The Moments That Cause Us to Quit a Game

[Rob Williams]

From our front-page news:

Here's a situation I'm sure all gamers have been in at one point or another. You're gaming it up, getting a ton of enjoyment out of the latest title you've just picked up, immersed in the gameplay. Then, things go awry. You die, and at that point, realize that you haven't saved your game for a while, or due to the mechanics of the game, you've essentially been placed back an hour or more, left to redo what you've just completed.

When I saw an article discussing this at Ars Technica, I had a flurry of memories come back with events just like this, and not many of them I particularly wanted to remember. I tend to become overly frustrated with games easily, especially if I believe it's the design that's at the root of the problems, but I'm certainly not alone. When you realise that the only way to progress through the game is to completely redo any part of a game you didn't find that enjoyable to begin with, it's incredibly easy to just say, "screw it", and put it back on the shelf, never to touch it again.

This is an issue game developers are well aware of, and it's no doubt due to the fact that they are gamers themselves. There have been a few titles that have tried new techniques to not punish the player much on death, such as Prey, which warps you to another world to kill off some flying creatures, and once you've killed enough, you're put back exactly where you were. I didn't have too much to complain about with that feature, and I actually did find it to add a useful element to the gameplay.

As always, what makes a game fun is its gameplay, and if there's a part of mechanic that causes frustration, the game's not going to be fun, and most likely, the player will just quit and never touch it again. I personally have a few games like that on my shelf. So my question is, what game has stumped or frustrated you the point of never touching it again?

So why do we quit? What makes us walk away from a game? Developers are aware of it, and at E3 I talked to a developer from Turn 10 about why they had added a rewind feature into Forza 3, allowing you a mulligan after a bad crash. "If you're at the end of a five-lap race, and you make one mistake, that's when you decide to turn the game off and go to bed," he explained. "I don't want to lose people at that point."

Source: Ars Technica​

 

[madstork91]

A few years back with HALO 3, there was a big write up some place about the psychological studies they did to better enhance the game play.

They studied everything:
which way a player went through a level
where did he/she die?
facial expression and reported "mood" about dying.
how did he/she die?
Ammo at death
weapon at death
part they hated most about dying
what did they try the next time after dying where and how they did?
part of the terrain they didnt like
part of the level they didnt like
part of the terrain they liked
part of the level they liked

As I recall they even set up these machines that attempts to detect emotion using a special type of imaging...

They used the labs microsoft already uses for windows for all of this testing.

 

[Merlin]

I thought Far Cry 2 was going to be fantastic, but after a while, I got bored and even lost in the game.
Sure the graphics were great but, being able to roam the huge map was too much, I think.
So, I put the game on the shelf and later deleting it off the drive for space.

 

[gibbersome]

I think it's all about immersiveness. Can a game make you forget that you're playing a game? Every great movie and every great book has this moment: the moment when you get transported to another world.

Dying and having to repeat an hour of gameplay that you thoroughly enjoyed will not be a problem to too many.

However, many people confuse immersiveness with storytelling. RPG games have had this problem with gamers frequently getting bored. Usually it's not the plot (many RPGs have great plots), but that the missions get tedious and repetitive. In most RPGs, ~90% of the missions can be characterized by:
1. Run and fetch (go get an item and deliver it to someone)
2. Kill monster

Kinda gets boring after a while.

 

[Psi*]

I think of myself of an experienced game player & have been for wa-a-ay too long by some accounts. For myself ... eh ... games are a part of a mental diversion and for the past few years I am not so excited about what has come out.

What I expect out of a game is the opportunity to use most of my "attention budget". I like to purge my head when I get stuck on a problem and computer games are more convenient than auto racing. Not to mention cost.

I have a Wii & got Metroid whatever for it. Metroid is well rated, but I did not like it. My criteria was first person shoot 'em up. I did get immersed for maybe 2 weeks. By then it was clear about what to expect. I won't say that I *never* died, but not often.

So, I have been wondering if we gamers, regardless of experience, have not progressed far enough where the developers need to be much more sophisticated in what they offer and this goes 2 ways from my point of view.

One way is complete and total immersion pushing my attention budget. For this, I don't care how long the game goes and it may be "the never ending game".

Another genre is, "I just want to blow thingys up" in different ways, maybe faster than last time, but I might die! Get to the end in 15 to 30 minutes & that's all I care about. For this type of game I am a little or a lot frustrated with something and I just need something more "pc" than kicking the dog. Although I am now living with a very spoiled cocker spaniel & that is looking very attractive, but I digress ...

I want a game that uses all of my senses. I want to hear voices (hahaha, preferably made *only* by the game) in different gender telling me things. Tactile feedback, without saying. And, options for other forms of feedback ... a slap in the back of the head? What parent wouldn't buy that option for their son ... and the few daughters that might need it?