Accessibility brings more exposure and wide-spread nature. More people will get into it, and more importantly more people will enjoy it if it's good. It will be more overtly popular than otherwise and will enjoy a more prosperous life... for however short it lasts. The problem is, games that are purely accessible do not necessarily last long in popularity - without new installments their popularity will wane, and without depth to supplement it the newer games will probably lose popularity at a faster rate than the original, due to being more of the same.
Depth promises longetivity - taking into account whatever cult-classic-loving group will stay on it, developing techniques and learning new ways to play the like*, should a series only ever have one game (a terrible idea for a fighter) a game with more depth will probably keep a dedicated minority of fans than another game. However, the game will still end up falling by the wayside in the end, since... y'know... whatever sustained popularity it has is small-in-scale due to being purely depth and being unaccessible to most new players.**
However! A game with both depth and accessibility will often be more widespread and last longer than a game that is only strong in one or the other. So... yeah. Both are necessary, and a very accessible game with a lot of depth is generally preferrable to one that has one or the other suffer (on that note, currently playing the hell out of Skullgirls)). Depth and accessibility are not necessarily inverse, but they can easily end up that way without an open design outlook. (it's a main reason I'm not sure whether or not I agree with Sirlin half the time)
(*) Depth is not necessarily defined as "the property of being technical" here, though a technical fighter would be considered a form of depth.
So here's what I think.
Accessibility brings more exposure and wide-spread nature. More people will get into it, and more importantly more people will enjoy it if it's good. It will be more overtly popular than otherwise and will enjoy a more prosperous life... for however short it lasts. The problem is, games that are purely accessible do not necessarily last long in popularity - without new installments their popularity will wane, and without depth to supplement it the newer games will probably lose popularity at a faster rate than the original, due to being more of the same.
Depth promises longetivity - taking into account whatever cult-classic-loving group will stay on it, developing techniques and learning new ways to play the like*, should a series only ever have one game (a terrible idea for a fighter) a game with more depth will probably keep a dedicated minority of fans than another game. However, the game will still end up falling by the wayside in the end, since... y'know... whatever sustained popularity it has is small-in-scale due to being purely depth and being unaccessible to most new players.**
However! A game with both depth and accessibility will often be more widespread and last longer than a game that is only strong in one or the other. So... yeah. Both are necessary, and a very accessible game with a lot of depth is generally preferrable to one that has one or the other suffer (on that note, currently playing the hell out of Skullgirls)). Depth and accessibility are not necessarily inverse, but they can easily end up that way without an open design outlook. (it's a main reason I'm not sure whether or not I agree with Sirlin half the time)
(*) Depth is not necessarily defined as "the property of being technical" here, though a technical fighter would be considered a form of depth.
(**) Also, if you focus on depth at least make sure your system works for it. If your game has more depth but worse character balance than games in the series with less depth, for example, then it will feel less accessible as a result.
edited 5th May '12 9:05:14 AM by KnownUnknown
"The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy, paraphrasing Mark Twain.