A game that can be mastered slowly keeps its best players for years

The argument

Proponents of this explanation argue that the franchise's popularity is best understood through retention rather than through first impressions. A shooter with a large set of interacting systems, weapons, movement options and map knowledge offers a skill curve that does not flatten quickly. A player who has put many hours in remains measurably better than one who has put in fewer, and still has something left to learn, and proponents hold that this is the condition under which people keep playing a game for years rather than weeks. The argument then connects retention to popularity. On this account a franchise becomes large not by being tried by many people but by being kept by them, because a retained player buys the next release, brings friends, populates the servers that make matches quick to find, and produces the visible community that draws new players in. A game exhausted in a month loses all of this, however many people tried it. Depth, on this reading, is the property that converts attention into an audience which persists. Proponents add that complexity also supports the competitive scene, which they treat as a significant part of the appeal even for those who never compete. A game in which outcomes reliably reflect skill can sustain serious competition and spectating, and a game that can be watched is a game that recruits. The explanation therefore does not claim that most players master the systems, only that the systems are deep enough to reward those who do, which is what gives everyone else something to aim at and someone to watch.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics reply that the explanation fits the dedicated minority rather than the audience that makes the franchise large. Most people who play a popular shooter play casually, never engage with the deeper systems, and would struggle to describe them; an account of mass popularity resting on what committed players value has explained the wrong group. They add that the argument sits badly with what the franchise is usually credited with, namely that a newcomer can be competitive quickly, and that the systems described are shared with many games that did not become popular, which suggests depth is not the distinguishing feature.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Critics hold that the systems described are common to many shooters that did not become popular, so they cannot be the distinguishing feature. [Rejecting P2] Most players never engage with the deeper systems, so the retention claim applies to a minority rather than to the audience that makes the franchise large. [Rejecting P3] Retention also follows from habit, from friends already playing and from release cadence, none of which requires depth. [Rejecting C] An explanation resting on what committed players value has accounted for the wrong group.