I’m not quite sure what I think about the debate over “games are dumbed down for consoles”. I think games are made more accessible, certainly have their controls simplified, but I’m not convinced this means the game necessarily becomes more dumb. It seems that Bethesda agree, and while there’s always a sizeable baying crowd who will squeal, “Oblivion was rubbish because it was also on 360!/wasn’t identical to Morrowind!/I didn’t play it but I love having an opinion!” they have rather proven they can make a dumbed-up game for multiple formats.
Bethesda’s Emil Pagliarulo, project lead on FO3, certainly agrees, after the jump.
This is the man who wrote the Dark Brotherhood storyline for Oblivion, and designed the rooftop sequence in Thief 2. Officially liked. Talking to Edge yesterday, he explained,
“I think we’re starting to find that there is a market for [hardcore 'PC RPGs' on consoles]. People like myself and some people that work here actually grew up as hardcore PC guys, and now we’re older, we have kids, we don’t have that much time, so we’ve transitioned. We’re console players now. But we still have those PC game sensibilities. Those are the games we like. So I think BioShock has a little bit of that too. You can definitely feel the old System Shock roots in that game. So hopefully there’s a trend there.”
In fact, Pagliarulo goes a bit further. His current concern is that Fallout 3 is too complicated for consoles.
“I look at Fallout when I play it every day, and I sometimes think that there’s a lot of old-school hardcore PC stuff in there too, and part of me thinks, ‘God, is this too inaccessible for console players?’”
I wonder if this thought is any longer valid. Perhaps there was a time when the console player could be characterised as the grunting buffoon, wanting only to deck out his simulated Mazda with blue LEDs… wait, no, that’s not true at all! This sub-section of console gamers seems to drag the rest down with them. Sure, without the million buttons of a mouse and keyboard a lot of options aren’t open to you, but have console games ever been inherently stupid? I’d say not.
What I suspect he means is, “Is this too inaccessible for the less hardcore players, thus decreasing our potential market?” Which is fair enough, but not quite the same.
So for goodness sake, settle this one. Is there really a giant divide between the PC gamer and the console owner? Are console games necessarily dumbed down? Meanwhile, you can read the rest of the interview with Pagliarulo here, where he discusses my favourite subject: narrative in games.
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@Stick Ah, the method of picking at the single most fragile and unfounded complaint about a game, being sarcastic about it and then declaring yourself superior and all complaints null and void. How..useful.. and about as valid as damning games for a single reason.
LOL, just kidding. My name’s Tom.
Made you look though.
@ MUzman. Hmm, okay, I guess I take the point about Thief 2. I tend to lump that in with Thief 1 for whatever reason, but you’re right, Thief 1 was a far worse offender on the “monster” front.
I see what you’re saying but I simply don’t agree. A very minor loading screen didn’t, for me, take away any of the immersion from the levels. That pirate’s mansion level in Thief DS is the perfect example of what I mean by the “Thief Goes Into Big House And Steals Stuff” thing – I honestly don’t remember noticing the loading at all.
Thief 2 had some classic levels, and some very big levels too, but I personally don’t think that warehouse level, for instance, would have been completely shite if it had had one little loading screen at one point. Maybe i’m just not critical enough!
Anyway, I have thief 2 right here, so now you’ve convinced me to go and give it another go, as Thief DS is the only one I think I actually managed to complete and the only one i’ve played for many years. It still doesn’t have the city hub tho!
What you were saying about the “incidental” detail, i.e. stuff that adds to the gameworld without being necessary, is something I noticed missing from DX2 (another game I loved) more than I did from T:DS. As much as I think DX2 gets completely pissed on unfairly, that is one area where DX was by far the better game – the newspapers lying around, the diary entries, the fact all of this was stored in your log for you to read whenever. DX2 didn’t even let you key in codes into doors – sounds small but a real problem for me!
p.s. in general I agree with your sentiments. It’s just that i’m a horrible T:DS fanboy and can’t help myself.
Oh look, it’s really just a case of the more contiguous and larger a level the more options for emergence you have, I think. I don’t reckon it’s an immersion deal breaker to have load zones, it’s just an unfortunate step down (cruel irony; the Thief series, at the forefront of larger open ended game spaces has to scale down to get on consoles, thanks to engine trouble, when everyone else is going big). I quite like the game, I just wish there were more of it really.
