I think this belongs here rather than IMHO, but if it needs to be moved, then move it please
So, dopers that don’t play video games, is there a reason you don’t? Do you find anything particularly frustrating about video games? Gaming dopers, what do you find frustrating with video games?
I’m in my 3rd year of Uni, doing my dissertation on video game violence, frustration and aggressive behaviour, and I need to create a questionnaire around frustration with video games. I just need to gather some ideas about why games may be frustrating, aside from the whole investing time and then losing aspect.
To me, they’re just work. All that learnign of rules and all that pressing of buttons and solving puzzles…And they don’t accomplish anything. I may win the big boss fight or get lots of trophies, (not that I ever have) but that doesn’t get the laundry done or the baby fed or that report read.
And beleive me, my husband has really tried to get me hooked on games. And I do appreciate the ingenuity and skill and articity that goes into many games.
I have a friend who refuses to play MMORPGs because unlike regular games you cant save game and go back and redo something if you die … and there is essentially no pause function. No matter how much we explain to him that even though it is ‘live’ you dont have to participate every single second, you can find a safe spot and go afk or log out as long as you need to, he seems to think he will be missing stuff.
He pretty much stays with stuff like solitaire and mah jong and an occasional FPS like doom.
I assume by ‘video games’ you mean reflex games like first person shooters?
I play chess, bridge, poker, Heroes 3, Civilisation IV and Colonisation.
These are all strategy games, where you have time to make plans and consider both strategy and tactics.
I don’t play them because I don’t really enjoy them. Or rather, I enjoy them until they a) become difficult or b) more than about 30 minutes have elapsed.
I have a PS3 but I only have Guitar Hero (got bored after I couldn’t achieve get through anything on Hard) and SingStar which is a social thing.
That, and they are often a solitary timewaster, and I find the experience of non-human interaction kind of depressing.
In other words, I would rather put the effort required to get good at any of these things into real-life skills, like running, playing the real guitar, surfing or scuba (or as too often happens, posting on messageboards…).
I don’t play video games mostly because I get scared when I have to fight bosses or monsters.
I play online RPG though.
I think there do exist video games I could enjoy but at that point my leisure time is already full with other stuff to do, game related or not.
I am a gamer and my husband is not. He’s very intrigued by gaming, and he keeps trying to get into one, but it never quite takes. At most, he’ll play for a couple hours, have fun, but then never come back to it.
As far as I can figure out, there’s a few things that come into play here. First off, he’s not of the gaming generation - he grew up before video games were invented, much less common, so he’s just not wired to them the way younger people are. The other thing he complains about is the time it takes to learn how to play. And really, when I watch him, I see what he means. I’ve played games forever, and controls have more or less stabilized, so it’s no big deal for me to figure out that the space bar means jump, ctrl means crouch, or whatever. He’s got to look up/memorize every single keystroke, not just the few that are different/new for whatever particular game he’s playing.
That said, he keeps WANTING to get into gaming, and keeps trying out new games. Someday one might stick, but it hasn’t yet. Given his personality, I worry a little bit that when one does catch his fancy, he’ll be completely enthralled, and turn into one of those people who doesn’t bathe because he’s got to raid every waking hour or whatever. That’ll be… interesting.
Thanks for the help so far, it’s a lot of food for thought.
Anybody noticed that when people who’re new to console gaming use an analogue controller, they have problems moving their thumbs independently and push both sticks the same direction?
Personally, my biggest frustration is games which require a lot of time to reload and don’t have an autosave feature. I am currently playing Gothic 3, which requires at least one minute to load a saved game even if it’s loading the same area of the map (possibly because the map is seamless and so the whole thing is always loaded).
It does not autosave even after a big mission, so if I forget to do it myself I often find myself very close to throwing my shiny new laptop out the window (particularly if I’ve just killed some uber-beast and while I do my happy dance some stupid little critter runs up behind me and kills me because I’ve got no health left).
My other big frustration is games where the last restart point/save station before a big battle/difficult sequence is a long way from the actual battle, meaning every time you die you have to trudge through 10 minutes of empty scenery to get back to it.
