Video games aren't for everyone

[@IdylOnTV]

Rediscover your love for fantasy by listening to Songs of Chaos: link.michaelrmiller.co.uk/Idyl

[@kidbeit2935]

It was really disappointing to learn that this channel is pozzed. I really liked you. The MMO -> trans pipeline is real, apparently. Do you like anime too?

[@DaXurk]

@@kidbeit2935 "it was really disappointing to learn youre not an insane /pol/ user like i am, someone that should definitely be emulated"

[@ironhunter3224]

Always happy when the president of MMORPGs addresses the nation

[@Hanging_Brain]

Dude is a derivative of a derivative. So yeah. Quite possibly the president of mmorpgs.

[@JackdawWatcher]

The only president I respect lol

[@colton1341]

Much more relevant than the presidential debate 🤢

[@ZeldaForever]

"Josh Strife Hayes would like to know your location"

[@recino2]

​@@ZeldaForeverJosh is the Prime Minister of MMO's

[@ThisisCitrus]

Not installing League of Legends is the best decision anyone can make for their own mental health.

[@xirogs]

League ain't bad in casual.

[@themosthighvaluemaninthega9048]

I've never played or installed it.

[@turtz0]

YES IT IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!? DID WE PLAY THE SAME GAME????​@@xirogs

[@Thorenic]

@@xirogs It's entirely down to who you play with, which you have little control over with the game's matchmaking system. People will get butthurt, be toxic, and grief in VS Bots matches; let alone casual where you're competing against other players (even though it's a non-ranked setting).

[@OneFiveYankee]

I feel like you can say that about most riot games lol.

[@HighTide.Sunset]

This is a problem in Tech in general. Overvaluation in companies because they use a growth rate that encompasses massive amounts of people adopting their product instead of specific demographics.

[@raaaaaaaaaam496]

Also because a lot of tech products/services are not profitable unless they reach those massive amount of customers.

[@barfbot]

and any public company requiring constant *growth* not just income is so toxic to games

[@HighTide.Sunset]

@@barfbot I mean yeah but that’s business in general right? If there’s no growth rate there’s no investment.

[@callmequaz9052]

​​@@HighTide.SunsetLarian is an example of a private company that does not care about the bullshit of modern games companies. Sven looks after his employees, the team are passionate and given the ability to actually do their job and it produces results like Divinity and BG3. Alot of businessmen make terrible and short sighted decisions because it looks good in the short term, and thats the only thing that matters to investors. They have no sense of long term profit gain or the damage their decisions have. Just gib muns now. That is not business. That is a a parasitic leech that has slowly been making many industries worse and worse. Thats all an investor is, a leech given too much authority and control.

[@Murks33]

Skipping quite a lot of D3 there with the whole "it wasn't hard" -bit. D3 on release was DIFFICULT, though not on normal or nightmare. Even halfway through Hell shit started to pound your face in if you didn't have a really good skill set up and good items (hello real money auction house). Inferno was *brutal*. It wasn't until everything got nerfed that it got easy (Remember Kripparrian and Krippi barely beating Inferno on hardcore before it got nerfed for the first time? That shit took a month). All the torment difficulties weren't even added to the game until Reaper of Souls was coming out, at the same time as loot 2.0, which made things a whole lot easier with actually GOOD items dropping consistently.

[@bandwarrior007]

I sank over 200 hours into a monk to never beat inferno before they made it easier.

[@Murks33]

@@bandwarrior007 I never even made it to inferno on my monk, I got walled hard midway through hell act 3 and I couldn't be bothered farming items or gold for the auction house to keep going.

[@mattkurek9259]

What irritates me is it feels like Amazon could be a great video game development studio and publisher, they have basically unlimited funds and storefront space/marketing for it, plus literally having one of the biggest server hosting sites in the world, AWS. Yet everyone that works on Amazon games seem to have no god damn clue what they’re doing, just throwing stuff and seeing what sticks.

[@SilharaTheChosen]

There's such a weird misconception that if it sells well it must be good or popular. No it sold well because it was the safest investment and was heavily marketed; Banking off of pre existing IPs that had at least one or two good games along the way that managed to pick up genuine fans. Pair that with the fact that the majority of consumers are not watching these types of videos or looking into the purchase any deeper than "Hey the last FIFA was fun" or have simply grown up in the lootbox/battlepass era of gaming and know nothing else.

[@purelysmetalnightcore]

No one asked for video games to cost $100 million+ to make. Of course, when you put that much money into it, you need as many sales as possible, and that becomes more important than anything else. As long as the game looks pretty and seems to have a compelling story, people will buy it. But a lot of people that play video games like myself like simple games, the ones that don't need to cost $60-$70 to make up for the insane amount of money used for development. One of my favorite gaming studios only makes visual novels of ONE genre, nothing else, and although their sales had declined in the 2010s, they're starting to pick up again. Even if the story of a particular game doesn't appeal to me, it's never been difficult to find someone else that absolutely adores whichever visual novel I didn't click with. Yet a number of these big budget games meant to appeal to as many people as possible are universally panned and fail to make a profit because it's just so damn difficult to get so much money back. These big game studios keep shooting themselves in the foot.

