The rumors were true: Nintendo games can now play themselves!

[Reasonable]

Katilian said:

Reasonable said:

Why kid?  You're absolutely correct.  There are clearly hordes of points junkies who'd love something like this if it automatically got them tricky goals.  If this proved popular and Sony/MS did want to do something similar they'd have to ensure it didn't earn any rewards.

I think it's a lovely idea - but on the other hand I'm concerned about the idea of removing challenge.  Learning to cope with failure, etc. is an important element of growth - as a parent I actually shiver a little at a generation growing up where you're automatically allowed to win, then finding out the real world is less forgiving.

With videogames becoming so central to many youngsters experience of competition and play from a physiological perspective this is not necessarily a good mechanism for self growth and maturity.

 

Of course, they should be well aware that what happens in video games and what happens in real life are two very different things anyway, regardless of if this feature exists. I mean, why draw the line on this feature and not on the idea of respawning and save points instead?

I'm not sure there's anything wrong with the approach - I'm just commenting their is a fine line between making a game fun and winnable with a reasonable level of challenge and removing any sense of challenge and winning at all.

While I never underestimate children (which is the age group I'm thinking of here) both because I was one and have two myself, it has been the case for a while in the West that challenge and risk have been slowly eroded, as we try and 'coddle' our children from anything that could hurt their development.

A different example would the the steady efforts to make playgrounds safer and safer, to the point that they literally became too safe: great from one point of view, reducing any chance of injury, poor from another, removing any sense of risk and learning to avoid danger.

It's my observation, going back many years, that slowly but steadily there has been a trend to make games more and more 'winnable' and ensure that anyone could complete them.  While for some games this makes certain sense, looking at if from a growth and maturity point of view it's not a great learning experience.

Clearly it's intended to only serve as a crutch for certain gamers, either younger or those new to gaming in the first place.  But the principle does concern me - i.e. will it serve as a learning tool, or too much of a crutch that challenge and lose are completely removed from the playing field?