Still skirting around...the Internet isn't the issue. Either people enjoy the whole experience or they skip it because they don't think it's good use of their time. Whether they skip it by using a walkthrough or by playing something else is irrelevant.
And your line of logic still assumes that not having access to a walkthrough would make people more likely to buy a game with hard puzzles. Because that's what developers base their decisions on, sales, not whether people cheated or not.
This. Plus Gregz still hasn't countered the argument that his viewpoint makes all non-reflex based games obsolete because you can just look up a walkthrough on the internet.
Good puzzles aren't obsolete, nor are good riddles or all kinds of secrets. In fact, the Japs still tend to include lots of secrets into their games despite those being made "obsolete" because of the internet -- because, you know, some people love discovering those for themselves! Imagine that! Gregz's mind must be blown now. If someone wants to consult a FAQ or a walkthrough, it's his or her own problem. If anything, having puzzles/secrets in the game caters to both audiences at once -- to those who want to solve/find them on their own as well as to those who'll be consulting the FAQ while playing.
TBS games aren't twitch, and don't rely on puzzles. That's just one of many types of games that aren't changed by the availability of spoilers. Traditional RPGs have problems however. Puzzle-based gaming today is fundamentally different from how it was before walkthroughs and spoilers were easily available.
It's all explained
upthread.
And you're in denial bro, just like a lot of people. "You guys may use walkthroughs, but I'm a
real gamer." Several people upthread, including myself had the stones to admit using spoilers/walkthroughs governed by our pain threshold. Nobody wins KKKs admitting that, we're trying to clarify an issue. The fact that gamers use spoilers means something is fundamentally wrong.
Hell, even major players (bioware?) in the industry have claimed that
RPGs are obsolete, a big part of what defines RPGs are puzzles (quests, mazes, etc., anything requiring problem solving or ingenuity). We've been collectively bitching about the decline. Skyrim's quest compass might just be there to keep the player from alt-tabbing. The internet/spoiler issue may be a large part of why RPGs
have been declining. The timeline correlates pretty well the growth and accessibility of the internet.
Also, what was the last highly lauded Codex RPG? KoTC? Great game, but no real puzzles to speak of (talk to the bears, translate a scroll, stuff a 5 year old could figure out), and KoTC is a
dungeons and dragons game. It should have been
full of puzzles. In the 80s, DnD was riddles, mazes, traps, and all kinds of cool shit that's easily ruined by spoilers today. That's probably why they weren't in KoTC, no point these days.
Google has made puzzles obsolete; sad but true.
Not to piss on your little "grass was greener" lawn party, but walkthroughs were around even in bbs days, long before the internet as most people know it today.
I know, but you're ignoring the accessibility issue. Accessibility has been increasing every year since the bbs days. It literally takes anyone < 60 seconds to:
alt tab -> open a browser -> Google 'game' + 'walkthrough' -> F3 -> password 'open this door' -> Answer -> alt-tab -> type password.
As Jasede mentioned, help lines were available back in the day too, but most gamers didn't use them because of the much high accessibility barrier.
