Hmm, I'm old-school with my games, but I'm also very time poor.
When I grew up, there were no automaps, there was no GameFAQs and cheats were a closely guarded secret you'd pore over the back pages of PC Gamer magazine for. I had hours to burn, and I burnt them with maps on graph paper, spreadsheets with unit statistics, exhaustively exploring every nook and cranny.
In the
Bartle Test, I'm an Explorer.
Do I agree with this article? Partly. Games are like movies, and just like (mainstream) movies they're typically marketed to strike a balance between accessability and complexity. Due to the opening up of games from niche geek to mainstream, the accessability barrier has expanded geometrically, and will continue to expand. This isn't a bad thing, but when accessability affects depth it ultimately means the game gets hyped, played, shelved and forgotten in less than 6 months after launch, waiting for the next game.
What's the answer? Striking the ideal balancing point of "really easy to learn (accessable) but nearly impossible to master (deep)" but also being damn entertaining at the same time. This is why I believe Blizzard are currently king of the hill;
Starcraft;
Diablo 2;
even, dare I say it, World of Warcraft;
are all examples of games which have a level of depth that most gamers won't even scratch the surface of. Sure, you can play it and have fun, but the more you dig, the more you find. Back-story, meta-games, hidden stats, subtle play and equipment nuances, extensive playtesting and balancing.
Some JRPGs such as the pokemon or final fantasy series come close to this, with their hard-to-get or hidden items you can only get with prior knowledge or extensive re-playing. Steam touches on this with achievements, a whole culture of people who are obsessed with nothing more than a 100% achievement rate on every game they play.
I challenge you to
launch the gnome into space in Half Life 2 episode 2.