Throughout video game developments, Game developers have figured that players might actually not read the physical manual that is stored in their cases for all the controls and general knowledge how of playing the game. For developers, designing in-game tutorials have been in games since its origin, with cumulative consistency, to the point where it is more likely that games have at least one type of tutorial than none at all.

As games grew more complex, it also appeared that some game mechanics were simply really hard to get across with just words. In the modern video game industry, few games are even shipped with physical manuals or digital manuals at all, meaning that playing the game itself is the only place to learn how to play it.

Nikita Mikros, 48, game developer, founder and CEO of SMASHWORX and Tiny Mantis Entertainment located in Brooklyn, states that tutorials are not absolute necessary and games should be tutorials themselves. According to Mikros, the rudimentary method of a tutorial is a game mechanic or section is brought to the players’ responsiveness, and the player is knowledgeable about it, conceivably with a demonstration.

The New York University Game Center is the Department of Game Design at the Tisch School of the Arts. The Game Center is located at 2 Metrotech Center, 8th Floor, and Brooklyn New York. The Game Center held a weekly event called ““Playtest Thursdays” occurs from 5 p.m. through 7 p.m. This event allows developers like Mikros to let the community to test his work-in-progress game, “The Hero Trap” (working title) and provide rational feedback to tune game mechanics. The Hero Trap is a rouge like with procedurally-generated game levels and, tile-based graphics.

With his colleague, Wen Zheng, 28, lead programmer from Queens, they believe part of fun playing videogames is letting the players figuring out themselves then relying on tutorials.

“I think it sort of depends on the game itself, what the tutorial covers and how complex it is in general”, said Mikros. One issue stated by Zheng that is players who has a lot of experiences playing games adapt and figure things out quickly but not all players are like this. Zheng says, “Put in lengthy tutorials, people complain about them. Don’t put them in? People will mindlessly overlook even the simplest mechanics and complain endlessly at how badly explained the gameplay is.”

If players do not want to read manuals, or want tutorials, what is the best way for players to understand the game? Mikros says, “Even if the tutorials are optional people will just not read them, in favor of hoping to learn it as they go.” “Game developers can be respectful on the players by giving fate to players by giving them a little bit of information that I, the player, can figure things out for myself.” said Mikros.