Or easier, a prompt at boot up "Sekiro offers accessibility options. Do you want to enable the option to toggle them in the options? Warning: This will be permanently written to your save game." and then write whatever the choice is to the save game, so you can't change it mid-game at a hard boss. People who want a more accessible or easier experience can just opt-in right away to get the option. People who feel like they want to/are able to play the game as intended without having the temptation of making it easier can opt-out.
A deaf person playing a game or watching a movie with subtitles isn't able to hear the nuances of how lines are delivered. Vocal performance is a huge, massive part of cinema (less so games, but we're getting there), and losing it is absolutely not experiencing the work "as intended," but it's a compromise, the best that can be done to allow a large audience to access the work at all.I'm trying to work this through in my head, so please forgive me if it's a little rambling.
The things that I think of as "accessibility options"--and as someone that has to take advantage of most of them--are options that allow me to enjoy a medium in a way that's similar, if not exactly the same, as someone that does not need those options. A colorblind option just allows me to experience the game in the same way that someone that doesn't need to use the option. This also applies to subtitles and the QTE/grip thing (though this is more akin to the idea of similar as opposed to near identical).
Fundamentally altering game mechanics changes the conversation around a game. Would putting in an option to practically remove the vast expanses of nothingness in RDR2 for someone that has ADHD change RDR2 entirely? The immersive part of the world where a lot of nothing really happens is one of the things the game is lauded for. If I took advantage of that option for ADHD folks, would I be able to engage in the game in the way that the game was designed for, and if not, am I still playing the same game? Or am I playing a different version of the game entirely?
I fall on the side of more options, but I don't even know what those mean.
Every thread on this topic is more absurd than the last. Wtf happened? This wasn't a thing 2 months ago. Like, since WHEN can everyone finish every game? Easy mode or not, there are tons of games that tons of people wont be able to finish. And that's fine.
I hate all "git gud" memes, because you don't have to. I have played so many games growing up that I sucked at and that's fine.
But this fits better with the "mad cause bad"-meme, which... well seems to be the case here. No other reason why Sekiro is singled out like this.
'Mad cause bad' shouldn't really apply when accessibility options for disabled people are being *specifically* opined upon in the article...Every thread on this topic is more absurd than the last. Wtf happened? This wasn't a thing 2 months ago. Like, since WHEN can everyone finish every game? Easy mode or not, there are tons of games that tons of people wont be able to finish. And that's fine.
I hate all "git gud" memes, because you don't have to. I have played so many games growing up that I sucked at and that's fine.
But this fits better with the "mad cause bad"-meme, which... well seems to be the case here. No other reason why Sekiro is singled out like this.
Ok but what gives you the right to decide what an "actual" accessibility option is? Personally, I'm going to give more weight to the opinion of a person with a disability who runs an advocacy group for disabled gamers over people on message boards and twitter voicing the opposite opinion.The options listed in the article are cheats lol. But I do agree that every game should have actual accessibility options.
I'd put it down to ignorance and maybe a got mine attitude.People really and truly have a myopic view of what accessibility options should include. It's like anything outside of colorblindness or being deaf must not exist as a disability, and therefore anything that makes a game "easier" is a disengenuos suggestion.
I truly hope none of you making these arguments ever have to experience a brain injury or nerve injury that results in your physical reaction times changing.
Yup. It's wild to see people in this thread not grasp that difficulty options/options that make the game easier (such as the things in Celeste which are widely celebrated) *are* accessibilityPeople really and truly have a myopic view of what accessibility options should include. It's like anything outside of colorblindness or being deaf must not exist as a disability, and therefore anything that makes a game "easier" is a disengenuos suggestion.
I truly hope none of you making these arguments ever have to experience a brain injury or nerve injury that results in your physical reaction times changing.
I missed this post earlier - usually I'd still be for being able to switch difficulties mid-game but this is quite a good compromise if people think the intended experience is sacrosanct to their enjoyment and that they wouldn't be able to resist the extra options.Or easier, a prompt at boot up "Sekiro offers accessibility options. Do you want to enable the option to toggle them in the options? Warning: This will be permanently written to your save game." and then write whatever the choice is to the save game, so you can't change it mid-game at a hard boss. People who want a more accessible or easier experience can just opt-in right away to get the option. People who feel like they want to/are able to play the game as intended without having the temptation of making it easier can opt-out.
