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"Why can't we just have something that's ours?! Why does everything we have eventually get handed to Timmy Cuntface? You know he fucks the dog, right?" -Yahtzee Croshaw

I've been seeing a lot of folks go back and fourth on alleged "difficulty modes" and I've ultimately come to the conclusion - fuck no. I would if that's what you were really asking for, that's normal, but you're not.

Part 1: Remakes have no artistic merit

Okay, here me out.

See, the reason it frustrates me is for much of the same reasons "remake culture" frustrates me. A lot of my favourite moments in video games came from those things that broke up the consistent evenness that otherwise takes up the negative space of these games.

The Matador from Nocturne, therefore, is such an excellent example of good game design, which forces the player to think and engage with the game's mechanics or else it'll fuck your shit up.

Now, the perfect example of what I'm getting at here is the Silent Hill 2 remake. It pisses me off that this once strange game, one of the best to ever fucking do it, once defined by it's uncanny acting and dream-like surreality...

...was remade into a fairly standard horror game that checks all the boxes for what "normal" video game voice acting and gameplay is supposed to be. Wow!!! And so many people judged it to be objectively better.

And this isn't unique to just supposed "hard games". You ever notice that Animal Crossing sucks shit now? And it sucks shit because they've sanded off so many of the edges to the point where everything that made it so unique and therefore special, was stripped away until there was nothing left.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because I'm coming from the point of view that video games are art, no seriously, and art should be allowed to be different and uncomfortable with having you engage with that on it's own terms.

And, you know, think of it this way, if you spend a couple of hours cleaning the kitchen, you feel great afterwards, you feel exhausted, but you feel great.

I think generally the more work the happy chemicals take to get, the more your brain enjoys having it. It's also what makes art special, is that it's difficult to do.

I said earlier that what you're arguing for isn't necessarily difficulty options, that's normal, but rather it's a theoretical button that makes the game adhere to modern, standardized conventions found in so many games.

Part 2: Streaming services ruined everything

To me, there's also been this growing frustration towards what I see as "media homogenization". I feel like the current streaming ghetto has essentially sanded off entire genres into the safest, bingeable, most generally appealing, lowest common denominator soup.

Television is turning into nothing but overproduced mini-series because a lot of the audience is just more interested in the look and feel of "prestige", rather than of actual quality. "Emmy-goop" I once heard it called, that was funny.

The film indusry is tossing out way more superhero blockbusters and way less oddball films because much of the audience has abandoned physical media and made those films unprofitable.

Books are pumping out more and more fast food romance novels because FF.net and AO3 have turned people into keyword ghouls who only look for tropes instead of stories.

And the video game industry is shoveling out more over-produced, over-budgeted, AAA visual splendor-fests because the average gamer turns their whole fucking nose up at anything that doesn't have full ray-tracing.

Each and every single medium has been increasingly serving the lowest common denominator in its audience. Late stage capitalism SWEEP!!!

Part 3: Hope for the future

Hey, remember when Fallout was an in-depth RPG about Man's inhumanity to Man? Hey, remember when Baldur's Gate had a character driven storyline about Nature vs. Nurture? Hey, remember how weird Morrowind was and how they stopped doing that? Hey, hey, hey...

But the funny thing is, 2025 has been an incredibly varied and refreshing year for video games, especially coming off an era where people had been listing "Persona 3: Reload" and "Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth" as games of the year.

I think it's for that exact same reason though, why some people's brains are fucking broken. They can't taste spicy food anymore, they're not open to experiencing anything new or unique or "jank", instead, they want you to familiarize and standardize it, make it normal, please.

And that's not just embarrassing and stupid, it's anti-art.

"When do you make changes for you, and when do you make changes for the audience?" "I never think about the audience." -Hayao Miyazaki