Same here. While I don’t play strategy games exclusively, I really appreciate taking my own time, doing things my way, and smelling the roses. There’s nothing that frustrates me more (and sucks all the fun out of my gaming) than timed gameplay. Whether it’s “you only have X minutes to complete the level !”, “if you don’t do X in less than Y time you don’t get the bonus” or whatever. Turns the game from stress reliever to stress inducer.
However, since the OP’s about the relation between video games and violent behavior, consider this : long, inane and more importantly unskippable cutscene, right before a difficult segment that you’ll have to do over again and again before you get it right. Remember the siege of the isolated house in Resident Evil 4.
In the words of 4chan : FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU…
The single most frustrating thing I find about games is that everytime I play one, I notice things that could have made the game better, but wasn’t put into it for one reason or another. Such speculation, some would call second-guessing, lend itself easier to games than other mediums because of the interactivity of gaming.
Frustrations come from different sources depending on the type of game. In an action game where the flow is quick and any hesitation means death usually, frustration can come from the bad controls, inferior programming, slow-downs, pauses, or just plain difficulty. In a First Person Shooter such as the Doom series or Half Life, the most frustrating things are ones that hinder my control over the character.
In Adventure games, it may be that the puzzles are non-intuitive. Sometimes you can’t figure out what the hell you need to do to advance the plot. You may have to put a rubber band over a duck and shoot it across the chasm while tying a rope around his neck, or just find the hidden switch that activates a bridge. You don’t know, and frustrating Adventure games are ones that give you no clue.
RPGs may be too hard, though the genre’s steadily getting easier since its breakout with Final Fantasy VII. The complaint about these types of games is usually the random battles: either too many, or the fact that they actually exist.
Games are often repetitive as well, and this is across a wide variety of genres. Some games are basic hack-and-slash types that offer no real difference between levels except bigger dungeons and harder enemies. Other repetition is located in its graphics. Everything looks the same, enemies dress alike and behave as if they were twins. Once you figure out their pattern, there’s no challenge.
Racing games often cheat. Lead cars will slow down when you’re behind, and catch up when you’re ahead. This kind of artificial difficulty rankles me and I hate racing games because of it.
Then there’s the whole different world of playing against other people. Many times, they cheat, but you don’t know that. They just seem really really really good. I won’t play Counterstrike because of all the rampant cheating, and MMO’s are filled with people stealing, looting, camping, or farming items just so they can sell it in real life to profit their illegal employers.
But back to my original point, games are still kind of seen today as kid’s stuff, so they are not accorded the respect they deserve. It may be that many developers simply don’t have the time or money to put out something not wrought with glitches or shitty gameplay. That frustrates me a lot. Of course I cannot know their situation, but having been a quality assurance tester, I know that sometimes programmers are reluctant to fix things because of laziness or whatever. Games, above everything else, should be fun, and it seems like a travesty when a good concept is ruined by ineptness. I guess it frustrates me that people don’t take the time or effort to make sure a game doesn’t at least have obvious glitches, game-wrecking artificial intelligence, or graphics that look like vomit. Its not that hard
Thanks for that YogSosoth, I’ve certainly got a lot of ideas to play around with now. I get a lot of the ‘why couldn’t you have made it this way’ frustration too, thanks for bringing it back to my attention, I’d have probably overlooked it otherwise.
I’ll add my agreement on the “Timed levels/sections” frustration.
Besides the use of dreaded “Save Points”, I’m also not especially fond of games that look like they’re an “open world” but aren’t- you can’t really wander off from the “path” the developers have decided you should take.
Also, perhaps my biggest frustration (not already excellently covered by YogSosoth is the fact that PCs are not the “dominant” platform anymore, and PC games appear to increasingly be ports of Xbox 360 or PS3 games; or- if they aren’t “ports”- they’ve been “nobbled” in some way to make it easier for the publishers to release a multi-platform title.
Related to this is “Lack Of Originality”. Pretty much every. single. WWII game will be about American (or Russian, for some reason) soldiers fighting Nazis (or, in one or two cases, the Japanese). You’d almost never know that Britain & The Empire/Commonwealth were involved in any way beyond lending a couple of fighter planes at the start and maybe a commando or two later on.
