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Reasonable said:

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?

 

 

I think it's just like any tool, has both good and bad sides. I find it odd (amusing perhaps?) that you were considering this for children while I on the other hand was considering it for people like my mother, as I mention in a previous post, gamer of 30+ years and she still has troubles with anything more than a directional pad and one button. I suppose very young children might find this handy, but as most children, they will soon be out-playing their parents and posting comments on forums like this about how anyone who uses the feature should give up gaming . While I agree with you that the world appears to be quickly becoming a nanny state, children will still be children and will get up to mischief and want to challenge themselves even if an easier path is available.