I think one of the really neat things about games as a medium is that “the experience” is inherently a super malleable concept. Gaming blows my mind when I think about how adaptive you need to be to run a tabletop roleplaying game, like Dungeons and Dragons — no matter how elaborate your plans are, players will always find a way to throw a spanner in the works. Video games have the same unpredictability of how players engage with the world you’ve made, but a much smaller ability to respond and adapt to ensure that they’re getting the correct “intended experience”.

In some respects, I agree with you, because when I play games, I care a lot about the intended experience. However, the reality is that I bring too much of myself to any game that I play to be able to think of my experience in that way, and I think that’s probably one of my favourite aspects of games as a medium — a dialogue between gamer and game developers. Especially because sometimes, the intended experience of a game isn’t well executed; there are plenty of times I have gotten lost or confused in games because the game didn’t sufficiently communicate to me (or other players with similar experiences) what it expected us to do. Part of the role of the game designer/developers role is to be guide the players so they get something resembling the intended experience.

Honestly, part of why I am on the pro-accessibility side of this issue is because I’m a bit of a snob — I think that being able to adapt a message or experience to a diverse audience shows a singularity of vision that’s more powerful than experiences that target a much smaller audience.

For example, let’s say that the subjective difficulty level of a game (the “experience”) equals the “objective difficulty level” of a game (the difficulty setting) minus the player’s skill level. For the sake of this example, let’s imagine that 10 arbitrary units is the correct level of the subjective difficulty level, and above/below that, the experience is degraded; also, let’s say that player skill ranges from 1-10, with most people clustering in the 4-6 range. In that world, if a game could only have one difficulty mode, 15 ish would probably be best, because 15 (objective difficulty) - 5 (average player skill level) = 10 (intended subjective difficulty level). I don’t begrudge game Devs for targeting limited audiences if that’s what they feel capable of, but I do massively respect the craftsmanship of being able to build a game that can serve a subjective 10 to a wide range of people, by having a range of difficulty settings.

I think it’s sort of a matter of perspective. You may feel like having an easier mode degrades the experience, but for others it makes the game enjoyable/playable to them.

Do you have the same perspective on people that like the sandbox style of the sims games and so would use cheat codes for infinite money? It certainly alters the experience in a way that is different from the intentions of the devs, and to you may degrade the experience of the game, but for other people it elevates the game, and makes it more interesting or fun for them.

A similar argument could be made about the modding scene. Although it’s community driven rather than done by the actual devs of the games, allowing people to mod the game to customize their experience with quality of life mods, or mods that make the game easier/harder allows people to tweak the game more to their tastes and what they’re looking for in a game.

You might say that if a game isn’t appealing to someone they should just play another game. But if the game is very close to the experience they are looking for, but there are a few hangups that are a deal breaker for them, why force them to look for the perfect unicorn game instead of acknowledging that allowing players to cater the game to their own tastes is better. Having an easy mode does nothing to harm you, or your experience of the game, you can still play at your desired difficulty. And it only opens the game up for other people to enjoy.

You can’t make a blind person see a painting. But you can put a braille placard in front of it with a description of the painting. Or have audio tours that describe the paintings. And to you, that may degrade the art, but for someone who otherwise wouldn’t be able to experience it at all, it allows them to at least share somewhat in the experience that everyone else in the exhibit is having.

Using this logic, you would have to accept that people that are very good at a given game from the start have a fundamentally different experience to people that are very bad at a given game. And people that are average have another experience again.

So who’s having the “true” experience? Is the good player having a degraded experience because they feel like they’re playing on easy mode? Is the bad player having a degraded experience because they give up half way in? Is the average player having the “intended” experience of each part of the game feeling earned and hard won?

The reality is it’s impossible to give the “intended” experience to everyone regardless. And if the average player experience is the intended experience, having difficulty settings will actually let the other players experience that, not take away from it. If the very good player and the very bad player can fine tune it so their relative experiences are the same as the average player, hard but not impossible, haven’t you actually given the intended experience to more people rather than degrade it?

It would be pretty crappy to never give a description of a painting to a blind person though. Like could you imagine if we never described the Mona Lisa to a blind person and they just to guess what it was a picture of.

The point I’m making is that you need not alter the painting. Adding an option to a game does not alter it for those that do not select it.

You’re arguing for letting perfect be the enemy of good. The fact that a blind person can’t perceive the visual aspect of an experience doesn’t mean that they should be excluded entirely.

