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.