[@SnowRaver-p2v]

We literally fixed the problem with work from home. So they don't have to pay comufornia prices... But nope. Pulled everyone back

[@JohnFromAccounting]

There's also games like Star Citizen, which are not making compromises, and take a really, really long time to make as a result.

[@callmequaz9052]

​@@JohnFromAccountingstar citizen isnt a game, its a scam.

[@Ares42]

"No one asked for video games to cost $100 million+ to make." Yes, they did, a LOT of people did. Not directly, but groundbreaking graphics, large detailed open worlds and flawlessly animated cutscenes has consistently been some of the most popular features in videogames for decades at this point. People aren't asking for the games to be expensive, but they sure like all the things that make them expensive.

[@callmequaz9052]

@@Ares42 people like mcdonalds, mate. or rather, they keep buying it, despite it being actual slop and anyone who has worked there can tell you how disgusting those stores are. Point is, people will buy slop if they're consistently given it, because it's an easy feel good. Sure, people like pretty graphics. But games like Undertale/Deltarune are beloved and cherished because they're much deeper than just having a shiny coat of paint. BG3 was massively successful, not because it's a pretty game (it looks good, but there are many ways it could be visually improved) but because it was made with passion which shows through in just how much freedom there is for the player, the quality of the VA and it generally just being a good damn game.

[@lewerewoof]

Playing BG3 was such a breath of fresh air and it feels nice to play a game that isn't oversaturated with mediocrity to appeal to the wider audience. It's a DnD game, not everyone is going to be into it and I love that. Plus Larian made the game knowing their audience and it feels so nice to open a game and not be lambasted by weekly deals or season pass pop-ups.

[@ron.1738]

tree sentinel might be my favorite design decision in elden ring because it shows new players right off the bat that the game isn't gonna be linear

[@roar104]

Only dark souls 3 and bb were anything close to linear. Rest of the souls series very much wasn't.

[@nathanielchatley9061]

18:40 Just for future knowledge, the reason BG3 wasn't in the top 20 sellers is that list is only for companies in that select group of publishers of which larian isn't a part of.

[@GustavoFernandesKing]

Games are not for everyone indeed. I believe that souls like games are fun. They are not for me at all, and I'm ok with that. What annoys me are the people that say that "if you don't like X game you don't like real games".

[@ruadeil_zabelin]

10:50 They had done the exact same to WoW like a year (or maybe 2) prior to this. Citing it streamlined the game and "everybody picked the same build anyway". The fact they did the same to diablo 3 right after that wasnt surprising to me at that point.

[@papasalvo]

How bad was New Woirlds marketing? So bad that I, a person who listens to gaming new from many different sources on a day to day basis and who watched atleast 6 or 7 different people talk about games at summer games fest and all the other show cases, hadnt heard a single goddamn peep about it.

[@dylanherron3963]

As a huge Senua's Sacrifice fan, Hellblade 2 releasing to absolutely no announcements was strikingly asinine ti me.

[@eiozza]

​@@dylanherron3963 Wait Hellblade 2 is releasing?

[@darthvaderreviews6926]

@@eiozza Hellblade 2 has been out for weeks haha. Though, I _did_ know it was coming out, the marketing push wasn't huge but I absolutely noticed it. I think this says more about social media's role in marketing, targeted ads might not know if you're in the target audience and to my understanding Hellblade 2 is the kind of relatively short, linear, story centric game that often fails to make a social media splash through user generated content

[@Grandmastergav86]

Almost as bad as the game itself tbh. It was a terrible game that I spent a lot of time with because my frustration with it's awfulness helped to distract me from real life problems lol Marketing was the least of it's issues.

[@dylanherron3963]

@@darthvaderreviews6926 That part, is where I'm coming from.

[@YoyMcFroy]

Companies just can't see every game as competing with CoD. That's exactly how EA killed Dead Space. BG3 and ER succeeded by knowing their audience.

[@EncryptedLiberty]

You nailed every point you made about Skyrim. I think you made a particularly salient point that "they knew _where_ they could compromise," (and where they couldn't).

[@Deceit-hx7ey]

Hard agree.

[@m_jaded]

Speaking of game difficulty and reaching a wide audience, 2 games that I think are really accessibile and widely enjoyed are Tears of the Kingdom and Dragon's Dogma 2. It feels like whenever you are stuck in one of these games, there is some option you can do to get through it. Totk gives you so many options (Link is definitely overpowered once you pick up enough time bombs), and in dd2, thief and magic spearhand are just allowed to not take any damage lol. But neither game is seen as easy, because it doesn't have to be. No difficulty setting, but you can choose your difficulty in gameplay. Huge games, accesible to a huge audience, and they didn't lose sight of past games in the series in order to do it. 2 of my favorite sequels of all time. Wish more sequels were like this.

[@TearThatRedFlagDown]

I think this is a problem with publicly traded companies and their investors/shareholders expecting infinite growth, which just isn't realistic or sustainable for a company and results in companies trying to make games for everyone, which ultimately end up appealing to no one.

[@FireomanGaming]

I too was there at the midnight release of D3. Pulled the back seat of my Nissan stanza out and sat in front of GameStop for the release. Then spent 8 hours waiting to log in before going to bed and getting back to waiting for d3 servers to be up. sigh.

