For those mentioning that the exclusivity deals are mostly with larger publishers, of course they are. That’s how you get an install base on your platform. Most people aren’t going to be incentivized to move to an entirely new platform out of a sympathy for indie devs. They’re going to do so because it’s the only way…

We created a game model with impediments specifically designed to hinder the most compelling gameplay loops. But don’t worry! You can supersede them with real money!

Probably not. I’d say, if anything, the success of God of War would be an impediment, because this new game is inevitably going to be judged against one of the most revered releases of the past few years.

I think it really depends on what they go with for vikings, because there’s a decent amount of variety here. As other people have stated, vikings could cover any number of things: Scandinavian villages, the British Isles, Franco-Germanic Europe, the Middle East, Russia, even North America. It’s frankly broad enough…

I think if they’d repurposed that second act that essentially served as crossover fodder, it could have been an incredibly solid movie. Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell both chewed some great scene, and that Formula One sequence was swell. Just the attempts to tie things into the larger world were too clumsy to overlook.

…

the fuck are you even saying?

I’m not insisting that From put difficulty settings or sliders in place, and neither is the author of this article, Heather, or anyone else I’ve seen in the discussion. All I’m doing is agreeing with the article that an easy mode has never hurt. And I’m not assuming ownership. While I think the notion of “ownership”…

No. I don’t understand the logic, because you wouldn’t be taking anything away from “hardcore” players (like, as I said, myself). You’d be expanding the audience while still giving the core the level of challenge that they expect.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with catering to a niche audience (although I think…

As I said, I play the Souls games, and I love the difficulty of them, but I don’t think masochism is the sole factor for playing these games, and I personally know people who are interested in the games and want a challenge out of them but find the current difficulty level out of reach. As for multiplayer games, most…

Fair enough. It was pleasant.

And your entire knowledge of the games is limited. From got a reputation for making hard games, and that may have been what initially drew a lot of players in. But a game like Bloodborne doesn’t become one of the most critically acclaimed and best selling games on PS4 (to the degree that it’s largely seen as…

I normally agree with you, and of course I don’t agree that death threats are ever excusable, but I think you’re a little off base here.

There’s a real discussion to be had about the ethics of gacha gaming. As you pointed out, this is a philosophy that’s built off an innate human tendency and can be exacerbated by…

Because people have strong feelings about everything on the internet? For the same reason that comic book fans on the internet get enraged about any changes to the characters they grew up with?

But let’s be honest. Bloodborne and the Dark Souls games are hugely popular games, and I’m not inclined to believe that it’s…

Yeah. I really don’t get the argument people are making here. They’re out here seeming to think that playing a From game is like eating the ten pound burger at your local restaurant so you can have the privilege of walking around town in the cheap t-shirt they give you as a prize.

If someone’s sole reason for playing…

Hard means different things to different people.

I just don’t understand the logic. If your core loop is still there and still accessible to the players who want it, if that’s the baseline experience, then you can still market it like that, and that’s still a feature worth touting.

I don’t think anyone is talking about…

And this is a feature that could actually benefit the people who see beating the game as a badge of honor. A slider that lets you lower various difficulty settings below the default could conceivably also let you crank them up.

Give the players who choose to play default or higher some minor piece of flair their…

In terms of consumable media, creating multiple versions to accommodate larger audiences is the rule rather than the exception, because it’s always better to reach as broad an audience as possible, and most creators are sensible enough to recognize that reaching out to that audience isn’t selling out as long as an…

There are two considerations here. One is practical while the other is about branding.

In practical terms why doesn’t Ferrari make economy cars? Because it would require learning how to make cheap cars that can compete with brands like Toyota and Honda, which would require an expansive skillset and a scaling up of both…

And they could still have that challenge by playing it on default mode, right?

Look, I understand that the movie/TV/literature analogy doesn’t apply here. Because there are limitations there. Other media contains triggers that people with certain traumas may not be able to cope with.

But who would it hurt to add an easy mode? Does a game like Dark Souls or Sekiro really lose value because someone…