Above: The humble, hard-working gamepad.
Pity the poor gamepad. He's the least popular kid on the block. The ever-evolving controller has been the primary input for almost every game that's come out over the past 30 years. From the single-button Atari joystick to the precision-engineered machine you see above, the gamepad has been an integral part of the video game experience, even has the industry has grown into the multi-billion-dollar behemoth it is today.
And the console manufacturers can't kill it fast enough.
Last night, I was a guest for the recording of the Big Red Potion podcast (I'll post the link when the show is available). The topic was play control: the state of it, how it's evolved, where it's going. We spent some time talking about specialty controllers, like the Guitar Hero guitar, and the future of motion control, especially with regards to Wii MotionPlus, Project Natal, and the PlayStation motion controller. To look at the direction the hardware is going, you'd think that the gamepad has become obsolete.
Anyone would agree that game controls are more complex than they used to be. Game designers can go overboard with button combinations and functions, sometimes with hilarious results. It's not immediately clear, from looking at a gamepad, what each button and stick does. Non-gamers can be frustrated or intimidated by these bulky, multi-functional devices. This is all true.
But look at what else the gamepad does. It stands in for a steering wheel in a driving game. It replaces a stick and pedals in a flight sim. It eliminates the need for a keyboard and mouse in a first-person shooter. It supports the split-second reflexes you need to play Street Fighter or Devil May Cry, and it credibly stands in for all the sporting equipment you can think of. This thing does it all -- no bold new paradigms needed.
Gamepad design has progressed in a steady, upward fashion. Thanks to years of iterations, dozens of good ideas have become standard, while bad ideas have been phased out. Gamepads today are ergonomic, with sleek, comfortable curves (not like the pointy-cornered NES controller at all), and triggers positioned just so. Rumble is standard. Pressure-sensitive triggers have made vehicle control miles better than it used to be. For all the talk of Wii/Natal/PSMotion being a revolutionary way to play, I'd argue that nothing has fundamentally altered the way we play as much as the move from digital to analog thumbsticks. At the time, it seemed like such a small thing, but playing in three dimensions would be impossible without it.
I'm not saying the gamepad is perfect, and I'm not saying it's a good thing when overly complex control schemes put people off. Simplicity is a virtue in game design, and hardware design. What I am saying, though, is that the gamepad sometimes goes unappreciated. It's not enough for any of these brand-new control methods to have one killer app with which they work perfectly. Natal and Sony Motion are going to have to prove that they can be as versatile as traditional methods when playing traditional games. Otherwise, I'll stick with the gamepad.
13 comments:
You're absolutely right. There's always a whole lot of noise made about 'revolutionary' new play control methods like Natal and Sony motion, as well as the Wii-mote and Eye Toy before them. But some of the most revolutionary advances in play control have gone relatively unnoticed. When Nintendo put an analog stick on their N64 controller, a lot of people dismissed it as a gimmick. Now there's 2 on every controller. And i'd say that about 98% of all games released these days use both of them. If you'd told me ten years ago that controllers would soon have two analog sticks as well as a d-pad, four shoulder buttons, in-built rumble and NO CABLES, i would've laughed at you and called you a crazy person. Now not only are all these things expected as standard, but we have a fit if something like rumble is left out.
So you can have your Eye Toys and your Natals, but while you're all jumping around your living rooms, waving your arms around like loonies, i'll be sitting back with my gamepad, thank you very much!
I agree as well. While the occasional light gun and paif or maracas might add some variety to my gaming, I really don't want to use anything but the traditional gamepad for most of what I play. And--in my opinion--the gamepads that we have now are the best and most capable pads ever to exist.
Don't see controllers really going away anytime soon, but I do see more games being built for these "alternate control methods." As long as I still have the option to mash the A button to my hearts content, I will continue to be a happy gamer for the forseeable future.
Oh, and thanks for being on the show :) Would love to have you on again at some point in the not too distant future.
The gamepad may eliminate the need for a keyboard and mouse in an FPS, but I maintain it doesn't do as good a job (at least, to some gamers).
I realize this is what I harped on the last time I left a comment on here so I'll leave it at that. Don't want to become a zealot. Oh wait...
I agree with that -- I'm still more proficient with the keyboard and mouse than with sticks. But I can't use the keyboard and mouse to play a driving game, for example. What's nice about the gamepad is how well it does a wide variety of things, even if you could sink some money into speciality controllers for that would do a littler better.
Not that keyboard+mouse is a speciality controller, especially now that consoles have USB ports. You know what I mean.
Remember the time I wrote "speciality" and "littler better" in the same sentence?
