Games aren’t for gamers anymore

(They’re for viewers)

When I was in college I played a game on the PlayStation called God of War II. It was an awesome game. You’d play as an angry, aggrieved mortal on a quest to get revenge against the greek god Zeus.

The gameplay was pretty straightforward: you’d whack some dudes, and then you’d solve some kind of puzzle by jumping, climbing, placing items, and so forth. From time to time you’d earn a new weapon which helped you beat bigger monsters, all the way up the chain to the boss battle with Zeus at the end.

I picked up a copy of the most recent God of War for PlayStation 5, hoping for something similar but finding something wholly different: a maze of skill tree navigation, a gazillion items with different upgrade combinations, and a series of button combo sequences more complex than streets in London:

I certainly can’t — as I could in college — pick this game up, play a few hours, and then do so again next weekend without much trouble. Every time I pick up the controller I have to re-learn an increasingly complex set of controls and options. This game no longer works for me and my life.

But the game companies aren’t full of idiots. So what’s going on?

Increasingly, gamers are bifurcated: either you’re a casual gamer playing Pokémon Go or Monster Hunter Now (both excellent games from Alsop Louie portfolio company Niantic), or you’re in the tiny echelon of people who dedicate their lives and careers to games, like esports competitors and streamers.

The rich creamy middle that grew up as gamers but got traditional careers? We watch people play games on Twitch (about 48% of Twitch viewership is people between 25 years and 45 years old). And all this new game complexity means interesting content. Streamers love it; they spend so many hours daily playing games that anything too limiting would be terminally boring. With complicated skill trees and item upgrades, viewers get to see near infinite combinations of play through previously linear games.

This is probably part of the maturing of games and esports as the audience grows up. Traditional sports live in this world as well. Cricket has been introducing things like shot clocks to shorten the games and make them more spectator friendly.

I read an article yesterday about all the different ways the ATP is experimenting with the format of Tennis to make it more exciting for TV and better for betting — two great economic forces reshaping a very old sport.

But I haven’t given up! I also recently purchased the latest Prince of Persia game. This is another game franchise that I played in college, and if I’m lucky, the new one will be simple enough that I can take it on.

If not, I guess I’ll just watch it on Twitch.