General Gaming ‘God of War’ Director Explains Why Accessibility Is Not a Compromise

[Pikachu]

https://variety.com/2019/gaming/news/god-of-war-director-sekiro-input-1203184074/

 

Quote

“God of War” director Cory Barlog offered up his two cents in the ongoing difficulty and accessibility debate in video games on Sunday.

 

The heated debate of how accessible games should be to a wide audience is one that comes up time and time again, and this time around it was FromSoftware’s challenging “Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice” that started the discussion. FromSoftware had already developed a reputation for releasing notoriously difficult games with its “Dark Souls” series and “Bloodborne.”

 

Some developers and gamers feel that offering different accessibility or difficulty options or even a mode that just lets players minimally interact with the game is not in line with the original vision for the experience of the game. Barlog, though, stated that “Accessibility has never and will never be a compromise to my vision,” in a tweet Sunday.

 

Sony Santa Monica’s 2018 game “God of War” offers four different gameplay difficulty settings: Give Me A Story, Give Me A Balanced Experience, Give Me A Challenge, and Give Me God of War. Rather than “easy” or “hard,” these settings are titled for the experience that players want to have while enjoying “God of War.”

 

“To me, accessibility does not exist in contradistinction to anyones creative vision but rather it is an essential aspect of any experience you wish to be enjoyed by the greatest number of humans as possible,” Barlog wrote in a follow-up post.

 

Steve Spohn, the COO of AbleGamers, a charity which aims to improve “the lives of gamers with disabilities utilizing the power of videogames,” according to its Twitter page, has been speaking out on the topic on Twitter frequently, and explained that it’s not about difficulty or easy modes.

“Accessibility means options, not easy gameplay,” Spohn wrote in a tweet on Friday.

 

“In any game, whether it’s ‘Sekiro,’ ‘Dark Souls,’ or any other skill-based game, there should be options to allow your health to be modified, your enemies help to be modified, and the game speed adjusted,”Spohn continued. “This does not make the game easy. It allows people to make the game equal.”

 

[Xbob42]

Weird. Because Give Me God of War arbitrarily locked you into the difficulty. A really unfun slog of a difficulty. You didn't have the OPTION to turn it back off once you were a few hours in and realized it was just a grindy, broken mess.

[Bacon]

2 hours ago, Pikachu said:

“Accessibility means options, not easy gameplay,” Spohn wrote in a tweet on Friday.

 

2 hours ago, Pikachu said:

there should be options to allow your health to be modified, your enemies help to be modified, and the game speed adjusted,”Spohn continued. “This does not make the game easy. It allows people to make the game equal.”

I mean, that does make the game easy. "There is no difficulty, but you can change all of these things to make the game easier." 

 

And GoW's difficulty options sucked. I would have rathered them make one mode and that's it. Difficulty options suck in general. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Accessibility may not be a compromise to his vision, but his vision is not a soul crushingly hard experience. For From Soft over coming great adversity where the game is heavily stacked against you is the whole point of the game.

 

could it reach more players if it have easier difficulty settings? Sure. But that’s not what From Soft wants. Their vision is games people over come. 

[SaysWho?]

AndrewDean is not happy about this

[Bloodporne]

His vision, cool. Apparently it is to From and their games sell what they do because of it. These is the same type of publication and person that repeats the "not everything is for everybody, it's just not for you" mantra ad nauseam on top of it. 

[JPDunks4]

It's an interesting topic. 

 

Curious if you guys support the ADA? Businesses are forced by law to make their establishments accessible for disabled and handicapped people, why should a game be different?  

 

I'm not arguing for it, but I guess I had never thought of difficulty in games as something that could really be limiting for some gamers that struggle to play certain titles due to things that are out of their control.  The whole idea of "Git Gud" doesn't really translate.  I always prefer to play my games on harder difficulties, and used to be one that would say, well if its too hard for you too bad.  But not sure I still totally feel that way.

