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Game difficulty "gatekeeping" is bullshit, and here's why

GermanZepp

Member
I read a lot of "nobody cares a fuck if you beat sekiro in ng+7" blah blah.. Let me tell you all sound pety and sour. I love to see a really good player fly around harder difficultys. I understand that a more skilled and dedicated player can make you look like a noob, but that's just the way it is.

I have no problem with people enjoying some games on easy either. To each his own.
 

TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
I read a lot of "nobody cares a fuck if you beat sekiro in ng+7" blah blah.. Let me tell you all sound pety and sour. I love to see a really good player fly around harder difficultys. I understand that a more skilled and dedicated player can make you look like a noob, but that's just the way it is.

I have no problem with people enjoying some games on easy either. To each his own.

It's impressive watching anyone that's good at their hobby. Doesn't mean it's curing cancer or ending world hunger. For my part, I'm not bitter at all. I don't even play Soulsborne games. But it stands to reason that people generally dislike obnoxious gloaters, regardless of arena.
 

K2D

Banned
>Games media:
"Add difficulty options to your games!"
>Dark Souls:
*Has mechanics that encourages player to either; give the game it's full attention, actually use some semblance of thought towards how to stay alive, accept that not all games have to cater you, or; let's you beat your head against the wall until you accept the former truth, or give up and move along*

Edit:
Oh, yeah.. Game journalist/reviewers and thropy hunters - cry my a river!
 
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Shifty1897

Member
Obviously echoing everyone else here, but games should have multiple difficulties. If you want people to be impressed and acknowledge that you beat the game on the hardest difficulty, there's trophies for that. Gamers of all skill levels should be allowed to enjoy and experience games.
 

Fare thee well

Neophyte
I for one am proud of marathoning megaman 1-10. Would I care if someone got an easy mode for it? Nah, probably not. How are you going to regulate what difficulty people play with in the privacy of their home? It's absurd.

But I do understand letting game devs make the game how they see fit. I'm a strong supporter of that. But what I do afterwards is like who I sleep with; none of anyone's damn business lol. Mod in an easy mode for a game if you get your money's worth. Doesn't bother me.
 
There’s no deeper meaning to the tweet. It means exactly what it says. Beating a game in easy is still beating a game. If beating a game on easy didn’t count, it wouldn’t be included. See Dark Souls/Bloodbourne for example.

Is it impressive to beat games on the hardest difficulty? I guess so. It doesn’t make you any better than those that complete the game on easy though. I think the tweet is in response to all the people that get upset when streamers, and others, beat games on easy

Edit: I just finished reading your post in its entirety and, OP, get some help. I don’t speak for anyone other than myself, and maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen anyone outside of Twitter claiming that playing on easy is just as good, if not superior, than playing on hard. What I have seen is plenty of people like you bullying people that play on easy. I mean, seriously, comparing game difficulty to the olympics? Give me a break. Some people just play on easy and that’s good enough.

The best part of your post is the very end, where you call people that play games on easy “insecure.” Have you even read your own post?
 
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bender

What time is it?
And no, I don't mean to say that "gatekeeping" about video game difficulty is a shitty thing to do; rather, it's a bullshit notion to say that people who acknowledge the achievement of higher difficulties are "gatekeeping". The reason for me to post this thread was this tweet by one of our major companies:




Yeah, alright. The tweet is not wrong per say. But what's the message here, exactly? "You can still achieve the same thing as other people, even though you did it in a less impressive and objectively worse and less proficient fashion"? So... how can it be seen as the same accomplishment if the performance was measurably inferior?
Or, as I put it in response to that tweet: running 100 meters is still running 100 meters even if it takes you 5 minutes to do so, but it's not exactly gonna get you into the Olympics! Of course, people would respond with moving goalposts like: "BuT nOt EvErYoNe WaNtS tO gEt InTo ThE oLyMpIcS", which is factually true of course, but that's hardly the point. The point is that if you were to compare two runners sprinting 100 meters, and one takes 10 seconds to do it while the other takes 5 minutes, the latter has hardly accomplished something to write home about. Should the first runner "brag" about it? Probably not, but the second runner should definitely not insist on being compared favorably to the first one, or even worse start to believe that somehow, they accomplished the same thing. Because they didn't.

