Game Theory - You're Playing Video Games WRONG!

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Join Game Theory Host MatPat as he explains how to teach video games to someone! *Credits:* Writers: Matthew Patrick, Tom Robinson and Mike Keenan (The Pokémon Biologist) Editors: Dan "Cybert" Seibert, Tyler Mascola, Warak, Pedro Freitas and Shannon (Bomb0i) Sound Designer: Yosi Berman

So as host of Game Theory, I've been teaching through video games since 2011. But what about just teaching video games? Us older gamers were fortunate enough to start playing games when the barrier to entry was much lower than it is today. As I personally grew up, the games and their controls just grew naturally up along with me. My first system was my dad's NES, which meant all I had to wrap my head around were two buttons and four directions. If you were to drop a PlayStation 5 controller into the lap of a kid from the 80s and then ask him to play the newest Call of Duty, I guarantee their brain would melt. You have four buttons, two triggers for each finger, two control sticks, a directional pad, a touchpad, and oh yeah, if you push in those sticks, they do something else too.

It is no wonder there's more and more online discussion happening right now about what gaming is like for non-gamerers. But it's not just the controls they have to contend with here. If I were to ask you, what's the first game that you would likely give someone looking to learn video games? What would you say? Most people immediately jump to Mario. But have you actually thought about how complicated even a game as simple as the original? Mario is. Sure, the B button's used for running, but only if you hold it down. And good luck getting over those jumps if you're not running and hitting the jump button at the same time. So

already we're hitting two buttons simultaneously. If that wasn't complicated enough, what about when Mario collects a fireflower? Suddenly that B button is also now used to throw fireballs. Even the way you kill enemies, you have to hop on their heads, which requires control and aim and timing. And if you miss, well, too bad for you. You get hit and you're sent back to the beginning of the stage. There's no easy way to regain that power up. There's no easy way to recover your health. And again, this is just talking about the first Mario, the simplest and most basic of any of them. In short, learning games, it's hard, much harder than most of us realize. And there are so many smaller steps in the

process that didn't occur to me until recently when I slowly started introducing Ali to the world of games, which is why this episode exists. I want to give a basic 10-step guide on how to introduce someone, young, old, or otherwise, to the world of gaming. It even comes bundled with a few game introductions along the way. It's not perfect by any means, but it is based on my research and my personal experimentation with Ali, aka our game time together. And at the very least, it's a good first step in starting a discussion on how to make this world of gaming a bit more open and inclusive to anyone who might be looking to try it. I'd also encourage you as we go through this 10-step process to leave a comment down

below with your own personal game recommendations or any personal experiences that you or a loved ones had as they've gone through a similar journey. So with all that being said, this one feels appropriate for the intro where we had Mario run across a bunch of video game consoles. What is that? 2012? Roll that one. Hello internet. Welcome to Game Theory. The show that's been ruining your gaming childhood for 13 years, so today I'm gonna try to build up a couple of new gaming childhoods. Like I mentioned before, Ollie's just started showing interesting games, which is awesome. But it also puts a lot of pressure on me as a parent to be a good steward for

his journey. What games should I have him play first? Should he be starting with the games that I most enjoyed as a kid, or is that gonna risk him getting frustrated if they're all too We could always try kids games, but from my experience a lot of those aren't exactly the best entry-level games Like the recently released bluey game. It's designed to be baby's first video game experience and yet it fails as both a game and as a teaching tool Also speed runner's threat here. Oh Oh no, no, apparently not! So I decided to dig in do my own research to see what information exists out there and I was surprised to see just how many people were having the same question as me Not just from parents trying to get their kids into gaming, but also adults who never experienced gaming before and were trying to trying to break into the hobby. So today we're creating a step-by-step guide, a

curriculum, if you will, on how to go from total noob to totally epic. Crack open a cold bottle of Mountain Dew and let the smell of Doritos waft into the room, my friends, Professor Matt Pat's in the building, and how to be a gamer 101, is now in session. Let's start by walking through my thought process in designing this gamer guide. While researching for this episode, I stumbled across an amazing book called Learn to Play by Dr. Matthew White, a professor whose life work is dedicated to teaching, psychology, and game design. Well, the book mostly focuses on teaching game developers how to build better tutorials.