You can also offer an audible description of the painting, and, just so the analogy makes sense, you can warn the audience that hearing the explaination isn’t the experience the author intended to craft.

CrossCode did that…

How does the existence of an option you never use degrade your experience?

Point 1: If adding an easy mode legitimately degrades the “hard core” game, that’s one thing. But unless you were on the development team, how would you know if it had?

Point 2: I don’t think it’s wrong, but I do think it’s… let’s say unskillful in the Buddhist sense. Not immoral so much as clumsy.

People who self-identify as gamers and tie their sense of pride/self-worth to their gaming prowess are cringe. It’s cringey to not want there to be easy modes when nobody’s forcing you to play them.

But the developers put a story/easy mode in the game. That seems intentional to me. Maybe those games just aren’t for you if the mere option of difficulty settings bothers you so much.

Why wouldn’t the developer want as many people as possible to buy the game though?

My old man yelling at cloud rant :

1. i hate vegan products that try to position themselves as the vegan replacement to a non vegan product. They have their own qualities, and it hurts the product that it is compared to the meat alternative. If someone wants to eat chicken, no amount of marketing and spices will make it taste like chicken and will always be inferior to their meat counterparts for the meat eater.

2. Vegan recipes on internet are 95% terrible. They try to put 100 flavors in one meal. Take whatever recipe your normally eat with meat and simply replace the protein for a vegan protein of your choice (pvt, tofu, bean curds, etc). Grill your tofu to your heart content, make that bean curd extra delicious by dunking it in soy sauce and eat with vegetables and rice or make a simple rice and bean with a side of fresh avocado.

3. There are so many good vegan products with fucking terrible marketing. Meat eaters will not change their habits because you green wash your marketing. Go balls to the wall with that shit.

It is an abstraction, an anecdote really. When ordinary people are collectively in dire straights, there is little time or voice for those on the edges that become collateral damage. It is like the military when an army is being pursued in the field by another superior force–the wounded and baggage train support that are unable to fight are left behind. The ethics of the primary force are only circumstantially applicable. No one cares about the disabled or outliers when the attorneys judge and jurists are in crisis mode. While those examples are poor in their applicable timelines and the medium scale big picture. If one abstracts another few layers higher, at the decades to more centuries and even lifespans of civilizations perspective views, the overall stresses and strain on a civilization alter the landscape of the philosophical and morality. Civil rights struggles had little meaning or traction during a world war. Martial law is a mechanism that extinguishes all civil rights in a single mechanism.

I’m not taking sides to making excuses for the behavior of others. It is just my intuition and curiosity allowed to roam freely in the good and the bad without distinction in an attempt to think without bias.

When someone tells me of an unprecedented population displacing event, I see the refugee crisis and disproportionate effects on the poor and disadvantaged. The larger the scope of the poor people problem the larger will be the numbers of people on the edges that fall through the cracks. The experience is empirical from someone that has fallen through the cracks.

I think the logic is essentially right wingers keep winning elections. Their supporters tend to argue first and foremost it’s a win against “woke” while the money/interests behind it tend to be “let’s burn this planet down and get ALL the oil.” If the Left conceded on say trans issues or whatever, maybe we’d win, whixh would undoubtedly benefit the billions who may die because of climate change issues.

(Unsure if this would work or if it’d just split the left etc myself but I think that’s the logic.)

An analogy a friend made while making this argument was that the Civil War was essential for Black emancipation etc and we can all agree it was a good thing. BUT, especially in those days, if abolitionists had also demanded trans recognition or whatever, maybe fewer states would’ve joined the Union or maybe the movement would’ve never gotten off the ground and there’s a possible future wherein Black people might still be slaves because, even with the best intentions, we didn’t pick our battles.

It’s a utilitarian answer to a Sophie’s choice.

If we’re 3 meals away from chaos, or 9 meals away from anarchy, human rights won’t be unimportant, but would you place them above your own survival or feeding your children?

It’s the subtext for so many doomsday/zombie movies. When it really comes to the crunch, what wouldn’t you do ?

Sorry depression is rather strong ATM. Basic needs not getting met hurts.

I’ve definitely reduced my intake, I just can’t apply the principle in a strict way. And the “alienating“ comment is just my own experience, I’m glad you didn’t have that issue! This isn’t intended to dissuade anyone from trying to be vegetarian, like I said I think I’m on the wrong side of this. It just personally has been difficult to fully align my moral principles and my actions on this matter.

It’s your opinion because you think it’s correct, NOT it’s correct because it’s your opinion.

Exactly this.