I have successfully (?) played (sometimes semi-suffered, cough, Sekiro) through a buncha popular hard games and have a way less „strong“ opinion on this but also think that an „easy mode“ as an accessibility feature is a good thing.
If, for example, a parent wants to connect with their child and also experience that game they‘re playing, it‘s really no big deal to me if they could turn on easy mode in, say, Sekiro to stand a chance. Not like it‘d impact my own experience at all, and I don‘t feel the need to force them to go through my own experience either. In Celeste, for instance, you can literally fly through the whole game if it makes you happy, and yet I still grabbed all strawberries the normal way and don‘t care if others did as well or just flew to them.
It‘s less of a demand from me and more of a „if you can you should definitely include it,“ though. Obviously doesn‘t work for full on competitive multiplayer titles or something similar though.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 hours ago
Video games are the only art medium where people find it acceptable to gate-keep the art from the unskilled or the disabled.
Imagine buying a movie ticket, then the theater goes “no you aren’t good enough at watching movies to watch this movie. You only get to see the first 10 minutes. It just isn’t for you.” Imagine paying to go to a museum, and they tell you “sorry, you are only allowed to look at the art in the foyer because you aren’t good enough to enter the rest of the museum.”
Difficulty settings are primarily accessibility options. Don’t want the game to be too easy? Don’t fucking turn down the difficulty.
kuhli@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 hours ago
I have to disagree with this. Difficulty settings are at best a bandaid solution to accessibility. The vast vast majority of difficulty settings change the overall gameplay experience, games are far too complex for ‘just make it easier’ to be an appropriate approach to accessibility.
Just reducing enemy health, simplifying enemy ai, etc. can only make a game more accessible as a side effect, it doesn’t address the actual accessibility issues people might have.
I also don’t think games should have hard modes. They should have exactly 1 difficulty the developers balance around.
There absolutely should be accessibility options that have the side effect of making the game easier but making the game easier is the wrong approach to make it accessible.
My suggestion would be stuff like tuning response windows to the results of a reaction time test, aim assist options, visual cues for sound effects, etc. Those make the game easier but do it by addressing a single specific issue, or combination of issues, someone’s dealing with instead of just slapping on a one size fits all solution.
Ledivin@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Yes, deaf people are famously well-accomodated by music, and paintings are always very accessible to the blind. Games are the first medium to ever be inaccessible to people.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 hours ago
That’s a pretty ignorant take. I work in a music venue and art gallery as an event planner and curator. I personally know three blind painters who consistently blow me away with what they are able to produce.
One has tunnel vision, and can see an area about the size of a quarter held at arms’ length. He tends to work with textiles and wood carvings, which he can feel.
The second can see shades of brightness, but very little color; she primarily works in shades of grey or sepia.
The third went fully blind in his 20’s due to a degenerative condition. He grew up with full vision, and started painting when he could see. Then he had to adapt later in life as his vision degenerated. He uses paint thinner to thin out the various colors to different consistencies, so he can feel which colors are where. I have one of his prints hanging on my office wall right now, and it is absolutely breathtaking even before you learn he’s fucking blind.
Art galleries have taken steps to make things like paintings accessible to blind patrons. 3D scans of paintings allow people to feel the paint layers on printed busts. Artists like Van Gogh used paint texture as an inherent part of their piece, and galleries have attempted to turn that into a tactile experience. You haven’t truly seen Starry Night until you have seen it in person, (or at least seen a 3D scan of it). Flat prints simply don’t do it justice.
And we get deaf/HoH patrons at concerts all the time. They enjoy the crowd experience, and they can feel the beat via vibration. Hell, I just organized a concert for next week, where we have an ASL interpreter. Deaf/HoH people regularly have music fucking blaring on kick ass sound systems. They may be able to hear certain parts of it if it’s loud enough, or maybe they just enjoy the beat. But regardless of the reason, they absolutely can enjoy music.
Ledivin@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
You gave lots of examples that accommodate them- that’s awesome and obviously I support that!
What you aren’t arguing for anywhere in this comment is that every artist be required to do these things, but somehow game developers are exempt from this grace?
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 16 hours ago
I’m not opposed to more options but I think this tactic is distracting and generates more pushback than it wins converts.
Are games art? I’d say so, usually. Some are more like toys than art, but many have creative expression
If they are are, must all art be accessible to all people? Well, what does accessible mean exactly? To understand it completely? Then I’d say trivially no, because there are many books that are incomprehensible to many people. No one is going to say “House of Leaves” is inaccessible and the author did a gatekeeping by writing it as such. No one is going to say Finnegans Wake is ableist because it’s hard to understand.
Must all aspects of all art be completable by all people? I’d also say trivially no. You might have a segment in French that doesn’t translate well. You can dub it or subtitle it, but the original experience will remain inaccessible unless the audience spends years mastering French.
I bring that up because some games will have within the game, not a metagame menu setting, easier or harder routes. For example, Elden Ring with a big shield and spirit ashes is significantly easier than a naked parry build. Is the expectation that everyone should be able to finish in both styles? If there’s a hard mode, must everyone be able to finish it?
Should everyone be able to trivially 100% every game?
Personally I think the floor is everyone should be able to interface with the game. Change inputs. Add subtitles.
I don’t really think “I can’t party this spear guy” is an accessibility problem the same way “I’m color blind and can’t read the text” is.
But again, I don’t care if someone wants a god-mode with auto-parry. It just feels like it’s bundling some unrelated ideas together. You’re not necessarily disabled if you’re bad at parrying in dark souls.