[@OsaPL1]

Just a small correction, races in Morrowind dont matter. You can do whatever race/class combo you want. Other than some quests being different, npcs having slightly different dispositions (simulated racism?!), those small starting boosts to your skills dont really matter, you can train those really quickly if you choose them as part of your preferred ones or just by forking small amount of gold at trainers (unlimited training was removed in later games). They are actually a much larger part of your build in Oblivion, cause lvling system is just straight up broken there. Other than that, I 100% agree that making the game more accessible can create big changes that can make your game feel not only different, but also I can just throw it into a completely different genre. I can confidently say Morrowind was an RPG game, but with Oblivion it clearly transitioned into an Action game with RPG elements. The "Core" of these games did change, and thats what I completely disagree with, skyrim stripped even more of the roleplaying aspects, to create a more free roaming action game.

[@dormitory650]

21:26 i know we're viewing this from like. a beginner lense but having this be how races work in skyrim also makes it so fucking freeing for roleplayers because like. Yeah you can be whatever you want and still have a viable build (we all know stealth archer is the best though it's. very obvious)

[@dormitory650]

although with mods.... yeah heavy armor sword and shield is fun as hell like wdym i can parry?? perfect block??? god damn??? it's peak i swear...

[@gonat0]

Hardcore agreed. Making Skyrim your own ideal sandbox is what makes it special, but the bones are there to support that. Starfield was so lacking in passion that even the modding community dropped it. Hopefully ES6 won't be awful, but I won't hold my breath, I'll stick with Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim.

[@cocomonkilla]

stealth archer is trash, spellsword assassin ftw

[@comyuse9103]

hard disagree. if i've learned anything from role playing it is that a drawback is an important part of a character. you want to be the world's smartest orc? cool, you are still going to be worse off than the world's smartest elf, _and that is what makes your character more interesting._ its not bucking the trend if the trend isn't there, if character race was just a fashion choice then it couldn't be a meaningful RP choice (outside of a setting that would make biomodding a point or something, exceptions always exist). that said, everything in skyrim is a fashion choice, so whatever there.

[@Graah353]

Viable sure. But if you play the game melee without crafting like i did for a long time it can actually become a slog. Unless you play the correct race for that, which is Orc since you have a real win button against bosses. So yeah, that was not the best part of the video.

[@SolaireIntensifies]

I'm glad you talked about this because Alanah Pearce (love her btw) just made a video about the Elden Ring DLC and about accessibility. And while I agreed with her overall point about the difficulty she kept saying how fromsoft games should be more accessible. And I kept thinking, "no they don't" yeah it's nice when a studio like Sony Santa Monica makes their games accessible to everyone and their mother, but not every game needs to pander to mass appeal to be good. Some games aren't for some people, and the fact that Elden Ring exploded as much as it did is a double edged sword. Now they have the funding to make the most incredible games ever made that are absolutely mind boggling in scope with that fromsoft level of polish and detail, but that also means the amount of players who are going to bounce off is going to be exponentially larger than DS1 for example. Which means a vastly more vocal minority of players with shit takes who refuse to play the game and just want to cheat to the ending that get upset when they suddenly can't because the DLC uses a different scaling method than the base game (one that you can't cheese/farm btw) If Fromsoft wants to make an uncompromisingly difficult game that only a fraction of people can complete, that's their developer vision and intent, and to argue that they are wrong for not including more people just because your studio wants that mass appeal, is shitty and gatekeeping.

[@FeiFongWang]

Yeah but I wish people would have reviewed the game that way instead of saying it's some masterpiece. They convinced me to waste $60 on a game that I consider purposefully frustrating by design with an almost non existent story.

[@roar104]

It's not nice when Santa Monica studios makes their games more accessible because we get the shit combat, mind numbing puzzles, and NPCs who tell you the solutions 5 seconds after you see them in the latest 2 "GoW" games that try to be movies

[@roar104]

​@@FeiFongWangsimply a skill issue if you did zero research and haven't heard of how fromsoft makes games at all in the past decade or so. All their games are like this in some way or another

[@FeiFongWang]

@@roar104 People were reviewing Elden ring specifically like it had some great story and awesome world. I knew about how the old Souls were, and I recently beat Nioh 2, a game with an actual story and modern combat, so I thought I'd try Elden ring. And of course Elden ring is one of those games where you can't just play for 2 hours to understand the experience and then get your refund if you want it. Turns out the game had a non-existent story where all the exciting stuff has already happened, and you fight bums to become the king of a pile of garbage. And people praised it for not hand holding but most online guides have millions of views because none of the best outcomes can be achieved by just playing the game naturally. And it has PS3 combat that was designed to be as frustrating and clunky as possible.

[@nakano15]

21:12 I mean... In Daggerfall, placing points on Speed would make your melee attacks faster (and would get stupidly fast at level 100). Sadly, that's no longer a thing since Morrowind....

[@Kish_x2]

12:00 its funny because the only reason inferno was even hard was because of how difficult it was to get gear that let you not be immediately one shot by literally everything in the game

[@MisterXZen]

I wish more developers cared about the fanbase they initially curated. I'm watching FFXIV rise in popularity as it feels like a shell of its former self. But it's hard to get them to go back on certain changes they've made since Heavensward when it continues to sell. But popular doesn't mean good.

