Great philosophy on game design. RPGs generally suffer from terrible game design, and they get away with it because of their audience. Big sprawling RPG video g

Great philosophy on game design. RPGs generally suffer from terrible game design, and they get away with it because of their audience. Big sprawling RPG video games strive to be as complicated as their paper counterparts, and that's exactly what players are looking for; at least the traditional RPG market. They're the Perl of video games. I picked up Oblivion (a few years late) and am kind of turned off by what seems to be a complete lack of attention to the player's experience. All of the work went into the world and game system. The environment, items, spells, NPCs, AI, towns etc. are all the focal point of the game and NOT the gameplay or the interactions that are part of playing the game. Swinging a sword feels like no action at all. Swinging a sword and hitting an enemy is completely anticlimactic, as there is no feedback other than perhaps some audio and the enemy health bar decreasing. Most RPGs suffer from this lack of visceral or juicy feedback. As for the situation on the App Store; when "perusing various games on the App Store ... 'unimpressed' is a severe understatement" is my sentiment as well. But the tricky thing is that the successful games/apps are not always the best. It doesn't necessarily require taste, principles, or even a huge effort to get a smash hit.