There was so much fascinating stuff in here about the psychology of gamers and how people learn that it proved to be an invaluable resource for this particular episode. For instance, when learning something new, be it calculus, a new language, or a new skill, our brains can only really handle so much new information at one time. If we take in too much new information at once, our brains reach what's known as cognitive overload. When you reach that point, almost no new information is ever going to transfer over from your short-term memory to your long-term memory. This is the exact reason that scientists don't recommend cramming for a test the night before.

Some small bits of information may stick around in the short term, but long-term, those memories are going to be wiped clean from your brain the moment that you're done with your test. Therefore, in building our Gamer Guide, we're going to want to start off with the simplest possible games, and then slowly mix in more and more complexity. I mean, you have to learn to crawl before you can stand, and stand before he can walk and walk before he can run. So without any further ado, it's time to get into the list. Level 1, touch and motion controls.

kicking off our 10-step video game journey, we're going to start with the simplest controller setup possible, no controller at all. I'm talking about touch screens and motion controls. You see, the first hurdle that any new gamer is going to have to overcome in building a relationship with gaming is abstraction. The idea that your actions over here in the real world are affecting things over there in the digital world. A controller or keyboard with arbitrary meaningless buttons, it's very disconnected with what I see happening on a screen. But motion controls help bridge that gap. If I swing my arm and I suddenly see a sword swinging on screen, or if I throw a punch and see the character attack in a similar way,

that makes intuitive sense to me and my body. Touchscreens also have a sense of immediate direct feedback, but also come with a slightly different benefit. They don't require dexterity. Holding controllers, hitting buttons, it's precise work that requires trained fine motor skills. But tapping and swiping out a screen, it's actually much less demanding both cognitively and physically.

That being said, I do want to put up a few major red flags here for younger gamers. Watch exposure time to all these screens. When it comes to screen time, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children are completely kept away from screens until at least 18 months old, with video calls being the only exception. We all know the horror stories of iPad kids. Personally, for Steph and I, we kept Ali away from screens for a full two years. And when we did eventually open the door, it was only through very heavily curated education-based apps that we controlled for very short periods of time. The Academy recommends no more than one hour of screen time per day until the age of five. We've found a lot of success with a daily max of about 30 minutes. As far as games to play, I cannot recommend anything more highly than Khan Academy Kids. It's a free app with educational games ranging from reading to memory to math and zero micro-transactions.

There's also individual paths that follow your child's progress based on their skill level in early learning topics. Other honorable mentions here that cover a broader range of ages, the jigsaw app, which just offers a lot of free puzzles that can be customized to be easy, hard, or anywhere in between. Polygrams, which is a fantastic tangram game provided you pay a couple bucks to get rid of the ads. And lastly, there's the suite of Lucas and Friends apps which cover everything from puzzles and coloring to math and spelling. Basically, the games don't have to be all that much of games as much as experiences. Or tap on a screen drives some form of action. And when it comes to motion controls, I think we're all probably familiar with the winner here.

We Sports. It is the fourth highest-selling game of all time for a reason. It was the pioneer and opened up gaming to a new generation, both young and old. Newer titles like One-2 Switch, yeah, they're okay, but not nearly as good in terms of simple one-to-one gameplay. I see a thing, I do the thing, it works and makes sense. Level 2, joystick or D-pad only. Alright, so with the newfound knowledge that you can affect a digital world, it's time to put away the iPads and Wii modes and move up to the actual controllers.

When looking online for recommendations about what age to start someone console gaming, 4 to 6 tends to come up the most. It's around this age that kids are first able to develop the physical dexterity to do things like buttoning and unbuttoning shirts for themselves, meaning that they should also be able to hold a controller and press a button at the same time. So if your players old enough to be dressing themselves, then I'd say you should be able to move up to the next level of gaming console. That said, most of today's controllers are going to be way too much for a new gamer protege to start off with.

