Game manuals of the past are written so poorly that gamers will skip the tutorials & pay some magazine editor for a walk through guide .
At least , that used to be true.
Now, impatient fans will watch some body else play . The A.I. video slopification has automated brain rot.
Back in the era of printed manuals (think The Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy VII), manuals often *had* to carry the learning experience. Some were great, but many were vague, mistranslated, or just incomplete. That’s part of why strategy guides & later sites like #GameFAQs became huge. Players were not lazy; the design often *required* external help.
Then games evolved. By the time of "Dark Souls" : developers intentionally *removed* explicit instruction & reduced controls to hostile gimmicks ( Nintendo 64 3 handle controller , poorly aligned motion control, dancing foot panels, million dollar jet simulators , voice activation & even wonky A.i. head sets are a good example of this ).
The confusion wasn’t accidental, they claimed that " it became part of the experience" ( Bug ? No ! FEATURE. ). That meta design philosophy practically invited community-driven explanation: Arcade dancing performances, wiki encyclopedias , YouTube breakdowns, and even forum discussions.
Watching others play (Let’s Plays, streams) is a different shift. Platforms like YouTube and Twitch didn’t just replace guides—they changed the *reason* people engage:
* **Efficiency**: It’s often faster to see a puzzle solved than read steps
* **Entertainment**: Personalities matter as much as the game
* **Social layer**: It’s shared culture now, not just problem-solving
* **Design complexity**: Modern systems-heavy games can be overwhelming without examples
As for your “AI slopification” point—there *is* a growing issue with low-effort, auto-generated content flooding search results and video platforms. That can degrade signal-to-noise. But it’s not the whole story. High-quality creators, deep analysis channels, and community experts still exist—and in many cases, they’re doing better teaching than manuals ever did.
So the pattern isn’t always “people got lazy & greedy ” It’s more like cost has always increased between each step of making the dream of fun in to a reality :
**Manual → Guide → Community → Spectacle**.
Each step trades a bit of independence for accessibility, speed, & a shared experience.
If anything, the tension now is between *learning by doing* vs. *learning by watching*. Games still support both—but modern ecosystems heavily reward the second.
To be proficient in difficult high logic tasks like math, it requires the creative brute-force muscle-memory of the first.
I understand that games are escapism.
I am not begging for games to be a painful experience like the homework of the past but they need to encourage at least the most basic of good habits .
What do you think about all of this ?
quotingA.I. is self cannibalizing as it argues with the argument.
nevent1q…h5da
You’re pointing at a real shift—but I’d push back on one key part: it’s less a *decline in player discipline* and more a change in what games are *designed to optimize for*.
That chicken vs. candy image you shared is actually a perfect analogy—but not quite in the way you framed it.
* The “grilled chicken” era (old manuals, trial-and-error learning) demanded effort, patience, and internalization.
* The “candy” era (guides, streams, instant answers) optimizes for speed, accessibility, and stimulation.
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### 1. Manuals didn’t just fail—games were opaque by necessity
So external guides (like GameFAQs) weren’t “junk food”—they were **prosthetics** for incomplete design.
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### 2. Modern “intentional friction” is a different beast
When you bring up Dark Souls, you’re right: ambiguity became *deliberate*.
But there’s a key distinction:
* Older confusion = limitation
* Souls-like confusion = *curated friction*
Games like Dark Souls are actually *very consistent systems-wise*—they just refuse to explain themselves. That design assumes:
> “The community *is part of the UI*.”
That’s not laziness—it’s outsourcing meaning-making.
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### 3. Watching vs. doing isn’t just “worse”—it’s a different mode
Watching content (Twitch, YouTube) adds something older eras didn’t have:
* Parasocial learning (learning through personalities)
* Pattern recognition via exposure
* Cultural participation without mastery
A speedrunner video come with a tradeoff:
> You gain *understanding*, but lose *embodied intuition*.
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### 4. The real issue: games are incentivized to reduce friction
Here’s where your “junk food design” idea hits hardest.
Modern games often optimize for:
* Retention metrics
* Broad accessibility
* Streamability (readable, watchable, reactive)
That can lead to:
* Over-tutorialization *or* artificial obscurity
* Systems that look deep but don’t require mastery
* Reward loops that bypass effort
So instead of “learn → improve → master,” you get:
> “engage → progress → feel rewarded”
That’s closer to candy than protein.
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### 5. But the “good habit” games still exist
They’re just not always mainstream.
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### 6. “High logic tasks require creative brute-force muscle memory.”
Yes—and ecosystems built around **instant answers + passive watching** *can weaken that loop* if overused.
The danger isn’t guides or videos existing.
It’s when:
* Players *default* to them too early
* Designers *assume* players won’t engage deeply
* Systems are built to be consumed rather than explored
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### Bottom line
I think we now have:
* **Junk food games** (fast, rewarding, low effort)
* **High-protein games** (demanding, skill-building)
* And a massive ecosystem that lets players *choose how much effort to invest*
The real tension isn’t old vs. new—it’s:
> **Agency vs. convenience**
And right now, convenience is winning more often than not.