I was a hard core computer gamer (C-64, Amiga, PC) until the original Xbox came out. I loved the PC, but now the Xbox 360 is the game console of choice for me. Everything is simple as pie with a game pad, although the original big Xbox controller is responsible for my carpel tunnel (it and Genma Onimusha!).
Would I welcome Natal? Possibly. Why not? Do I own a Wii? Did for a week! I'm not interested in moving to other control methods for all games, but I was seriously excited by the potential of Natal and it could be cool for some types of games.
And then it could die on the vine too...how many failed initiatives do these console manufacturers have anyway?
I think you might brush past one of the reasons the game pad is losing favor when you say:
"But look at what else the gamepad does. It stands in for a steering wheel in a driving game. It replaces a stick and pedals in a flight sim. It eliminates the need for a keyboard and mouse in a first-person shooter. It supports the split-second reflexes you need to play Street Fighter or Devil May Cry, and it credibly stands in for all the sporting equipment you can think of."
All of these game types (with the exception of Devil May Cry) used complicated or expensive controllers in the past to play their specific type of game, and the move to the gamepad as a standard was supposed to simplify things. And it did, in many ways, as most (or at least many) gamers seem to have abandoned their joysticks, steering wheels, and keyboards and mice in favor of a control layout that attempts to do it all.
But many (well, some) people still say that the gamepad doesn't do these things quite as well as the old, more complex controllers that the market has relegated into a niche demographic. Some games (like Guitar Hero) were turning to peripherals for added engagement even before the Wii sparked the motion control "fad." Add the failure of the gamepad's original simplicity as hardware manufacturers tried to make a controller that could be everything, and the gamepad ends up being left in-between two extremes: the complex or specialized peripherals required for specific game types, and the motion controllers that simplify control schemes for the mass market while simultaneously attempting to add engagement by mimicking real motions, admittedly with mixed results. This leaves gamepad gamers at an uncomfortable medium: too hardcore to lower yourself to use motion controls, but not hardcore enough to spend the money required for every specialized controller...
Anyway, sorry if this thought is incomplete or incoherent. I admit I'm one of those gamers who preferred flight sims with joysticks and FPS's with a keyboard and mouse, but I've appreciated the gamepad too. Hopefully it doesn't go the way of the joystick...
Concur! I think the 360 controller, in particular, is pretty great. I'll never be as good with it as I was with a mouse and keyboard, but the way that good FPS developers (Infinity Ward comes to mind) subtly use auto-aim really helps a player feel precise, even with the thumbsticks.
Also, having a single, versatile controller makes kitchen-sink games like GTA much more satisfying, since over the course of an hour, you commonly wind up riding a motorcycle, driving a car, getting into a couple shootouts, going for a swim, flying a helicopter and, like, bowling.
I'd be surprised if Natal (or whatever) could ever be more than an enhancement. I remain extremely interested, however, in just what that enhancement might entail.
Also: WTG, man, those chicks really seem to like your ...erm... "blog."
Anon, you make some excellent points. I'd call the gamepad more of a comfortable medium than an uncomfortable one, though. For a hardcore flight sim player, it makes sense to invest in the flight stick and pedals and all. For a fighting game fan, it makes sense to buy an arcade stick. But for the dilettantes out there, it's not practical to get specialty controllers for everything you want to play. The gamepad has served this function admirably. When looking to the future, to Natal and the rest, I think they're going to have to be better than the gamepad at being all things to all gamers if they're to have any chance to succeed.
Kirk, let's choose to believe that I have legions of admiring female fans, and not a bunch of World of Warcraft gold spammers. I could live in a world like that.
My brother still prefers a dedicated racing rig to the game pad but I'm quite comfortable with it. I think the game pad works for 90% of the games and you only need specialized peripherals for a very few set of games.
There is nothing trivial about interface design, either with respect to the device, or the mappings or the choice of operations to implement in a given game. Nor can one dismiss the fact that under the fierce competition and economic pressure with billons at stake, one basic design became dominant, which speaks to an incredible level of usability. As hard as that concept might be to pin down, it is obviously the chief source of evolutionary pressure on game interfaces. Gamepad's victory in this darwinian struggle speaks to an incredible level of sophistcation. Every species days are numbered, but when one essentially rules the earth its never an accident.
I really agree with you Rockn and i think the joy sticks are the thing of the past the new game pad controllers were the most stylish and more importantly loaded with the lots of multi player inter phase options that's what i like them and even while playing shooting games the controls are more important to avoid loosing the targets the new dimensional controllers are really accurate to what you are playing.
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