Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="SKyOdin" data-source="post: 5159745" data-attributes="member: 57939">I think that the theory put forward in this thread is simply terrible and full of logical holes. Not to mention, it is downright insulting to a wide range of gamers.As far as I can tell, Celebrim is saying that there exists a class of gamer called "ego gamers" who play games simply to experience the "illusion of accomplishment". Furthermore, almost all of these "ego gamers" don't really enjoy being challenged, and just want to steamroll over things with ease. These gamers are also a major source of problem players who are prone to temper tantrums. Celebrim also claims that game developers have recently been trying to cater to this group of players.Honestly, the whole thing stinks of a thinly veiled attack on 4E's game design by fabricating a false image of 4E's intended audience.Most of all, this entire argument is based on terminology with shaky definitions, no concrete examples, and no evidence outside of Celebrim's own perceptions. I see no reason to even accept the definition of an "ego gamer" as being a valid thing that even exists in reality.Furthermore, it seems to me that Celebrim is putting gamers who enjoy social experiences on a higher pedestal than gamers who enjoy pure gameplay and challenge. This can be seen in the rather disparaging description of the pride someone feels in overcoming a game challenge as the "illusion of accomplishment". As someone who does pride himself in his ability to overcome difficult challenges in videogames and other kinds of games, I find that rather insulting. Being able to accomplish a difficult task in a videogame is a real accomplishment. For example, I am very proud of the fact that I beat the original Mega Man without cheating. Why? Because beating that game is hard; it took me weeks to beat the first fortress boss, and then I had to spend the rest of an entire day struggling through the final stage. The elation felt by doing something like that is very real, and is a perfectly valid reason to want to play a game.In fact, that emotion, the elation from overcoming difficulty, is something that can't be found in forms of passive entertainment such as watching TV or reading a book. It is a key reason why many people choose to play games instead of watch movies. In a professional study done to examine the emotions people experience while playing games and why they choose to play games, this emotion was refereed to as Fiero, and was found to be the underlying emotion behind one of the four reasons people play videogames. The study can be found here:<a href="http://www.xeodesign.com/xeodesign_whyweplaygames.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.xeodesign.com/xeodesign_whyweplaygames.pdf</a>I simply can't see how anyone can say that gamers who primarily play D&D in order to enjoy overcoming challenges are bad gamers. The idea that game companies shouldn't pursue that audience is even more nonsensical. A great game can and should appeal to all kinds of gamer, particularly a game as versatile and adjustable as D&D.</blockquote>

Verification