Exactly.This is what I've been saying throughout all these arguments but people can't seem to grasp the concept of "You don't have to use the easier mode /accessibility options". People were legit arguing to me that if sekiro had a easier mode they would abuse it and that's why it shouldn't have any, which is a completely ridiculous statement.
People really and truly have a myopic view of what accessibility options should include. It's like anything outside of colorblindness or being deaf must not exist as a disability, and therefore anything that makes a game "easier" is a disengenuos suggestion.
I truly hope none of you making these arguments ever have to experience a brain injury or nerve injury that results in your physical reaction times changing.
These stances have been some of the most embarrassing I've seen from this site, and I truly cannot understand why people clutch as these things for a single player game.
Accesibiloty is one thing. Color blind mode, vontroller support, etc, which i fully support...not an easy mode. I said it once and i will say it again, sekiro is not a hard game. Hell, ill go as far as to say ots easier than aoulsbourne games.
Accessibility options allow people who have physical or cognitive disabilities to participate on an even playing field. The entire notion of gamers with disabilities wanting to make a very difficult game extremely easy is what fired up so many people against accessibility. Very few people want to distort or change an experience like Sekiro where its main draw is the challenge of the game.
Honestly I'd tell these people the same thing they tell others that might need the options: too fucking bad.I missed this post earlier - usually I'd still be for being able to switch difficulties mid-game but this is quite a good compromise if people think the intended experience is sacrosanct to their enjoyment and that they wouldn't be able to resist the extra options.
So? Is he the spokesperson for disabled people or something?
What about this guy who doesn't think it's needed?
You don't understand ALL disabled people are the same.Let's start with the part where this person has two hands with fingers to work with. Yes, they may be quadriplegic but not all people with disabilities have access to hands to play games with.
Please, if you're going to make arguments that were addressed in the article, at least give some hint that you read it. Even if you disagree, saying "I know this was mentioned in the article and here's why I disagree" would help everyone else have a little more trust that you're posting in good faith.My god get a grip. This is a video game. Not some life altering thing every human being should have experienced before dying.
Its a niche game made for a subset of a very large market.
Wasn't talking about the article, was about the thread.'Mad cause bad' shouldn't really apply when accessibility options for disabled people are being *specifically* opined upon in the article...
My god get a grip. This is a video game. Not some life altering thing every human being should have experienced before dying.
Its a niche game made for a subset of a very large market.
My god get a grip. This is a video game. Not some life altering thing every human being should have experienced before dying.
Its a niche game made for a subset of a very large market.
Someone's got a disability and can't enjoy a movie because it doesn't have subtitles, or read a book because there is no text-to-speech or braille, or play a game because they lost a hand and no one cares about remapping buttons; fuck em. These aren't "life altering" things, so why should anyone care?
lol exactly. So why the gatekeeping?My god get a grip. This is a video game. Not some life altering thing every human being should have experienced before dying.
Its a niche game made for a subset of a very large market.
You know what, it's embarrassing how this discussion has been generating new articles for weeks now whereas something as the THQ debacle generated close to none.
Or how accessibility has solely revolved around easy modes and not dealing with many physical handicaps that individuals that can be dealt with. Like how games still don't deal with colorblindness well or how awful subtitles can be for the deaf.
Congratulations, you played yourselfSo? Is he the spokesperson for disabled people or something?
What about this guy who doesn't think it's needed?
Argument #3: Other disabled gamers beat the game
"I saw a gamer XYZ play [insert game name here] so the game IS accessible and doesn't need any more accessibility. If they can do it, you can too!"
Gaming is for everyone. That attitude is called gatekeeping.
The problem is gamers with disabilities are not spark plugs. We aren't interchangeable inanimate objects that all have the same challenges. We are human beings with various disability-related challenges that each of us face, even within the same disability. Just because one person can do something, doesn't mean everyone else can.
While there are disabled gamers out there who have overcome very difficult barriers to beat very difficult games, I celebrate their achievement, but accessibility options aren't there for them. Accessibility is there for those who need them and not every person who is disabled needs every or any accessibility options.
There's the got-mine attitude I find so endearing in internet commentators.
Someone's got a disability and can't enjoy a movie because it doesn't have subtitles, or read a book because there is no text-to-speech or braille, or play a game because they lost a hand and no one cares about remapping buttons; fuck em. These aren't "life altering" things, so why should anyone care?