[@StarfieldWX-tb42]

D3 got my wife into gaming and we never get more than T6 or so in any given season because we're casual couch co-op offline console players. Honestly we're doing good to just finish our gear sets from the journey tasks and consider a season "beat" if we achieve that. But we still play every season with the same glee of that very first character. We tried D4 and it's just not as casual-friendly. Bummer, but that's okay. Not every game is for every person.

[@Kngofkngs]

Being an OSRS fan must make that Error 37 trauma extra rough. . . 73 btw 😂

[@comyuse9103]

i have no idea how this appeal to everyone bullshti works, like, come the fuck on people get some taste. sure, i don't know a whole lot about lets just say shoes beyond getting some that work, but shoes aren't something we opt into. i couldn't imagine being stupid enough to settle for slop with my entertainment. if i just wanted kill my brain i would turn on the radio and TV while i fiddle with a fidget spinner or something, but for a hobby i actively opt into i want to find something i genuinely, actively enjoy. and i know i'm a hipster, but fuck it, being a hipster is god damn cool. popularity is bad, slop designed to appeal to everyone is bland, and stupid niches i could never enjoy are fucking awesome (to someone).

[@ZackBurnsOG]

17:30 God you aren't kidding when you talk about BG3 being good. Over a thousand hours in and there's so many different builds and things I want to try on different playthroughs still.

[@TheMcCannic1]

Patreon song still slaps

[@BumbieJen]

The dance was pretty enchanting too, ngl

[@JustBooker]

Your patreon song unironically goes hard and I get so excited every time it starts

[@MontegomeryLoL]

To be fair about D3's art direction a lot of the "bright/colorful" vs "dark" was largely the result of dumping the light radius mechanic and moving from sprites of 3D renders to actual 3D. Removing the darkness and using more realistic lightning/shadows just results in a brighter, more colorful game. Modern gamma settings/expectations were also a contributing factor. So I don't blame the developers for reacting poorly because from their perspective the players were going nuts over something they weren't trying to do (which, to be honest, Blizzard fans had a *long* history of doing far before D3).

[@Succi17]

Funny thing about that real time combat suggestion is that the pathfinder games do that (kingmaker and wrath of the righteous). The main issue is that you almost never want to go turn based; not because it's lame, but because combat is 5x easier when you can ignore turns and jump the enemy casters.

[@marlysalt]

For your speed character: join the mages guild or get access to enchanting. Enchanting is very powerful, but expensive. Or just accept that you're role playing and turn the difficulty down.

[@marlysalt]

I recognize I was pretty vague here, but didn't want to spoil too much

[@L2.Lagrange]

I realized I would like to see a tier list video of the top tier list videos. So you make a tier list video, ranking all of the other popular tier list videos. You are the man to deep dive this topic and know which tier lists are S tier, and which aren't. J1mmy could also do it, but he's busy doing important stuff. This one is up to you my brother

[@dilliondantin]

How often do you wash that hoodie?

[@Syvergy]

Probably as much as he washes his neck

[@ixl911ixl]

D3 was my favorite one by far. I loved the brighter, more vibrant art design. I think D4 looks awful by comparison.

[@nealsandy8464]

This video says everything I've been thinking with the gaming industry and how games feel hollow. They dont focus on doing anything well so everything is just lack luster. Wow used to have an immersive world that you had to literally journey through to get to the end game which was just another stage of the game. But that initial leveling experience was 100% by design to be slow. By the time of cataclysm, the world was so confusing with the different zones that you would get 80% to the next continent before really knowing anything about the story, with the goal of just "getting to end game" as if those leveling hours were just a sacrifice to get to the "real" game

[@Phex1]

The high number on difficulties where added to Diablo 3 over Time to combat the powercreep, at the beginning there were only 3. Normal, Hard and Nightmare. So the lower ones weren't obsolete, you would still need to play them if you are a new player. You probaly could skip a lot of Torments after finishing the campaing and getting the first legendarys when you startet the game late in his lifecycle.

[@PippTheKid]

What brand of hoodie is that? no logos or anything and it looks crisp. Love the videos.

[@daganisoraan]

21:25 I played a Bosmer (wood elf) for my first playthrough which lasted ~200 hours. Then I started a new game with a different race and I wasn't understanding what was happening to my character at some point... I got sick. Something that basically never happened to my first character XD. But other than that, yeah, your race doesn't matter in Skyrim.

[@dovesr0478]

Speed is by far the best stat in Oblivion. Eventually you get so fast that you can outrun everything with ease, making combat trivial. If you get REALLY fast and also have good acrobatics you can even slope jump for extra height.

[@ng0249]

so here's my two cents as someone who loved the first diablo and spent thousands of hours playing diablo II, diablo iii is the best game i've played in the franchise. having followed a good chunk of the development cycle, i had no desire to play the game at launch, which obviously was rough. but a couple years out (i think after the first expansion) a co worker of mine talked up the game enough that i bought it on sale on ps3, and i enjoyed it enough that it was one of the three games i bought when i upgraded to ps4. so yeah, say what you will but imho d3 is the best one they've released yet. maybe i'll update that if i ever get around to playing 4, we shall see.

