By David Futrelle
I regret to inform you that the gamers are at it again. Or at least that subset of gamers who have somehow convinced themselves that finishing games on the hardest possible mode is an accomplishment as momentous as say, curing cancer or rescuing a litter of puppies from the 15th floor of a skyscraper in your underwear, or something.
What’s got the gamers’ manties in a bunch this time? Well, it tutns out that several games journalists have suggested that maybe the ninja vs. samurai game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, released last month, would be a bit more fun and accessible if it had an easy mode.
You’d think that someone had banned them from eating chicken tenders for life.
Gamebros have long preached about the evils of easy mode, but something about suggesting that a deliberately difficult game like Sekiro should have an option for those who don’t want to end up punching a hole through their monitor in frustration was too much for these sensitive — sorry, I mean, EXTREMELY TOUGH –gamer souls to bear
And then there was this masterpiece of angry gamer pomposity:
Some of the angry gamers (like, for example, Mr. Fetusberry himself) denied they were “gatekeeping” their hobby. But others did their best impression of a mean bouncer.
Others don’t mind letting the “weaklings” play, but only if they end up getting properly emasculated for choosing easy mode.
It’s worth remembering that these guys — and most of those yelling the loudest about this are indeed guys — are basing their self-assessments as “non-pussies” and “non-weaklings” om their prowess at a game that involves sitting at their computer hitting keys real fast.
Wow, guys, you’ve proved that you’re so obsessed with video games that you’re willing to grind through difficult game missions over and over again until you get good enough to beat it. Ten year olds can do this.
But these guys have convinced themselves that playing a ninja game has somehow made them the equivalent of an actual ninja.
What makes their complaints even more pathetic is that adding an easy mode to Sekiro wouldn’t stop them from playing the harder modes that these guys love so much. It would just make the game more accessible to a wider range of players.
How fragile must your masculinity be if you feel threatened by someone else enjoying a game that you like but with a little bit of the difficulty dialed back? WHO FUCKING CARES?
Some people play games in order to master them, to beat the final boss on the hardest difficulty setting; other people like to play to relax.
I’m in the second camp. And so, while I’ve been playing video games, off and on, for nearly three decades, I basically still kind of suck at them, despite devoting many hundreds of hours to some of my favorite games — generally the sort of open-world games that allow the maximum amount of just goofing off. I almost always play games on easy mode at first, at least until I get the hang of them. Sometimes I stick with easy mode because, well, I just don’t feel like dealing with a lot of frustration. I paid for the game, shouldn’t I get to enjoy it how I want to? Oh, and I was kind of addicted to the Candy Crush games for a little while.
Are you really not a real gamer, as “Gorilla Channel” inventor @pixelatedboat sarcastically suggested on Twitter, “unless you treat gaming as a horrible, joyless job you don’t get paid for.”
Seriously, if the mostly casual way I play video games, sitting by myself or with a friend in the privacy of my own apartment, offends you as a gamer, might I suggest that you maybe just shut the fuck up about it? What fucking difference does it make to you how I or any other “weakling” gamer plays a game.
I mean, Jesus Christ, dudes. Get a grip on yourselves.
H/T to Shitty Gamer Takes on Twitter, who highlighted that tweet about “weaklings” needing to go back to mobile games and got me heading down this whole rabbithole.
UPDATE: I added the tweet from Fetusberry; thanks to kupo in the comments!
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The folks who were set into disarray at the statement in the review – the game would be more accessible to a wider range of people if it had an easy mode – never addressed the core of the statement. It is an accurate statement. The game would be more accessible to a wider range of people, considering that for a variety of reasons, some prefer to play with less technical difficulty.
So, are they saying that lower difficulty video games aren’t “real” or that people who enjoy them aren’t “gamers”? That seems like an odd stance to take, since the wider the audience, the more profitable the game and the more likely that the company will make another one.
Personally, the comment is useful to me, as I would not buy the game with only a “hard mode” option. I’m just not good at video games and don’t enjoy an extended exercise in frustration.
The idea that mastering a video game is the ultimate accomplishment is also odd. Sometimes, I feel like I’m observing an alien culture.
@Ohlmann – you’re right, old-time games (like NES or arcade ones) were deliberately hard, and for a reason. For arcade games, they simply want you to spend your hard-earned… I mean: begged from parents… cash on more and more games. As for the NES – due to tech constraints they game couldn’t be long, so they ramp up the difficulty to prevent you from finishing the game in one afternoon.
I know I’m kinda stating the obvious here, but some dudes sadly are mentally stuck in this era – forgetting that games doesn’t have to be hard, and was made like this out of necessity.
@ Cindy
Most of the hateful gamers I know are very (financially) successful software developers/ programmers/ engineers. It could just be my location and industry. YMMV
WWTH:
I vaguely remember you noting before, that Trump doesn’t seem to have any passions, other than perhaps golf. (Or self-admiration, I’d add.) Now, it’s rumored that he cheats when he plays golf alone. Some thoughts on that.