 

Microsofts new controller kind of highlights that fact, and many of you were championing MS for doing what they did to allow more gamers to play more things, but are against certain developers making some adjustments to allow those same gamers to possibly enjoy more games by scaling a few difficulty settings for them.  

 

I personally am still conflicted overall, but if it doesn't hurt my experience with a game, and allows more people to play it, I don't see the harm in adding more options.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Anything that gives a wider audience an opportunity to experience a game, the better.

 

If a developer's "vision" is compromised through the inclusion of the COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY OPTIONAL ability to modify certain parameters to make the game more "accessible", it wasn't  particularly good vision to begin with.

[legend]

15 minutes ago, SFLUFAN said:

Anything that gives a wider audience an opportunity to experience a game, the better.

 

If a developer's "vision" is compromised through the inclusion of the COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY OPTIONAL ability to modify certain parameters to make the game more "accessible", it wasn't  particularly good vision to begin with.

 

I'm mostly sympathetic to this position, but I hesitate to make it a hard rule. The reality is allowing any changes requires some degree of testing, and may often require re-design around it, otherwise you're opening the door for people to have shit experiences, because they're not going to know ahead of whether an option is garbage compared to the rest of the experience.

 

Moreover, diverting yourself to focus on the testing and design for these other modes has costs beyond the immediate development cost. Building something is not just a matter of putting in the time. Getting distracted incurs additional context-switching overhead and is damaging to design process, which means you may end up with a shitter design. That probably goes doubly if you're talking about something artistic.

 

So while I do think being able to make something more accessible to more people is a great idea, I don't think we should be demanding that it always be followed. The realities of game development may mean that results in a worse production, depending on what exactly you're asking for.

[XxEvil AshxX]

If I can beat your game, no compromise is necessary.

[Captain Pickle]

1 hour ago, JPDunks4 said:

It's an interesting topic. 

 

Curious if you guys support the ADA? Businesses are forced by law to make their establishments accessible for disabled and handicapped people, why should a game be different?  

 

I'm not arguing for it, but I guess I had never thought of difficulty in games as something that could really be limiting for some gamers that struggle to play certain titles due to things that are out of their control.  The whole idea of "Git Gud" doesn't really translate.  I always prefer to play my games on harder difficulties, and used to be one that would say, well if its too hard for you too bad.  But not sure I still totally feel that way.

 

Microsofts new controller kind of highlights that fact, and many of you were championing MS for doing what they did to allow more gamers to play more things, but are against certain developers making some adjustments to allow those same gamers to possibly enjoy more games by scaling a few difficulty settings for them.  

 

I personally am still conflicted overall, but if it doesn't hurt my experience with a game, and allows more people to play it, I don't see the harm in adding more options.

There is and will always be a market for both.  Don't force products to do this.  You might as well re-write Shakespear and dumb it the fuck down.  Advanced Micro Economics??? Not anymore!!!  Economics For All, yaaaayyy

[Keyser_Soze]

Dark Souls games and Sekiro is like a porno. You don't play them for the story. All this shit about it should be easy for people. That's like "you should take an orgasm pill so you don't have to watch the porno"

[Captain Pickle]

I really would hate if From had to have difficulty options.  First off, kudos to them for going against the norm and making difficult games.  It was a huge risk and I am glad it payed off for them.  It will be a niche market but I'm glad it exists.  I'm not concerned because most will not follow their path.  It's just nice to know there are games out there that you simply cannot get past if you can't get past.  the only way to see it though is to watch on YouTube and their you go, you can still do that.  

 

[XxEvil AshxX]

Remember Ninja Dog mode in Ninja Gaiden Black?

 

 

Those were the good ol' days lol.

 

 

[number305]

If the purpose of your game is to be hard then being forced to have an easy mode is dumb.  What would the purpose of Super Meat Boy be if it wasn't hard?  

 

I don't personally play games that are super hard - but I do understand that there are people who enjoy them.  Not every game is meant to be enjoyed by everyone.

