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Comment by paulryanrogers | Hacker News Reader

> People who ask for an easy mode are missing the point entirely. They're asking for a content conveyor belt with no player agency, essentially. Game companies need to stop listening to these people. They're just wrong.

This is gatekeeping. Game developers at the AAA level should strive to make them as approachable and accessible as practical. An easy mode or other accessibility options don't necessarily have to dumb down the 'intended' way to play. They can supplement the core experience so that busy or differently abled consumers can enjoy it as well.

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I don't think it's gatekeeping. Videogames are art. It would be silly to say that every painting needs to be easy to appreciate, or that every movie needs to be easy to follow. It's equally silly to suggest that every game should be easy.

Nobody ever made great art by striving to make it 'accessible'.

Museums and artists take reasonable measures to make art accessible to as many people as practical. AAA commercial art and experiences should as well. It's not a government mandate, just good business.

There’s a video of a guy beating an Elden Ring boss with his chin. I find your comment frankly insulting towards, as you put it, “differently abled consumers”.

Olympic paraplegics jumping curbs are worthy of admiration for their efforts. Curb cuts are still a worthwhile innovation.

An easy mode is not a curb cut. Options for color blindness, visual cues for hearing impaired, dyslexia friendly fonts or remappable controls are.

There are far more impairments than color blindness, dyslexia, and motor control problems. While it's not possible to accommodate every single one perfectly. Easy modes are one of the simpler ways to help a broad cross section.

Honest question: how can a game like Dark Souls (or Elden Ring which is already much easier and more approcheable) possibly convey the atmosphere of a dark, merciless world with an easy mode?

I love that all the usual replies are missing the fact that the GP said "They're asking for a content conveyor belt with no player agency".

Like, you people replying know there's a difference between accessibility options and "a content conveyor belt with no player agency", right?

It's one thing to discuss whether From games need accessibility options, it's another thing entirely to say anyone asking for them wants to remove player agency.

For me, Souls was about From Software doing something against the grain, breaking out of the mold and being rewarded for it.

They made a game that was actively user hostile - brutal difficulty, gimmicky instakill traps, lost progress for dying, "no story". You can't even pause the game to change gear/use items (even if you're offline), limited fast travel and lots of backtracking.

All of these superficially seem like a bad idea and most of them can be rectified to make the game more accessible but to me, when you concede on all these you water down the overall creative output. Bit like how every MCU movie now feels the same because they all use that Disney formula to derisk every film to make sure it has mass appeal.

Let's also not forget - Demon's Souls was arguably not an AAA game, it was a niche rpg inspired by ghouls and goblins. From Software don't owe people anything - sometimes it's ok to make a game the way you want it because that's how you want to make the game. We can let the market decide whether we should reward that or not.

People aren't owed anything. Yet this trend toward artificial and inaccessible difficulty adds little and keeps many away from what might otherwise be interesting experiences.

How is having an option so offensive?

These aren't indies struggling to make ends meet.

That's a reasonable question and has made me pause.

The practicalities of things like pvp balance is interesting - if you invade someone on easy mode what should that mean? Does easy have an edge? Can players abuse that? What if an easy player wants to invade? Do they get an edge? If you then restrict like for like are you fracturing the player base? If easy disables invasion that is allowing players to avoid a part of the experience of souls which adds a lot of tension. As an opinionated creator (From Software) do you want to allow people to turn that off?

Difficulty is part of the IPs DNA - losing to bosses and being cheesed by traps or losing your souls creates a bonding experience and by extension community. Maybe that's why it feels "off" to allow features that water that down.

I guess when I perceive a game through the lens of a creative art, rather than a product, then an obtuse adherence to some vision seems more reasonable. Though the lines are blurry

> This is gatekeeping.

Damn, someone alert the Himalayan mountains, there is no wheelchair accessibility to the highest peak.

First how? There are hundreds if not thousands of games that cater to people that Soulsborne genre doesn't cater to. And very few games that cater to this niche Elden Ring servers. But ok, want to enjoy the lore there are Youtube videos, want you to get hand-holden around, play Assassin's Creed.

Second - Point of Elden Ring is to have a shared difficulty all people can experience. By insisting on Easy Mode you are essentially destroying a shared experience, so some people can have easier time to experience the tidbits of lore strewn around the landscape?

Third - You do realize ER is the easiest From Software game in a while, right?

Fourth - Just watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKyKGuGU4bw

It’s not gatekeeping.

It depends on the game. The souls games are probably better for not having a configurable difficulty escape hatch. You can always summon to get help with bosses. But ultimately the game expects things of you and won’t just hand them over.

It’s quite refreshing.

Gatekeeping in of itself isn't a negative and making games acccessible to everyone means it's impossible to make games that are difficult mechanically or conceptually. If you want to limit AAA games to only making games for the lowest common denominator then you must concede that AAA games will struggle with innovation or doing anything interseting. If your grandma can't play it and enjoy it then I guess it's not worth making.

Must it be so binary? And so what if there are options which mean my grandma could play it?

Does it hurt people's egos? Are folks so worried about the bragging rights of Steam trophies?

I'm not saying defaults have to be lowest denominators.

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