As someone who spends a lot of his free time furiously pressing buttons as a form of entertainment, I feel I must complain about video game makers forcing me to furiously press buttons.

I sense your confusion. Allow me to elaborate: even though playing video games means pressing buttons on the controller to interface with the software, that's not all it is. Playing video games is an extremely simplified exercise in problem solving. Whether I'm trying to get my plumber safely through a flame-ridden castle, running and gunning against the forces of Hell or simply maneuvering little blocks into neat little stacks as they fall from the top of the screen, all video games present me with a sequence of tasks or dilemmas and force me to solve each one in order to proceed to the next. Even though I do press buttons to accomplish this, it's up to me to figure out which buttons must be pressed at what times to get the job done. At some point during that process, I have fun.

What isn't fun and what I feel runs counter to the fundamentals of playing video games is the mindless button mashing of the "quick time event." Rather than challenge me with a puzzle or offer me a twist on a familiar task, a QTE instead requires me to press a button immediately. If I do it, the game continues; failure means I must start the QTE over again. It is purely a exercise in twitch reflexes and it is the epitome of frustration.

Again, I'm picking up your resistance to my argument. Regardless of how games present themselves to the player, you're wondering, isn't success or failure always going to come down to pressing the right button at the right time? In other words, if I push B instead of A when approaching a pit, won't the plumber fall into it and force me to restart the level? And by reducing gameplay to this core mechanic of "press the button now," aren't QTEs actually easier than playing the regular game anyway? What's the big deal?

The difference is two-fold, in my opinion. All games have a learning curve that trains players to make the right decisions to play the game. Earlier stages introduce the important elements of the game world and later stages raise the bar one step at a time. In learning the ropes, players also become accustomed to what each button does to the point that using the controller becomes second-nature. QTEs have no gradient or teaching ability. They will always be nothing more than urgently pressing buttons, and those buttons rarely perform the same function they do in the game, if ever. It is completely arbitrary and meaningless, making it harder than that it sounds.

Beyond the pure mechanics, QTEs feel unfair because they exist outside the game world as the player understands it. No matter how far your character has progressed, no matter how many weapons, power-ups or health items you have collected, your inability to press a single button on demand can end the game. In the case of Resident Evil 5, my character is carrying enough artillery to flatten a small city and I have the know-how to avoid most any attacker in the game, yet I am repeatedly shoehorned into QTE-driven cut scenes that have me dodging motorcyclists and giant tentacles. Just let me shoot them and move on!

More than any other gripe I have about QTEs, the most important and most basic one is that they are boring. The buttons may change but the outcome never does. They are not satisfying in the slightest, not on the first playthrough and certainly not on the second or third. Games like Resident Evil 5 demand multiple completions to access more features. If I know what's coming, why not just let me skip QTEs as easily as I skip any other cinematic sequence? Either way I am just staring at the screen and watching the characters on auto-pilot. I'm certainly not playing the game that I want to play. I'm not "playing" anything at all; I feel like I'm being experimented upon by B.F. Skinner instead, and that's not worth my money or my time.

Daniel Feit was born in New York but now lives in Japan. Follow him on Twitter @feitclub or visit his blog, feitclub.com