[Bacon]

You can literally beat the final boss in Sekiro by running around and baiting an attack, get one hit in, and then repeat. 

 

3 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

Curious if you guys support the ADA? Businesses are forced by law to make their establishments accessible for disabled and handicapped people, why should a game be different?  

Because it is not a business? And they can access video games. They just might not be able to get the full experience, which holds true for most forms of entertainment. Like, everyone can enter Cedar Point, but that doesn't mean that everyone can ride all the roller coasters. 

 

3 hours ago, SFLUFAN said:

If a developer's "vision" is compromised through the inclusion of the COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY OPTIONAL ability to modify certain parameters to make the game more "accessible", it wasn't  particularly good vision to begin with.

I disagree. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

5 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

It's an interesting topic. 

 

Curious if you guys support the ADA? Businesses are forced by law to make their establishments accessible for disabled and handicapped people, why should a game be different?  

 

I'm not arguing for it, but I guess I had never thought of difficulty in games as something that could really be limiting for some gamers that struggle to play certain titles due to things that are out of their control.  The whole idea of "Git Gud" doesn't really translate.  I always prefer to play my games on harder difficulties, and used to be one that would say, well if its too hard for you too bad.  But not sure I still totally feel that way.

 

Microsofts new controller kind of highlights that fact, and many of you were championing MS for doing what they did to allow more gamers to play more things, but are against certain developers making some adjustments to allow those same gamers to possibly enjoy more games by scaling a few difficulty settings for them.  

 

I personally am still conflicted overall, but if it doesn't hurt my experience with a game, and allows more people to play it, I don't see the harm in adding more options.

We’re not talking about making the games more accessible for disabled people. Unless you think anyone that can’t beat Dark Souls is physically or mentally handicapped in some way. Then maybe we are talking about the same thing. 

 

The topic is essentially, should all games have multiple difficulty settings to make them more accessible to a wider audience of gamers.  Should From Soft games have difficulty settings where it is harder to fail. 

 

 

I personally think there is nothing inherently wrong with having easier and harder modes. Just as some From Soft games may be too hard form some, I know there are games some gamers feel are too easy that do not offer a harder mode. Letting everyone have their cake and eat it to. 

 

But I guess From Soft is worried that if they put an easier mode in the game, people that might be able to eventually beat the game on its standard difficulty won’t bother and just stick with the easier setting. Not getting the true experience.  

[Ghost_MH]

4 hours ago, number305 said:

If the purpose of your game is to be hard then being forced to have an easy mode is dumb.  What would the purpose of Super Meat Boy be if it wasn't hard?  

 

I don't personally play games that are super hard - but I do understand that there are people who enjoy them.  Not every game is meant to be enjoyed by everyone.

 

Celeste was a brutally difficult platformer and it had a great set of accessibility options.

 

 

I'm not directing this at you. I'm just using your pay as a jumping point here. It sometimes comes across as gamers enjoy their bragging rights of being about to complete a difficult game and don't want to share those bragging rights with someone that beat the game on easy. It's petty gamer bullshit. It reminds me of the people that flipped their lid when Nintendo implemented an entirely optional easy mode in New Super Mario Bros...an entirely optional mode that doesn't even isn't itself unless you died a bunch of times already.

[Bacon]

11 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

Just as some From Soft games may be too hard form some, I know there are games some gamers feel are too easy that do not offer a harder mode.

I would rather Zelda to continue being too easy than to offer harder modes. I know of hero mode, but you generally can't play that mode until after you beat the game IIRC. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Just now, Bacon said:

I would rather Zelda to continue being too easy than to offer harder modes. I know of hero mode, but you generally can't play that mode until after you beat the game IIRC. 

Offering a harder mode doesn’t mean you have to start with it. I rarely do, but I know people that automatically set a game on its hardest available setting and prefer gaming that way. They also love From Soft games for their difficulty. 

