Maybe you haven’t been convinced by a good enough argument. Maybe you just don’t want to admit you are wrong. Or maybe the chaos is the objective, but what are you knowingly on the wrong side of?
In my case: I don’t think any games are obliged to offer an easy mode. If developers want to tailor a specific experience, they don’t have to dilute it with easier or harder modes that aren’t actually interesting and/or anything more than poorly done numbers adjustments. BUT I also know that for the people that need and want them, it helps a LOT. But I can’t really accept making the game worse so that some people get to play it. They wouldn’t actually be playing the same game after all…
It’s hard for me to know whether or not I’m on the wrong side of an argument. When people turn into bastards and brigade on me whenever I make an opinion on things. It’s hard to tell sometimes because, maybe their asshole-ness just validates what I expressed and I’ actually in the right. Who knows.
That human rights really matter in the coming upheaval. The doomsday glacier is probably insurmountable for civ to overcome and that level of change in sea level within a decade to century and a half is going to change everything. Most of the worlds cities are not viable. From what I have seen, the long estimates are all biased and unreliable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yEj9JVRhjA
On the bright side, speculative long term land investments might yield a large sum of money. Shallow keel ferry and airboat operators stand to make a fortune.
Well, this thread was entertaining until I read this comment
Not mad though, this is what people should be talking about
Sorry depression is rather strong ATM. Basic needs not getting met hurts.
I’m not sure how the impending climatic doomsday is going to make human rights unimportant?
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.
Wow, this should be downvoted more.
conceded on say trans issues or whatever
What if we conceded on your rights or whatever?
Plus the idea that trans rights lost Democrats the election is ridiculous. There were zero trans speakers in the DNC, and Harris did cater to transphobes by saying she will go with state laws.
So the question remains, who else are you willing to throw under the bus because you think that their rights are too edgy?
Go-slowism leads to do-nothingism - Malcolm X
Utilitarian is not what you think it is. Your comment just shows a complete lack of empathy for people living in the same social space as you.
I think people who think that the rights of any group’s rights is “too much” to appease and appeal to a society of oppressors are complicit to the oppression.
Plus the idea that trans rights lost Democrats the election is ridiculous. There were zero trans speakers in the DNC, and Harris did cater to transphobes by saying she will go with state laws.
You think republicans were watching the DNC or are listening to Harris on trans rights?
There is a reason that one of the ads the trump campaign ran most heavily was about trans issues and casting Harris as too liberal on them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3BXYjoAzq0&ab_channel=TheJimHeathChannel (it’s a horrific ad, so uhh, trigger warning but you can see what they’re doing.)
How many conservatives do you know socially and how many of them didn’t say this was a victory against woke?
so the question remains, who else are you willing to throw under the bus because you think that their rights are too edgy?
I mean, I just answered the logic of the question. I’m not sure what the answer is, nor am I confident abandoning part of the Dem coalition works as we’d split the progressive vote which is death in a 2 party system.
BUT. If the Far Right keeps winning elections, which they generally seem to do by killing the Left on culture issues (this keeps playing out across the world) this will doom billions of the poorest on Earth.
I’d ask you a similar question. Forget trans rights, say the abolitionists had included gay rights but back in the 1800s. Unless you have a wild perspective of history, it’s pretty safe to assume they wouldn’t have won nearly as much popular support as they did. So, how much longer would you have allowed slavery in order to be morally right but unable to help either slaves or homosexuals?
Do I wish the world were better? Absolutely! But, we live in the world that is, not the world we wish it was.
Finally, this is exactly what utilitarianism is. Utilitarianism is trying to promote the maximum good for the maximum number of people. The chief criticisms are generally around situations much like this, where the philosophy implies you are willing to inflict unfair suffering on a small number of people to maximize the collective gain of everyone else (technically including the small number.) What do you think Utilitarianism is?
this keeps playing out across the world
Sorry, I won’t cater to the anti-woke majority. They are shaped by decades of well-funded fascist propaganda and complicit media and social media outlets.
This is how “woke” was even introduced in our vocabulary in the first place.
These efforts were never matched in breadth and throughput by those on the anti-anti-woke side. Saying that Democrats should cater more to the anti-woke lynching mob does not cut it. It is the quintessence of the ratchet effect. It only leads to greater success rate of said propaganda efforts.