First, I don’t hold that against him because, somewhat unfortunately, he’s not getting paid for golfing. Arguably, it’s a problem that he spends a lot of his time as president golfing in places where arranging security is impractical and expensive, but how he golfs is hardly anyone’s business.
Second, I guess casual cheating implies that golf isn’t a passion for him? Then again, I can’t tell if he therefore finds golf as a relaxing casual hobby, or rather some kind of tiresome class obligation?
I doubt he sees it as a tiresome class obligation. Why would he do it so freaking often if that were the case? A tiresome class obligation is something he’d do exactly as much as seemed necessary to keep up appearances … not that he seems to feel the need to adhere to other class obligations, such as that rich people aren’t supposed to be crass and unseemly and openly, nakedly racist …
Of course at least some of it is influence peddling/laundering. The poor security is a feature, not a bug: at these golfing events he can both be influenced by assorted wealthy interests and met by representatives of his KGB handlers without too much pesky record-keeping interfering with the all-important plausible deniability …
The biggest thing that annoys me about Trump and golf is that the amount of time Obama spent golfing made the rabid right wingers froth at the mouth, but now that Dump is in the White House and he plays even more golf than Obama you never hear a peep. Personally, I chalk that up to the racist “lazy negro” stereotype.
I always forget about his golf hobby. Probably because all rich white men do it, so it doesn’t register as a passion. I do think that even if he enjoys it, it has the transactional element to it because it is a means to make business deals and show class markers. Would he be this into a hobby that wasn’t associated with business and wealth? I doubt it.
I’m honestly trying to imagine Donald Trump having a hobby to just relax like building model trains or knitting or something and I just can’t.
I look forward to these nimrods getting old. Wait until you notice those formerly lightning-fast reflexes deteriorating! Maybe then you’ll discover that nightmare mode isn’t as much fun for you as it used to be.
The last game I enjoyed playing was Civilization IV, which I always played with War turned off. I’m sure that the ruff-tuff cream puffs in the OP would regard *that* as cheating.
I’ve mentioned to my son that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of games out there if you’re uninterested in sports, cars or fighting.
Speaking of the bad old NES days, I still get street cred among the right crowd for “My mom beat Zelda II.”
(Zelda II was the really weird FF-esque map and side-scroller dungeons one. It was near impossible, and my mom beat it. She was obsessed with the Zelda games.)
Anyway, I like playing video games, but my twitch reflexes are horrible. I have trouble with a lot of fine-motor movements — I didn’t learn how to tie shoelaces until junior high, and I still don’t do them right — so I get frustrated easily with games that make me do too much button mashing in a short amount of time.
I love games that let you explore all over a map and do things that aren’t necessarily part of advancing the game. I was known to boot up San Andreas, put in the cheat code that gave me infinite ammo and the rocket launcher and spend a couple hours blowing the police chopper out of the sky. Is that the wrong way to play? It’s the way I wanted to play.
(Right now, I’m in the middle of Fallout 4 — yeah, it takes a me a while to get to games — it’s a function of being poor.)
Short of it, I hate saying I’m a gamer because of jerks like this. Sure, I put the game on the easiest setting it’ll allow me. It lets me enjoy the games. I don’t have to have the street cred of saying I beat Zelda II. I have my mom for that. 🙂
Robert, there is a whole world of adventure, narrative, and puzzle game you’re missing out on.
@Robert:
Minecraft in peaceful mode.
Games from Thatgamecompany, particularly Journey.
Games from Zachtronics.
Naa na na na na nah na naah, Katamari Damashii!
Walking simulators: Firewatch, Dear Esther, Stanley Parable.
Puzzle games: Talos Principle, the Portal games, Antichamber, Monument Valley.
@moggie
Katamari damashii is one of my favorite games. I play it ever time I’m upset about something and it clams me down. Something so satisfying about rolling a shit up into a ball
@Lainy:
And the music! It’s the only game for which I bought the soundtrack, on an import CD.
I’m not sure I understand fandom. Shouldn’t it be about sharing your enjoyment of $thing as widely as possible, introducing it to new people so that their lives can be enriched by it? I know that I have to restrain myself from boring the pants off anyone who will listen to me explain the awesomeness of this book or that film. Why do so many fans instead treat it as a way to convince themselves that they belong to an elite group, and the “normies” wouldn’t understand? Sorry, no, you don’t have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty, science fiction is mainstream now, and you share your love of Dark Souls with noted soyboy Harris Bomberguy. Find another way to be special.
Yeah, I’ll never understand why people think having more difficulty options is a bad thing. If someone isn’t able to hang with excruciating difficulty but still wants to experience a game then they should have the option to do so.