[Bacon]

1 minute ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

They also love From Soft games for their difficulty. 

I love the Soulsborne games, but I'd still rather Zelda remain on the easier side than give options. I think Zelda should be harder, but I just want it to be harder. I don't want to pick a different difficultly settings. 

[Keyser_Soze]

2 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

Celeste was a brutally difficult platformer and it had a great set of accessibility options.

 

I'd like to know what that assist mode was because I beat the game without ever turning it on.

[Ghost_MH]

59 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I'd like to know what that assist mode was because I beat the game without ever turning it on.

 

Watch the video I posted. I beat the game without ever touching then add well, but they had great features. Everything from slowing down the game in increments to infinite stamina to invincibility. It really opens the game up for younger kids, older folks, and people with physical impairments that just don't allow them to keep up with such a day paced game.

 

It's the kind of stuff we should want games to feature because there is zero reason to not open games up to a greater number of people. The features in Celeste's Assist Mode paired with Microsoft's Adaptive Controller means people that never could play a game like Celeste, but wish they could, can now enjoy those kinds of games.

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, Ghost_MH said:

It's the kind of stuff we should want games to feature because there is zero reason to not open games up to a greater number of people. The features in Celeste's Assist Mode paired with Microsoft's Adaptive Controller means people that never could play a game like Celeste, but wish they could, can now enjoy those kinds of games.

 

There are also plenty of disabled people (well one that I know of anyway, Wheels) who can overcome the difficulty of the game by just being good at it

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/killer-instinct-player-wheels-overcoming-disability-pro-204002264.html

[Ghost_MH]

47 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

There are also plenty of disabled people (well one that I know of anyway, Wheels) who can overcome the difficulty of the game by just being good at it

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/killer-instinct-player-wheels-overcoming-disability-pro-204002264.html

 

That doesn't mean anything since disabilities aren't binary. Like...good for them for being more able bodied than others?

 

 

[Ghost_MH]

9 hours ago, Man of Culture said:

 

People who can literally only use their tongue can beat games like Sekiro or win Chicken Dinners than that. You honestly can't get any more disabled than that. That being said, nobody here and most people making the argument about difficulty are perfectly fine with accessibility. What they aren't fine with is forcing a developer to compromise a vision for the kind of game he wishes to make simply because humans aren't created equal.

 

And some people can beat Dark Souls with Donkey Konga bongos. As long as a dev communicates that this was not their intended vision, I don't see the harm in offering accessibility options. That's like complaining that subtitles break up the image of a movie in a distracting way and deciding you don't want them available in your movie. That's sort of a dick move. Just saying that most people aren't deaf or hard of hearing doesn't really make for a good argument.

[Keyser_Soze]

 

(You have to read it from right to left)

[RedSoxFan9]

On 4/10/2019 at 10:28 AM, SFLUFAN said:

Anything that gives a wider audience an opportunity to experience a game, the better.

 

If a developer's "vision" is compromised through the inclusion of the COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY OPTIONAL ability to modify certain parameters to make the game more "accessible", it wasn't  particularly good vision to begin with.

 

Ori vs Hollow Knight is a good example of this.  Hollow Knight is a solid game that suffers from its uncompromising design.  Ori is very accessible and might be the GOAT in its subgenre. 

 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/03/02/hollow-knight-review/

[Bloodporne]

On 4/10/2019 at 10:28 AM, SFLUFAN said:

Anything that gives a wider audience an opportunity to experience a game, the better.

 

If a developer's "vision" is compromised through the inclusion of the COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY OPTIONAL ability to modify certain parameters to make the game more "accessible", it wasn't  particularly good vision to begin with.

From's output in the past decade has done the exact opposite and has gone on to massively influence the industry exactly with their stubborn adherence to a strong vision. Since this topic is basically about From, I completely disagree when it comes to their particular design philosophy. 

