You're not alone, Stubborn!

Stubborn wrote a very good post on regressing in his preference for complicated games. As he sounded somewhat worried about it, I would like to use the opportunity to shout out to him: Stubborn, you are not alone! I've been spending more time this year with iPhone games and Facebook games than with complicated MMORPGs. The most complex game I'm currently still playing regularly is World of Tanks. And I have a library full of complex games both in unopened boxes and in uninstalled Steam games I look at from time to time and more often than not decide not to bother installing one and learning yet another complex game.

I don't think that age is the only factor here. I also have a rather busy and currently stressful professional life, plus I started a "new" old hobby of running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign which is eating up a lot of my time. Thus when I come home in the evening, driving a few tanks around a battlefield or tending my kingdom in Castleville are all I still have the energy for.

One added problem is that many game developers think that games of certain genres need to have a long feature list and thus be very complex. These days I find most strategy games from companies like Paradox Interactive to be pretty much unplayable, as it would take me a week of study to get into the game in the first place. It is relatively difficult to find strategy games that are both simple and deep. The old maxim of games having to be easy to learn but difficult to master is not a design principle of many modern games. In the case of MMORPGs I even find the reverse to be true: They are often difficult to learn but easy to master.