Is the Joypad Putting off Casual Gamers?

To regular gamers, technology has moved from a stick to seemingly 11,000 buttons on a joypad.

But this may be what’s putting non-gamers off.

Were all familiar with the boiling frog analogy, right?

Al Gore touched upon it inAn Inconvenient Truth.

Nobody, thats who).

It did not go well.

Even on easy mode, it didnt help.

I know, because I was one.

In many ways, I think the PS4 controller is the finest Ive ever held.

It makes me happy happy as a poached frog (and here endeth the boiling frog analogy).

I cant fathom getting to grips with a DualShock 4 without my long and cherished video game education.

Not without a lot of practice.

And while Id love to be able to play the guitar, learning from scratch would be a chore.

Because lets be clear here: mastering the controls of a game is not fun.

It is not entertaining and it is not rewarding.

They never again want to see developers and publishers pander to casual gamers in an effort to boost sales.

While the industry certainly took note, it didnt follow through in the correct manner.

But what was the next step for these inaugural gamers?

Where was the software that furthered their gaming education rather than re-hashing the same old thing?

Nintendo, and others, seemed to me to reach the wrong conclusion.

But instead of nurturing that audience, the industry put them off.

It didnt construct more intricate challenges and rewards based around this simple interface.

Yet that appetite for content among so-called casual gamers is still alive and well.

You only have to see the number of gaming downloads on smartphones as evidence of that.

That level of obsessive commitment puts my occasional bouts in front of the PS4 to shame.

Does the fact that I spend my stolen hours completingDark Soulsmake me a more committed gamer?

The key differentiator is accessibility.

The main thing that separates us is relative proficiency with a joypad.

So the Wii gave us a chance to welcome a new influx of gamers and blew it.

But that doesnt mean the industry cant and shouldnt keep trying.

Give a newbie the occasional joy of victory, the incentive to get better.

This philosophy can easily be implemented across genres.

And let developers rediscover the lost art of the skippable tutorial.

Better yet, develop different types of tutorial that cater to different levels of experience.

Growing that audience can only be a good thing.

The more people that play games, the more people buy them.

Thats nice, Sony, but what you really mean is For the joypad proficient.

And youre never going to expand the appeal of your output with such a narrow outlook.

Long-standing (steels himself) hardcore gamers have nothing to fear from a shift towards inclusivity.

There will always be aBloodborneor anArkham Knightto sate you.

Yet I have hope.

History, Im convinced, will repeat.