For those who found the original Tetris just too complicated, I present: Tetris 1D!! (Thanks, Idlenews)

There’s an interesting commentary here about the constant battle between the hardcore gamers who tend to make hardcore games for themselves, and the marketing people who want to make the game as braindead as possible, and would also like to package a collectable drool cup in the box as well.

Designs can be made too easy. Easy designs aren’t very sticky, unless they’ve got some crunchy bits for you to fiddle with once you’ve mastered the easy parts. Unfortunately, most MMOs tend to be heading in the direction of making games so easy at low levels that they play themselves. This is an overcorrection from the days when we actively sought to psychically scar our playerbase and called it gameplay.

The solution is double-coding, I think- making a game that works for people of different personal investment levels. Note that this is different than a ‘balanced’ game design that meets in the middle (although you need that too). Double-coding inherently implies that your game will have a mixed audience, and needs to satisfy their needs differently, which is different than presenting a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution.