After last week’s gaming session on difficult video games, many shared a feeling of rage and frustration throughout all the playthroughs. I, myself, found Jump King to be particularly soul-crushing. However, despite the negative feelings, it seemed that everyone kept playing. It made me want to discuss why people give so much attention to games that seemingly bring out the worst in us.
On paper, it makes no sense. Games that are super hard should not be ones we gravitate towards to. Compare that to any other medium, like a subject or trade, if it is extremely difficult, humans (by nature) often look for an easier alternative- especially when it is for something that is supposedly a time pass or a form of entertainment. I believe that there are four main aspects that contribute to this conflicting pattern.
- We deep-down love a challenge. It boils down to the simple fact that a reward becomes more meaningful if it is earned and not just simply handed-out to you. In a non-challenging game, you may not work for your end goal. While for difficult games, players are intrinsically motivated by their own ambition and drive to succeed. Now this probably differs for every person, it is probably inherent in our psychology and may be why we continue to pick-up the controller even after taking a beating.
- We deep-down love to see others suffer. When a game is difficult, its not just difficult for you, its difficult for everyone. So, it’s a giant competition between your friends and other players to see who does better, with the added motivator that you are winning while they still suffer. It may sound like nonsense, but look at the rise of “rage compilations” and other forms of game-play pushed out on the internet. No one tunes in to watch someone else play a game easily, the views come when someone takes on a challenge and reacts in the same way.
- Building on the previous point, if we were to look at the game from an economic perspective- difficult games make economic sense. They have repeatability, which means people would be more willing to buy it if they feel they are getting their money’s worth. Also, a difficult game encourages others to talk about it. More people will flock online, to YouTube and Reddit to discuss and share different tactics and strategies. This results in a vibrant gaming community that helps sell the game and maintain it’s popularity in the market.
- Lastly, a difficult game challenges us. An easy game is a fun experience, however, it doesn’t push people to explore more and use their creativity. With hard games, people are willed to find creative outlooks and explore new ideas that can spawn mods and methods that can elevate the franchise to new limits.
Therefore, I think we should always revisit the difficult games genre. They help us understand why games have the success they do and help us to better understand the interactions with games.
I also found Jump King particularly challenging. There is something about the seeing others suffer point that rings very true. Personally, when I failed big time at Jump King, I felt better knowing that whoever was next to grab the controller also was doomed to fail, and even those who did better than I also failed. Maybe this is simply my competitive nature acting up, but I agree that there is something innate in watching others fail after you.
This got me thinking about how difficult a game has to be in order to be considered a difficult game. But also about easy games and at what point is a game so easy that it’s boring? What makes up for the lack of difficulty in easy games that keeps players engaged? I think most games have some varying degree of difficulty that helps keep some type of audience engaged, whether it be for kids or more mature players. And I immediately think of games like call of duty in which the campaign has an option for what difficulty you want to play. Personally I like a stress free narrative experience so I usually choose easy but I know some of my friends prefer a challenge and find the veteran difficulty more rewarding. This also applies to other narrative games that have a difficulty selection. Playing more difficult games has definitely taught me the art of failure which I think is a valuable lesson to be learned.
I really like the direction the author takes in his analysis of difficult games, especially the combination of economic and psychological analysis. I agree with the economic factors outlined here, but I don’t necessarily agree with the “love of challenge” and “love to see others suffer” parts. I wonder if there are any psychological/social studies backing the claims here. I don’t think everyone loves challenges–at least not me, which is why I am not a big fan of Dark Soul. I also wonder if there are any studies elaborating on why human loves to play games: is it just because of the rewards?
I would like to offer a counterpoint to point #2. There are certainly plenty of videos online about funny raging, failures and such, but there are also tons of videos online of people doing cool, difficult things – both for real life things and games. Just as there’s plenty of media about people doing insane feats with sports, making beautiful art, and their stories of overcoming challenges in life, there’s plenty of media celebrating people’s achievements in games. You have montages of people performing incredibly difficult combos in fighting games, “frag movies” of people hitting insane shots in competitive shooter games, and people “popping off” when they beat 9 Souls games in one sitting without taking a single point of damage, or get a speedrunning world record. Lots of people do tune in to watch people do difficult things in games, and they don’t just stop by to see the funny failures – they’re waiting for the struggle to pay off with eventual success in one bombastic moment. Crowds roar for sick combos and multikills at esports competitions the same way they do when someone makes a half-court shot in basketball, or when someone scores a clutch goal with a bicycle kick in soccer/football.
There could be semantics argued over what it means if someone is playing a game “easily.” Maybe a game is actually hard, and the person simply put tons of time and practice into becoming good at it? The saying “they make it look easy” exists for that reason when talking about people who are pros at something, right? I think speedrunning is a good example of this. Even for games considered to be difficult, like Dark Souls games, people who practice them enough can appear to breeze through everything without effort. But, it took work and struggle to get to that point. I think there’s definitely innate enjoyment in seeing someone else overcoming something challenging. We also love seeing others achieve the impossible, insane, and intricate – purely for the reason that it is difficult. We enjoy the difficulty because we know the struggle makes the moment of success all the sweeter, and can empathize with that.
I was thinking, maybe the enjoyment at seeing others suffer at trying to beat a hard game you’re also struggling with could be reframed. Maybe it’s not the innate enjoyment of seeing others suffer through a competitive lens, but rather the validation in knowing that you’re not the only one struggling, and that there is something worthwhile for all of us to practice and work towards.
All this isn’t to say that there’s no enjoyment to be found in seeing fails either, or else all the raging compilations and funny failure videos wouldn’t exist, haha. I think that maybe the enjoyment of difficulty and seeing others experience it in games is more like a two-sided coin?