And that's okay.

I feel like this is the most confusing part about this whole discussion for me: people who accuse others of gatekeeping are so vehement about their opinion that I can't help but wonder why it's so important for them. They claim that game difficulty is not relevant and thus nothing to brag about, then why do they freaking care about it that much? Why not just accept that there are people who are simply better at that stupid game than you are and move on? Why does it matter so much to them that game difficulty should not matter to anybody that they are so up in arms about this whole thing? Can't they accept that people who beat the game at a higher difficulty are probably better than them? Does the knowledge that there are higher difficulty settings in the game which they don't dare to touch somehow embarass them? Why do they care so much about it? And why do they care so much that other people shouldn't care?

I am genuiely puzzled by this phenomenon. That... concentrated outcry of inferiority, people who seemingly try to silence anyone who might be above average. Do these people really feel so bad about themselves that they desperately need other people not to feel good about themselves and their (evidentially existing) skills in order not to feel left behind? I don't get it. And the reason I don't get it is because I am not a pro gamer. I am average, and usually I don't stand a chance against more professional gamers. I suck at FPS, I suck at Rocket League, and I have a friend who I have never beaten in Smash Bros. ever since Brawl because he is just so damn good with his stupid Pit that I will never overcome his skills. I acknowledge this, and I am fine with it. I don't feel like a pouting child who will cry about it and point fingers at a gamer better than me just because I think that makes them a meaniehead somehow.
Don't get me wrong: I am not in favor of abandoning game difficulty or whatever. Accessability is a good thing, and if a game incorporates lots of different modes for people of all skill levels to enjoy, that's fine with me. But what I frown upon is this "victimized" notion to insist on that you are just as good as anybody else who beat the same game even if you played on Easy and they played on Hard. You are not. And you should not feel like you are, because that'd be delusional. You can still feel fine about beating the game, you can still be happy about enjoying it and all that. But you should by all means also accept reality and not fight it; anything else cannot be good for your mental health in the long run.

One or two years ago, Mike Matei got a lot of shit from people because he tweeted that if you beat an old SNES game like Castlevania IV with emulators and savegames, you did not by any stretch "beat" the game. And as someone who only beat Castlevania IV with savegames, I gotta say: he's right. I played through the game, yes; but I did not overcome the challenges of the game through the means the developers intended. I did not "beat" the game and its challenges. Accept your own limits, people. Don't go on the internet and start debating on principles just because you cannot admit defeat. Nobody wants to take your fun away when you play games on easier difficulties (as I do). But if you participate in these accusations of "gatekeeping", you are actively trying to take away from other people: their skills, their achievements, and their rights to feel accomplished for them. Don't be that insecure kind of person. If beating the difficulty's challenge doesn't matter to you, more power to you. But don't take it away from people it does matter to, just because they feel different about it and because virtue signaling companies tell you to. They don't care about you as a person or the difficulty you play at one bit; they only care about your money.


tenor.gif
 

chonga

Member
All (good designed) games are supposed to require some sort of skill at something, and challenge the player to become better at that skill.

Olympic (games) are exactly that. All sports are exactly that.

Video games should ideally be like that, unfortunately that are too many "auteurs" and SJWs that internally hate games and suck at anything that requires testosterone and adrenaline.
And so they try to lower everyone to their level so that they can fell good about themselves.
You can get better at the skill with or without difficulty settings.

Most games progressively get harder the further into the game you get. All a difficulty setting does is change the baseline.
 

wolywood

Member
I've given into frustration and switched a few games to easy mode in the past. And sure, it was a breeze finishing the rest of the game, but it always felt so hollow at the end. Like I could have just watched a movie while randomly pressing controller buttons and gotten the same experience.
 

Gifmaker

Member
Edit: I just finished reading your post in its entirety and, OP, get some help. I don’t speak for anyone other than myself, and maybe I’m wrong, but I haven’t seen anyone outside of Twitter claiming that playing on easy is just as good, if not superior, than playing on hard. What I have seen is plenty of people like you bullying people that play on easy. I mean, seriously, comparing game difficulty to the olympics? Give me a break. Some people just play on easy and that’s good enough.

