GRIND IS THE NEW GAMEPLAY

Grind is the new gameplay

Online games news Tedious Retro Gamer, 26-08-2020
Online Games Bay

Times change and we change with them as the ancient wise people used to say and today we see the new version of that saying - games change and we change with them.

As an old gamer (yes, I used to play on 8-bit computers as a young boy), I got used to link games with fun - you spent some time loading it (especially if you were loading from cassette) and then have few hours of fun, most likely an arcade game. With time the games became a bit more complicated - they had more elements, they involved more or different skills, but still it was all about fun. Later simulation games, strategy games and few other new genre broke through to the computers and created niche titles that were less about fun and more about facing some challenges.

With introduction of 3D graphics games again were mostly about fun - with tons of first-person shooters (FPS) or role-playing games (RPG) we were able to dive into seemingly alternative world, where we were doing things so different from those we do in real life. But once games became available as multiplayer online titles things were changing - the grind to reach a higher level of the skills or to unlock some better weapon was introduced into gameplay to separate those inexperienced players from veterans.

While the game grew bigger and bigger, and thus more expensive, the big publishers were often struggling to explain why their games have to be that expensive. How can you convince players to spend few dozens of dollars on a game that will give you about five or six hours of gameplay? It was tricky, at least until they came up with brilliant solution - in ads they started to give not the time 90% of the users will spend in the game (f.e. the main story), but they added all possible time they will spend (f.e. on sidequests). And everyone was happy ever again.

Well, almost everyone, the players were not that happy - the prices were going up, but at the same time the game were actually getting shorter. They were complaining that there is not much meat on that bone, yet the publishers were anxious to boost sales without increasing costs, so they came up with another brilliant solution. Let’s not make sidequests actually sidquests, let’s put them inside the main story, so player would have to spend more time playing, no matter if he enjoys it or not. And so the modern games were born and new term - grind.

What is grind? Grind is the way publishers can make player get through boring and pointless activity to spend more time in the game (so he would believe the games is far more rich and full of content) or, in some cases, to pay the publishers so they don’t actually have to waste that time. And since that worked other publishers jumped on the wagon and we end up with tedious games that are sometimes hard to enjoy, they seem more like a job than fun.

Example? Take a look at the Elite Dangerous. Don’t get me wrong, it is popular game, it has some impressive graphics, but the game is almost 100% grind fest. Your jump distance is limited according to parameters of your ship (like in original Elite game), but to improve those parameters you need cash, sometimes materials and sometimes special "points". To earn cash you have to run some errands for other people or factions, to gather "points" you have to run some errands for other people or factions, to gather some of the materials you need some errands for other people or factions. At the same time most of the errands will require travel, so you need ship with best jump range. To get some better ship you need money and "points", so you need to run some errands in order to make it easier to run the errands...

Can you spot what that means? Elite Dangerous more or less is only a grind, in which you gain some advance to make some more advance and then even more advance. Is that what fun looks like these days? Constant grind to unlock some more grind and then some more. But if players don’t mind nothing will change.

27-08-2020