So to translate your argument, the fascist propaganda apparatus indeed has shaped an anti-woke majority, but leftists should not yield to them under no conditions: it will only normalize bigotry. Plus they already did lower the tones on trans issues. It did not win them the elections. Biden did take on the bigots with pro-trans policies and he had won, on the other hand.
So what leg does your argument even stand on except sharing some of the bigotry? We should push the narrative more and more towards equality, not conceding that absolute equality is utopian. The more you annoy the bigots the better.
The Democrats never addressed the propaganda apparatus that brought us to this. And now we should focus more on organizing rather than retrospectively catering to transphobes and racists to win elections. That is why I think your argument is despicable and comes from a position of privilege. If it was your rights/survival on the line and not someone else’s you wouldn’t be suggesting political trade-offs.
Right enough, you are doing this right now: Because your life is at threat now, you say “shiiit we should have sacrificed the trans pawn to win the political chess after all”. Guess what, this is the dog-eat-dog mentality that fascism instills in people, having its way already.
The answer is solidarity and organizing, not trade-offs.
So, again, I’ll ask a fairly simple question.
Say the abolitionists had included gay rights but back in the 1800s. Unless you have a wild perspective of history, it’s pretty safe to assume they wouldn’t have won nearly as much popular support as they did. So, how much longer would you have allowed slavery in order to be morally right but unable to help either slaves or homosexuals?
Edit: Becaude its not just trans folks at risk, it is the billions of poor people who will die from climate catastrophes. They don’t have our privilege of knowing that even if the climate goes bad, we’ll be basically okay.
We have two vulnerable groups to protect, one is much larger than the other, by orders of magnitude.
I already said no. We have a totally different mind model here. You think that there is a static majority with crystalized opinions, a conservative inertia that we have to adapt to. I believe that the revolutionary powers compete with fascist propaganda to win over the majority, who is bound to different material interests.
When this deceptively mild approach of appeasing the majority used, it legitimizes that the fascists are somehow in the right to a degree.
That is what I cannot stand about centrists. I am an anarchist, there is no middle ground between me and, well, a number of things that are utterly unacceptable. There is no middle ground to nazism, and corporatism, for example. By upholding these standards, I am dragging society towards absolute equality.
With your appeasement approach, you legitimize fascists, which is called the ratchet effect. Without revolutionary powers dragging people leftwards, centrist appeasement pushes the mainstream rightward.
Having said that, the proposed example is completely out of historical context, and is wrong on so many levels. I can’t go into all the details right now, but the very idea of “throwing homosexuals in the mix” is preposterous given the historical context.
Let me direct you to the fact that the British Empire paid reparations to slave owners, but even to this day if you try to mention Reparations to the Caribbean and African nations you will be met with vile harassment from hordes of nazi trolls. So I cannot educate you in Marxist political economy right now, but you comparing abolitionism to gay rights is comparing apples and oranges, and the equivalence is unwarranted.
Only under the concurrent prism of anti-wokeism these are deemed comparable, from the viewpoint of being “not cisgender heteronormative germanic/anglo/saxon Christian male”. So you would not be bringing this even remotely up if you were not ever so slightly affected by anti-woke propaganda yourself.
Actually people had much less of a beef with homosexuality before the 50’s and the pink scare. Lord Byron was like, an open bisexual. Victorians has nipple rings as a fad.
Also abolitionists and suffragettes and the like weren’t exactly wildly popular.
Your hypothetical scenario is not only uninformed, but also a false equivalence. We don’t live in those time periods, we can focus on more than one thing at a time, and you’re also fixing blame on the movement to make things better rather than on the people who are actively making things worse. You should be blaming the rich for making global warming worse, not the people who are fighting against it and losing because they are daring to say trans people shouldn’t be a problem.
The non-crackers are a much bigger group than the genocidal crackers so from an utilitarian standpoint we should kill all crackers
Tailism never works
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 ?
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.
Asking (paraphrasing) “hey what are you wrong about but unwilling to admit?” and then sticking a (metaphorical) “I think Nickleback is a pretty good band” opinion in the middle of it feels like a harder challenge than the designers of AskLemmy were intending
I thought about it a bit when making this post and I felt like not giving an example would make people come with crazy political opinions which would probably be a bad time. Maybe it still wasn’t the best approach, admittedly.
Maybe giving the example in a separate top-level comment would have worked better. Interesting discussion either way, though.
That is why askreddit banned “I’ll start”, half the comments were replies to the OP instead of sharing their own experiences.
Said like someone who never wanted to be a rock star
I mean, nickelback is a pretty good band.