[@aska221]

every time someone talks about d3 it's the most clueless shit i've ever heard saying d3 is not difficult compared to d2 is a joke. D3 was THE most difficult and grindy diablo game EVER made when it released.

[@collinjones9103]

I feel like your points about the torment levels in diablo 3 is a bit misleading, the idea with the torment levels is not so much difficulty. Rather its what the end game grind relied on because with the higher difficulty levels you receive better loot and become able to hit higher and higher numbers and receive a reward that you're able to move up difficulty, it was the primary goal for progression on your characters after max level.

[@owlbusdumbledork9966]

That's why I'm loving Mortal Online 2 right now, it's an extremely niche MMO but it isn't trying to appeal to the general MMO audience. It embraces it's identity as a hardcore full loot sandbox MMO, and it does it better than any other game in the genre.

[@etherealpenguin8683]

holy fuck, im glad to see theres someone out there who has the same shared experience i did with d3, but mine was slightly worse, not only having to deal with that error after waiting to get it from the store on release, which i hadnt done for any other game ever (i even bought a shirt which i still have) because i loved d2 that much just to get home and find out the servers werent even online for another 8 hours (i was in australia at the time) then they were unplayable when they were online due to the errors and then finally, after the servers were fixed... australian internet was ass, d3 not having offline singleplayer made it dead on arrival for me but beyond that the game didnt hook me like d2 when i did play it, never been hyped for another game release since

[@nakano15]

12:30 I guess that's where the idea of Mythic dungeons from World of Warcraft surged..

[@Xetelian]

Innovation has left the AAA level for a variety of reasons but the biggest and most crucial is investment risk, especially when games budget half a billion in dev and marketing like a Disney Marvel movies. AA and indieAAAs like Super Giant with Hades and Sony publishing Helldivers 2 are the only level left that can make that risk. Starfield broke my heart. I loved Skyrim and put hundreds of hours into it which is pretty great because I have ADhD and almost never used fast travel because loading screens tend to cause negative feelings more intense than neurotypicals experience so only my fellow ADhD brethren will understand what its like having too much noise in their mind while staring at a screen counting the seconds until the noise gets quiet again when you're playing. Also as NPCs buy the same games over again, the games homogenize as they try to be more accessible and stimulating Every thing needs RPG progression and crafting and open world and persistent live services and you get it....its pretty bad gamers in the AAA space because of how much they desperately want to be like Destiny and Fortnite or Genshin and WoW, a forever audience is ideal and they'll keep trying until it costs too much to justify.

[@networknomad5600]

Imagine actually thinking games are for everyone. It’s like thinking all movies or books are for everyone.

[@frantila]

I'm still flabbergasted about the fact that you have "only" 56 000+ subscribers. That's a fucking lot, but you should have like five or ten times more. Keep up the good work!

[@4.1132]

Difficulty is not an identity and tbh it is a really bad metric to solely judge a game by. People also tend to forget that difficulty options in games are OPTIONAL and they don’t infringe upon another person’s experience of the game (when done right). Difficulty is also extremely subjective and different people struggle with different things, so almost nobody’s experience will be the same to begin with. People also tend to conflate the relationship between difficulty and accessibility a lot. Accessibility options in a lot of cases make games really easy for players that are not struggling with those mechanics, however those OPTIONS are literally not designed for those people. Tunic and Celeste do this really well with options that maintain the core mechanics of the game while altering some of the systems to suit the player’s play style, which means more people can enjoy them without completely altering the game for people that don’t want or need those features. The notion that there is a uniform experience of any game is kind of silly and in SINGLE PLAYER games that are supposed to be enjoyable and fun for the player, it doesn’t matter. The only time it has any real influence is in a social context, but again that is predicated on the notions that 1) struggle leads to greater enjoyment and the absence or lessening of it is an indication of laziness or some such thing, 2) struggle/difficulty is part of a game’s identity and 3) struggle is a uniform experience. It begs the question why is it important to have a shared uniform experience of struggle in a social context, when experiences are subjective and unique? (Also has to do with player agency). Sometimes big adjustments to difficulty can have very positive effects like the changes to frame links (1/60 second input window for combos) in fighting games, which made harder combos more accessible to new players and the same combos more consistent for veteran players. By making execution easier, more people got to enjoy the game and just for reference these combos are still very hard to consistently execute. Some games also have auto combos that can be useful for beginners but lose their effectiveness against seasoned players and harder AI quite fast (again though game becomes more accessible). Legend of Zelda especially in the newer games has shrines which are optional power ups (in older games you can avoid heart pieces), which allows the player to set their own difficulty instead of a set difficulty. Difficulty in those games is also linked adaptability and using unique solutions. Souls games do this too but to a much lesser extent, they also tend to have much slower animations and more animation locks (tbh an option to widen active frames on blocks, speed up animations or decrease stamina consumption would probably make the games more accessible to more people while still being obnoxiously hard). TLDR: Difficulty is super subjective. Does there really need to be a uniform shared experience to a game and what does that mean for player agency? Problem with difficulty scaling and other related options lies in the execution not their existence per se. Random examples of accessibility and difficulty scaling in different games and genres.

