Yea, which is why we have mostly easy, mindless games with no depth and lots of loot boxes. Much more profitable when you focus on “accessibility” and appealing to as many people as possible (larger market). That’s why Apple gaming on iPhone is bigger than everything else. Whether by intention or accident I think “accessibility” has great branding and can be used as an excuse to focus on market share/size. “Oh we have to do this otherwise the game isn’t accessible.” Hard to stand up in the room and push back on that line.

Personally (if you can’t tell already) I think it’s better that many games aren’t accessible. There needs to be “reward” for putting in time and effort. Growing up if a game was just hard it was… just hard. You either eventually beat it or you gave up and played something else. No big deal. I’d rather there be things that exclude people I think than to have everything be super easy.

Take Skyrim versus Morrowind. As a kid I randomly stumbled across Morrowind in a local used game store. This was sort of pre-internet (or at least pre-internet in my house). So when I played Morrowind there were no guides. I had no idea what I was doing. Random fights were “hard” for me. But there was so much mystery. What is behind that locked door in the Mage’s Guild? I spent countless hours just exploring the world and discovering random stuff. It was fantastic.

Skyrim comes out (maybe I could make the same argument about Oblivion). You run into someone, oh here is the exact location of the quest. Follow the marker. You show up. Boss fight is super easy. Ride your horse around. The conversations with NPCs has little depth. There’s no mystery.

Now I admit some or much of this can be chalked up to nostalgia and misremembering either game. I still enjoyed Skyrim. But Morrowind was part of my life. Elden Ring gives me similar vibes and I’ve mostly been avoiding the Internet while playing it. There are boss fights that are just hard and I won’t progress in the game if I don’t beat them. Good. That’s a feature, not a bug. I am currently stuck on the Demonic Tree Sentinel as an astrologer. It’s frustrating. But what’s the point if I could just spend real money on a power-up or cheese the boss or just lower the difficulty level?

As an industry I of course think that there should be games that are approachable to people of all skill levels and interest. I enjoy Pokemon and Mario Cart and World of Warcraft, and also Elden Ring. But I absolutely think that developers can and should be free to make games that are not approachable whatsoever.

If it’s too hard that’s ok. There are other games and other things to do.

If you’ve got a story/experience to share you don’t have to make it for the lowest common denominator, but I’m sure you want more people to experience it than not. If something feel capricious or arbitrary, regardless if it is or isn’t, people tend to walk. At some point the creator has to bridge the gap.

There’s a reason FromSoftware ditched the bonfires/saves being so far from bosses like in DS1. It was needlessly punishing in a game already designed to constantly kill you and ruined people’s “grooves.”