Maybe even the best metal band ever
Iron Maiden? Goldfinger? Led Zeppelin? So many better metal bands, come on!!
Definitely. Hate on me if you want but I’m about to drop some truth about why Nickelback is literally the most metal band to ever shred this mortal plane.
First off Chad Kroeger’s voice is basically what would happen if you took Bruce Dickinson’s pipes and injected them with pure Canadian maple syrup and gravel. Have you even heard “How You Remind Me”? That’s basically “Number of the Beast” but with better hair.
And how about their crushing riffs? Led Zeppelin? Really? While Robert Plant was singing about hobbits or whatever, Chad and the boys were out there crafting absolute face melters like “Photograph”, which is basically “Stairway to Heaven” if it was actually good.
More evidence that proves Nickelback is the GOAT:
- Been on the US Hot 100 unlike Iron Maiden
- Their music videos have better production value than Goldfinger’s entire career
- Chad Kroeger’s hair is scientifically proven to be more metal than any other musician’s hair, especially Robert Plant’s.
I know this is controversial, but someone had to say it. The fact is this is what peak metal performance looks like, deal with it.
Lead has a higher atomic number than nickel, making it more metal.
Ah, so you admit they’re above Iron Maiden at least.
That’s not how I operate. If I know I’m on the wrong side, I change sides.
Oh, I’m also on that side of the “game difficulty” argument. I mean, I don’t care much about what’s offered in single player games. I usually play on the default settings. But one time I got into an argument with someone who said he should be able to unilaterally adjust his iframes and parry window in PvP, and that guy can fuck himself.
I think I have an undue emotional response because a lot of the time it feels like the other person didn’t even try. It’s like someone who goes to a restaurant and just immediately pours salt all over the dish. Just try it like it was delivered first.
Or they usually eat pizza, but they order this soup dish. And then they get mad they’re burning their hands when they try to scoop it into their mouth. Use a spoon. Stop blaming the soup and use a spoon.
I guess more broadly my problem is I don’t believe other people are any good at introspection and emotional regulation. People just feel things and make up justifications. We all do that some of the time, but I think some people are just always in that mode.
There isn’t really a “right” side to that one. If developers want to disappoint some potential customers and leave money on the table by not creating an easy mode, that’s their prerogative.
Maybe? I feel like the developers have the prerogative to decide to include it or not, but with the way the discourse has gone it certainly feels like I’m in the wrong here.
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.
I am always on the right side of any discussion. Otherwise I wouldn’t be on that side.
I have been bashed for saying sth similar in response to “you think your opinions are better than other people’s opinions”. Duh, yeah? Otherwise I would hold the other opinion.
A lot of people seem to feel this way. Don’t let it become a tautology, however. It’s your opinion because you think it’s correct, NOT it’s correct because it’s your opinion. For example, plenty of folks justify homophobia because gay people make them feel icky and never examine whether or not their intuition is actually correct. You still have a responsibility to examine your conclusions on a topic and readjust as necessary!
It’s your opinion because you think it’s correct, NOT it’s correct because it’s your opinion.
Exactly this.
Yep. I don’t argue for things I don’t believe are the side I should be on. Sometimes I make tongue-in-cheek arguments (think A Modest Proposal) but that’s not in a discussion. I don’t get into arguments as a sport or to make people angry, so why ever be on a side I think is ‘wrong’?
Same! I have 100% certainty in any topic that I happen to be on, and if i’m not 100% certain then I immediately excuse myself and hold my hands to ears screaming “lalala I have no opinion!” because it would be ignorant of me to even debate a topic I am not a complete expert on, said no one ever.
Come on. Discussions aren’t binary. There are bits of that side you agree with, and bits of the other side you agree with and that weird eclectic mix puts you on uncertain spectrum that mostly leans to one side but oscillates in the middle at times, and that’s completely okay because it’s how you update your priors by being corrected by others whilst understanding that a lot of well informed stances are balancing on a few struts
I’m glad you are like that, but dometimes people want to be convinced of the opposite side but haven’t been able to, yet.
I don’t think any games are obliged to offer an easy mode.
That’s a valid stance. It’s ok to make art which is not intended for everyone, or even the majority.
However, if you’re charging people money for it and they are surprised by the difficulty and can’t enjoy it as a result, I think that could be a potential ethical issue. But if you make it clear it’s a difficult, challenging game, then I see no problem.
