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| 05.01.2007Exclusivity in action games
Ernest Adams recently commented on the inherent suckiness of action games. After reading through his article, I sympathized with his desire to make acceessible games for those lacking in skill or with disabilities.
However, as I read on, I found Ernest's point of view to be a little restricted for my tastes. He addresses designers who don't take the disabled or unskilled into consideration:
"If that’s your attitude, you’re a bad game designer."
Simply put, that's hogwash. "Bad" is totally subjective, depending on your perspective. People have all sorts of preferences for what they want from a game and its impossible to please all of them.
Because of this, game designers have to stick to their own vision for the game. Sometimes a studio doesn't have the resources or time to make their game 100% appealing to all audiences. I'm sorry for the minority audiences that may fall into a certain 5%, as not many games will cater to their preferences and needs. But I think it's unrealistic to claim that the only good designers out there are the ones that cater to a certain preference.
Further, be careful about having a double-standard for this sort of thing. Planescape: Torment is a highly praised game from RPG fans around the world. However, folks with ADD or dislexia may find the game to be far too slow and cognitively demanding. Should Torment have included a "No Words" mode for the reading impaired? Perhaps a way to speed up the game to appease those with short attention-spans?
I doubt any Torment fan would agree that a "simple" mode should have been included, much as Ernest has suggested for Action games.
This comes back to the thought that games can be art. As an artist, I'm much more fond of the works of Rembrandt. I can't relate closely to the abstract cubism provided by Picasso. But I'd never claim that Picasso is a bad artist, simply because I'm not a huge fan of his works.
I would suggest that we have an open mind about what Games can be, and if you have a particular passion about something you'd like to see more of in games, then go for it. Lobby to your heart's content. But don't claim that your way is the only way. It stops being an art-form when the definition of "good art" is nailed down and inescapable.-Josiah Colborn
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Letters to the Editor