So it's important that we strip away all of those bells and whistles and just start with a single joystick or D-pad. No buttons. This part of the process is all about mastering how to move in a virtual space, so let's get them comfortable with the idea of controlling a character on screen with a physical stick. When it came to reaching this milestone in our house, we found a lot of success with the Super Monkey Ball series. Kids are already used to rolling balls and aiming things into goal, so the concept literally needs no explanation. Add to that a complete lack of dialogue in cute monkey characters, and you've got yourself a winning formula. Of all the titles in the franchise, I highly recommend Super Monkey Ball 3D for the 3DS because it's forgiving.

Later, monkey ball titles have the difficulty ramp up fairly quickly, but in Super Monkey Ball 3D, there are guardrails in place throughout almost the entire game, helping to ensure that your new gamer is able to experience a lot of success quickly with minimal amounts of frustration. And that's gonna be a nice segue to the next major hurdle and a huge point of frustration, adding a button. Level 3, joystick plus one button with only one function, 2D, no lose state. Alright, next up on the journey, it's time to bring in that first button, which might not seem like a big deal to us, but it is to a new gamer. Moving while jumping or attacking, that is a big milestone.

I cannot tell you the amount of times that I've watched kids die on that first Gumba in the original Mario. To us, it seems super easy, right? But to most early gamers, that thing might as well be a final boss. To jump over it, you need time. timing, precision, and worst of all, multiple buttons. And nothing can kill your enthusiasm for playing a game quite like hitting a wall. Or, in this case, a slow-moving Gumba. Which is why we not only need a one-button 2D game here,

but also one with no fail state. This is a huge skill jump, which means that we need a safe space to explore and play without the game punishing us from making mistakes. Now, admittedly licensed games to not to be the best, but Paw Patrol on a roll is a perfect example for this step of the learning process. It is literally a 2D side-scroller where you practice platform. Sure, there are collectible bones and medallions floating around to encourage you to search,

but nothing is mandatory for completion. And most importantly of all, there are no enemies to hit or pits to fall into. It is purely a game about you versus the platforms, as you get familiar with moving throughout a 2D virtual space. Best of all, all the dialogue in the game is spoken, which makes it perfect for any young gamer who's still learning to read. There are a couple of moments where you have to push another button for a special event, but these moments aren't time sensitive, so it's already starting to build an awareness of the wider controller with zero pressure. Level number four, joystick with one button and only one function, three-dimensional, no-lose state. Having mastered moving through a two-dimensional space, makes sense to upgrade to moving through a three-dimensional space.

Same rules apply here. You're looking for something where one button does one thing and one thing only, and no-fail state. And once again, Ryder and the gang knock it out of the park with their licensed game, Paul Patrol Mighty Pups Save Adventure Bay. It is the exact same concept as the 2D game, but now in three dimensions with a fixed camera. This opens the new challenges of up and down controls as well as gauging jump distances. Just from the opening level alone, you can see how it's step-by-step training gamers how to leap over things like nets and run up and down ramps. Now again, obviously not every new gamer is going to be super excited to save Adventure Bay of all places. I wouldn't expect that.

But again, I use this as a great model to follow when looking for a game to use with your gamer, something welcoming where the focus is purely on movement and getting to an end goal. Level 5. Joystick plus one button with only one function, 2D, lose states. Alright, so now that we've conquered the obstacle of movement and jumping in both 2D and 3D spaces, we can now start mixing in real obstacles and enemies. You know, the things that are meant to impede our progress. Now remember what I mentioned earlier about Mario.

We want a game where one button does one thing, and that thing should stay consistent pretty much the entire time. Essentially, we're looking for a game that's purely about running and jumping, but now with a few more obstacles. And there is no game that fits this mantra better than our favorite blue blur, Sonic the Hedgehog. Specifically, the Sonic Origins Collection. You see, there are two brilliant things about Sonic that really make him stand out for this part of our training.

The first is that in one button press, you are both jumping and attacking at the same time by turning into a spinball. Unlike Mario, who's always vulnerable and has to land on an enemy's head to defeat it, by jumping, Sonic is not only moving, he also has a chance of killing whatever he touches. Secondly, Sonic's a ring system is a game changer. Rings are plentiful, and as long as you can quickly scoop up one more ring, you're good to go. There's no searching for more life, no need for extra power-ups. As long as you prioritize getting that ring after getting hit, you are practically invincible.