[@2HeadedHero]

More non-MMO vids please! This was great

[@elsdodo]

Excellent video. Also I'm a fan of the Hat in Time tracks sprinkled in between the sections.

[@kibble113]

AAA games cost $60 - $80 million to make. Most companies aren't going to spend that kind of cash on a game that only appeals to a small audience, especially if it's a difficult game that means only a fraction of those players will see more than the first 30%. FromSoft is an exception, because they're not concerned with making tons of money to please investors. They make the games they want to make. Same with Nintendo, who are more concerned with making fun games than turning a massive profit. Same with Larian, who are very fortunate to have a developer as the CEO, who understands what it takes to make a good game, and who have flat out refused to make any DLC or Baldur's Gate 4 because they don't like Wizards of the Coasts' practices. But few other companies can say the same, and you certainly won't get that kind of care from massive corporations like Microsoft, Activision and Amazon, companies that are all too eager to pull the plug on dev studios even if they make a game that's good and sells well, but not "well enough". The players aren't the ones they're making the games for.

[@newtswampi2583]

What you said about Blizzard traumatizing you with Diablo 3 except still buying games from them made me think of my relationship with Pokemon... I've loved the series since I was a little kid but Scarlet/Violet really felt like a kick in the ribs, so much so that I never bought the DLC that was supposed to be better. I'm hopeful that Gamefreak takes the criticism to heart on what failed but you just never know with these big game companies.

[@Gengarlegend]

I disagree with a lot of your RuneScape takes, but this video is spot on. If a video game developer makes a game to fill a specific niche, trying to water down the game to fill a different niche waters down the experience for everyone.

[@alicerain8686]

On the topic of Diablo ... I think choosing attribute points in games as it is done in D2 and Grim Dawn / Titan Quest is sort of dumb. And I'm a PoE player. In PoE it feels more natural to take attribute points on the pathway to bigger nodes and things, or getting attributes on gear. Idk, that might be the one change I agree with lol.

[@tesavidawnstar7737]

This gonna sound so weird but you made me feel so good about the feeling of playing Skyrim for the first time and that's a feeling I haven't felt in so long. Thanks homie.

[@redhand8836]

Fromsoft putting a farming simulator in a soulsbourne is actually less weird than you would think, given their wider game library.

[@druidbern]

I was introduced to the Diablo universe with D3, and I loved it. Still play to complete the journeys. I was so excited for D4, but couldn't get into it when it launched, and still haven't gone back to try it again.

[@timbomb374]

The thing I really take away from that Elden ring segment is that you can MAKE fans of a genre. It doesn't matter what your game is, if you make a game that is genuinely good, it can make people want more of that type of experience.

[@GrassToucherTV]

Hey dude, love your videos! I appreciate how you're stepping a bit outside the MMO bubble to make content that's a little different!

[@Murks33]

18:06 funnily enough this is pretty much how Diablo was born.

[@SkyeBerryJam]

Honestly I have to disagree with the diablo 3 difficulty thing, I started struggling at inferno 2. Yeah I'm bad at the game, but I appreciated being able to work my way up instead of having to start at some bullshit like inferno 7 levels. If I had to start at that kind of difficulty I would have never actually worked my way up to the harder difficulties because I'd have gotten frustrated and burnt out

[@CoffeeKitty.]

23:40 no you dont understand, that actually SLAPS. go play sakuna: of rice and ruin. it's an INCREDIBLE game

[@emikochan13]

d3 gave us path of exile though, if you're not overly attached to IPs this activity just gives indies a bigger chance to succeed.

[@Officialencode]

Surprised there was no note about mario games' core almost always being about accessibility and mass appeal.

[@AD3SPG]

Diablo 3 was my first one and I wondered why it had so many difficulties I kept having to change till I was dead after 3-5 hits.

[@elsavic]

The only reason I didnt play BG3 is because it wasnt a physical release. Would have loved to

[@Sadew_Sadew]

Love the Trauma Center music at 4:15

[@chairmanalfred8850]

Don't know how Starfield has good story and world building tbh

[@TheMcCannic1]

Look, I love this video, I love the work you do. But can we expect a President of MMORPGs reacts to 9Rain reacts to Jimmy reacts to Asmongold reacts to Jimmy reacts to Asmongold reacts to Jimmy video?

[@MishMashTTV]

I was at that summer games fest where Nicolas Cage came out and I don’t think anyone cared what he said Nicolas Cage was in our presence and it was 10/10

[@BillNyeTheBountyGuy]

I agree that games should appeal to niches to achieve something compelling and unique. Unpopular opinion though, difficulty is an accessibility option. Before someone screeches about FromSoft and Elden Ring, those games have difficulty options, just not in a menu. They have summons, spirit ashes, and even just good ol farming runes to tweak the felt difficulty. I do think shared suffering is important for a community based game, but we need to also not use the 'Video games aren't for everyone' as a clarion to exclude folks. We can meet in the middle for these players to allow them into this wonderful and diverse interactive art hobby.

