That, among other things.
HUD Minimaps floating at the end of your screen just takes away attention from the environment, and graciously delivers it to that ugly pacman-ish minimap. Do we need the player mainly focusing on primitive and simple graphics that serve no purpose other than to make the game easier, or do we want the player completely focused and immersed in the environment our game proudly creates?
If I wanted to play a minimap game, I would be playing games from 30 years ago. And those games are still more immersive in their own specific world, exactly because they offer a direct way of playing the game. The "meta" game of minimaps diverts attention away from the game.
My previous post here gives attention to the fact that games are usually filled with other games, minigames that branch out of each other and influence one another, but a successful game is a game that guides the players attention, through the minigames, towards the main presence in the game. Minimaps do the exact opposite. Immersion means bringing the necessity of attention to the actual game and the immediate presence in the games environments. Getting lost and learning how to navigate throughout the world is one of the most rewarding experiences in games of the recent past. It also is a very good trait to learn, today I rarely get lost in very new and confusing environments because of games that needed direct attention.
Not really, i think in my top 5 games there are 3 of them with minimap and I like that. If you are playing multiplayer you need some tool to guide you betwen the complex environment, but if you only pay attention to it you aren´t really playing. I badly see it once every 30 seconds :p...
But definitely in some games like Minecraft or Portal is way better to don´t have it, because it´s more inmersive yes!
I think of games as more important when they are specific experiences, like a good book multiplied by 20, and immersion is much more important than immediate comfort. Immediate comfort is what is really bringing the bar low for many games in different aspect (not only the minimap "thing") :]
I could argue making a game without minimap is less-noob-friendly. Especially if it hasn´t a linear story or is a sandbox experience you could get so lost.
In the other hand as you say it could be more rewarding to learn how to play in your own way yourself and not using it... yes!
Noobs become not-noobs through trials and errors. Sometimes beating a steeper learning curve is a reward in itself.
I literally just take one look at a city that I have never been in, and I can backtrack my way through, all the way from where I started, and games is really the reason for this. Specifically non-minimap games :]
I like this article. If you allow I will use it for MISERY FAQ to explain why we removed the minimap for version 2.0
Most certainly :] thanks