myk
webbed digits

Posts: 14316
Registered: 04-02 |
That just means retards are allowed (or even encouraged) to play too :p
Games aren't "serious business" so designers don't really need to force things past making certain simpler mechanics available. Saves were introduced as a commodity for home gaming, where people could come and go to continue their games. If you look at earlier games, they were pretty much like arcades, with some home-friendly additions like this one.
A system that added saves but retained the possibility of playing a game without their abuse would have required some method to delete previous saves associated to player deaths (not to mention exits from the game), making it sure it were bugless. Hence, developers didn't bother.
Saves are abusable because you can always apply them in convenient situations, making the game much easier. This also makes game-testing less effective, since, how do you factor in that people will be saving in various places just to go past hard situations? Without abusing saves, you start in designated locations of the game, with "from scratch stats" (that might be static or might depend on the level) which are accountable and may be balanced with the behavior of the game in the long run.
Of course, the addition of features always impacts how a game plays or is played, so eventually saves became "part of the gameplay" in various games. Player habits, perhaps based on sloppy features, impact design. Besides, saves tend to make games quicker to complete, which is something developers may favor, as they don't really want you to stick to games for too long. In addition to making a playthrough easier and faster, it makes replaying less meaningful and orients play to "the aim is mainly to complete the game". Knowing games have a shorter commercial life span and reach due to tech changes and other factors, intensive replaying is against their interests if they wish to sell you another game anytime soon. This development is a point in favor of people saying "older games were better", in my opinion. At least in single player mode.
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