By: Patrick Morris
It's a simple fact of life that there is nothing that everyone likes. We all have tastes and preferences and something that might be my all time favorite is legitimately dogshit to someone else. Nobody is going to enjoy everythnig but simply not enjoying something does not make it inherently bad. Sekiro was a game that was exceptionally well received but one of the biggest conversations surrounding Sekiro upon its release was one of difficulty. Many people criticized the game for being too difficult and not having any difficulty options which based off skill excluded a lot of players from a significant portion of the game, myself included. Art can never and will never have universal appeal, and that’s actually a good thing; art is made to appeal to specific demographics and the rate at which audiences are increasingly expecting everything to be made to appeal to them is not only concerning but down right stifling and will undoubtedly become deadweight dragging down creativity.
Everyone's tastes are different, and that’s a good thing. Everyone's tastes are formed by their own lived experiences and as a result those tastes are developed for different reasons. To recognize and understand your own tastes is good but to understand what you don’t like and the specific reasons why in a calm and rational way is arguably just as if not even more valuable. Understanding why we dislike things allows us the opportunity to take inventory of those things and periodically reassess to determine if maybe our tastes have changed over time.
Even more important than determining if our own personal tastes have changed is understanding the validity and value of those things that we don’t like. Just because I don’t personally enjoy Game of Thrones doesn’t mean I'm incapable of recognizing and respecting the quality of the writing, acting, production value, and story telling. Everything about Game of Thrones reeks of quality but that doesn’t mean that I have to enjoy it, and just because I don’t enjoy it doesn’t mean it's not good.
Sekiro is an extremely difficult game and thanks to the fact that FromSoft made the conscious decision to not put in difficulty settings it will always be an extremely difficult game. The game is too difficult for me just like it is for many others and unfortunately a lot of people including critics from the media chose to hold that against the game instead of recognizing that it is a game that was made to specifically cater to a different audience. Far Cry 4, 5, and now Far Cry 6 have all faced a not insignificant amount of criticism for being unwilling to use their games as a platform to make a political statement. Many people who hold specific political beliefs wanted the Far Cry games to be a vehicle for a political message and were unwilling to understand that the developers weren't beholden to mold their games in any potential audience's ideologies. Recently EA's Battlefield 2042 came under fire for responding to questions of whether or not the game was a commentary on climate change by categorically denying that the game was in anyway intended to be political. Once again a portion of the audience was attempting to force a game to fit what they wanted the game to be rather than accepting it for what it is. My intention is not to say that it isn't okay to read into messaging of video games to find meaning deeper than surface level, what I'm saying is that when a game is not what the audience expects or in some cases practically demands it to be that audience is rarely willing to evaluate the game within the contet of what the developer's intended and appreciate it for what it is.
Personally I don’t enjoy turn based combat systems, but I am capable of appreciating that there are times when they are undeniably the best choice that can be made and enhance the overall experience. I don’t enjoy JRPG's but I recognize that some of the best received game's of all time have been JRPG's and rightfully so. I don’t enjoy crafting or building mechanics and games that feature those mechanics heavily are not particular enjoyable for me; but once again, that doesn’t stop me from understanding that game's like Minecraft and Fallout 4 have changed the entire medium for the better. Mobius Digital's Outer Wilds is a game that pushed me to the brink of quitting out of frustration with its intentionally vague solar system sized puzzle. It's a game that I absolutely don’t like. But especially after seeing how it ends I cant help but appreciate how incredibly beautiful the story and message of inevitability are.
I want to be as clear as possible that I'm not trying to preach from atop my high horse, I am just as guilty of this as others. The point of this video is to emphasize how we can all be better and more open minded and accepting of things that we don’t necessarily enjoy. Of course this isn't to say that games shouldn’t be open to legitimate criticism, I'm simply suggesting that audiences should be more mindful of appreciating quality in things that aren't made for them rather than demanding that everything cater to them. We must be willing to prepare the child for the road rather than preparing the road for the child.
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