The best part of your post is the very end, where you call people that play games on easy “insecure.” Have you even read your own post?
I don't think you understood my post, really. Maybe I expressed myself badly, but I am not calling people who play on easy insecure. I am calling out those who seem to be up in arms about this whole thing because they somehow feel insulted if people dare to point out that they didn't achieve the same accomplishment, gaming-wise, as another person. I don't get where the hostility is coming from exactly, it's not really an outrageous point I am making. And it's certainly not "bullying", lol.
 
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The fallacy of the OP post is that unless it is a multiplayer game, the only metric that matters is the enjoyment of each individual person playing. Someone can have just as much fun beating a game on the lowest difficulty and someone else has beating it on the highest.
 

Boglin

Member
I don't think you understood my post, really. Maybe I expressed myself badly, but I am not calling people who play on easy insecure. I am calling out those who seem to be up in arms about this whole thing because they somehow feel insulted if people dare to point out that they didn't achieve the same accomplishment, gaming-wise, as another person. I don't get where the hostility is coming from exactly, it's not really an outrageous point I am making. And it's certainly not "bullying", lol.
Someone earlier in the thread said that people generally dislike gloaters and that's pretty much the message I got out of your post. Only now, things have evolved to where people expect to be able to gloat about things they aren't actually good at. They want the same recognition of achievement while having their handheld through the experience.

Enjoy things however you want. That's great that someone is able to enjoy the hobby regardless of difficulty. Nobody gives a shit. I just don't think a person should get defensive if they were to claim that they learned how to ride a bike but other people notice and point out that the training wheels are still on.

You can see though how sensitive things have gotten when half the board disregards nuance and just hears, "I'm better than you because I play on hard difficultly," or "players who aren't good enough to play on hard shouldn't be able to play at all."
 
S

SpongebobSquaredance

Unconfirmed Member
Look at Doom for reference:

"I'm too young to die" and "hey not too rough" are very easy and doable.

"Hurt Me Plenty" is the go-to difficulty, feels the best, not super hard but no cakewalk either.

"Ultra Violence" is very hard.

"Nightmare" is a cruel joke and will make you hate life.


I think games should have a main difficulty setting build around the vision of the devs, and an additional hard mode for people that want some extra spice.

For casual players, there could be something like a guide. Nintendo used to have it in Donkey Kong Country Returns and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. It basically showed you how to play the game and finished the level for you. Using it was optional.
 

Armorian

Banned
I play almost all games on normal, I just don't care. I completed all From "Souls" games and platinumed MGS2 Substance so I don't have to prove anything to myself or others anymore

Oh and I'm playing Doom Eternal on easy, this game is not fun on higher difficulties.
 

Lupin3

Targeting terrorists with a D-Pad
I am calling out those who seem to be up in arms about this whole thing because they somehow feel insulted if people dare to point out that they didn't achieve the same accomplishment, gaming-wise, as another person.

Who are those people?
 

CitizenZ

Banned
Some people like participation trophies some of us like a challenge. If there is no challenge, why play? However, the only answer is yours and yours alone, sort of the basic of basic simple rule of life.
 
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Xenon

Member
Just let the devs make the game they want to make and if the difficulty is an issue, don't buy the game. Cuphead gets a lot of crap for this, but I think the game is pretty perfect as is.


Exactly, smaller devs shouldn't have to worry about balancing their games for everybody. People can watch let's plays if they have issues with the difficulty.
 

RayHell

Member
Im really curious at what level they decide to make the cut. Like 25% of player are good enough the finish the game, 15%, 10%. How you decide this difficulty is the right difficulty for what we consider good player? It’s easy to make a game hard, they can make a game so hard that only 1% of the player can go through but no publisher will endorse such game. So what’s the acceptable difficulty/sales ratio for the investors? Anyway I’m not in their target audience and they never saw the colour of my money.
 
I beat games on hard mode usually. That’s the way I prefer to play. Some people prefer to beat games on easy.

Play games the way you want to play them and let others do the same. It’s not that deep.
 

6502

Member
I wouldnt watch movies if every 5 minutes I had to pass a test before I had permission to continue.