That said, obviously Sonic games tend to get fast and that makes them hard. But that also gives new gamers a sense of momentum and forward progress. It's exciting to hit those springs and go through those ramps. And over time, their reaction speeds are going to pick up. The biggest hurdle of Sonic, honestly, are the Dr. Robotnik bosses. But again, Sonic's team has a solution in the form of one of my favorite gaming characters of all time, Tales. Tails is invincible. So as long as you take control over Sonic and just avoid the boss while home to recover the lost rings,

it gives your new gamer a chance to practice against a big bad with less frustration. And beating a boss on their own, that feels like a big achievement for their gaming journey, boosting confidence immediately. This is honestly how Ollie's been able to beat the entirety of Sonic's 2 and 3 almost by himself at this point. As an extra bonus for the Origins Collection, it does away with lives and continues, allowing your new gamers to focus on practice and getting better as opposed to tedious progress loss. Level 6, joystick plus one button with multiple functions. Now, this is the phase of the journey where we're currently at, and it's here that we face an important choice. Do we add another button, or do we add in multiple functions? functions for our one button.

According to studies done on individuals with limited mobility, multi-use one-button controls tend to yield better results, so that's what we're going to be focusing on. For that, we're going to move on to everyone's favorite racing game, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. Now, immediately, this one should be ringing some alarm bells. One look at the control scheme for Mario Kart, and you realize it's going to take more than one button.

There's acceleration, braking, drifting, steering. And well, yeah, the base settings in Mario Kart forced you to do all those things by yourself, Mario Kart 8 added accessibility settings, allowing new players to enjoy the game with the auto-execline. accelerate feature. This allows new players to solely focus on steering the car and throwing items. Considering different items do different things, this all helps build in that strategic aspect of using resources at the optimal time that comes up in a whole host of other games. One of the other things

that I love about Mario Card as a game for this particular part of the player journey is that you can very precisely dial in the difficulty both through track selection and by adjusting the CC level. And the rubber-binding AI in the game, which scales to your performance, ensures that any new gamer is never truly out of a race getting lapped. Again, limiting their frustration and humiliation and last place finishes. Level 7, joystick plus two buttons, only one at a time. Finally, we're getting to the level of the original Nintendo Entertainment System from way back in the 1980s. It is here that we introduce the B button. Yep, it only took us seven steps. And again, because this is yet another big leap, we want to focus on the games that only require the player to

press each button one at a time. While you or I may be able to handle holding the B button to run while using the other half of her thumb to press the A button, a new gamer, they won't have that dexterity yet. Instead, they need a slower-paced game with lots of built-in time to focus on where the buttons are and how to switch between them. For that, there are two great routes here. Option one, most top-down legend of Zelda games. These games allow you to see the enemies around you and choose whether or not you're going to engage, which allows gamers to proceed at their own pace. Additionally, in many of these, your sword is permanently mapped onto one button while the other rotates and function based on the item you have equipped. The original Zelda is obviously the simplest and it has the benefit of not requiring a lot of

lot of reading skill to complete, but also, it's one of the more challenging entries. From my perspective, a link to the past is a personal favorite, where they refined the top-down formula perfectly, but didn't start adding in a lot of bells and whistles like in later games. And even if you can't get through the entire quest, just taking the time to roam around, slash at the bushes, destroy some pots, it is rewarding enough. Speaking of pots, the other route to go here is overcooked. If you somehow haven't seen this game before, it's a co-op cooking game where you and up to three friends are chefs at a restaurant, and you need to cook together to prepare the ingredients,

cook the food and serve hungry customers. The game starts off pretty easy, but as you go on, the levels start to get more frantic. But notably, the controls are as simple as one button to chop and throw and another to pick up and drop things. The cooperative nature of the game also helps to improve communication skills. And as a last bonus, if your new gamer is struggling with the orders, you can always take on more of the workload yourself so you can make progress while everyone feels like they're helping. Also, just as an honorable mention here, we have Pokemon. You see, there's one major thing to consider when we start introducing kids to games, especially RPGs, and that's reading. Everyone's gonna be different when it comes to their reading ability. If your new gamer is one of those kids who burns through chapter books like there's no tomorrow,

then this might not be that big of an issue. But generally speaking, it's not until ages 7 or 8 that children get a high enough reading level to reach basic literacy. And when it comes to reading to learn new skills or gain information, you know, the kind of stuff that you get in an RPG, that doesn't normally develop until the age of at least 9. If you're there, Pokemon is perfect. Simple menuing, cute characters, and a basic button layout that makes this the ideal gamer's first RPG. Level 8, joystick plus two buttons, two at a time.