[@ZZZZordan]

I very much don't agree with you That makes as much sense as forcing cosy games to have "hardcore difficulties" for players that enjoy challenges and get bored when the game is too easy It doesn't make sense, at some point you have to accept the fact that it's not meant for you Because sure, in a theoretical world where adding a difficulty can be done in a vacuum it'd be great, but game design wise it takes a lot a time to be created and will necessarily end up reducing the overall quality/ amount of content And let's be honest, most difficulty settings are terrible, do you like one shooting everything and never being in danger at all, or do you prefer spongy ennemies ? You're just making your game average for everyone instead of an actual good game Mods/cheats are a thing when a game is too hard, challenge runs/mods exist when it's too easy, but in the end a video game is an art piece and the intended difficulty is an important part of it

[@BillNyeTheBountyGuy]

@@ZZZZordan so we're going to conflate wanting challenge with being physically unable to do certain things due to, for example, lacking a limb? Just because we are making great strides with accessibility controllers should not mean we ignore design that allows people who can, and often do, meet the game on it's terms. A lot of design goes into a game, I am no stranger, but we need to not only consider the 'average' gamer, but our edge cases. Like adding colorblind options are easier than ever, and in some cases are preferred by wider population for clarity of UI elements. Also I think 'intended difficulty' is a good metric, but once the game, or any art for that matter, is out in the world it becomes a conversation between those that absorb the art and the piece, not the artist.

[@ZZZZordan]

​@@BillNyeTheBountyGuy colorblind options have nothing to do with difficulty tho, it doesn't change the gameplay in any way whatsoever Same for the controls (if done correctly) You can disagree with a painter on what their painting means or represent, you can't force them to use more red because that's your favorite color That painting is not red enough ? Heh, you'll find another one you'll like more, no big deal, no need to ruin it for everyone else Or, like I said, this conversation can be done using exterior "tools" like mods, nothing stops you from painting over YOUR copy of that painting to make it red-er Don't get me wrong, if the devs are willing to create difficulty settings and find clever ways to make them interesting, I'm all for it If you're forcing them to add some and take away time that could be spend in other ways, you're forcing your own viewpoints on what could easily be considered artists

[@BillNyeTheBountyGuy]

@@ZZZZordan forcing view points? I'm going to interrogate that a little bit here. I don't think that there is any force or coercion beyond normal economic factors and rhetoric in game design. If you feel a bit bummed when an artist is bound by what's popular that's valid. If you feel like a game was hamstrung because it tried to cast too wide a net that's valid. But also feeling bummed you can't enjoy a cultural touch stone of a game because of some condition outside your control also is valid. There is enough at the bounty of games to allow for all to eat up their fills. It's not all games must have an easy mode, it's that every developer should consider difficulty an accessibility option when allocating resources.

[@XFR18]

​@@ZZZZordanstop the mindless cope. Anything except to say you're bad and lazy, taking the games too seriously and that's why you're bad. I've seen it all the time playing hardcore games like rust or watching twitch streams of people scared to W key cause they act like their video game life is their real life. Ironically after crying that they don't have time to game, while playing games instead of hanging with their fam or playing pointless farm games for 1k hours.

[@nadebothd4006]

I had 1000 of hours in D2 as well as D3, but the level of "we don't want D4 to be D3" made me laugh. Now it seems everyone wants the QOL D3 had in D4. Elden Ring was by far my least favorite souls game, I think it's the open world? I watched a video of someone actually reviewing the game for a deep dive not just the typical fan-boy approach and looked at it individually without From Softwares reputation attached. It was an interesting take and something he said really stuck out "open world is the dog of video games" and I think I know what he means. It's like having the greatest pizza ever and thinking "I can make this even better by adding X" it doesn't fucking need "X" you just feel compelled to do something different for the sake of it. Souls games didn't need open world, but the take here is that "stuck to a formula" well.... they didn't. They did what every other company inevitably does and "makes it open world" yes the style is still unique, but are they really that different from others? Zelda, open world, Halo, open world, Genshin Impact, open world... I haven't personally bought a video game in over 7 months and I think it's because I can't get over the tribalism attached to the scene. People will choose the dumbest fucking hills to die on to defend that $70 they shouldn't have. Hopefully more people start to speak with wallets instead of buying the next dog that gets released just to set it down after a week and gloat for the next 5 years about "how good it is" lol.

[@robinkuster1127]

I don't think the sales record of Diablo 3 is actually "working" as well as Blizzard tries to sell it as (or tried to back then). First, it's a Diablo game. Doesn't matter how bad that game got ripped to shreds before release, people would have bought it. Also, Mists of Pandaria got also ripped to shreds and if you subscribed to WoW for a year when D3 came out, you got D3 for free. I'd really like to know how many of those sales were just WoW players who thought they could get a free game out of paying for the mmo they pay for anyway.

[@PhantomHalf]

I think the best thing D3 did for me was awaken something in me with female diablo. I haven’t recovered since.

[@JesseAkaJim]

Respectfully, I’m surprised this guy only has 50k subs. Great videos man.

[@JesseAkaJim]

Y’all better like & subscribe.

[@FirstBaka]

let me fix the statement in the title: There is a type of video game for everyone, but not every single video game is for everyone 👌, especially in the last few years Ive seen people from 5-6 years old up to 80+ playing and they were all having fun. And thats what we forget nowadays video games should be about fun. Not just hyper competitive stuff and how to make money out of them. And you cannot tell me there are people who dont like having fun lol

[@thebpphantom]

Very good points about Bethesda... until Starfield. But heeeey! Glad to see more :) Companies gotta chase that dollar.