 

And not responding to you but I see a lot of talk about diversity of experience, individualism, "not everything is for everyone" and so on yet when one studio bucks all sorts of trends and succeeds gloriously against all big corporation AAA rules...please change your design philosophy and recipe for success, it doesn't appeal to everyone. 

Just now, RedSoxFan9 said:

 

Ori vs Hollow Knight is a good example of this.  Hollow Knight is a solid game that suffers from its uncompromising design.  Ori is very accessible and might be the GOAT in its subgenre. 

 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2017/03/02/hollow-knight-review/

You're just stating your personal preference for more accessible games ultimately though with that. It doesn't prove that more uncompromising games like Hollow Knight in this case have a lesser vision or are of inferior quality and/or commercial viability. They both basically have the same metacritic score even, with HK being a few points higher depending on platform. HK has also sold 2,8 million copies as of some months back, can't find data for Ori after a quick googling, but I mean, I see no evidence of it being hampered as a result of being "uncompromising" compared to Ori. 

 

And I feel like I have to point out that I don't agree with many of HK's "uncompromising" decisions even personally but it's pretty damn beloved generally and that aspect is probably a huge factor for many fans. 

 

 

[Ghost_MH]

1 hour ago, Man of Culture said:

It's okay for entertainment products to not be for everyone.

 

It's okay for directorial and design visions for entertainment products to be uncompromising.

 

It's okay for entertainment products to succeed or fail based on their own merits.

 

You don't have to enjoy everything and that's alright.

 

It's also ok to think it's a dick move to not want to open a game up to people with disabilities. Like, if you want a game to look a certain way and refuse to put in options for those with color blindness, that sucks and its a sucky attitude to take.

 

It'snot about liking a game or not. I love Hollow Knight. That game has no accessibility options. If I were injured in such a way to make the game unplayable for me, that would really suck. I want to enjoy that game. I want to be able to play the Hornet game coming out soon. People with disabilities, whether they be motor or cognitive or visual it whatever, deserve a chance to partake in the experience these games bring to the table.

 

I get the whole point of vision, but of a developer's vision is not an excuse. Look at the Celeste video I posted. That game is meant to be difficult. The difficulty of overcoming the challenge is integral to the game's story. However, they understood that there are people out there unable to play the game they might enjoy for reasons that are outside their control.

 

Any developer that's basically having a sign outside of their game reading "no cripples" deserves whatever flack they get for it. There's already enough in the world that people can't enjoy because of their disabilities. Games and movies and other forms of wholly virtual man-made entertainment shouldn't also be purposefully walled off from them just because of something as ridiculous as the notion of purity of vision.

[Slug]

"Accessibility" should mean that all players should be able to play the game.  This comes down to the ability to make the same inputs as a fully able gamer.  Special hardware, controllers, color-blind modes, etc. are good examples of this.  And I believe all developers should make their game "accessible" to everyone in this manner; for this meaning of the word accessibility.  Everyone should be able to make the same initial inputs regardless of physical disability.  But that's it.

 

As far as difficulty goes though...everyone should be able to play a game; not everyone needs to be able to beat it.  "Accessible" in the context that "everyone should be able do/experience all the things in the game irrespective of skill" is only appropriate if that is the intention of the artist from the outset.  No dev should feel like they *have* to compromise their work if they don't want to.

[Bloodporne]

24 minutes ago, Slug said:

"Accessibility" should mean that all players should be able to play the game.  This comes down to the ability to make the same inputs as a fully able gamer.  Special hardware, controllers, color-blind modes, etc. are good examples of this.  And I believe all developers should make their game "accessible" to everyone in this manner; for this meaning of the word accessibility.  Everyone should be able to make the same initial inputs regardless of physical disability.  But that's it.

 

As far as difficulty goes though...everyone should be able to play a game; not everyone needs to be able to beat it.  "Accessible" in the context that "everyone should be able do/experience all the things in the game irrespective of skill" is only appropriate if that is the intention of the artist from the outset.  No dev should feel like they *have* to compromise their work if they don't want to.

