This probably deserves its own thread, but Mark breaks down the reasons why gameplay density is so important and the underlying reasons why developers have been weaseling away from these core game design fundamentals. I have been saying what this man is saying for over a decade. The departure from arcades has had a profound impact on video game design, for worse.
Eh, i don't think his points are all that good though.
For starters, difficulty is something devs still take very seriously, after all easy games get boring and hard games gets frustrating, they still need to find a good balance. This idea that they just have to make the game as easy as possible isn't true at all.
I think his points on timers and score kind touch one of the main issues games have nowadays but fails to truly understand it. What you see many games lacking today are proper reward and punishment system, which don't necessarely need to be score or time related. You fight a boss, you die, you just start over from the checkpoint. The "punishment" here is having to fight against him from the beginning but it feels lacking somehow.
Doesn't mean games that do this properly don't exist though:
>Souls games for example, dying also means losing all the "xp" you garnered and prompting the player to go take it back without dying again. Its not perfect and can be exploited in some ways, but it's still better than the pure checkpoint/save system.
>Management, builders, RTSs or other similar types of games. The consequences of poor player decision-making unfold through the game systems themselves, where "being bad" at the game means making your life harder later on.
>Mission based games a la Left 4 Dead, Deep Rock Galactic, Helldivers 2, Monster Hunter, etc. Missions are basically self-contained game rounds, where punishment is dying and reward is completing the mission, with some going even further by granting the player extra rewards for a well played round in the form of equipment, new missions, money to be used to get new stuff, etc. Maybe punish them further with the loss of money and equipment in case they don't play well enough.
One other issue i have with what he says is that i still see a lot of games that addresses the "problems" he speaks of, not big AAA games sure (then again there's a myriad of issues with those) but still quite a number of them. A good rogueli(k/t)es is the epitome of what he's describing as the "proper" design.
>In Risk of Rain 2 for example, fairly popular roguelike all things considered, there's both a "timer" and a "score", and interestingly enough they're both put against each other. The longer you stay in a map the higher the score you can get by killing enemies, and this score can be used to improve your character's strength during that run. However the game is also on a timer that increases the difficulty the longer you play, so the player has to balance these two things to get through the game. A fairly modern interpretation of both systems that doesn't rely on the quarter economy.
>Another type of game i can think of are timer racers like Trackmania, where the time and the score are both the same. The idea behind those kinds of games is always get the best time possible in a given track, at least enough to get all medals if you're not interested in competing. In other words, be good at the game.