I don’t know if anyone mentioned the WII controller? If it were more responsive it would do away with most input problems that are inherent to the gamepad (it supplies with pointing and joystick mechanism). Honestly, everyone leaning towards even mentioning ‘accessibility’ when it comes down to gamepads really makes me cringe, it seems everyone shares the holy opinion that gamepads are easy but surprise, they’re not.
I suggest we start talking about the difference between James Joyce and Dan Brown, then hope we can still sleep at night.
First, there’s the ancient and obvious observation that PCs and consoles excel at different types of game. If precision is required, make it on a PC; if you need several players to share a screen, make it on a console. What’s left is the common ground between the two platforms.
Primarily a console player myself, my impression of comparable titles across the different platforms is: a console game is not dumbed down but streamlined. The more successful console games have a single broad gameplay area that they focus on, while the play of a PC game is more heterogeneous. Bioshock does not lack a sophisticated inventory system because console gamers cannot fathom the concept of You’re holding too much stuff, but because having to throw away any weapon distracts from the central gameplay element of being able to interact with the environment in a multitude of ways at any time. If the game had fully embraced console-ness (which, as a first-person shooter, it arguably should not have anyway, as an analog stick is a horribly poor substitute for a mouse), then you wouldn’t have even been able to unequip plasmids.
Then again, my favorite kind of gaming platform is the handheld, and how much can I know about it, with my digital directional input and my eight buttons including the power and volume control?
What consoles bring are standard control devices which allow for (pseudo)analogue control, and… that’s about it (the predictability and therefore potential stability of the console platform is beside this point; the only ‘dumbing down’ that causes appear to be in the skulls of Assassin’s Creed developers, if those PC stats are what they’re asking to run an ex-PS3 game…) What’s analogue good for? All I can think of is fighting games and racers. Lucky for me, I don’t give a hurtling shit about racing titles, although I am fretting about how the hell I’m gonna play Streetfighter 4 when I don’t have a console or the vast disposal resources for arcade patronage, but anyway — fighting games and racers. Can anyone think of anything else a controller can do better than keyboard & mouse? This creates an interface bottleneck, where PC users are left dealing with unintuitive controller compromises (see Splinter Cell DA, with its nonsense directional inventory ‘thing’ as opposed to the excellent Splinter Cell CT, which LISTS your goddamn stuff and lets you choose it pretty much like you would in any computer interface.) Speaking of lists, there’s also the traditional low resolution of TVs, which discourage large bodies of text (I don’t know what penetration hi-def TV has yet, but if we pretend it’s a prerequisite for modern gaming, then whoo, the setup price suddenly DWARFS PC gaming!). Some might say, “Hey, I don’t wanna READ man, if you have to READ, that’s BAD DESIGN!” or somesuch nonsense, but I put it to you that text can be pretty goddamn useful (see STALKER; were they really gonna voice ALL that dialogue? Hello extra DVD…)
(I’m going to click ‘post’ at this point and then edit it, because this board has no damn ‘preview’ function)
Dumbing down is related to the consoles but it is not caused by them. I’d say dumbing down is caused by two factors. First, developers are afraid of making games without immediate appeal due to games getting more and more appeal, and as such, try to make their games as easy as possible. Second, developers don’t trust console gamers. They fit them within a “one size fits all” category, that is the minimum common denominator crowd.
Essentially, I have this to say to developers who migrated from PC to console: Why don’t you grow a pair? There are a bunch of console only games that are deeper and more hardcore than all the Bethesda and Bioware console RPGs put together, and they seem to be successful.
For the record, of all the console/PC games I’ve played: Dumbed down: Bioshock, Morrowind(this one is the worst, the step down from Daggerfall is staggering), KOTOR, Oblivion, Jade Empire.