It’d be nice to see some “high profile” games from a British (or Commonwealth) perspective, using British WWII equipment, about the Far Eastern or North African campaigns. (Yes, I know Call of Duty 2 has some levels in North Africa).
And for that matter, how about some different wars? WWI, for example. Some of the 19th Century “Little Wars” most of the European powers got involved in, for example.
Well, I’m a gaming addict. No, I’m not recovering. I play just about every type of game: FPS, RTS, RPG strategy, driving, sports, god games, arcade. The works, basically.
I get frustrated by things like poor camera controls, or bad autosave locations just like everyone else. Minutia that make the difference between unplayable and unstoppable.
But my number one key frustration is not being treated like a thinking adult. It seems to me that huge amounts of effort are focused on making game pretty. But the vast majority of games have huge plot failings. I don’t mind suspending disbelief, as it were. However, there are times where some games don’t even pretend they’re trying to make any sort of coherent sense. Alternatively, they scribble down some half baked rip off of a handful of prototypical plot arcs: girlfriend/mother kidnapped, alien invasion for no apparent reason, etc. etc. I realize that every story has been done before, but that doesn’t mean they should make the effort to flesh out the game more to make the story into it’s own version.
Combine that with the dialog… <shudder>… it must have been written by an intern who’d never managed to actually have a conversation with a human being, let alone form any sort of romantic relationship.
Basically, I want games with some sense of realism not just in the environment, but in the plot, dialog and relationships (both romantic and non). Or if realism isn’t the right word… perhaps authenticity or immersion. Make it make SENSE.
One particular frustrating thing about video games is the arena of anti-piracy measures. Some DVD drives won’t work wit SecureROM and some people are appalled at developers installing unwanted software into their system.
Another frustrating aspect, especially for online MMO, is the relationship with either your guild, or lack therefore. For example, Lord of the Rings Online organize a ‘level rush’ contest, where the guild who manages to get a total number of levels (among its member) from a certain period would get a prize. The guild I was with asked us to partake in it. Some didn’t. They went on playing their level 60 character. The guild leader kept pestering them to start a new toon. In the end there was a fallout.
And on unmoderated chat channels, you sometimes will come across situations like on the Dope. People discussing politics, religion, why PvP sucks (or why PvE sucks), complaining about the game’s difficulty (which results in ‘elite players’ saying 'nah the game is too easy). I was on a channel when a couple of people were inspecting one guy’s gears and was decrying him for wearing noob gear. I think the person in question tipped off a GM because after a while those people shut up.
A favourite game of yours being bashed because it really sucks, or misunderstood can cause some real-live tension. Witness the crash of Hellgate London - despite the game being a complete can of garbage, there are still people defending to its dying death, and when it is dying, blame all the nay-sayers for dragging it down. The arguments between those people is uglier than what I have saw in the Pit (check out http://www.flagshipped.com)
For me, a game rarely puts me in a sour mood. I had to be in a sour mood first for a game to make my day even more rotten. The most negative reaction I ever got out from a game is boredom.
Poor controls. This is especially bad as I mostly play PC games and if it’s a port from consoles to PCs nine times out of ten it’s not set up right. Anything that makes it harder for what I want to happen (and I know should be happening) is instant annoyance. My wife who’s a non-gamer struggles with almost all game controls. It took me forever to train her how to use the camera/movement system of World of Warcraft of all things and she still doesn’t use it very well. I think that’s probably her biggest barrier of entry into the gaming world. She plays old console games just fine however.
Flow breaking. Say I’ve been playing a stealth game then out of nowhere it turns into an action segment. Sure they’ve been teaching me 99% of the game to hide in shadows pick my moment and strike. Now I’m running and gunning for just one level before I’m back to sticking to the walls (or the opposite run and gun games that suddenly turn stealth). It’s frustrating to have the game mechanics suddenly change. I can see what the designers are going for usually trying to give you a different experience but it’s always badly done.
Bugs. A good example of this is Crysis. I recently decided to reply with all the graphics settings maxed (as I finally have a computer to play at those settings) and about halfway through the game would just randomly crash on me. Full computer reboot. As the game progressed the crashes came more and more often. Ask me if this didn’t have me nearly screaming at my computer. It often makes you feel the designers just didn’t give a shit about making your gameplay polished just good enough to get it out of the door.