[@TourFaint]

I'm so glad im never the part of the problem. I don't buy these factory made slop games, i never preordered a game, and i paid for 2 microtransactions in my entire life. It's so easy to just never do that and buy the good games instead of the bad ones.

[@taniuswedekin4956]

Agree with everything you said, except about Bethesda. Most hardcore Elder Scrolls fans agree the that oversimplification of their games sucks, and lots of them (me included) are not big Skyrim fans. Don't get me wrong, I like Skyrim, and some changes are good, evolution is always good, but Bethesda has taken way too far, and that not a hot take, that's a pretty popular opinion.

[@iang7954]

i grew up playing Diablo 3 with my dad, and it was the absolute best time of my life. so respectfully, i tune out the slander every time

[@LeftJoystick]

The issue is the people who have been complaining most about games aren’t even the ones who play them. You know who I’m talking about.

[@gman3901]

If the industry no longer makes games they want to play, they're gonna complain about all the games coming out that they don't want to play.

[@XFR18]

​@@gman3901theres not a single sane person who can't respect something not for them. They don't go into scenes asking or demanding it to change. Only weirdo lonely tourist hipsters do that as they leach onto anything remotely popular so they can be in a community or look cool.

[@gman3901]

@@XFR18 This is the gamig industry, and it used to provide titles for various audiences and now it doesn't. It just pumps out the same shit that excludes gamers who actually enjoyed the variety. Games were for these people and now the industry has pushed them out. Complaining about that isn't demanding anything, nor is it 'going into scenes.' It's an industry that turned its back on people due to greed. I'd say it's fair for people to complain.

[@draconian6692]

This is exactly why ive never played a "soul type" game😂. I HATE dying all the time and prefer grinding stats if i have trouble at a part

[@Lorentari]

Blizzard's idea of adding difficulty doesn't work, because no matter if it is Diablo's rifts, or WoW's mythic+ Blizzard is stupid enough to make your character more powerful for completing the hardest content - thus making the content trivial /facepalm

[@clom3077]

Let's go Trauma Center soundtrack babyyyy

[@Kynick-2501]

Had to pause to say thank you for your choice of sponsor. First one that has something I’m actually interested in… in like, ever

[@jackalo34]

I got hooked on Dark Souls when I reachjed Orenstein n Smough in Dark Souls 1 8 yrs ago. The struggle that was that fight n the adrenaline sent me into beating it then 2 n 3. Easy is lame unless im lookin for a comfu game specifically.

[@XFR18]

Games made for everyone, sell more. Well.. that's hard debatable that it's the reason it sold more. More often than not these games come from a legacy franchise or company who used 'hardcore/core's aspects. The community and fans hype it up because it appealed to them and since humans are social creatures, the followers/'for everyone' players join in solely for the hype created by older fans, not the game itself. This is proven how everyone buys things through fomo, they buy day 1 regardless of knowing what is in the game, they buy to join the social environment of a release. "I can finally join the hype" This also leads to a future issue where these 'tourists' complain about gamey/core/hardcore systems and mechanics. The truth is, these people never liked the game/games, they like the social experience. This is proven with elden ring, although the potentially easiest entry, everyone still bought it. The result was complaints about it being too difficult or whatever hate for it that came after. This has also happened in anime where girls started watching shounen anime (demographic being teenage boys) and talking about how female characters in a shounen never became a focus.. They simply joined the 'scene' to join in and fit in, ignorant to finding their own scene, genre, works that catered to them. They literally create their own problems by not doing this, they don't put money into their 'potential' scenes. So with all this, if you are a classic fan of anything, don't be a fanboy and simply move on, don't buy the newest game of x casualized franchise, it will stay popular though because that's how 'tourits' work, they don't try anything new until it becomes popular.

[@cruisinagain1698]

do we specific games or games all over cause frankly i dont know anyone who doesnt really play games in any way, my kicks some ass at dr.mario and tetris, she was the first to tell me when they shut down dr.mario mobile

[@tustinbear5831]

i never played a diablo game until diablo III and i have fond memeories of it. however i only beat it once then in the middle of making a new character/class i just stopped playing and never played again

[@salvatoreharan]

The Peter Kenny Witcher bit was plagiarism levels of my life, so thanks kindred soul

[@totallynotnarhei2711]

Thank you Idyl, you're my favorite second monitor youtuber.

[@mikehawk8984]

Totally disagree with you on Skyrim. Removing unique traits and attributes associated with certain playstyles and races completely ruins the flavor and believability of the world. It's silly that you can just become the Archmage without having a magic stat above level 20. The reason I come back to games and replay them is to play the game in a different mannor than I did beforehand, and in Skyrim theres no point if I can just Mary Sue my way through every questline while being a stealth archer

[@Kranitoko]

"they both have craft in the name" Starcraft? 🤔

[@Seroth969]

Would love to see why you think release diablo 3 was easy 😀 So interesting how quickly some people can forget

[@Eyrothath]

Cant say I agree with anything you said in this video.

[@tomaay]

Dear Mr. President, launch D3 was insanely hard but sadly itemization, drop rates and the real money AH combo ruined the whole thing.