Tez Talks: Should Videogames have easy mode settings?

Tez Talks: Should All Videogames have Easy mode settings?

I'll preface this review by saying I'm not terrible at videogames. I've been doing it since I was 5 years old and my parents bought me my first PlayStation (Yes I am a fossil), so I rather hope I'm at least competent. I've played all sorts of games, from the old-school shooters like unreal tournament, strategy games like Dawn of War and Starcraft, to comfortable platformers like Spyro and Terraria, and yes, even those from software action games. And yes, I am one of those masochists who wants to punish himself with a brutal boss-fight who just beats me over and over and over, harder and harder until I.... wait what were we talking about?

Basically, I play video games on a harder setting than your average casual gamer. Now that that has been said and done, ill answer the question. Yes. Videogames should have an easy mode – and I'll explain why.

1. Video Games should retain the difficulty ideal of their creators.

This is an interesting point, and one that deserves proper dialogue. This falls into the category of "video games as art" ideal and is one that I think most players of video games can understand. A boss fight for example is supposed to be challenging. That is the IDEA of a boss fight, at its very core. It is the final hurdle, the great challenge to mark a significant growth of yourself as a player and progress to the next level. it is MEANT to kill you. I think everyone, even the most casual, cursory non-gamers understand this sentiment. There's a very low sense of gratification that can be gained from one-shotting a boss with zero challenge. However, the core point of this argument can be summarised in one sentence. Everybody has different skill levels. That boss fight that disappointed you with its ease, its meagre mechanics, its tiny healthpool, its overcompensating weapon? To your colleague, wife, husband, child, grandparent, or dog, is agonisingly difficult – and not everyone is as stubborn as I am when it comes to a videogame boss.

2. Video games SHOULD encourage players to improve at them.

To quote a favourite comedian of mine; "video games are the only medium that deny you progress. And I love them for it." Whilst I whole heartedly agree with this idea, accessibility is an extremely important feature of any video game. You could make the hardest game in the world, which only the top 0.001% of players could beat no matter how hard they persisted. Would this be an endearing game to most, or a simple exercise in frustration? Few people, particularly those of us condemned to the woes of adulthood would have the time or patience to endlessly chip away at such a frustrating task, and by denying progress to 99.999% of players, other games will become a more attractive option – and I very much doubt a game can survive with such a tiny audience, no matter how hardcore or fanatical.

The question then becomes, where is the cut-off point? Should we exclude 80% of gamers? 60%? 50%? These lines can be arbitrarily drawn in the sand by companies and ourselves, and ultimately all come down to an individuals preference. There is certainly something to be said in relation to appealing to your target audience and capitalising on your niche here - but all things in appropriate moderation.

There is also an ugly truth – a certain degree of ego and pride comes to all of us competitive folks, it is unavoidable. (Some handle this better than others of course.) This is the goal after all, the satisfaction of overcoming that challenge, the accomplishment. And that is what makes video games so great. But most importantly, you can still feel pride in beating the game on a higher difficulty, without it affecting their gameplay experience or yours. If you want that challenge, go right on ahead to apocalypse mode. But if granny wants to slaughter some hell-spawn on toddler mode, would you honestly take that controller from her and tell her to "git gud"?

Ill add one final point here and that is that I do think that higher difficulties should give rewards and incentives, to encourage players to grow and challenge themselves. Be it cosmetics, achievements, additional gameplay modes, cheats, characters, races, whatever may be appropriate to that game and genre.

3. Harder base difficulty modes are a barrier to entry.

· Finally, it is worth mentioning that having lower difficulty modes and allowing a wider audience to try the game, results in more success for the game, more sequels, more DLC, more things for YOU to do. But even more than that, by allowing Noobie Nathan to play, encourages him to seek out the extra challenge, to try dipping his toe into that harder difficulty (maybe for those rewards I mentioned above?), and creates even more competition, fans and community in the future. Does this happen to everyone? No. But if it happens to even a few, and only at the cost of those rare discussions where someone tells you they beat <insert hard game name here> and you find out (to your horror) it was on CASUAL mode, then that is a sacrifice worth making by anyone's standards.

I guess the end resolution would be: Yes, videogames should have easy modes, but should not compromise the punishing difficulties for them.