More mild irritation than frustration but any game that forces you to waste time earning gold/powerups/health/exp etc for an undue amount of time. It’s a fine line though as some games I don’t mind a little of that but at a certain point you just know it’s an artificial way to boost game time and isn’t adding to the challenge or fun of the game.
Cheating AI. Mostly with strategy games if I don’t have an ability or power the AI shouldn’t have it either (at least on normal difficulty) it’s just a lazy way to hide you can’t make your AI smart enough to give a player a challenge. It’s not too bad if it’s not unreasonable and it isn’t obvious but when you see the comp doing something you know can’t be done at all in the rules and it’s done solely to keep you from steamrolling it it’s annoying.
I’ve loved video games every since playing Pong on my first Atari.
For me, I’ve always held a fascination with virtual reality. The sight of computer generated animation, from it’s polygonal birth to the current monsters-realistically-eating-New-York-City splendor, will automatically fill me with a sense of … something (awe? joy? entertainment? Idunno … I just can’t get enough of it).
So, primarily, that’s what fascinates me about video games. I love the escapism. Which, is a bit of stilted step for me, because I hate video games that aren’t based in some sort of reality; I will give a pass to Comic Book Hero type games, mostly, but orcs and aliens and zombie headed mutants, and all that … no thanks.
That being said … it is a rare video game that I’m actually good at. And playing them grates on me sometimes because of my lack of skill. For example, *Call of Duty: World at War. *Brilliant game! The online play is top-effing-notch. But my usual stats for a round of play is somewhere around the 2 kills / 15 deaths range. I watch my daughter (a video game phenom) play and she’s like Rambo with road-rage. It’s a thing of beauty to watch her mow down noobs. I can only generally fight my way through 3 or 4 rounds before I get too frustrated at being the designated corpse. But I still love the way it looks.
And I know as technology grows, my love of video games will as well.
I can remember playing Road Rash (motorcycle racing) on Sega Genesis back in the early 90’s. Graphically, it was as primitive as you might imagine. But there was a fairly funny crash animation that we enjoyed and the track – which was totally linear – occasionally featured a crossroad, just by way of decoration, mostly. I can remember having conversations with my fellow Vidiots about how cool it would be if you could actually turn down that crossroad, and there was a whole town to drive through, or a different road to go down, and it wouldn’t it be cool if when you crashed, it wasn’t that same animation all the time, or how about if you could get off your bike and go steal a car or something … wouldn’t that all be cool?
And now I play GTA IV and all is right in the world.
I will be 97 years old playing video games on my death bed.
Video games are all about control, to some extent or the other. The idea that you can do things through your character that you couldn’t do otherwise. So when the game decides to spin the roulette wheel, that’s frustrating by itself. But when it’s game relevant–well, that’s when the fury comes.
I’ve always thought that if I needed some instant rage, all I’d need to do is fire up a Mario Party game and play a few turns.
I know there are British campaigns in the first two CoD games- and very welcome they were indeed!
My point is that, out of every computer game made about WWII (and there a lot of them, let’s be fair here), there are two “serious” well-known FPSes (leaving flight sims out of this) in which you play exclusively as British soldiers (Hidden & Dangerous 1 & 2), two with British campaigns (Call of Duty 1 and 2), one with a sort of British campaign Battlefield 1942), and that’s about it. Even the recent Call of Duty: World At War, instead of being an awesome chance to play as an Australian soldier in New Guinea or a French Maquis or something different, was US Soldiers in the Pacific Theatre and- again- Russian soldiers fighting the Germans.
What I’m saying is that I get frustrated seeing technology being put to use to make technologically impressive WWII games about US soldiers in Europe after D-Day. And yes, I realise that most gamers are American so that’s where the market is. I’m just saying, I think it’s time for something different in the WWII FPS market.
Oh, another frustration: When subtitles don’t match up to the audio. Also, staggered release dates (ie, game is out in one market on Date A, doesn’t show up elsewhere until Date B, months later, if at all) is not fun. I know Tropico 3 is due to be released in the US next week (or maybe the week after) but no-one here has even heard of it and there’s no release date available.
