In an interview with USA Today, Shigeru Miyamoto revealed this week that Nintendo is planning to add a new help feature to Super Mario Bros. Wii. Called ‘Demo Play’ (for now), it will allow the player to choose to let the CPU play his or her character through a difficult part of the game.

It's a me, Mario, and I can play as myself now!

Here’s USA Today’s summary of the feature:

Beginning with the upcoming New Super Mario Bros. Wii (due this holiday season), players will be able to pause a game during a particularly difficult level and let the game take over to complete the level. Press a button at any time to resume playing. This will help reduce barriers of entry for new or younger players – without purchasing a strategy guide or resorting to websites that list cheat codes.

The response from the fan boys of the gaming community was typically harsh. On GameSpot’s article on the topic a user named Koopatrol summed up the hardcore response to the feature:

I understand games are supposed to be fun, but what happened to skill? Gamers are supposed to face challenges they can’t get through.

For young male gamers his attitude makes sense. Games mean different things to different people and for core gamers the challenge is a huge part of the fun. Saying they beat a tough game is a badge of honor and they don’t want n00bs to be able to say they got through a game if they used Demo Play for all the hard parts.

But for the gaming industry, Demo Play is a belated recognition that most of us, particularly the ‘maybe’ gamers that Nintendo is trying to reach, want to have success when playing a game. We play games for fun and missing a tricky jump ten times in a row is not fun–it’s frustrating. Most of us get plenty of frustration in the rest of our lives; we game for entertainment more than the challenge factor.

If we followed the logic that more difficult games are more fun, why not remove the user interface and let the user type in code on a command line to launch the game? Or make them play blindfolded?

The challenge for developers is most of us are core gamers. We recognize that our games should be accessible but since they’re accessible for us, we don’t see the problem. “This game is easy,” we say, casually zipping through a level that we’ve played a hundred times by the time it’s reached alpha.

But the gamer playing through the game the first time at home often encounters problems not anticipated by the development team. He or she may not know the level boss is vulnerable to fire and that he needs to equip the flamethrower he found on level two to have a chance of victory. If the player can watch Mario navigate through the level properly, he may be able take control and rip through the level himself after seeing how it’s done–or perhaps he just wants to see what the next level looks like and is happy to never go back and replay the difficult section.

And there’s no reason the player should have to replay a level time and time again–games are not a competitive sport unless you’re actually playing by choice in a tournament or other competitive venue. The more we force players to conform to a standard of expertise to play a game, the more we limit our audience.

From Concepticate’s point of view, features such as Demo Play are long overdue (and it’s no surprise that Nintendo is the company bold enough to break the mold; they’re #1 right now for a reason). Reducing the barriers to entry helps more people to discover the magic of interactive entertainment. And for those who decry Demo Play as turning gaming into passive entertainment, watching a game is part of the fun. How many times have you watched a friend play a beautiful game and been entertained? Sharing the experience is much better than playing alone and if having some training wheels helps your friends or family join in the fun–and if you don’t want to use the feature don’t activate it. But I have a feeling that even the most core gamers will be tempted to use it if they fail repeatedly in certain situations–they may eventually wonder how they got along without it.

However, there is a downside to Demo Play of which we should all be aware. If you have an autopilot function players can use as a crutch, designers may be tempted to not hone play mechanics and level design as much as they might otherwise–in crunch time it’s inevitable that certain things get less attention than is ideal. If you know players can get around a tough section you may be more likely to think it’s OK to leave more fiendishly difficult gameplay scenarios than you would if autopilot was not an option. Demo Play should be an option for less skilled gamers; it shouldn’t mask poorly conceived gameplay. If people are using Demo Play in a level you need to ask yourself: are they unskilled or is this level just not fun enough?

That caveat aside, we’re looking forward to getting to the next level in Super Mario Bros. Wii even if our gameplay skills are not up to par. Knowing that Demo Play will be an option makes us more eager to open the box and start playing.