Turn that around - if you love and respect the experiences you've gotten from games, why do you value the idea of other people having a watered-down version of them? Like I've said, difficulty is inherent to having game mechanics (which is to say it is inherent to games). A higher degree of difficulty makes interaction more meaningful (since it pressures the player to engage more deeply with the game and develop a stronger understanding of its systems).
Difficulty is relative. What's difficult for me may not be difficult for you, my neighbor, or my grandmother. Having a wider spectrum of difficulty options, including ones that would make a game extremely easy for you, allows people to find the level of challenge that's approrpriate for their motivations and experiences. And it's patronizing to call an experience watered-down just because it would be easy and thus less valuable
for you. In a lot of cases, the newness of controller input is enough to make an "easy mode" somewhat challenging. Again, it's about perspectives—and realizing that other ones exist.
I'm absolutely not going to argue that aesthetics aren't extremely important - the themes games are packaged in is also a huge part of their appeal. Even going back to 1985, Ghosts 'n Goblins would not be so thrilling if it weren't for the knight-fights-demons-and-saves-the-princess setting that the game couldn't communicate with just raw collision data. But aesthetics and mechanics have to come together to create a strong, cohesive experience - and a certain degree of challenge is necessary to make games interesting on the mechanical level.
I also like challenge, but it's not a necessary component. I really liked Tacoma and found the mechanic you use to navigate AR recordings interesting. However, no part of that gameplay is "challenging" in the way you mean.
The first example that comes to mind is Bayonetta, so I'll throw that out there. It's a really complex action game, most of its appeal being derived from the complicated interactions Bayonetta has with the enemy characters you fight - interactions that cannot exist if the game is simplified to the point where anyone can play it. Now, Bayonetta does have a tourist mode where you can play one-handed and you have regenerating health - so understandably Platinum decided it was a smart move, business-wise, to make sure no one would play the game, bounce off the combat, and walk away unsatisfied. The game's very easy mode lets you blow through the game, experience all its cutscenes, and watch spectacular-looking battles - but can it really be said to be the same experience a player would get from playing normal mode? I'm not especially personally bothered by the existence of Bayonetta's very easy mode - it's easy to accept that things like that are the result of games being more expensive than ever - but I think it leaves a mildly bad aftertaste to have a mode that basically says "yeah, this game is really complex and deep, but actually all those systems are just ignorable! Here, just watch the game play itself." I think there's also something to be said for the fact that the existence of Bayonetta's easy modes probably deterred some people who would have otherwise stuck with normal - so undoubtedly some players robbed themselves of the experience of learning how to play the game (which is just as much a part of the overall Bayonetta experience as progressing through the game and seeing new content is) and just dropped down to tourist mode.
No, it's not the same experience. But neither is my experience with Bayonetta vs. yours, regardless of difficulty. Our various experiences with art are personal first and foremost and experiencing it differently doesn't inherently cheapen or enhance the experience. But those options should be there so that the maximum number of people can have
their experience.
That's why people defend the Souls series' lack of difficulty options. I'm repeating myself, but those games do not debase themselves at all for the sake of letting the player power through - they respect themselves enough that they won't let you see their content until you understand their game systems, and they respect you enough that they expect you to. That is the reason why fans of the games are so defensive on this subject (and why the "ugh, Souls fans" comments in this thread are so embarrassing tbh). Not all "experiences" are created equal. Someone might have a hard day at work and decide they want to just cruise through Uncharted on Explorer mode afterwards, and that's okay - but the experience they had is not really equivalent to that of someone who played through on Crushing. Just like playing Demon's Souls with a trainer is really not anything like playing it normally.
And, once again, this sounds like "get your
casual hands off of my hardcore games" nonsense. Why should someone not be able to play Dark Souls for the other things it offers if the difficulty of combat is an insurmountable obstacle, or if the time required to surmount it is not available to them? It's not a matter of a game "debasing" or "respecting" itself. That's all just dressed-up language intended to put certain games in a corner and tell outsiders not to go near them.
To deny that difficulty cannot be a core part of a game's appeal is to show a fundamental misunderstanding of video games. I think I've reiterated this point a lot so I don't want to come across as redundant, but to say "difficulty is not a necessary component of any game" is exactly the same as saying "mechanics are not a necessary component of any game". The Souls games aren't just difficult for the sake of being hard, they are hard because that difficulty sells the experience of going on an arduous journey through a dangerous fantasy world. The only reason the Souls games' aesthetic elements (art, music, story, etc.) work is because you, as the player, exist within this fantasy world, and through your play you come to understand that it is a genuinely dangerous and harrowing place. Slap on an easy mode setting in the main menu and suddenly the game loses a lot of its verisimilitude.
I never said it can't be a core part of a game's appeal. In fact, I said that it's a core part of
my experience with certain games. For all these words and bold assertions, you've failed to argue why it matters that everyone experiences the exact same game you do. The idea that everything about the Souls games only works because of the difficulty is ridiculous to me, but I suppose that point is subjective.
Basically, I don't think "everyone should be able to have this experience" is necessarily a positive thing. Some experiences are just inherently exclusionary and exclusive. Arguing that game mechanics aren't an essential part of a game (and that people should be able to remove them from a game at will) is more or less like arguing that films with strong elements of horror or tragedy are worse off for not being something that everyone can enjoy equally.
And again, no two people will have the exact same experience, ever, regardless of difficulty. Pushing for more accessibility options is about allowing more people to have
their experience with a game—not yours or mine. Obviously no piece of art can be accessed by everyone, but it's about finding ways to maximize that number.
I think so. They aren't without merit, but I think games with less interactivity like that can never be as engaging or as meaningful as, say, a good Bayonetta or Fire Emblem game.
Ah, Tacoma and What Remains of Edith Finch cannot be as meaningful or engaging as Fire Emblem. Got it. LOL. I wonder how you square that with the fact that real people who have also experienced those games find them more meaningful and engaging than Fire Emblem. It's almost as if...
we all experience art differently.
