With such a vague and broad definition of power fantasy, I decided to brainstorm a list of ways games can fail to be a power fantasy.
Mastery feels unachievable.
It seems like too much effort. Cliff-shaped learning curves, thousand-hour grinds, old PvP games where every player still around will stomp a noob like you flat.
The game feels unfair. Excessive RNG, “Fake Difficulty” or “pay to win”.
The power feels unreal, success too cheaply earned.
The game blatantly cheats in your favor even when you didn’t need it to.
Poor game balance leading to hours of trivially easy content that you have to get through to reach the good stuff.
Mastery doesn’t feel worth trying for.
Games where the gameplay isn’t fun and there’s no narrative or metagame hook making you want to do it.
The Diablo 3 real money auction house showing you that your hard-earned loot is worth pennies.
There is no mastery to try for in the first place.
Walking simulators, visual novels, etc. Walking simulators got a mention in the linked article. They aren’t really “failing” at power fantasy, just trying to do something different.
With such a vague and broad definition of power fantasy, I decided to brainstorm a list of ways games can fail to be a power fantasy.
Mastery feels unachievable.
It seems like too much effort. Cliff-shaped learning curves, thousand-hour grinds, old PvP games where every player still around will stomp a noob like you flat.
The game feels unfair. Excessive RNG, “Fake Difficulty” or “pay to win”.
The power feels unreal, success too cheaply earned.
The game blatantly cheats in your favor even when you didn’t need it to.
Poor game balance leading to hours of trivially easy content that you have to get through to reach the good stuff.
Mastery doesn’t feel worth trying for.
Games where the gameplay isn’t fun and there’s no narrative or metagame hook making you want to do it.
The Diablo 3 real money auction house showing you that your hard-earned loot is worth pennies.
There is no mastery to try for in the first place.
Walking simulators, visual novels, etc. Walking simulators got a mention in the linked article. They aren’t really “failing” at power fantasy, just trying to do something different.