do. Catering to skilled players is really the better model to go with in game design.

Have you not played dmc1? That games ranking system is literally all about fast times. No one plays dmc 3-5 for efficiency they play for skill expression and freedom, making it more like Ninja Gaiden and Bayonetta and making it about optimization destroys the entire point of the franchise. The fact that Ultrakill wasn’t mentioned at all is absurd