The problem with gaming today is not enough handholding

Feb 8, 2015 14:55 GMT  ·  By

Electronic Arts Chief Creative Officer Richard Hilleman spoke at last week’s D.I.C.E. event in Las Vegas, stating that video games were still too hard to learn for new users.

The statement came during an on-stage interview conducted by well-known comedian Pete Holmes, who expressed his preference that controller layouts and button maps stayed the same for subsequent installments in popular franchises.

Hilleman said that Electronic Arts’ games were still too hard to learn, and that the average player would spend around two hours learning how to play “even the most basic game.”

He further added that asking for two contiguous hours of a person’s time, especially when that time has to be shared with a consumer’s normal family life, is a pretty big request in most cases.

This is precisely the type of statement that Electronic Arts does not need right now, especially since a big part of gaming is the failure and improvement loop, and oftentimes learning and discovering what games have to offer is the most enjoyable part of the entire process.

Do they still not get it or is reality that grim?

The company doesn’t have a stellar track record with fans and has been nominated on several occasions as the worst company in the United States.

Furthermore, when it mercilessly butchered the Dungeon Keeper franchise with a greedy mobile money grab with zero gameplay value, the executives just shrugged and complained that the company innovated too much and the disappointed community was to blame for not seeing their genius.

Gamers have been complaining that AAA titles are getting increasingly dumbed down, with quick time events replacing actual game mechanics and unskippable instructional prompts that tell you to aim your gun at something to shoot, and so on and so forth.

These kinds of comments are doing nothing but garnering free hate from already disenfranchised customers, making it increasingly evident that the people who call the shots are completely clueless when it comes to games and are only interested in the economical side of the equation.

The next game they create will most likely have microtransactions that let you press A to win or open a browser window with PewDiePie playing the game for you.