Good point on the ethics issue. Youngsters these days don’t know what hard games really are. Games used to be diabolically hard, design holdovers from when quarter-munching games moved to home consoles and every game you paid full price for was essentially a gamble on whether or not it was going to be good or even playable, but finishable was almost not a consideration back then because it was pretty rare to actually ckear a game from start to end.
These days to think it’s important and walk a line between challenging and entertaining not just for the sake of capturing a larger market share of players, but also to avoid bad publicity from having a game be too difficult to o complete.
You know you don’t have to play the easy mode right? You can just change the mode in the settings. Most games default to the standard version anyway.
Yes, but by that same argument if the experience doesn’t work for you as it was intended, perhaps the game isnt for you.
Not that arguing this point is the question here anyway.
Why wouldn’t the developer want as many people as possible to buy the game though?
Why wouldn’t the developer want as many people as possible to buy the game though?
I’ve never made art (incl. games) with the intention of having as many people view it as possible. Many developers make games as a hobby rather than for mere profit, and some try to draw a compromise in the middle.
I know this doesn’t apply as much to major well-known games created by professional game development companies, but there are other incentives guiding development beyond maximizing purchases.
And how many boutique niche Indy games made solely for their artistic merit have you played that actually had an easy mode?
From a purely financial view, they don’t. There’s a reason why games have become as handholdy as possible. And one of the reasons why the Souls series stood out was because it went in a different direction.
Games used to be art and done for passion.
Having to include an “easy mode” in your game has powerful knock-on effects that change how normal and hard difficulties play too. Timings and quantities that would normally be finely tuned and hand-crafted suddenly need to be highly-variable and detract from the freedom of developing for just one difficulty.
How can you tell which mode was developed first and which one was tacked on?
In FE: Echoes SoV, for example, I’m pretty sure they developed easy mode first and hard mode got tacked on. But I only played hard mode. Did I play the game “wrong”?
That sounds like an entirely surmountable engineering problem.
It’s not like games are being written in assembly any more.
It goes deeper than just simple engineering though. It affects tone and overarching game design. It is multiple extra dimensions that have to be considered across every aspect of the entire game. If it is done poorly, you get paper dolls on easy mode and damage sponges on hard and nothing of merit to compensate for these facts. The difficulty of the game goes from being genuine to artificial.
That’s why you design for accessibility, and don’t try to cram it in at the last moment. It’s not actually difficult, it just requires engineering discipline.
There are also plenty of Dark Souls clones for people like you who demand nothing but punishment.
I don’t need a game to be hard, I need it to be consistent and well thought-out. Animal Well for example is a rather easy game, but because it only has one difficulty, the developer was able to keep a very tight focus on the world and puzzle design. Everything is layered there, because they don’t have to be containerized and sliced into pieces to account for adjustable difficulty settings.
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.
Adding an easy or “story” mode to a game doesn’t inherently make it worse. You can still play it with difficulty cranked up to “Dark Souls” or whatever. The fact that there is a separate mode that others can use does not affect you; you need not use it yourself.
“Story mode” is actually an accessibility option in disguise: it can let people who have difficulty with fine motor control, reaction times, or understanding visual and auditory prompts to enjoy the art alongside everyone else. Instead of cheapening the game, it actually expands its influence on the world.
All that being said, no, no game is strictly obligated to be accessible, but why cheapen your art by not making it so?
I don’t particularly find the acessibility argument that compelling. Sure, we must make experiences as acessible as possible, but at a certain point the experience gets degraded by it. You can’t make a blind person see a painting, and if you did, it wouldn’t be a painting.
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…
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.
That’s pretty much like saying to a person to watch a let’s play of the game rather than play, which is fine but not really the point.
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.
Hi! I’ve had two strokes, and my hands don’t work as well as they should! Should I be excluded from the hobby, so you don’t have to look at an extra menu option?
What you’ve got here reeks of elitism.
Disability comes for everyone. Sometimes death gets there first. You aren’t unique.
I’m sorry to hear that, and I certainly dread the day I won’t be able to engage with the hobby the same way. But there are a million games that don’t require fast reaction times and precise lightning fast inputs.
Dude, just let everybody play everything. And if you have to glance at “easy” real fast to make sure you’re not pushing “hard (developer intention)” then that’s fine. Hard is still there.
And thanks for the downvote. I don’t know if you’re interpreting a downvote as “doesn’t add to the discussion,” or “this makes me angry” or “you shouldn’t be disabled, you fucked up”, but it just goes to show what’s up. No one else came along in the last 33 minutes.