Now come step 8, where we're gonna add in the need to press and hold multiple buttons at the same time. And guess what we're finally ready for, friends? Super Mario Brothers. Yeah, I am just as shocked that Mario is so late on this journey as you are. But as I mentioned earlier, not only are the buttons doing different things, depending on what power up Mario has, but straddling multiple buttons at once to make precise jumps. That requires advanced dexterity and spatial awareness that only follows all the other skills that we've built up so far. Level 9, joystick, and three or more buttons, no camera control. Loyal theorists, we're in the home stretch.

We've done one button. We've done two buttons. Obviously, it's time to add a third and more. But more importantly than all of that, at this point we have to stay aware of camera control. You see, adding the second stick into the mix to control the camera is the last major control hurdle that we're going to have to overcome. And it is a doozy. Seems like the vast majority of games today, especially our big AAA first-person shooters and third-person action games, require you to be able to metaphorically walk and chew gum at the same time.

Having your thumbs control both your player and the camera simultaneously is one thing. But with every change you make with the camera on your right thumb, it significantly changes the way that your character moves with your left thumb. It is essentially like controlling two different characters at the same time. In fact, Mario 64, the first truly successful 3D platformer, literally made the camera its own character, Lacketoo, to help bridge the idea in players' minds that these games were going to require new skills. There are plenty of gamers out there who really stop playing newer games due to not be able to wrap their heads around the new camera, When I was in high school, when this first came out, like, I remember, um, seeing it, like, on display at, like, an electronic store and just being, like, totally overwhelmed.

So before we add in that second stick, let's just do ourselves a final game with more buttons in a 3D space where the camera works done for us. I recommend Super Mario 3D world. It has all the challenges of the 3D games that'll come later, but without overwhelming you with camera controls. Level 10, two joysticks. And so we've arrived, the final step, adding in a second stick. And it's here where everything comes together. multiple buttons that do all the things at different times, 3D environments with fully controllable cameras, lose states, precision, and a place to learn without being at a soulsborn level of difficulty.

For this, I have two recommendations. The first is a game franchise that only recently relinquished the camera to the player, and one that's near and dear to my heart, Pokemon. Pokemon's sword and shield, but especially Legends Archaeus, are Pokemon's first foray into the world of 3D camera controls, and as a result, they've made it as accessible as possible. For something that's a bit more intensive though, we have Super Mario Odyssey. Is Super Mario Odyssey the hardest game that ever existed? No. In fact, the platforming is much more forgiving than past titles like 64 in Galaxy.

But you see, that's entirely the point. Our goal here isn't to go from zero to hero. Our goal is to give new players a taste of what makes gaming so fun without bogging them down with years of assumed knowledge that us experienced gamers just know intuitively. And then with that solid baseline, everything from there just ramps on up. The speed of play, it increases, the intricacy of the controls, it just gets harder. The complexity of the movement, the platforms get smaller, whatever. And so there you have it, folks.

your 10-step guide to get someone started into the wonderful world of video games. A few quick final thoughts as we wrap things up. First and foremost, be patient. This is learning, and like any learning it's going to take time. There's going to be forward progress, but there's also going to be steps backward as well. It's also worth noting that if one game doesn't click, just try a different one. If you're struggling to find recommendations for games to play, commonsensemedia.org and family gaming database.com, both have great tools that allow you to search for games on the consoles you have based on things like age, genre, and even the complexity of the controls. for all the overthinking and analysis that we've done here today,

here's a little test that you can use to know whether or not you're doing a good job at teaching a new player how to play a video game. Are they having fun? If so, you're doing exactly what you need to do. But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.