Quote Originally Posted by SeverianLyonesse View Post
I just think that is a very naive way of framing the issue. It is never about whether gaming or games are or were ever "harmful" to casuals.

It is just the reality that gaming expanded from a niche technical interest into mass consumption entertainment media. Yes, you could side with the casuals that they are somehow "harmed" by challenge, or even take the opposite approach and villify them for being lazy and unskilled.

But the relationship between accessibility/popularity and lack of challenge will always exist in all forms of media. Consumers (in this case gamers) don't like to admit it, but entertainment is still a leisure activity. What that ultimately means is that:

1. Most people in reality do not have the time or interest to spend their free time being mentally taxed. Life is taxing enough. So profitability of ANY media will always trend toward being unchallenging and placative. A game (or film, or music, or whatever) can either be deeply designed, or it can be massively commercially popular, but it really cannot aspire to be both. Exceptions occur (and usually in spite of complexity, not because of it), but they are extremely rare and FFXIV is not one of them.

2. This romanticized notion that "gaming" consumption-as-identity requires gaming to be "challenging" is a bit of a delusional sham. It is maintaining at best a compartmentalized notion that challenge and accessibility even can reasonably be co-prioritized. And at worst maintaining a nostalgic fantasy of gamers = niche nerds = hard games that simply doesn't describe the industry and communities anymore. "Gaming" is not the unique thing it used to be that I think people act like it still is; it is massively popular/populist and now caters to a lower common denominator.
In another words, beating or complete a video game back in the "old days" is something players can brag for in front of their friend, and if players failed to go do, they will rage and rant about game being hard for them, but there were very few of them genuinely question the fairness as well as accessibilty of game design in general.

Nowadays? If players can't beat a game, they would just assume game developers hate players by making game hard for players, some of the player go as far as sending death threat to game developers as well.

Nowadays video game become so much accessible which make beating or complete a video game became something expected from any "functional" players, therefore the joy of finish a game kind of diminishes over time.

"Back in the old days" players are just simply being nostalgic about the halcyon days of completing a video game is something they can brag about.