Much better summation of my own thoughts than I was writing up, 100% agreed. 

[Ghost_MH]

14 minutes ago, Man of Culture said:

 

Exactly this. 

 

 

So what you're telling us is that you're the kid at the carnival who's mad because all the rides you want to get on have height requirements which you fail to meet, so instead of going on rides for which you actually meet the requirements, you're going to boohoo the ride architects to change their rides for you. Get out of here with that weak sauce shit.

 

Nobody here is against accessibility in the form of things like unique input devices or audio/visual aids or simplified inputs.. and ftr, Celestes accessibility options would be considered cheat features in any other game. Being able to play a game from start to finish through the use of cheat codes =/= designing a game to be accessible for the majority of people. The game was clearly not designed for the people who use those cheat features. Accessibility is just a mask for what those features actually are in the case of Celeste.

 

It's not possible to make a certain amusement park rides safe for people of certain heights. If it was safe to do so with very little effort and a ride designer chose not to because they didn't feel like it, then that would be a different story. Again, we're talking about opening games up to allow people less abled than most of us on these boards to allow them to enjoy games that have been mostly out of their reach. How is that a bad thing? Just because it might go against the well wishes of a game developer...when it's a completely optional thing...and you can message the hell out of it...or you can even make accessibility options free DLC.

 

Celeste's options might be viewed as cheats by you, but the devs put those options in there specifically for those that had problems with the game. They weren't trying to hide anything. There's a reason the Celeste gives players a bunch of accessibility options. This isn't just a god mode. You can do as little as slowing the gameplay down by 10%. You're coming across as if you're denigrating the work the Celeste team did to open the game up for younger and older players as well as those with physical handicaps. The team clearly put some thought into it and it's not just a cheat mode. There are other options in there to reduce flashing colors and kill off screen shake. If it doesn't take much effort to open a game's accessibility up to a wider audience, then why not? Oh, vision? Right. That nebulous thing.

[Slug]

26 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

Again, we're talking about opening games up to allow people less abled than most of us on these boards to allow them to enjoy games that have been mostly out of their reach. How is that a bad thing?

I can't tell if you're talking about actual physical disabilities or merely having lower skill at a given game.  If the former, I'm with you 100%.  If the latter...no.  Everyone has a right to play IMO.  There is no inherent right to succeed.  

26 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

Celeste's options might be viewed as cheats by you, but the devs put those options in there specifically for those that had problems with the game. They weren't trying to hide anything. There's a reason the Celeste gives players a bunch of accessibility options. This isn't just a god mode. You can do as little as slowing the gameplay down by 10%. You're coming across as if you're denigrating the work the Celeste team did to open the game up for younger and older players as well as those with physical handicaps. The team clearly put some thought into it and it's not just a cheat mode. There are other options in there to reduce flashing colors and kill off screen shake. If it doesn't take much effort to open a game's accessibility up to a wider audience, then why not? Oh, vision? Right. That nebulous thing.

And I don't think anyone is ragging on what Celeste did.  But they clearly wanted to do it and put a lot of thought into it.  And that's great.  Awesome.  But it shouldn't be expected and we shouldn't be negative on devs that want to exclusively reward players who put the time and the effort in to "git gud".

 

I know there are plenty of feats in gaming that I will never achieve; cut-scenes I'll never enjoy and endings I'll never see (*shakes fist at Gradius III*).  I'm simply not good enough.  But I'd never expect, or even want, there to be an option to have my hand held so I can do them.  Not only does it cheapen the "victory" but it diminishes the experience because I know I didn't really do it. I'd rather never catch my white whale than have it served up to me by someone else.  Games like those by FROM are an acknowledgement and celebration of this mindset.  And there's nothing wrong with that at all.

[RedSoxFan9]

The Celeste devs created assist mode in two days so we absolutely can and should criticize other devs for not doing the same.