Content I paid for should not be locked behind a gate until I pass a test or I prove I have nothing better to do than dump 200 hours in the hope it pays off in the end.

That is the gate keeping problem in games.

Alone in the dark on Wii had a great solution. Chapter select. Lovely.
 
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ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Aren’t a lot of crazy SMT3 fans gatekeeping the difficulty? Like they look down if you use the easy difficulty in the remaster.

Also shouldn’t you play games to enjoy and relax? I mean what if I’m not having fun with the hard version of the game? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?
 
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Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I wouldnt watch movies if every 5 minutes I had to pass a test before I had permission to continue.

Content I paid for should not be locked behind a gate until I pass a test or I prove I have nothing better to do than dump 200 hours in the hope it pays off in the end.

That is the gate keeping problem in games.
There are movies that are pretty violent so people who can't handle seeing blood cant watch those movies, does that mean movie creators are "gate keeping" those people?

Just like movies, we have vast variety of games for every type of gamer, you have eyes and functioning brain, you can easily see if the game is for you or not.

Just like any media, books, music and movies, not everything made to appeal to every person......thats life.
 

Yoboman

Member
I could care less what difficulty people beat games at

But there is a legitimate argument that game quality can be determined by the difficulty levels applied. Souls wouldn't be as good at lower difficulties. Even something like TLOU is a completely different quality of gameplay depending on the choice of difficulty level
 

Keihart

Member
The tweet is fine, OP seems to be having a hard day tho.

Hard games gonna be hard, games with difficulty levels are just made for more people... why the need to look down in how others play the games to validate your hard run? If you played on hard, i damn hope you did it for your enjoyment and not other people validation.
 
S

SpongebobSquaredance

Unconfirmed Member
Aren’t a lot of crazy SMT3 fans gatekeeping the difficulty? Like they look down if you use the easy difficulty in the remaster.
SMT3 isn't even that hard. It's pretty much in line with the genre's standards.
 

6502

Member
There are movies that are pretty violent so people who can't handle seeing blood cant watch those movies, does that mean movie creators are "gate keeping" those people?

Just like movies, we have vast variety of games for every type of gamer, you have eyes and functioning brain, you can easily see if the game is for you or not.

Just like any media, books, music and movies, not everything made to appeal to every person......thats life.
Agree, but hiding content behind difficulty levels is bs. How many games give you the "bad" ending, dont let you reach the end or require arbitrary grinding etc to pad out and justify its price rather than letting you enjoy what you paid for?

I can not like a game but understand they are not poorly designed or have a certain rhythm or rules. That is different to withholding content.

I am at a stage I would pay more for shorter games - but that then encourages pay to win....
 

Boglin

Member
The tweet is fine, OP seems to be having a hard day tho.

Hard games gonna be hard, games with difficulty levels are just made for more people... why the need to look down in how others play the games to validate your hard run? If you played on hard, i damn hope you did it for your enjoyment and not other people validation.

The OP wasn't clear enough because people are pulling a different message from it than what I think he intended. Regardless, the person who made the tweet literally did it to give people validation for their choice of difficulty setting and it clearly wasn't targeted at someone like the OP. So why hold him to a different standard?
 

JeloSWE

Member
Five bucks says Elden Ring now has an easy difficulty mode.

That being said, games should be however the developers intended but the problem is developers no longer have any say in it but producers and corporations do. I'm all in on accesibility and giving everyone a chance at finishing a game but if you're going to disregard the crowd that prefers a challenge in the process, then you're just a bunch of idiots.
That's fine as long as Easy = old Difficult mode :)
 

TheInfamousKira

Reseterror Resettler
I wouldnt watch movies if every 5 minutes I had to pass a test before I had permission to continue.

Content I paid for should not be locked behind a gate until I pass a test or I prove I have nothing better to do than dump 200 hours in the hope it pays off in the end.

That is the gate keeping problem in games.

Alone in the dark on Wii had a great solution. Chapter select. Lovely.

I mean, some (I'm playing Devil's advocate here because as is the common sentiment here, I don't give a fuck) would say the content you laid for IS the test, and if you spent 60 bucks on a movie that had relatively standard plot delivered by CG characters voiced by people who by and large aren't professional, traditional actors then you're a fool who doesn't deserve money.

