Arcade games were also meant to be perpetual money-makers that players rarely owned. It’s worth noting that arcade games also had adjustable difficulty settings, which arcade operators could tinker with based on customer reaction. Finally, many arcade games from the Golden Age could not be “beaten”; they were quests for points, with either kill screens or score rollovers as close to “beating” them as players could ever get.
If you buy an arcade game, you can set the difficulty lower. You can set the game to Free Play. You can tinker with all kinds of settings to “beat” it or run up a ridiculous amount of points. And it doesn’t matter how you do it, because you spent your money on it, and it’s yours to play as you wish.
Yes, and you can also play Chess (or any boardgame) against yourself and complete the entire game without help from another player.
But that doesn't mean you played it as it was designed.
All games in human history are a matter of suspending our disbelief. We accept the rules and we engage with the toy. We give games seriousness and consideration in ratio to its depth and entertainment value. If you don't want to play a hard game, then don't play a hard game.
Should all puzzles have the same number of pieces? The idea that games should not be "hard" is delusional, the height of "gamer privilege". You are welcome to engage with the product and attempt to learn it and beat it, but no one is
entitled to winning. Calling people who point this out "elitists" shows a misunderstanding of the word and a misunderstanding of human nature.
It's okay to celebrate difficulty and excellence.
The gatekeeping and elitism among today’s video game players is fucking shitty, full stop.
I'm going to "full stop" you here and point out that not wanting to force developers to dilute their vision is neither "gatekeeping" nor "elitism", and trying to paint it as such is disingenuous.
Nobody fucking owns this hobby, nor is there a designated arbiter to tell players how they should play and enjoy games.
This is incorrect. In a very real sense, every game designer is the "designated arbiter" of their own product, seeing how they made it and sold it as a product. As the player, you have the choice to play (and enjoy) it their way. This reality is why we have speedrunners and no-death players, because players are choosing
how they should play and enjoy said game.
I don’t give a fuck what others think when I play through modern games on Easy. I have nobody to impress, no e-penis to grow and flaunt. If others want to play on higher difficulty settings, then good for them. It’s nice to have various options so that more people can play and— most importantly— enjoy games.
You apparently care a lot.
And lest we forget that these are fucking video games.
Indeed! Why are people upset when a tiny, tiny fraction of them are more difficult than other games? Are we not allowed to have a range of challenge in this medium? Why
must there be difficulty options?
Things that, once upon a time, were allowed to be fun things.
Once again, you appear to not comprehend the purpose of a game. Challenging games
are fun to a subset of the market, just like braindead-easy games are "fun" to another subset of the market.
Now it’s serious business. “Artistic vision”. “Git gud”. “If you’re not frustrated, it’s not rewarding when you succeed.”
Fuck all that. In a world where real life is frustrating enough, I don’t need to be more frustrated. I want to get away from that shit for awhile and just enjoy myself without wanting to snap a controller in two.
Once again, I fail to see how you are not catered to as a customer. Most games cater to your particular disposition. Most AAA games do and most indie games do. Only a small fraction of games come with a fixed difficulty.
If developers don’t want to put easier difficulty settings into their games, fine. I won’t buy them.
Okay. But please don't stop posting on game forums about the unfairness of it all. That would really be a case of forgetting "that these are fucking video games".
If marketing teams want to promote their games as being ball-bustingly difficult, fine. I won’t play them. It’s all about choice— and thanks to having tons of modern games to pick from and decades worth of games from the past to revisit, nothing major is lost if I decide to skip a few. These hard games— whether hard in reality or hard based on reputation— just aren’t my thing.
This is an excellent attitude to have. Most games should be skipped. I don't think gamers need to tie themselves into knots playing games they don't enjoy. If a certain level of difficulty is not your thing and the game doesn't offer an option, huge bummer! Switch to another game. I discard games for far pettier reasons, so I don't see why anyone should stick with a challenging game if they don't enjoy a challenge.