The point is just that how can a developer create an experience where you have the satisfaction of succeeding against overwhelming odds when you offer the easy mode where you win by pressing one button? I understand that people play games for a myriad of reasons, but one of those IS to put in effort.
Also it was just a mistake, I don’t really care to upvote or downvote people unless it’s something egregious or great. You really shouldn’t care about it, especially since lemmy doesn’t even keep track of it.
You have your satisfaction by selecting hard. You don’t need to deny an easy difficulty to others.
Or are you the sort that would pick easy if you saw it?
Also this whole conversation is dumb because, until you get off your ass and make a game, you have literally no input whatsoever.
I’m gonna go back to my PS2 Silent Hill play through on beginner difficulty, where I can whack guys once instead of five to nine times. It’s the vibes and the environment.
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?
How does the existence of an option you never use degrade your experience?
For it to work well the developer has to change the game’s design to allow for the easier mode to work. If they don’t, it wouldn’t offer a good experience for neither the easy mode nor hard mode players.
The vast majority of games these days handle difficulty levels by simply tweaking the numbers of how much damage you take and deal. They build the game around a “recommended” difficulty and then add hard/easy modes after the fact by tweaking the stats.
Other games simply turn off the ability to die, or something along those lines.
In both of these cases the game is clearly built around the “normal” mode first. I’d be curious to see a clear cut example of that not being the case.
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.
Good old klapaucius:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:!:! I wish there was some use to me still remembering that word today.
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.
perfect be the enemy of good
Even worse, deciding that perfect is the enemy of good on behalf of another person.
Given the person has no access to “the perfect”, this is basically exclusion on ableist grounds.
Adding an option to a game
(or an alternative modality like audio description)
Mona Lisa is not a good example here because it is a single work. Games are mass-producible. If you steal Mona Lisa no-one can experience any more. If you add a story mode to the game, nothing at all is reduced from other modes of the game.
Additionally, if you consider strictly simulation games, their difficulty is just a configuration of different amounts and pacing of things happening in the game. There is no foundation on which number configurations are more correct than others.
By extension, all games simulate a real or imaginary world, and these numbers’ configuration are in the control of the designer. Again, no one of the possible worlds is inherently more privileged than others.
“Story mode” is actually an accessibility option in disguise: it can let people who have difficulty with fine motor control, reaction times, or understanding visual and auditory prompts to enjoy the art alongside everyone else.
This is very insightful.
I mean, if you want your story to reach broad audiences, story mode is good. If you have an artistic vision and can only see your story learned as such, do that. Not supplying story mode is like not supplying condiments at a restaurant. Limiting your client base.
I have an experience relating to game difficulty and accessibility that you would probably appreciate.
I was playing Rimworld for the first time, and because I was aware of how huge disasters that wipe out most of your work (that you can sometimes build back from) is a part of the game, I felt bad about playing the game on the mode that allows you to load earlier saves; I would find losing progress in this way more stressful than fun, so I wanted the ability to reverse poor fortune or choices, even if it felt like I was “dishonouring the intended experience”.
However, a friend (who was the reason I had bought Rimworld in the first place, and who enjoyed the chaos of no-save mode) pointed out that whilst the no-save mode may be presented as the default, the mode with saves enabled is presented as a perfectly valid way to enjoy the game. This made me feel immensely better about it, and I was able to dispel the silly guilt I was feeling. It highlighted to me the power of how we label difficulty settings and other accessibility settings.
Games are a funny medium.
As a Gen Xer, I would agree. When we had games, you had to figure it out. From there, it just got harder and harder until you died. No pretty graphics, no saves, no easy mode.
Now get offa muh lawn!
E: words are hard
Imo, games shouldn’t have an easy or a hard mode. They should progress from easy to hard. Think super mario world.
I generally agree, but I will say, it’s damn hard to get back into games like this after time passes.
The most extreme example would be Super Mario Maker, where some custom levels need game knowledge from a wide array of the various games, so if you don’t know that in SM2 you can pickup snowballs, you might get stuck for a while.
A normal example would be like Vanquish, where if you take a break near the end of the game the sheer level of technical necessity the game requires can make it very difficult to get back into it.
But those are extreme examples. Another example would be something like Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros., where everyone has their sort of muscle memory with these games. I played Melee competitively and I came back to the game and it was like riding a bike, or a Souls game, while hard, is just one boss at a time and the game itself doesn’t have too much technical growth.