By the same token if I bought the Fast and the Furious boxset and then bitched online about there hardly being any gameplay, I'd likely look like a right helmet.
 

Moonjt9

Member
I wouldnt watch movies if every 5 minutes I had to pass a test before I had permission to continue.

Content I paid for should not be locked behind a gate until I pass a test or I prove I have nothing better to do than dump 200 hours in the hope it pays off in the end.

That is the gate keeping problem in games.

Alone in the dark on Wii had a great solution. Chapter select. Lovely.
Gotta be one of the worst takes of all time.
 
I don't think there can be a right or wrong answer here. Before I had my son I use to play games on medium and hard all the time and it was a challenge. When I played Bloodborne for the first time it was one of the hardest games I have ever played. I never played a souls game before and after beating it I felt this sort of accomplishment I've never felt before.

Now I would have never felt that way if I had the option to play it on easy. However, peoples lives change and things/family take more priority than beating a game on the hardest difficulty. I think of easy mode as a time saver and less of cheap way to play a game. Hell working 50 hours a week, getting 3 hours of sleep a day, taking care of a 3 month old, a six year old, and having time to play 5 games of MLB The Show. I think that's a pretty damn good accomplishment that not many people get a chance to experience.

Life is stressful and sometimes I need to shut my brain off and relax a little and easy mode let's me do that.
 
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MarkMe2525

Gold Member
It's interactive entertainment. There is no right or wrong way to consume video games. I'm struggling to comprehend why would someone look at beating a single player game on a higher difficulty as some sort of accomplishment that they should be proud of. Competitive multi-player is something different but difficulty settings don't apply to those.
 

Boglin

Member
I'm struggling to comprehend why would someone look at beating a single player game on a higher difficulty as some sort of accomplishment that they should be proud of.
I guess I'd liken it to people reaching any arbitrary goal they set for themselves or getting a new personal record in something. Whether it be getting better at art, lifting weights or any other hobby, when people are passionate about something and they reach a goal it's only natural to feel proud of themselves even if it doesn't really matter and no one else cares.
 
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ZehDon

Member
.. That... concentrated outcry of inferiority, people who seemingly try to silence anyone who might be above average. Do these people really feel so bad about themselves that they desperately need other people not to feel good about themselves and their (evidentially existing) skills in order not to feel left behind?...
This right here, OP, is why people who gloat about "ggez"-ing harder difficulties are looked down upon. I don't really care how someone choses to enjoy their time with a game - but anyone who tells other people that they're "inferior" is a fucking tool. "You don't like Dark Souls cause you're a shit gamer", "Get good scrub", "Playing on easy shouldn't have an achievement attached to it", "Why even bother playing if you're not challenged?", etc., is a pretty terrible attitude to have towards others that should rightfully be mocked. You play on hard - congratulations, I hope you have fun because it doesn't fucking matter and you're not owed anything by anyone, least of all "respect" or "acknowledgement".
 

Jigsaah

Gold Member
And no, I don't mean to say that "gatekeeping" about video game difficulty is a shitty thing to do; rather, it's a bullshit notion to say that people who acknowledge the achievement of higher difficulties are "gatekeeping". The reason for me to post this thread was this tweet by one of our major companies:




Yeah, alright. The tweet is not wrong per say. But what's the message here, exactly? "You can still achieve the same thing as other people, even though you did it in a less impressive and objectively worse and less proficient fashion"? So... how can it be seen as the same accomplishment if the performance was measurably inferior?
Or, as I put it in response to that tweet: running 100 meters is still running 100 meters even if it takes you 5 minutes to do so, but it's not exactly gonna get you into the Olympics! Of course, people would respond with moving goalposts like: "BuT nOt EvErYoNe WaNtS tO gEt InTo ThE oLyMpIcS", which is factually true of course, but that's hardly the point. The point is that if you were to compare two runners sprinting 100 meters, and one takes 10 seconds to do it while the other takes 5 minutes, the latter has hardly accomplished something to write home about. Should the first runner "brag" about it? Probably not, but the second runner should definitely not insist on being compared favorably to the first one, or even worse start to believe that somehow, they accomplished the same thing. Because they didn't.

