It is, he goes on a bit about how games should cater to the lowest skill level so they can play and that its only the fair and just thing to do in this ever increasing capitalist world.
I always find this particularly amusing as a take. Not the capitalist part, but the idea that everything should cater to the lowest skill level, so 'everyone' can play and enjoy the experience.
The reason I find this amusing is because frankly, all sides of the industry actively cheer when content is gatekept in
other ways. Made a woke walking simulator game who's core premise and narrative conceit only makes sense to someone with a deep sense of self loathing and repressed guilt about being terrible to everyone who tried to love them? "The game just wasn't made for you, it was for us, you should respect that". Game made to sate the deepest autists of the map painting world, which expects a player to enter with a decent understanding of at least the pop culture version of 18th century politics and military/economic policies? "Its a niche title that should be celebrated inside of its own circles". A game that's made open ended with lots of mechanics but few pre-defined goals or expectations? "Its a lovely sandbox for exploring your creativity".
But as soon as you make a game designed to challenge a particular type of mechanical skill and endurance? Well now you're being a terrible bigot.
But only if the game is popular. When was the last time you heard someone complaining about Quake Champion's accessibility, who wasn't an existing player struggling to find a match on a Tuesday afternoon? The fact is they really, genuinely don't care about a game being hard.
They care about feeling like they're being "left out" of something socially important. They see people talking about builds, congratulating each other for overcoming a challenge, sharing strategies, tips, and tactics for X boss or Y level. Consistently, you'll see the narrative of "I was struggling until it just 'Clicked' and then I figured out what it expected of me, and it was great afterwards". They see that and resent it, because unlike narrative gatekeeping, conceptual gatekeeping, genre gatekeeping, or creativity gatekeeping, skill gatekeeping is the only one that says "If you can't cross this gate, practice will let you do so". The gatekeeper is testing something mutable, and he'll let you take the test as many times as you want.
There's no practice you can do that'll make you click with a tranny simulator. There's no practice you can do that'll make map painters fun if you don't already like them. There's no special perspective that can take a goals driven person and turn them into a self-driven person that'll enjoy an open sandbox. But a Skill Gate? The whole premise is anyone can get to it, if you're willing to put in that effort. They fucking
hate this, as it implies an inverse relationship, that everyone else put in the effort except you. That the only person you can blame for not being able to appreciate the beauty of this world is you. That the only reason you can't join this conversation is you didn't try hard enough.
They can't handwave difficulty with identity politics, personal preference, or anything else as a "I'll never get it". People have beaten dark souls with their feet. People have beaten dark souls using fucking voice commands. I'm pretty sure you could beat dark souls using the blink input shit Hawking had. Fucking Twitch beat Dark Souls via twitch chat, so we know you can beat it with no brain and no cohesive sense of self.
They hate that the only explanation for failure in difficulty based games is their own limits, rather than their preferred escape of blaming identity elements. And they'll never stop seething about it.