The right way to comment on this post is not to answer OPs question, but rather offer your take on their take.
I did all the things at once!
I’ll answer your question!
Pretty sure I’m on the wrong side of vegetarianism. I love animals, I think they’re worthy of love and consideration from us. I know becoming a vegetarian or vegan would reduce harm to animals, and I’m pretty sure it’s the morally correct thing to do. It’s also hard, it’s alienating, and I know every time I’ve attempted it in the past it’s triggered disordered eating.
My current stance is that society should embrace vegetarianism. If the government were to make a law granting animals status that protected them from being killed for food, I’d support that as a moral good. However, I’m not willing to be fully vegetarian in a carnivorous society, there are too many drawbacks. I know this is hypocritical and kinda intellectually pathetic of me but there it is :(
I’m all in on lab grown protein
Your position is about a thousand times better than the denial-ism of most meat-eaters. “Eating meat is morally dubious, but I am making this bad trade off” is better than the usual “Shut up meat is tasty and like they don’t feel pain and if they did it’s only for a moment and it’s longer they deserve it for being lower on the food chain. And the environmental impacts are just made up but even if they were real they’re not a big deal, and if they were then it’s not like it’ll affect me, and if it did well fuck you.”
That is, some people who eat meat refuse to acknowledge that there’s any drawbacks or moral pitfalls. I guess that’s too hard on the self image. Cowards, really.
I try to minimize how much meat I eat. It’s a baby step. It’s hard when like work does an outing and there’s no vegetarian options. I don’t want to make a big stink about it every time. But I’m not going to pretend that eating meat is morally the high ground or good for the environment.
Sometimes people are like “Well I just enjoy a hamburger” as if that’s any sort of justification. Maybe I just enjoy punching cowards in the throat, but we can’t always do what we want, now can we.
I’m in the same boat. My girlfriend is pescatarian, mostly because she thinks animals are too cute to eat. She loves pigs and thinks they are adorable.
I agree that vegetarianism is more sustainable and humane, but I also really like carnitas burritos. I eat way more seafood now and, though she says she doesn’t care, I try to avoid “farm animal” meat when we go out.
I’ve definitely reduced my meat consumption and I will probably continue to do so, but I’m not ready to cut it out yet. I had prime rib for Thanksgiving and it was amazing. Apologies and thanks to the cow.
Good example. I also feel like vegetarianism is probably correct, but I still haven’t gone that way.
My mother does wildlife rescues, birds are mostly, then goes home and cooks a roast chicken.
She knows it’s hypocritical. Cognitive dissonance is weird.
Also, it’s not so alienating. I attend dinners with my family, and I’ll eat roast vegies, and bring a side-dish for myself. Over time a few of my friends became vegan (I didn’t convince them to) and it’s exciting to share recipes.
If nothing else, reduce your meat intake over time.
As with most changes people make, the more drastic, the more unlikely it is to stick.
When I became vegan I was a slut for KFC burgers, and I “failed” a few times, but I just kept reminding myself it’s not good for anyone, and mustered up the will power not to drive past, and eat at home instead.
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.
You’re not alone in not living up to your principles, virtually nobody can.
I once tried to vet all the products I was buying to make sure I wasn’t contributing to slave labour, or deforestation, or animal exploitation, and it was exhausting.
It was good to identify brands which were absolute villains, and I still avoid them like the plague, but the amount of willpower it takes to travel to multiple stores and pick only the lesser of evils is something I’m not capable of right now.
I make gradual improvements, which is sustainable.
I am dead-set on repairing what I can, and hate spending money on new things.
It really depends on where you live. Being in BC we have so many Vegan and Vegetarian places that finding food outside of the home is easy. Visiting Calgary AB though, good luck.
Calgarian here. Can confirm.
I went to an event in Alberta, at lunch break I looked at the restaurants in the events center. My vegetarian option was French fries. The rest was hamburger, beef on a bun, beef soup, beef kebabs etc
Alberta wishes it were part of the US.
I definitely commiserate with this. This is almost certainly the biggest moral quandary in my life. I think in my lifetime there will be a tipping point where vegetarianism will be a large enough minority to make it personally viable for me, but for the moment I reduce consumption where I can. Breakfast sausage will be the hardest thing to give up for me - but I continuously try meat alternatives in hopes of finding something I like.
Is the word “wrong” spelled “wrong” or “rongue”?
You are rong
