How Strategy Guides Affected Gaming

Heartless Gamer writes "2old2play has another great story up looking into how games have become more complicated due to strategy guides. From the article; "Strategy guides have affected gaming by making games harder for all of us. That's right, it's not a typo — strategy guides have created more difficult games. Lend me your eyes and attention spans, and I'll explain. Admittedly, it may be a rambling explanation, but bare with me and we should get there eventually." Ya know I always find a strategy guide for things like Final Fantasy just because some puzzles are just ridiculous and I have no interest in trial & erroring for an hour when I'd rather kill monsters. But there really is somethign to this.

somethign

[User 956]

I have no interest in trial & erroring for an hour when I'd rather kill monsters. But there really is somethign to this.

Well, it's clear that you're not spending the time working on your typing skills.

Bare What?

[Nom du Keyboard]

but bare with me...

It's hard to take someone's comments seriously when they display such an obvious lack of spelling and grammar.

Or are we supposed to be doing this naked? That's an M-Rating for sure.

Not really their problem

[ackthpt]

Well, it's clear that you're not spending the time working on your typing skills.

Well, that's what editors are for and why their paid the big bucks, eh?

oooohh, the Official Slashdot Editor Guide Odd, doesn't look like they've sold any copies, EVER

Having just been Dugg...

[Strolls]

From TFA:

Having just been Dugg, our servers are buckling under the load. Sorry for the inconvenience.
2o2p Magazine Issue #5 mirrored here.

Oh, the irony!

This makes me feel old... erm... or something.

Stroller.

i'll show you strategy!

[jjeffries]

up up down down left right left right B A select (I have a brother) start!

Ahem...

[p0]

"Having just been Dugg, our servers are buckling under the load. Sorry for the inconvenience."

My friends, they are experiencing what we all know as the "Digg Effect".

Re:No way

[Anonymous Coward]

s/rediculous/ridiculous/g

What a surprise.

[The MAZZTer]

* Business meeting *

Suit 1: Hmm, not enough people are buying our strategy guides for our games. How can we make more money?

Suit 2: We could invest more time and money in our games to make a higher-quality product.

Suit 3: Shut up Tom, that idea is horrible.

Suit 1: Let's up the games' difficulty so people will be FORCED to buy our strategy guides! Brilliant!

* Act Two *

Suit 1: OK apparently our customers are starting to use an "Internet" to download FREE, unauthorized guides made by other customers. What's worse, the legal department informed me that what they are doing is completely legal. Now, we need to either find a way to take down this "Internet" thing or figure out how to change the legality of these guides. Ideas?

Suit 2: I think...

Suit 1: ...from anyone EXCEPT Tom?

----

Etc. OK it's a bit of a Dilbert spin, especially near the end, but I bet the first act happened for real SOMEWHERE.

You have a point there

[Travoltus]

They'd never be able to do that without a strategy guide/walkthrough, nosireebobski.

Re:They remove responsibility from developers

[Anonymous Coward]

Breeding the right chocobos: free

Knowing that I had to breed a golden one and then take it all the way out to the middle of nowhere to find a tiny island where only it could go in order to get the Knight of the Round materia: $20 strategy guide.

Spending dozens of hours mastering it to get a second materia, then hooking it up with Quadra Magic and MP Turbo in order to end every battle in one (15 minute) turn with a W-Summon: priceless.

There are some things you can figure out on your own, for the ultimate in crushing bosses in a single turn theres strategy guides.

Re:Follow the money?

[Anonymous Coward]

[This post has been deleted by a GameFAQS moderator]

Re:No Death

[Dun Malg]

You've put your finger on exactly why I loathe "adventure games". It's not about puzzles or problem solving, it's about guessing what the writer thinks would be fun to have you do right now.

There's a quote from a review of a typical bad adventure game that I think sums up the problem with adventure games. The game required you to impersonate some guy, so you steal his ID card. Then, you had to find and attach a piece of tape across a hole at the back of a tool shed. Then you had to chase a cat into the tool shed and out the hole in the back. Then you had to take the tape, which was now covered with cat hair, and use the hair plus spirit gum to make a fake mustache for yourself. Then, take the man's ID card and draw a mustache on his picture on the card with a pen. Now you look like the man's ID card with the mustache drawn on it. Puzzle solved. As the article writer said, the problem with this "puzzle" was that it had no logic to it whatsoever. After all:

The first step in impersonating a man who doesn't have a mustache, is not to make a fake mustache.

I think that pretty well sums up the major shortcoming of most adventure type games.