I have something to add specific to competitive FPSs (or any other multiplayer game with a player results table) like Quake and UT. It's my personal measure of whether an online FPS is any good and there's a distinct difference and it's testable (somewhat objectively if you get many people to do this).
1. Play the game without any prior knowledge - just launch the game and play (obviously, look up the controls first).
Good FPS: you end up bottom of the table with negative points having killed almost no one and probably dying from environmental hazards. In team games your own team is likely to vote-kick you.
Bad FPS: you end up middle of the table and have managed to kill people from all over the table.
2. Play the game after putting in an hour.
Good FPS: you started contributing to the team effort and whilst still near the bottom you get in some kills. You know all the mechanics and none of the high level strategies.
Bad FPS: you finish the game at random positions of the table, even near the top. You don't know all the mechanics.
3. Play the game after putting in 10 hours.
Good FPS: you consistently finish in the middle or higher up - but the point is your position is stable. People playing for the first time pose no threat to you.
Bad FPS: you're still all over the place, sometimes at the top other times at the bottom and you sometimes get killed by people who are playing the game for the first time.
The reason it ties in to OP is that this used to be the norm in FPS games, now accessibility is king.
I have played a table-top game, where one player was eliminated before her turn. It was clear overall that there were much randomness in this game, and not much skill. To me, this is boring. On the other hand, many people around me thought it was fun: there's always something unexpected.
My current guess: to each his own. Your dichotomy is between good and bad competitive first person shooters. Some people might just want something flashy and random and fun.
This is my attempt to try and find a common characteristic among fps games I enjoy and trying to make it testable. A good game rewards skill and has little randomness to it. A bad game lets you feel awesome regardless of your skill which means you get less pleasure from getting better. Quake vs Peggle.
I argued the same way about 10 years ago! I feel you! Nowadays I have developed different goals. Because my job and daily life offer enough opportunity to grind my skills. Therefore games that don't require me to get better for enjoying them became more interesting to me.
It's a similar argument to: I have very little time so I can't afford to read a good book and can only afford the instant gratification of twitter (or insert your favourite poison here). Also, I'm a grumpy old software engineer, I'm not you 10 years ago, I'm you in 10 years' time.
Is it really a similar argument? To some degree I really go the path you are describing. When playing a game I really choose the fast gratification on purpose. Because that's what I decided gaming is for my life. But that's not really the point I'm trying to make.
I can get better at playing the game, or I can get better at speaking English/Chinese in the same time slot. A day only has 24 hours. So I decide to prefer one over the other. It's simply that improving my coding or language skills is more important to me.
On one hand you imply that playing games is a waste of time compared to learning Chinese on the other hand you say you prefer your games shallow.
You can spend the same amount of time playing a good game or a bad game. The difference is with a good one you have to stick with the same one for longer, with the shallow ones it's a different one every week which I guess is what the publisher would've liked too.
Anyway, you like what you like - I feel somewhat stupid for arguing about preferences - wasn't my intention at the outset. I was just saying this is something that got lost along the way in the same way as in the genres the article talks about.
As long as you interpret things into my comments that I didn't say we won't get any further in that discussion.
Maybe it's because the discussion not being about different preference but about the existence of different preferences. "A good game" is a game with higher quality than others. A game can be "shallow" and good (at least according to what I assume would be your definition of shallow)! I'd argue there is even depth without the requirement for anything but basic skills. There are even people (I'm not one of them) who consider games like Counterstrike, Starcraft or LOL shallow because they _only_ focus on skill and nothing else to offer.
Btw there isn't even a discussion if you just say "I like hard games" instead of "games are bad if they don't require skill". Quality is not preference. And we are basically done.
I have something to add specific to competitive FPSs (or any other multiplayer game with a player results table) like Quake and UT. It's my personal measure of whether an online FPS is any good and there's a distinct difference and it's testable (somewhat objectively if you get many people to do this).
1. Play the game without any prior knowledge - just launch the game and play (obviously, look up the controls first).
Good FPS: you end up bottom of the table with negative points having killed almost no one and probably dying from environmental hazards. In team games your own team is likely to vote-kick you.
Bad FPS: you end up middle of the table and have managed to kill people from all over the table.
2. Play the game after putting in an hour.
Good FPS: you started contributing to the team effort and whilst still near the bottom you get in some kills. You know all the mechanics and none of the high level strategies.
Bad FPS: you finish the game at random positions of the table, even near the top. You don't know all the mechanics.
3. Play the game after putting in 10 hours.
Good FPS: you consistently finish in the middle or higher up - but the point is your position is stable. People playing for the first time pose no threat to you.
Bad FPS: you're still all over the place, sometimes at the top other times at the bottom and you sometimes get killed by people who are playing the game for the first time.
The reason it ties in to OP is that this used to be the norm in FPS games, now accessibility is king.