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• Donkey kong country returns 2 player manual#

New Super Mario Bros Wii was released in 2009 with the inclusion of a “Super Guide,” an in-game device that allowed players who experienced a high degree of difficulty to skip through segments of the game. Nintendo is also experimenting with their core titles, hoping to design them such that everyone, regardless of skill level, can enjoy them. For the most part, attempts to court the casual market have resulted in hardware such as the Kinect, the offering of services like Netflix, as well as copy-cat ‘casual’ games meant to entice a wider swath of consumers. Industry efforts gunning for the casual market have gone full-tilt now, with even cell phone and tablet products vying for the same audience. This marketing strategy was so successful that it sparked an industry-wide awareness of the ‘casual’ market, and development of products specifically tailored for that market. This is unsurprising, given Miyamoto’s approach to design: instead of using focus groups, he asks friends and family members who are not gamers to play his games.

The games themselves had a difficulty curve that allowed both players of lesser skill and those looking for a challenge to enjoy the titles, too.

Part of Nintendo’s success can be attributed to the controls: actions performed by avatars had clear, real-life equivalents that people could default to. Folks from diverse backgrounds were joining the ranks of hardcore gamers, gleefully hurling the Wii remote at their televisions while playing Wii Sports. To everyone’s surprise, the strategy worked. This approach reached beyond the established ‘gamer’ userbase in an effort to create demand for video games in previously untapped markets. This was the year in which the Wii was launched, a console that was marketed like no console before it, using the blue ocean strategy. In November 2006, Nintendo catalyzed a change that would forever alter that hardcore-only landscape. In the early days of gaming, this type of sadistic design existed as part of a business initiative: increase difficulty at an arcade machine to maximize the amount spent on a specific game. As the glorification of the ‘golden days’ of gaming attest to - where lives were scarce and difficulty curves were brutal - having a masochistic landscape is considered a part of the medium. Games not only disallow skipping elements a player has trouble with, they actively punish players for having a hard time. With either activity, you risk missing important elements of the piece, but the choice is yours to make. Movies let you fast-forward you can flip through pages in a book. Video games are the only medium that require the user to pass a ‘competency check’ before being able to move forward. Developers and designers are slowly reconsidering the necessity of skill. In the latest generation, something curious began to happen: the industry started experimenting with accessibility. Achievements, scores, and the popularity of multiplayer modes show that having the opportunity to master and display skill is addictive. As far as the hardcore gamer is concerned, games are all about proving ourselves and overcoming challenge. Challenge as a barrier of entry is one that ‘hardcore gamers’ cling the most closely to killing games.

Donkey kong country returns 2 player manual#

Most games also require a certain degree of hand-eye coordination, manual dexterity and reflexes - skills that are developed over time in an effort to overcome a game’s challenge. The games offered in mainstream commercial channels are not always inclusive, in that they are largely made by homogeneous groups of developers and marketed toward a specific demographic of users. The always-growing lingo and concepts - from friend codes to headshots - are sometimes indecipherable to others.