Not dumbed down: GTA3, Vice City, San Andreas, KOTOR2 (compared to KOTOR, it wasn’t dumbed down)
one might argue that it’s not really hard to make a deeper game than all of Bioware’s and BethSoft’s ill-done console misadventures… ;)
OH FOR CHRIST’S FUCKING SAKE, this place needs a preview button… Oy, the ONE time I don’t copy my whole post before hitting send… anyway. As I was saying:
‘Dumbing down’ is no comment on people who own consoles (after all, it’s not like there’s no overlap here) — it’s a comment on the sad truth of what happens to some — no, scratch that, most games when devs must/opt to ‘develop down’ to a system with outdated specs and an immensely cruder input device.
(edit: Hey, look, I said “Christ’s sake” and I then I went ‘oy’, which everyone says is a Jewish noise for some reason! Zany stuff.)
fyi: people say it’s a “jewish noise” because it’s yiddish.
Bioshock does not lack a sophisticated inventory system because console gamers cannot fathom the concept of You’re holding too much stuff, but because having to throw away any weapon distracts from the central gameplay element of being able to interact with the environment in a multitude of ways at any time.
i sort of see your point (i think of it more as a holdover from earlier fps games and their unending backpacks) but some would point to this as an ideal example of “dumbing down” – console audiences not wanting to make difficult choices with actual consequences. (call it the “100% completion zombie effect” or something along those lines)
Of course, I don’t understand why there aren’t more turn-based games on consoles. Handhelds are awash in them (because you can look away from a handheld at any time) so it’s clearly not a matter of interface or depth. I always thought that turn-based games were more accessible.
I’m actually hooked on Thief 3 at the moment, a mere 3 years after I bought it and 9 years since I first bought (and never got hooked on) Thief Gold. Go figure.
“Look at the loading times every 20 meters.”
20 meters is a bit of an exaggeration, and not really a problem if you’re sneaking around slowly. More of a bother in Deus Ex: IW, admittedly.
“Look at climbing gloves vs rope arrows.”
I’m not sure why this is dumbing down… from a real-life point of view, climbing gloves – where the wearer is spreadeagled against a wall – seems far more stealthy to me than shinning up a rope.
P.
As long as they release the full modding tools with with Fallout 3 as they did with Oblivion and Morrowind, I’m quite confident the game will be un-consolized fairly quickly.
It’s interesting to note that most of the examples of games that have been “dumbed down” are sequels to titles that came out when the overall market for games, particularly PC games, was much smaller.
Games are being simplified, streamlined, call it what you will, but the platform is not the reason. The target audience is the reason. BioShock must have cost at a minimum double what System Shock 2 did, so it needs to reach at least double the audience. Therefore the barriers to entry must be mitigated as much as possible, that leads to a smaller cast of characters a reduced research mechanic and various other elements.
BioShock might well be dumbed down from System Shock 2, but compare it to something like Gears of War. BioShock is easily a much deeper game than Epic’s “magnum opus”.
Another thing to consider is the sheer wealth on content and depth in GTA IV, how could that be taken as an example of consoles being responsible for dumbing down gaming?
dhex: Indeed; I seemed to develop some sort of grumpy parallel Yiddish in my youth. Maybe I’m the Messiah!
Actually, yeah, as I was saying before my original post was lost in the ether, I was surprised that I enjoyed Thief 3 so much, after despising DXIW; although both games’ cities suffered from the same “Logan’s Run” problem (’In the future… we will all live… IN WHAT APPEAR TO BE SHOPPING MALLS!!!!’), Thief 3 wasn’t compromised all that badly otherwise. I think its nature allows it to weather those limitations much more readily than DX, where tiny maps (as just one of a fistful of vandalisms) negate the core appeal of the game.
I’d say ten times as much is a conservative estimate.
Oh yeah clearly, but I was trying to make a point. BioShock needed to sell several orders of magnitude more copies that System Shock 2 did in order to break even, so of course it had to be more accessible. Even if it had never been on the Xbox 360 that basic math wouldn’t change.
The more expensive games get the less complicated they generally become (Unless you’re Rockstar North apparently, but even then GTA IV is more scripted that previous GTA titles).
Hopefully games like BioShock will introduce more gamers to such levels of complexity so future titles can start to include the depth of mechanics that System Shock 2 did as the audience is now used to it.
Yep they do get dumbed down. I’m not going to tippy toe around the issue. Consoles are inferior gaming formats for a large number of traditional pc genres and when pc genres go console they will usually have to simplify the game in some way (not for the gamer, but for the machine).
