Games should be hard work?

[Teebone]

Because your fun and their fun is not the same.

Your fun is get things, their fun is having better things than you.

No one on this Earth could have summarized that more perfectly.

[lawow74]

Sure, but "work" doesn't mean "things I hate doing". You can love doing something and it's still "work".

I feel like 'hobby' or the more neutral 'time sink' would apply more there. But it's shades and nuances of definition, which a word can have several of. I think in the context of the discussion, it implies something you don't really want to do, but endure because it gets you to the things you do want to do. And some people would use it to mean 'a hurdle I don't mind crossing but keeps others I deem lesser than me from doing what I do'.

Much like how some people will define casual as 'a player that is lesser than me' and elitist as 'a player I want to make seem lesser than me'. Whether they do so expressly in those terms or not.

[Archon14]

In essence, putting time into a game like WoW is generally just leveling up a character. Putting time into a game like SC2 - or even into non-gaming pursuits like learning something new - is leveling up yourself.

That doesn't make sense. You are a mythic raider compared to a casual one, or have a better pvp rating, or have more wins in duels, or have more achievements. It's a competition, just like SC2 and all the other multiplayer games, and because certain things puts you above others, you are essentially "better" player.
As for non-gaming stuff, learning has nothing to do with what we're talking about. The point of gaming is primarily entertainment, same as movies and books and other hobbies. The bonus in multiplayer world is the competition, that does make some people better than others, not as people, but as players.

[Deleted]

There's a huge difference between a game having challenges, and game being work; for example, I'm running 12 level 100 characters currently in WoW, and doing their garrison missions every six days, sometimes more often, with two tailors whose craft daily I go do every day. That's not me thinking "Oh boy, I can't wait to go do garrison missions and crafting again!" That's work.

Sure, you can say, "well you don't have to do that", but then again I can say "well you don't have to do challenging raids" or something like that. Also, when I've gotten like 10 months subs simply by logging in to do garrisons every now and then during the past few months, it's actual real life cash in the bank. So yeah, WoW has so incredibly much stuff in it, that can be considered as just work. So do many other games.

Obviously every game where there's a virtual number you can grow by doing X means you can work to grow the number. However, it's the daily grind and scheduled content that make it actual work; just like real life work, you go there at certain intervals and you do it to get profit out of it.

It's "hard work" when there's so much content that it takes all day to do. At one point, I did herbs, mining, all buildings, all crafting, missions, and all the other shit you do, in all of my 12 garrisons. Then I did several characters worth of Tanaan. And only then, if I still felt like it and had time, I could actually do something spontaneous and fun. There was a time in WoW when I could spend hours upon hours stalking people in lower level PvP areas on my lower level guys, or gank people on max level daily areas, or just do other stupid shit that gave me absolutely no virtual currency of any kind. Now though, as it's been beaten into me for years upon years, I too have devolved into just another worker bee in WoW, doing the asinine daily grind, whatever that might be at any given point.

So when you're talking about "work" in games, be mindful what you actually mean.

Challenge, however, depends wholly on the game type. Some games don't require challenge, as they're so story-driven or otherwise fun, that you don't need some dumbass mechanic to make your life harder. In some games, the challenge comes from other people. Some games actually challenge your mind and require you to be able to think critically, or have knowledge.

And then, some games are a version of Flappy Bird. This, obviously, includes WoW and it's raiding and dungeons. You've just got mechanics that are varying degrees of stupidity and you try to beat those mechanics again and again until you succeed. Or get lucky. WoW raiding, Dark Souls, and so on. These games typically have zero AI, and the NPCs use the exact same moves and often even in the same order. Some of these Flappy Bird games allow you to make the bird flapping a bit easier by having gear of some kind, which you got from earlier bird flapping sessions. And this same gear is what you can then show off to people once you've finally mastered the mechanics. Or gotten lucky. Or, in the case of multiplayer games, been carried by others.

There's a place for all of those types of challenges in games, depending on which game it is.

[Thelxi]

No. Hard yes, tedious no. Not many make that distinction. Dark souls games are a good example of a nice balance.

[Archon14]

Again, almost all of those things just relate to gearing/leveling/improving a character, not yourself.

Yourself meaning what exactly? You as a person or you as a gamer?

If we're talking about games, there is no difference between beating someone in SC2 and beating someone in wow arena. You are still a better player than someone else.
If we're talking about a person, well most games aren't made for improving you, they're made for entertaining you. And being better (gamer) than someone else is obviously more entertaining.