Are these really accessibility options? Seems more like the average hacks you find in PC trainers and cheat engine tables. If you really want to play games like this, you can always go the PC route. But I don't think it's reasonable to expect some game designers to actually include stuff of this sort in their games.
What's wrong with cheat codes exactly?Not every single game has to be for everyone. If you don't want to deal with the difficulty, there's tons of other games out there that aren't challenging.
Demon's Souls became a niche success because it was challenging and fair. The word of mouth on how to beat unbelievable enemies and the happiness on doing so is what carried the series to what it is today. It became the basis for the entire series and From's wants to keep serving that subset of players that enjoy it's experiences.
Accessibility is one thing, asking to change the rules of the game itself is another completely different thing.
Not every single game has to be for everyone. If you don't want to deal with the difficulty, there's tons of other games out there that aren't challenging.
Demon's Souls became a niche success because it was challenging and fair. The word of mouth on how to beat unbelievable enemies and the happiness on doing so is what carried the series to what it is today. It became the basis for the entire series and From's wants to keep serving that subset of players that enjoy it's experiences.
Accessibility is one thing, asking to change the rules of the game itself is another completely different thing.
My god get a grip. This is a video game. (Overcoming its challenge shouldn't be considered a defensible or noteworthy achievement in the grander scale of human life ("it's just entertainment"), so why bother to exclude accessibility options that will allow access to its artistic merits beyond just its difficulty -- because people can appreciate that at all levels of ability).
What's wrong with cheat codes exactly?
They're usually already present in the game's coding anyway so there's no extra work required and anyone wanting a challenge can just ignore their existence like they always did anyway.
Heck people hacked an easy mode in Souls games already anyway.
First, nobody is asking for From to change the rules to the game. Second, I don't think it's really fair for you to assign where the value of any piece of art comes from. For you, it may have been in what you described, but it can be enjoyed by anyone for any number of reasons. I realize you want to protect the experience you had, and ensure it continues in future games, but you must know that nobody is trying to take that away from you.
People really and truly have a myopic view of what accessibility options should include. It's like anything outside of colorblindness or being deaf must not exist as a disability, and therefore anything that makes a game "easier" is a disengenuos suggestion.
I truly hope none of you making these arguments ever have to experience a brain injury or nerve injury that results in your physical reaction times changing.
These stances have been some of the most embarrassing I've seen from this site, and I truly cannot understand why people clutch as these things for a single player game.
- Combat Speed (50-100%, sets game speed while enemies are aggro'd)
- Resurrections (+1, or infinite)
- Invisible While Sneaking
- Infinite Posture
- Invincible (while drinking gourd, or always)
Why?If people want to hack any game, there's little anyone could do to prevent them from doing so.
Some games do have similar things for after you finish the game and/or give the player enough liberties to become overpowered using it's own mechanics.
However, that doesn't mean those options should come as standard inside each game. I especially believe that those shouldn't be used at all in the first time someone is completing a game.
All of that being said, able bodies people using disabled people to ask for easy modes on popular games because they have FOMO is not a good look. It's telling that accessibility usually only comes up when difficult games are concerned. Much easier games often have big accessibility issues as well, but the able bodied general public just doesn't care at that point because their actual concern usually isn't disabled people. For example, Nintendo's forced motion controls on many of their games don't draw anywhere near the ire that something like this does, and that's a much bigger accessibility concern. Voices like ablegamers are mostly highlighted when a difficult game comes out. Kudos to Mark Brown, for example, for making a video series about this even when difficulty isn't a concern.
Truth is most accessibility can be added easily. Especially when implemented in the early stages of the development cycle. Accessibility options can be included with very little additional development time. Just ask Blizzard, Activision, or any of the other dozens of game studios that have worked with AbleGamers, APX, or independent accessibility consultants.
Let's start with the part where this person has two hands with fingers to work with. Yes, they may be quadriplegic but not all people with disabilities have access to hands to play games with.
First, change speed, ask for invencibility and similar, are changing the rules of the game. This is taking some examples from the article of course.
Second, I didn't value any piece of art. I didn't even said anything about art AT ALL. I said a bit on how those games became somewhat popular and that's it.
I'll continue it later as I have to leave. The individual experience might not change much, but the ames do go beyond from what happens in the screen.
ld be lost.
What does Celeste having these options take away from the game?