We remember a time when we played games as kids and it felt as if we could just pick up a controller and play. That can be attributed to a number of factors. Twenty to 25 years ago, games were obviously a lot simpler. We also had more time to play them and didn't have pesky things like jobs and responsibilities carving chunks out of our precious gaming time.
Fast forward to 2019 and there are people who dedicate their entire lives to gaming - people who get paid to play. They're living the dream, right? Most of us don't have the time or the willpower to be that good, and herein lies the problem. Some major developers are currently trying to find the balance between the casual players and the professional ones, and they are failing pretty hard.
Fortnite's Season X has shone a big spotlight on this issue. Epic introduced giant mechs called B.R.U.T.E.s to the game this season. They are incredibly overpowered and whether you are a pro or not, if you're faced with one, your round is about to come to an end. After the professional end of the Fortnite community voiced their displeasure about the mechs, Epic responded. It explained that the point of them was to encourage new players to stick around. If a brand new player finds a mech and racks up a few eliminations early on, chances are they will continue to play the game.
As games like Fortnite and Apex Legends attempt to cater to both the pros and the new players, developers are alienating a large part of their fanbases - perhaps the biggest part of all. Those of us who fall somewhere in the middle. We don't have the benefit of grinding for hours on end so we can become good enough to overcome the obstacles placed in our way. We might only have the chance to play a few rounds a day. If those rounds end with us being flattened by a new player in a B.R.U.T.E. well, sooner or later, we're going to stop coming back.
Epic is definitely no stranger to fans voicing its complaints. However, it is usually the vocal minority that is doing so - i.e., the handful of well-known professional gamers who have thousands of followers. The fact of the matter is, Epic and other developers won't benefit that much from listening to them and only them. They might be loud, but they are an incredibly small section of any game's total fanbase. Plus, history dictates that no matter how much you annoy them, they'll still keep coming back.
So, what can developers and games facing this issue do to fix this problem? Well, the easiest way to do so would be to introduce ranked matches. It's not that crazy an idea, with some games already doing so. Match all of the new players up with each other and as they improve, they will begin to face more experienced players. Meanwhile, the pros and the rest of the world's best players can battle it out at the top table. Then again, pros would probably complain about that too, as easy kills and eliminations would be a thing of the past for them.
Fortnite, Apex Legends, and other games will probably continue to try and appeal to both casuals and pros, but fail to do so. Meanwhile, those of us in the middle will continue to be the ones who really lose out. For now, when it comes to Fortnite at least, all we can do is hope that we are lucky enough to find ourselves a mech. Either that, or spend your round hiding from those who did find one.