And that's okay.

I feel like this is the most confusing part about this whole discussion for me: people who accuse others of gatekeeping are so vehement about their opinion that I can't help but wonder why it's so important for them. They claim that game difficulty is not relevant and thus nothing to brag about, then why do they freaking care about it that much? Why not just accept that there are people who are simply better at that stupid game than you are and move on? Why does it matter so much to them that game difficulty should not matter to anybody that they are so up in arms about this whole thing? Can't they accept that people who beat the game at a higher difficulty are probably better than them? Does the knowledge that there are higher difficulty settings in the game which they don't dare to touch somehow embarass them? Why do they care so much about it? And why do they care so much that other people shouldn't care?

I am genuiely puzzled by this phenomenon. That... concentrated outcry of inferiority, people who seemingly try to silence anyone who might be above average. Do these people really feel so bad about themselves that they desperately need other people not to feel good about themselves and their (evidentially existing) skills in order not to feel left behind? I don't get it. And the reason I don't get it is because I am not a pro gamer. I am average, and usually I don't stand a chance against more professional gamers. I suck at FPS, I suck at Rocket League, and I have a friend who I have never beaten in Smash Bros. ever since Brawl because he is just so damn good with his stupid Pit that I will never overcome his skills. I acknowledge this, and I am fine with it. I don't feel like a pouting child who will cry about it and point fingers at a gamer better than me just because I think that makes them a meaniehead somehow.
Don't get me wrong: I am not in favor of abandoning game difficulty or whatever. Accessability is a good thing, and if a game incorporates lots of different modes for people of all skill levels to enjoy, that's fine with me. But what I frown upon is this "victimized" notion to insist on that you are just as good as anybody else who beat the same game even if you played on Easy and they played on Hard. You are not. And you should not feel like you are, because that'd be delusional. You can still feel fine about beating the game, you can still be happy about enjoying it and all that. But you should by all means also accept reality and not fight it; anything else cannot be good for your mental health in the long run.

One or two years ago, Mike Matei got a lot of shit from people because he tweeted that if you beat an old SNES game like Castlevania IV with emulators and savegames, you did not by any stretch "beat" the game. And as someone who only beat Castlevania IV with savegames, I gotta say: he's right. I played through the game, yes; but I did not overcome the challenges of the game through the means the developers intended. I did not "beat" the game and its challenges. Accept your own limits, people. Don't go on the internet and start debating on principles just because you cannot admit defeat. Nobody wants to take your fun away when you play games on easier difficulties (as I do). But if you participate in these accusations of "gatekeeping", you are actively trying to take away from other people: their skills, their achievements, and their rights to feel accomplished for them. Don't be that insecure kind of person. If beating the difficulty's challenge doesn't matter to you, more power to you. But don't take it away from people it does matter to, just because they feel different about it and because virtue signaling companies tell you to. They don't care about you as a person or the difficulty you play at one bit; they only care about your money.

Ok the larger question is, what prompted Xbox to tweet this?

On topic, they have achievements that indicate what difficulty you completed a game at...so in a sense, there is some built in distinction. So yes, technically you beat the game. More accurately, you beat it in easy mode.

That's not something to wag a finger at...some people just want to see the story and maybe don't have the ability to beat games at a harder level. "Easy" mode for them might still be really difficult. If it pleases them they can always go back and try at a harder level and improve at their own pace.

I think overall, it is important to be accurate. It let's people know there are greater challenges that await should you choose to take them on. I think achievements/trophies do that.
 
I'm not for lowering the standard of basically everything because they want every kid to think they are as good as Kasparov at chess.

Same with video games, sure technically you played the game to the end on easy, but you can't say you mastered it along the way. I'm not sure what the point of making this statement from xbox is? will they forbid trophies related to beating the game on hard difficulty levels? Many modern games really show their true self at harder difficulty levels, as if the developers wanted to have fun with you by throwing you challenges and pulling off the training wheels.

It may be out of place, but an analogy just came to me: if you do one of the 'étape du Tour de France" by yourself, you can be proud all you want, but you are not the same as the guy who won the race and got the yellow jacked, even if he used illegal substance.
 
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