Article: On Frustration and Difficulty

When I first played Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, I found it to be an easy game to play and learn the controls, but extremely difficult to beat or get 100% of the goals.  Yet I was never annoyed or angered or even frustrated by my failure.  At no point did any negative emotion ever enter my brain, no matter how many times I failed a goal.

Even though I discovered from experience that each Tony Hawk game following Pro Skater 2 slowly got worse and worse, I stuck with the series, because despite the gradual degradation of enjoyability, I still never felt frustrated by failure.  I stopped playing the Tony Hawk franchise only after the series got boring, and that is the worst sin it committed.

Many games I play today aren't boring at all; but they would be if they weren't so frustrating and anger-inducing.  But which is a worse problem for a game?  A marketer would tell you boring is worse, because if a game is awful at least it still sticks in your head.  If someone asks you what you thought of a game, and you say "It's boring, don't bother," that person is apt to forget about the game as quickly as you did.  If you have a story about how awful the game is or how much you hate it, that story will stick in the mind.

This basically follows the old adage that there is no such thing as bad press.

But of course, I don't care about marketing.  I care about player experience.  I would rather play a boring game than a game that makes me angry.  A boring game is simply a waste of time; a frustrating game brings up negative emotions that I do not want to have.

Yet, my opinion on frustration seems to be in the minority.  I've read articles and books and interviews of game developers saying that "a little frustration is perfectly fine."  The only way I can imagine that someone thinks so is either that they are a sadist, they have no empathy, or they erroneously equate frustration with difficulty.

In the cases of sadism or lack of empathy, I have no way of changing a person's mind.  But I did just give an example above of how frustration and difficulty are not the same concept.  And there are many more examples from the golden age of videogames, and even up into the 90's.

Super Mario Bros. is extremely fun to play, yet I find making it through the game without warping to still be a major challenge.  It is not frustrating; it is fun.

Figuring out the puzzles in Myst (and Riven even more so) to be some of the most mind-boggling and cryptic challenges I've ever come across, yet figuring them out is fun.  They are not frustrating at all.

World of Warcraft is extremely frustrating and anger-inducing.  Sitting through Metal Gear Solid 4's tedious cutscenes is frustrating.

Of course, I'm not simply slamming new games for frustration.  Old games had their fair share, and there are plenty of difficult games today that are not frustrating at all.

Left 4 Dead is a perfect example of a tough game done right:  you never get angry at the swarms of zombies, even after you've died for the thousandth time.

Indie games fare even better:  Dwarf Fortress is one of the most addicting games I've ever played, and I can't say I've ever been frustrated, no matter how often my Dwarves get frustrated with me.

Of course, you may disagree with my characterization of some of these games.  Perhaps to you, WoW isn't frustrating at all, but Left 4 Dead is infuriating.  My point here is not in defining what is frustrating, as that is subjective, but rather in pointing out the paraphrase from earlier:  many game developers see no problem with frustrating players.

I always aim to avoid that emotion when designing games.  Sure, it's impossible to please everyone, and I won't succeed every time, but I would think that at the very least, frustrating players should not be a top goal of games.

I've heard the rebuttal to this before:  "But frustration is necessary because you feel so much better when you win."

Yeah, sorry, I don't buy that.  Maybe to some people that's the case, but certainly not for me.  If I'm frustrated throughout a game, then finally beat it, there is no catharsis for me; I simply did not enjoy the game at all.

Again, this comes from the erroneous equation between frustration and difficulty.  The harder a game is, the better your feel when you win, because you triumphed over so much adversity.  Frustration is not the same thing.  Frustration is draining.  Challenge is exhilarating.

Do you like being frustrated?  Do you think a game must be frustrating to be tough?  Can you name your own games that are difficult, but extremely fun anyway and not at all frustrating?

If you can pick a few games that are difficult but fun, and a few that are difficult and frustrating, write them down in a list.  Figure out which ones you liked better, in terms of the in-the-moment gameplay, the thrill of winning, and which ones have a positive lasting impression.

If you can't name any games that are difficult but not frustrating, that's a problem.  Probably not your problem, but the industry's problem.