Gifmaker
Member
And no, I don't mean to say that "gatekeeping" about video game difficulty is a shitty thing to do; rather, it's a bullshit notion to say that people who acknowledge the achievement of higher difficulties are "gatekeeping". The reason for me to post this thread was this tweet by one of our major companies:
Yeah, alright. The tweet is not wrong per say. But what's the message here, exactly? "You can still achieve the same thing as other people, even though you did it in a less impressive and objectively worse and less proficient fashion"? So... how can it be seen as the same accomplishment if the performance was measurably inferior?
Or, as I put it in response to that tweet: running 100 meters is still running 100 meters even if it takes you 5 minutes to do so, but it's not exactly gonna get you into the Olympics! Of course, people would respond with moving goalposts like: "BuT nOt EvErYoNe WaNtS tO gEt InTo ThE oLyMpIcS", which is factually true of course, but that's hardly the point. The point is that if you were to compare two runners sprinting 100 meters, and one takes 10 seconds to do it while the other takes 5 minutes, the latter has hardly accomplished something to write home about. Should the first runner "brag" about it? Probably not, but the second runner should definitely not insist on being compared favorably to the first one, or even worse start to believe that somehow, they accomplished the same thing. Because they didn't.
And that's okay.
I feel like this is the most confusing part about this whole discussion for me: people who accuse others of gatekeeping are so vehement about their opinion that I can't help but wonder why it's so important for them. They claim that game difficulty is not relevant and thus nothing to brag about, then why do they freaking care about it that much? Why not just accept that there are people who are simply better at that stupid game than you are and move on? Why does it matter so much to them that game difficulty should not matter to anybody that they are so up in arms about this whole thing? Can't they accept that people who beat the game at a higher difficulty are probably better than them? Does the knowledge that there are higher difficulty settings in the game which they don't dare to touch somehow embarass them? Why do they care so much about it? And why do they care so much that other people shouldn't care?
I am genuiely puzzled by this phenomenon. That... concentrated outcry of inferiority, people who seemingly try to silence anyone who might be above average. Do these people really feel so bad about themselves that they desperately need other people not to feel good about themselves and their (evidentially existing) skills in order not to feel left behind? I don't get it. And the reason I don't get it is because I am not a pro gamer. I am average, and usually I don't stand a chance against more professional gamers. I suck at FPS, I suck at Rocket League, and I have a friend who I have never beaten in Smash Bros. ever since Brawl because he is just so damn good with his stupid Pit that I will never overcome his skills. I acknowledge this, and I am fine with it. I don't feel like a pouting child who will cry about it and point fingers at a gamer better than me just because I think that makes them a meaniehead somehow.
Don't get me wrong: I am not in favor of abandoning game difficulty or whatever. Accessability is a good thing, and if a game incorporates lots of different modes for people of all skill levels to enjoy, that's fine with me. But what I frown upon is this "victimized" notion to insist on that you are just as good as anybody else who beat the same game even if you played on Easy and they played on Hard. You are not. And you should not feel like you are, because that'd be delusional. You can still feel fine about beating the game, you can still be happy about enjoying it and all that. But you should by all means also accept reality and not fight it; anything else cannot be good for your mental health in the long run.
One or two years ago, Mike Matei got a lot of shit from people because he tweeted that if you beat an old SNES game like Castlevania IV with emulators and savegames, you did not by any stretch "beat" the game. And as someone who only beat Castlevania IV with savegames, I gotta say: he's right. I played through the game, yes; but I did not overcome the challenges of the game through the means the developers intended. I did not "beat" the game and its challenges. Accept your own limits, people. Don't go on the internet and start debating on principles just because you cannot admit defeat. Nobody wants to take your fun away when you play games on easier difficulties (as I do). But if you participate in these accusations of "gatekeeping", you are actively trying to take away from other people: their skills, their achievements, and their rights to feel accomplished for them. Don't be that insecure kind of person. If beating the difficulty's challenge doesn't matter to you, more power to you. But don't take it away from people it does matter to, just because they feel different about it and because virtue signaling companies tell you to. They don't care about you as a person or the difficulty you play at one bit; they only care about your money.