STALKER could never be released on a console. I heard they were planning on creating a console version, but it would require a huge redesign in terms of gameplay. It would have to be dumbed down.
And I don’t care that using that term enrages some people, enrage away, what really gets to you is that such an obnoxious statement is still so obviously true.
STALKER was the only truly great FPS/RPG/action game I’ve played ( I haven’t played Bioshock but I doubt it could compete) since Dues Ex. As far as I’m concerned no genre has been so thoroughly pissed on more than the FPS/RPG/action genre. Racing, management and strategy are still far superior on PC and unlike genres which have migrated to consoles, have actually become more complex in the past 10 years.
Yeah PCs are superior for a number of genre’s no question. That’s why I have my PC and my 360 (And PS3, and Wii and DS and… well you get the idea).
Still I doubt I’d ever seen something like Ico coming out on the PC anytime soon, or Killer 7. Such arty titles are much easier to get made on a console because even if they only reach a fraction of the audience that’s a fraction of a massive audience.
Yeah consoles are better at a number of genres, mainly because of the control system, but often the nature of a game is far better suited to sofa gaming.
@Nick:
Erm. Not saying there are no founded complaints. Was mainly a rant. As such, admittedly, not a very nuanced point of view. Unlike a lot of posts in this thread.
Is there a difference between strawmanship and flailing against knee-jerkism? I hope so.
I could go on and agree with stuff already said, but… redundancy bad.
Without reading what everyone else said (sorry), I would say the problem isn’t one of mechanics. Look at Nintendo vs Sega in the 8-bit-to-16-bit era. Sega had smarter, edgier games than Nintendo. That had nothing to do with technology or mechanics, it was a matter of choice.
The issue with console vs PC is that game publishers think PCs are used by 30+ old gamers while console is the 15-to-25 market. There’s no denying that games like Oblivion are dumbed down compared to TES:Daggerfall, and I would be surprised if Fallout 3 wasn’t simpler than Fallout 1, but that has nothing to do with any inherent traits of consoles.
It’s simple market perception. And that goes wider than just PC vs console. Publishers want to sell more, hence they simplify. Simplify Arena/Daggerfall into Morrowind/Oblivion, simplify System Shock 2 into BioShock. It’s unfair to blame consoles for that, it’s simply the current publishing models and need for massive sales that do it.
Xbox 360 controller: 18 buttons (yes I count back and start), it is also possible to make combinations (press Y and RT for example), I don’t think that is “dumbing down”.
The major problem for console versus PC for me is that for some reasons it seems that many great PC developer are making horrendous interface (yes I’m looking at you Mass Effect) for the consoles.
Um, I like to play games that are good and fun. So I try and find those.
(And if I have to have a particular piece of hardware to do it, I try and get my hands on it – for a reasonable price, natch.)
I’d like to take issue with something the guy said. Excuse me while I paraphrase: “We’re old now and we don’t have time for really good games, so we settle for kind-of good games that don’t ask too much of us.” What kind of BS statement is that? I’m old too, but if your game is good enough, I’ll make the time to play it. I want an experience so rich and engrossing that it takes first claim on every spare minute of time. I’ve gotten that experience regularly from PC games. Never from a console.
In response to all the Deus Ex commentary, Warren Spector commented on how things that seemed to simplify in the good way took a lot away from the character that we reflected onto JC. People wanted to be the swim guy (with aqualung and max swim skill) but it could have been simpler with only one augmentation. Same happened to multitools and ammo. It definitely took away from the illusion, but it did make sense given the more streamlined interface (which I didn’t like as much as in DX1).
I think conceptual throw-aways is not as grievous as technical mistakes, such as level shrinkage in DX2 and some major issues that came from the engine. DX2 definitely caught a lot more flak for those two things than anything else.
By the way, have you guys tried to get into the system shock 1 interface? That was way to complex for its own good. The inventory management in SS2 was great in that it restricted how much you could carry, but not because playing tetris with your weapons was that fun.
I can’t believe this is even an argument. If you’ve been a gamer for more than, oh, let’s say ten years and you’re not an ADHD Halo kid, there’s no question: consoles are moving all games towards the less complex part of the scale (since all games are going multi-platform).
