Here’s a hot take for you. Every single player/offline video game should come with a godmode/cheatmode/sandbox mode that allows the player to access all of the content in the game, regardless of ability or skill level. Whether this is voluntary or regulated, it is in the best interest of the industry and society to do so.
Allow me to explain. And this applies mainly to story-driven AAA games; there are plenty of arguments to be had whether Paper Mario or Dead Or Alive Beach Volleyball need a godmode, sure. But the starting point is clear. That said, some of these critiques apply to live service and free-to-play games that also reinforce some of the tropes involved here.
First of all, since video games are largely non-refundable, purchasing one is merely paying for a chance to access content. There are no guarantees that you will be able to access anything beyond the loading screen. And no recourse if the game is broken, too hard, outside your skillset, poorly designed, or any number of reasons one stops playing. Some of this might be covered under “caveat emptor”, sure, but it also allows game companies to make money off what is essentially a loot box from the jump. You’re not getting the experience promised on the tin, you’re gambling that you might have the experience promised on the tin.
We regulate gambling. We regulate product descriptions. We regulate advertising. What happens when you have an entire industry built on not only manipulating all of these things, but being able to patch not only bugs but the gameplay experience itself, whenever they feel like it? What if a patch breaks the game, and the devs refuse to fix it?
What if the whole ass game is not what you’ve invested in after years of patches? Again, some of this applies to online multiplayer as well – looking at you, Bungie. If Uncharted or Asassin’s Creed is marketed as a story- driven RPG, and hides the unavoidable platforming elements, and someone who, say, hates platforming more than they hate lava enemas or raw kale salads buys the series anthology, and can’t seem to get past the FIRST FUCKING JUMP, shouldn’t they have some rights here? Hypothetically, of course.
Look, we could also pass a law that says that anyone expressing “git gud scrub” can be hunted for sport. Metaphorically, of course. If we wanted. Probably. We could try.
The gaming industry has made YUGE profits off games that gather dust after ten minutes of playtime, because they don’t give a single fuck about anything once they have your money. And don’t give me any of that “market correction” bullshit. As long as there’s no recourse for game purchases – and I get why there isn’t, and I’m not necessarily arguing that there should be – then the promise of “we have made a good faith effort to make sure that you can access all the content in this game regardless of skill or ability” is literally the least the industry can do to ensure that at least some utility can be derived from the purchase.
I am paying for content. Not the chance to access content. Gimme it. It’s mine. This isn’t an argument, this is the reality. Anything else is gambling. If I don’t get the full experience after purchase, I am not buying it, I am gambling. Full stop. In which case, this needs to be regulated as such.
However, with a godmode/cheatmode/sandbox mode, what have you, I uh I mean that person could just roll their eyes and hit the settings menu, and still experience the artwork, the voice acting, the level design, the cut scenes, the story, all the stuff they actually paid for. This stuff is as much entertainment as it is recreation.
Being able to turn a game into a playable movie not only makes things fair, it encourages taking risks on games that one might not otherwise enjoy. It grants agency to the player to mold their own experience.
Which brings us to point two. Gaming is a toxic wasteland of violent narcissism and elitism, with players wrapping their entire identity around gaming superiority in a way that stunts emotional development and promotes a host of behavioral disorders. This isn’t games themselves, this is the culture around artificial hierarchies and constructed supremacy cults. The dude that developed Minecraft was a piece of shit. Borderlands has a ton of great communities. It’s not the games, it’s the gamers.
As it stands right now, I will never, ever spend a single dime on FromSoftware products. Not only is the gameplay just not for me, I don’t enjoy devs manipulating the player into an intentionally miserable experience. I think their leveraging of clunky, shitty combat into a suffering simulator is a crime against humanity, and the fetishization of difficulty is a fucking plague. I think whomever decided “games should be punishing” should be flensed, again, metaphorically, and their corpse metaphorically nailed to the gates as a metaphoric warning to others. The idea of dying repeatedly until you have burned a sequence of movements into your brain to be executed flawlessly or else lose another hour of your life to stairs makes me want to saw off my head.
But their games are weird and pretty, and culturally relevant, and although they have been instrumental in preparing young men to be fascist dipshits – I’m not even remotely kidding: the Venn diagram of 8Chan PedoNazis, blackpilled gamergaters, and dudes who fetishize difficulty and elitism in gaming is absolutely a fucking circle – slap on a godmode, and enjoy my $70. No cap, fr fr.
I play Conan Exiles in essentially sandbox mode offline all the time. It’s a blast. Zero fucks. And that’s why FunCom has my money, and FromSoft does not. The modding communities of Skyrim and Fallout have kept these games relevant long after their lifespan because players can tailor their experience to their tastes. Players like to be creative. Players will find their own fun in fun platforms. Even in difficulty fetish games, players find ways to create their own experiences. It’s what plants crave, man.
It’s not eliminating top end difficulty settings, or flattening out the experience for top players. It’s eliminating barriers to entry, and ensuring that anyone who buys a game gets the same full access to the experience.
The elimination of this lunatic competitive spiral and increase in accessibility not only sells more games, but dismantles this external, idealized self that people rely on, that primes them to adopt other, even more toxic identities. The shooter-looter-to-actual-shooter pipeline isn’t because of violence in videogames, it’s in the supremacy model of social hierarchy promoted by toxic tropes and cultures within gaming itself. Dismantling that is pretty paramount to the survival of the industry, if not civilization as a whole.
Look. They’re video games. They’re supposed to be fun. Not these fucking manipulative anguish machines doling out tiny drops of dopamine for the fleeting nanosecond the pain stops before you get on the wheel again like a good little hamster. They aren’t identities, they aren’t badges (we don’t need no stinking badges), they aren’t cool kid flexes. The defenders of this type of gaming lose their fucking minds because if the FILTHY CASUALS can do everything, it’s not 1337 anymore, and they can’t feel special. Boo hoo, go learn how to have feelings other than rage and self pity.
Gaming cannot rely on microtransactions and $20 skins to make up the increasing prices and costs of game development, and we need to be able to have a lot more faith in what we as gamers can buy and play. As prices are topping $100 for certain editions, we need to have some faith, and the ability to take risks on games. The elitist model does not work. Instead of forcing developers to make accessible games, let’s just make ALL games accessible. Design what you want, and let the player decide how they want to interface with it, Give the player the tools to enjoy all the hard work they paid for, and open up the space to challenge the idea that you have no worth unless you can 360 no scope or solo Oryx. Sorry, my guy, that Raid jacket or KD rating is never going to impress anyone.
For the health of both players and the industry, including some form of access to all content is a no-brainer.
Kelsoland.Institute 