Yeah, alright. The tweet is not wrong per say. But what's the message here, exactly? "You can still achieve the same thing as other people, even though you did it in a less impressive and objectively worse and less proficient fashion"? So... how can it be seen as the same accomplishment if the performance was measurably inferior?
Or, as I put it in response to that tweet: running 100 meters is still running 100 meters even if it takes you 5 minutes to do so, but it's not exactly gonna get you into the Olympics! Of course, people would respond with moving goalposts like: "BuT nOt EvErYoNe WaNtS tO gEt InTo ThE oLyMpIcS", which is factually true of course, but that's hardly the point. The point is that if you were to compare two runners sprinting 100 meters, and one takes 10 seconds to do it while the other takes 5 minutes, the latter has hardly accomplished something to write home about. Should the first runner "brag" about it? Probably not, but the second runner should definitely not insist on being compared favorably to the first one, or even worse start to believe that somehow, they accomplished the same thing. Because they didn't.
And that's okay.
I feel like this is the most confusing part about this whole discussion for me: people who accuse others of gatekeeping are so vehement about their opinion that I can't help but wonder why it's so important for them. They claim that game difficulty is not relevant and thus nothing to brag about, then why do they freaking care about it that much? Why not just accept that there are people who are simply better at that stupid game than you are and move on? Why does it matter so much to them that game difficulty should not matter to anybody that they are so up in arms about this whole thing? Can't they accept that people who beat the game at a higher difficulty are probably better than them? Does the knowledge that there are higher difficulty settings in the game which they don't dare to touch somehow embarass them? Why do they care so much about it? And why do they care so much that other people shouldn't care?
I am genuiely puzzled by this phenomenon. That... concentrated outcry of inferiority, people who seemingly try to silence anyone who might be above average. Do these people really feel so bad about themselves that they desperately need other people not to feel good about themselves and their (evidentially existing) skills in order not to feel left behind? I don't get it. And the reason I don't get it is because I am not a pro gamer. I am average, and usually I don't stand a chance against more professional gamers. I suck at FPS, I suck at Rocket League, and I have a friend who I have never beaten in Smash Bros. ever since Brawl because he is just so damn good with his stupid Pit that I will never overcome his skills. I acknowledge this, and I am fine with it. I don't feel like a pouting child who will cry about it and point fingers at a gamer better than me just because I think that makes them a meaniehead somehow.
Don't get me wrong: I am not in favor of abandoning game difficulty or whatever. Accessability is a good thing, and if a game incorporates lots of different modes for people of all skill levels to enjoy, that's fine with me. But what I frown upon is this "victimized" notion to insist on that you are just as good as anybody else who beat the same game even if you played on Easy and they played on Hard. You are not. And you should not feel like you are, because that'd be delusional. You can still feel fine about beating the game, you can still be happy about enjoying it and all that. But you should by all means also accept reality and not fight it; anything else cannot be good for your mental health in the long run.
One or two years ago, Mike Matei got a lot of shit from people because he tweeted that if you beat an old SNES game like Castlevania IV with emulators and savegames, you did not by any stretch "beat" the game. And as someone who only beat Castlevania IV with savegames, I gotta say: he's right. I played through the game, yes; but I did not overcome the challenges of the game through the means the developers intended. I did not "beat" the game and its challenges. Accept your own limits, people. Don't go on the internet and start debating on principles just because you cannot admit defeat. Nobody wants to take your fun away when you play games on easier difficulties (as I do). But if you participate in these accusations of "gatekeeping", you are actively trying to take away from other people: their skills, their achievements, and their rights to feel accomplished for them. Don't be that insecure kind of person. If beating the difficulty's challenge doesn't matter to you, more power to you. But don't take it away from people it does matter to, just because they feel different about it and because virtue signaling companies tell you to. They don't care about you as a person or the difficulty you play at one bit; they only care about your money.
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