brainwave about the game difficulty wank

[yvannairie]

Do self-identifying gamers get so mad about people wanting accessibility options because they read that criticism coming from a place of entitlement (or preference, to use a less harsh word) as their complaints about the lack of preferred features/content?

Can it be that simple?

It would explain why they seem to mentally add "and that's why it's bad" at the end of "this game lacks accessibility features" and then argue that the germ jurnalists are dishonestly not judging the game by its own merit. You also see this pattern any time a journo says anything positive about a game's diversity -- the argument the self-identified gamer sets out to debunk isn't "this game is good and diverse" but rather "the diversity makes this game good"

Comments

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

This brings to mind this twitter thread on conservatism vs progressivism (just the thread, not the tumblr commentary). Anti-sjw types play into this sort of "logic" which is anti-consequentalist, and rather they presume that that which is logical/rational/optimized is such a way regardless of the shitty outcomes it produces.

[cassini]

[that was an interesting read. i can see the links between enforcing an egalitarian principle that supports itself as just, and the reaction to the unfair consquences of the principle being 'git gud'. though i'm failing to get the synapses firing on yvannairie's specific example, i'm seeing it through the lens of my career. i can see policymakers deciding the just in a vaccuum, then applying it and telling us to 'git gud' because if we see failings, we must adapt to fit the principle ]

[yvannairie]

Which part of it trips you up? I was admittedly posting pre-coffee, which I shouldn't do |D

[cassini]

[hey for precoffee ethics discos ]

[i just think my brain isn't having it with the sentence you used in the post body, because i understand perfectly what you're saying in your 0935 comment below, so i'll chalk it up to a fault on my part ]

[yvannairie]

I think you've got it. Something you often hear is that if "the game was designed that way", then any affordances would run contrary to its artistic vision, and therefore asking for accommodations is tantamount to censorship. It's arguing that the design being like that (and therefore being exclusionary towards disabled folks) is justified, and all its consequences are natural and intended and therefore you just gotta tough it out or not play.

I've said it myself, I have no interest in games that are hard for hard's sake or employ punishing failstates, and so I mostly don't pay attention to the difficulty wank. But it seems every time it comes up, some people start projecting some fucking agenda on the people reporting on it, and getting a few disabled gamers who agree with them to call the act of pointing out the design of a game is exclusionary (not even commenting on whether it's good or bad, even! Just pointing it out!) patronising/condescending/presumptious/ableist/what-have-you

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

I'm curious what pro-difficulty-only people think of let's plays, like are they meant to be enjoyed as a showcase of skill/a bragging rights thing over having the game/being able to play it, or are they despised for being a way for others to partake in a game without having to deal with the challenge of gaming themselves? Because watching a let's play of a difficult game is kind of like getting to play it on story mode!

There's almost certainly an aspect of like... "accessibility means everything being bland and oversimplified" rather than "accessibility means options." It's the classic "should we dumb down classrooms to cater to the bottom students, or should we increase the pace of teaching so the top students can thrive?" when like... if you restructure the system, you can help both groups of students without interfering with the other's educational experience, and in fact maybe people do better in tailored environments.

[yvannairie]

In my experience, Let's players themselves aren't really talked about, other than if their attitudes transgress somehow (i.e. they play on easy or are arbitrarily "bad" or whatever). People who consume games through Let's plays are looked down on.

And... Yeah, putting it like that, it's def clear it's another instance of social conservatism, and a disinterest in solutions that don't involve changing the person with the problem. They're against people asking for resources to be spent on helping that particular group, b/c they themselves will not benefit from it, even when it doesn't hinder them in any way.

[feotakahari]

Fans of just about any game genre will argue that their genre is in danger of dying out as the masses get their hands on it. Jim Sterling argues that horror is not and will never be mainstream, so the more a series tries to appeal to a mainstream audience, the less it will have to do with actual horror. JRPG fans welcomed Bravely Default as a “real RPG” by contrasting it with games like Final Fantasy XIII that tried to be less niche and were therefore not “real RPGs.” The only genre that’s immune to this is strategy games with way too many menu sliders, and I think that’s because Paradox Interactive is single-handedly keeping it afloat.

The upshot of this is that if appealing to a wider audience = the death of your genre, and accessibility means appealing to a wider audience, then disabled people must want to take your games away.

[yvannairie]

I mean, I feel like the consideration of genre is... a different thing than the appreciation of difficulty as an aesthetic (what most people who do difficulty wank focus on) but... you're not wrong.

+1