Unified ammo, quest pointers, glowing loot, you name it. It’s all there to see, not much discussion to be had. All the rest is up to your own opinion. Do you like to be challenged in anything else than your index fingers or not? This distinction separates those who say “Consoles are not dumb!” from the ones going, “Sigh, another Halo clone”.
It’s a bad choice of words though. Noone likes to be called dumb and people will defend their standpoint no matter what because of this. Silly but true.
I’ve been a hardcore PC gamer for the last twenty years and until the last couple years, I held the position that without higher resolution and a mouse and a keyboard, no game could compete with a PC game. Consoles were for casual gamers and people who really didn’t “get” gaming.
I would drop $2,500 every year to build a top of the line machine from scratch so I could get the most from the new games that were coming out.
Then, one day, I realized that I was getting too old to keep spending money keeping up with the PC game rat-race. And that I actually sort of enjoyed being able to relax after a hard week at the office, hunched over a keyboard in front of a monitor writing code. It was nice to kick back on a sofa and play a game on a 60″ 1080p screen with a top of the line audio system in the comfort of my living room, instead of hunched over in front of an expensive machine I spent most of a day building with a 30″ moitor a few inches in front of my face.
Yes, it took me a LONG time to get used to console controllers. Many times I wanted to give up on playing a game, because I just couldn’t maintain the precision or response time that two decades of WASD+MOUSE built up in me. But eventually, it clicked.
I’m quite happy with consoles. I have all the current gen consoles and over a 100 combined games and whenever I want to kick back, I just pull one off the shelf and relax. And when I tried to play Unreal Tourney III on PS3? Well, for once in my life, I found that I didn’t feel the console version of an FPS was at all a lessar experience than I’d be getting on the PC.
I do wish that console games were longer. $65 for a game that’s 8 to 30 hours is ridiculous. I do wish some of them were more in depth. Especially the RPGs. I wish there were some solid MMORPGs on the consoles. I wish that, aside from Halo and COD, I could really play a game endlessly and have a huge community around it and a lot of content left to explore rather than a bunch of meaningless “game score achievement whoring”.
But I’m sure things will continue to evolve. I only see things going upward from here. And i’m happy to be out of the PC-game rat-race that I’d grown up in.
“I would drop $2,500 every year to build a top of the line machine from scratch so I could get the most from the new games that were coming out.”
Must have been a pretty exclusive rat-race if you ask me. :) I’ll get by with that kind of money for two PC cycles (7-8 years total).
I don’t think a console dumbs down a game, however I do belive that a console can limit what you may do in a game. Take TF2 for the console. How often do you see people rocket or ‘nade jump? Not very often. However on the PC side of the game it happens all the time.
Why do I say this? Well, it’s simply because there is a depth controls lend to a game. If the controls do not offer your freedom of movement in a specific game and stifle how quickly you can move, turn, etc. there is going to be a problem. The reason you don’t see rocket juming on the console version, which is an integral part of TF lineage of games, is simply because it’s too hard to look down, jump, shoot ( or detonate if your nade jumping), look up again to see where your going and use the other analog stick to control your direction. The mouse and keyboard streamline all of these movements. Due to my opinion that it is harder to perform a rocket jump on a console, I think the console version does not have gameplay which is as deep as the PC.
I do not think it is a thing that has to do with how dumb the game is but more how well can a console cater to fast paced, multi-buttoned controls.
the phrase “it’s not that console-gamers are dumb it’s their controls asset being simpler” is illogical; there’s a REASON why those controls are simpler, it’s directly depending on the fact that they are designed for people who don’t like complex games. Things aren’t that way by themselves, they have causes.
*Five deep breaths*
Well, this is my favourite pet peeve for the gaming community. Hey look, I played Half-Life 2 on the Xbox first time around. It was still a beautifully polished game with a wonderful narrative. My malformed console gamer head could even fully comprehend it! Heck, headshots on Combine were just as easy!
It makes me quite annoyed at how often I see this whole ridiculous argument repeated. Why exactly does the fact that I play games on a television rather than a computer monitor instantly transmute me into a blundering buffoon with no ‘refined tastes’ in gaming? Well, I can’t quite figure it out myself, but from the number of times I see the ‘X game is popular because console gamers don’t know what gaming’s about’, it must be true.