Related is a lot of time I’ll see people reacting to things like this like, “What, you think Cuphead is too hard? Then go play Fortnite, casual!”, as if not being able to beat one brutally hard platformer means you should stop playing platformers entirely.
Never understood how being a casual fan is supposed to be a bad thing anyway. I’d probably fall somewhere in between personally – I’ve been playing games for probably about 24 years now and I certainly do it a lot, but I am very rarely one for brutally hard stuff (there are some exceptions – I’m never touching you, Funky Mode, but I don’t mind your presence) and I’ll often go days at a time using my PS4 for nothing more than Youtube.
@Robert
May I suggest a few as well?
Eastshade – It’s a game about being a painter on a fantasy island. There is no combat of any kind. Only solving dialogue and inventory puzzles to find material and spots to make paintings. It’s breathtakingly beautiful and incredibly relaxing.
Two Point Hospital – You build a hospital in a world full of the punniest diseases one can imagine. Overall, there are some amazing Designer games… Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 was amazing!
Dropsy: Classic adventure about a huge clown who wants to make everyone feel better. Not a single written word in the game. Huge feel-good.
Monster Prom: Don’t ask… it’s stupid, stupid, stupid… but so much FUN! (Dating Sim parody)
Reus: You’re a Titan and you can shape a planet beneath you. And the rest is basically you taking care of the people of that planet.
And those are the completely non-violent ones. I also love “The Shrouded Isle” (kinda like Clue, but for Cthulhu-esque cults), “Cultist Simulator” (name says it all) and “The Sexy Brutale” (Groundhog day in a casino, only that it’s your job to save your friends from being murdered over and over)
@Moggie
Yeah, right? I literally gushed at the chance to share a few of my favourite non-violent games here. I never understand these cretins who try so hard to keep people away from something pleasant.
Back in the day, after I got bored with a (single player) game I would sometimes amuse myself by cracking it: using a debugger to figure out how to give myself more loot, infinite ammo etc. It’s an interesting intellectual puzzle. There’s more than one way to enjoy a game, and some of them involve barely even playing the game! If it gives you pleasure, and you’re not hurting anyone, don’t let anyone tell you that you’re gaming wrong.
There is a little bit of a thrill to loving something that everyone else isn’t into. When Game of Thrones first started, I was telling everyone it was great and they need to watch it. Now that everyone does watch it, it’s a little bit less fun to be a fan. But not that much less fun. I don’t understand needing so much to feel cool that you try to bully people out of getting into something you like. Besides, the success of a thing you like in the media means that thing will continue to produce output. It means there will be the funding for the output to be high quality. Enjoying cult TV shows like Firefly or Freaks and Geeks has its joys, but those shows got cancelled after one season. I’m thrilled GoT gets to be completed the way everyone involved imagined it would be. Even if it means I don’t get to be considered special and cool for watching it.
@TheKND:
Ah, now that you’ve mentioned that, someone will probably be along soon to talk about Hatoful Boyfriend. (Not me: I haven’t played it)
I’m not much of a gamer but I can think of at least two indie games, “I Wanna Be The Guy” and “Dwarf Fortress”, whose difficulty level is set absurdly high as part of the overall game aesthetic (in the case of IWBTG, as a parody of all those ultra-difficult platform games from the 8-bit era; in the case of DF, because the author is seemingly after an unheard-of verisimilitude in the game mechanics– I mean, the game engine apparently procedurally generates the landscape in which the game takes place by simulating actual geological events!) But these are kind of niche games. Personally, I think having selectable difficulty levels is a good thing because it improves replayability.
@Scanisaurus
Three things I note about all those dudebro protagonists you put up there:
1. Cis male
2. Brunette
3. Constipated af
4. Manly Stubble ™ may be also featured.
I have no idea what the gamer trogs are actually thinking, but to me it seems like their idea of seeming Macho is to look like you’re passing a turd about the same size and consistency as a clay brick.
LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT HATOFUL BOYFRIEND!!!
Though I uh… wouldn’t say it was uh… Okay, so um… Freakin’ spoilers! If you watch the backgrounds, you can notice that it is darker than one would suspect.
I wanted to share my love of the phoenix wright games, they are pretty coo’.
Stardew valley, while there is some fighting, it isn’t too over the top. You could play without it, but it would make doing some later game stuff more difficult, since you find a lot of resources in the mines.
Life Is Strange has violence in it, but it’s a story based game, and the button presses are like, MAKE A CHOICE ~tense music~.
Hmmm… the persona series doesn’t really fit in to ‘no fighting’, but it’s turn based, so not too twitchy annoying. At least 3-5 is! 3 and 4 slightly interconnect, but 5 is a brand new beast. It is super good (though there is a DEFINITE DISCONNECT between one character’s story and their costume. WTF Japan. W T F.)
Aaaanyway, those are my game recs, right now.