My gaming set up is pretty simple, as far as it goes. I have everything running directly into my TV, a 37 inch LCD, which outputs audio into my surround sound system via an optical cable. That's a PS3, a Wii, an Xbox 360, as well as component cables for the PSP. Nothing fancy here. My video capture card complicates things a tiny bit, but that's nothing that most people have to deal with. I'm dumb enough to write about games, so it's a headache I've brought upon myself.
My brother and his boyfriend, on the other hand, have elected to set up their entertainment center to cause physical and emotional pain to anyone who attempts to operate it. The receiver hooks into their TV, but nothing else makes any sense. Watching cable is right out. Getting the audio to work while playing on the PS3 is improbable. I'm not even sure that their 360 is even hooked up, though there's a setting for it on the receiver. Christian claims that, if I were some form of vertebrate with frontal lobes, preferably of the mammalian persuasion, I should have no problem at all figuring out how to get it to work. My position is that he's a fucking liar, and some kind of sadist to boot. Try as I might, I can't figure out any other way to explain his attachment to the ultimate expression of the entertainment center's complete ambiguity: the Universal Remote.
I realize that I'm bordering on horrible stand up routines here. Relax. As always, my grousing serves a purpose, though MY sadism requires you to slog through my walls of text to ferret it out. Don't like it? Staple your hand to your desk and I'll get to the point.
Done? Good. No, wait... Do two more. I had a bad day.
Despite the obstacle that the evil fucking remote presents to my using the communal consoles and television, I endure it. I endure it because, Goddamn it, I want to watch TV or play a game. The complexity of operating the equipment is certainly a hurdle, but eventually my frantic button mashing will yield some positive result (blind luck and limited button combinations contribute heavily on this front). If I want to play Flower or Street Fighter in the living room, I will make the system work. The only variable is the amount of profanity from day to day.
I'm not alone in constantly overcoming weird new technological hurdles. In fact, we're dipping right back into traditional stand up tropes again. How many times can you recall either yourself or someone you know telling a story about trying to get a stubborn printer to work, or trying to show an older relative how to check their Email? How about wrapping your head around your first cell phone, or digital camera? Human ingenuity in the face of technology is almost a universal constant... provided that the end result is desired enough.
So. Video games.
When Nintendo trotted out the Wii for the first time, they stressed that they were trying to simplify gaming for everyone. The Wii-mote, clever nomenclature aside, mimics both the form and basic function of something that everyone is familiar with: a television remote.
Everyone laughed at them, and now that they've pretty much dominated the entire industry in less than three years, it seems that everyone is jumping on the motion control band wagon. Xbox has their Natal camera thing revealed at E3, and Sony has their wand devices, also of E3 vintage.
A lot of people have talked about 'simplifying' gaming to seduce non-gamers and 'casual' gamers into the gaming consumer fold. Ubisoft, for example, made the jumping and climbing in their Assassin's Creed and Prince of Persia games so simple that it's created a minor backlash among the hardcore crowd. Peter Molyneux ranted at length about 'one button combat' during the pre-release hype cycle for Fable II. In my opinion, they're missing the forest for the trees.
Consider that fucking universal remote. It's not only Christian that owns one. It's becoming ubiquitous: something that nearly everyone with a decent entertainment system has. It's obtuse and illogical in design, and requires huge reserves of patience and emotional fortitude to program. It has something like fifty buttons. How many buttons does an Xbox controller have? How many on a PSP? Contrast that with how complex and arcane Microsoft Vista is to operate properly. Contrast that with the number of F keys and shift functions on any given keyboard. Try and wrap your head around the World of Warcraft HUD without tutorials or experience... Something that a pretty substantial number of people who would never play Street Fighter do every day.
So, to summarize, the problem isn't complexity of controls. In my opinion, it's the games themselves that are to blame.
In an earlier post, I'd posited that the focus on violence is the reason why many people choose not to play 'hardcore' games. That's one reason; or more accurately, it's a symptom. People are capable of conquering any hurdle that technology can throw at them if they want to badly enough. What game publishers haven't realized yet is that they haven't provided a good enough reason for most folks to pick up a dual analog controller, or even a Wii-mote. For non-gamers, and even some 'casual' gamers, the reward isn't worth the effort.
We're getting there, though. The 'Milo' demonstration by Peter Molyneux during the 360 press conference shows that someone out there gets it. Google it. Wrap your head around how different and ground breaking that project is. There's no violence. No online mulitplayer. No arcane lobbies or 'losing'. Just a boy, and your relationship with him. Genius. Nintendo sold the DS into homes with one single game: Nintendogs. A similar concept, and one that turned the DS from an underpowered experiment into a powerhouse of a platform. A platform holder's wet dream.
It's an exciting time. Games are finally growing out of their arcade, high score focus, winners and losers roots. I for one can't wait. I have no doubt that the kinds of games that I love today will still be around (people like me will still buy them forever), but it's time that developers and publishers looked beyond the latest sequel of an already established shooter and started thinking about how to create software that anyone can play and enjoy. Never mind the controls: people will learn them if you make it worth their while. Focus on making them WANT to learn, and everything will fall into place.
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