I’m happy that most people that posted here aren’t talking like that, but there are still a disappointing number who are. For those in the latter group, please consider this: Next time you have to mod the hell out of a PC-exclusive title to get it to be enjoyable, please take the time to consider that maybe dumbed-down games aren’t only caused by console gamers.
i hav xbokx. dis wurdz 2 bigg 4 mi brayns. i m not dum.
Howard says:
… the refresh/FPS gets limited to 60htz so our shiny, 100/120 htz monitors have a fit …
WTF?? you’re still using a CRT? Now that’s hardcoar!!!
but I agree with you, FPS games on consoles don’t match up to PC equivalents.
At James and anyone interested.
“Why exactly does the fact that I play games on a television rather than a computer monitor instantly transmute me into a blundering buffoon with no ‘refined tastes’ in gaming?”
A fair point, but I think the reason we PC Gamers have that perspective is that the majority of console games are big budget, generic, shallow, good looking and multiply at a ridiculously rapid rate.
The thing about investors with a lot of cash is that they want returns, they don’t want to invest millions on a “new innovative idea” only to have it slip away.
Large, wealthy companies like EA pump out game after game after game, all of them mediocre at best when it comes to gameplay mechanics or immersion.
And unfortunately for consoles the more ‘out of the box’ ie. creative thinking which is shunned by those with deep pockets tends to be directed at PC titles.
Money however isn’t the only issue, the PC allows more interface and interaction with the game, it allows higher resolution, less loading screens, larger game worlds, easier and more efficient control (Mouse vs stick) and the ability to mod, change files and screenshot. Also uploading stats, managing savegames, easy access to patches and later additions all contribute to the advantages PCs have over consoles.
Its not that console gaming is dumb, its that pcs allow more versatility and depth, the games are more creative and innovative and the communities consist mostly of coherent intellectuals like yourself.
PC Gamers have a more intimate understanding of their system, in most cases we put it together ourselves. The games we buy come from a more diverse range of genres, this means we can personalise our collection and appropriately optimise our system for common requirements. Because more effort has been attributed to the personalisation the gamer gets more satisfaction from the games he/she plays.
Console gamers tend to play shallow games for shorter periods of time.
PC gamers play deep, immersive games, get addicted and sometimes play for days/weeks/months on end.
My own observations show that the majority of console gamers most certainly are ‘blundering baffoons with no refined tastes in gaming’.
Those that aren’t simply have never discovered PC or don’t have the time sufficient to really enjoy a game anyway.
Imo its the ‘Obama vs Mccain’(Hate to have to reference American politics) issue again.
Elitist vs Shallow
Well I as an ‘uppity computer nerd’ honestly think that games ported from PC to console are ‘dumbed down’ in a very real way.
I think console gamers in general prefer a more shallow, pick up and play attitude for casual gaming. Anyone serious about gaming is severely limited by the console. It all comes down to taste and what you want from your gaming experience.
A brief entertaining interlude to your life? Something to do while you wait? Go console.
An immersive, interactive experience? Personalisation, depth and innovation? Go PC.
the main reason isn’t the ported games it’s that you don’t need authorisation from anyone to make a pc game and that allows for a much bigger pool of games and much more risk taking, this is changing however as the consoles are opening up thier platforms to indie devs these days and theres a much bigger shift to more cerebral games.
No true FPS is very smart in the irst place and so is virtually impossible to dumb down it’s the first person RPG’s we need to worry about, ala Bioshock, anyone who tried to play deus ex on the PS2 will know that that was a terrible game after being hamstrung by the console, people are more elitist about PC games simply because there is less concessions made to that platform/platform holder than any other.
Well, the whole game went dumb because of the consoles, the menus and the general feeling of the controls makes it stupid. You have 100+ buttons on a keyboard, why not use one for e.g the pip-flashlight instead of making you hold the button. Same with holstering a weapon.
Consoles are destroying the PC-games. Sad but true. Games now days are all about graphics. No gameplay, no realism. Just graphics. And all these console-to-pc ports….STOP