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Games are not taken seriously as an art form

I remember when Hollow Knight: Silksong came out and people playing the game demanded an easier and less punishing experience. Soon articles came in questioning the decisions Team Cherry made while developing the game. Terms like "Artificial Difficulty" were thrown around, players venting online that the game was too hard, unfair and inaccessible.

Some parts of that discussion show me that games are still not taken too seriously as an art form. The defining property of a video game is interactivity. The player makes an input and the game will react. This is what video games are good at and what differentiates them from other forms of media. What people often forget is that interactivity can also be a distinct artistic medium in its own right. The interaction between player and game does not only deliver art on the screen and to the ears, it alone is a vehicle of artistic intent. It can make you feel many things only through input and its consequences; it can make you feel like you are in control, helpless, frustrated, triumphant or satisfied.

To summarize: games want to evoke an emotion inside of you. And the relationship between the input the player has to execute and the reaction the game has based on that input plays an important role in achieving this goal.

Difficulty options

Difficulty options are a great tool for tweaking this relationship. Every difficulty option can change the emotion that is evoked inside the player while playing. A developer can add 10 difficulty options and change that aspect to accommodate every player's preferences. Now it's up to the player to choose what experience they want to have. It's like releasing a movie where viewers can adjust different sliders at the start. Based on that, specific scenes will get cut out, added, or changed. But does the artistic intent of the creator get delivered through these options? If they wanted you to feel helpless because you play inside a harsh and unforgiving world, easier options would dampen this intended experience. If they wanted you to have a chill ride, harder options would stand in contrast to the lighthearted world they have designed.

If the designers have a specific relationship between the game and the player in mind, why don't we let them design the game accordingly without demanding options to bend the difficulty to our liking? And yes, who says the intent of the designers does actually come through while playing the game? From my viewpoint, this question is not important, because we can not ever guarantee that, regardless of the art form. But it still plays a role in creating art that has soul.

Different skill levels

The problem with providing a hard game is that players have different skill levels. A very skilled player will not have the same experience as a less skilled player, because they won't struggle as much. He will still have to concentrate, but he will not fail as often. A less skilled player will not feel in control, because mechanically, he isn't.

But in both cases, players will still feel that the game is supposed to be hard, regardless of their skill level, and this will present the game world or setting in a specific way, which is in line with the intent of the designers.

Excluding players

Making a game too hard will exclude players. They will not be able to see the end of a game through their efforts. But is this really a bad thing? Every art form has specific requirements to enjoy it fully. Some people are not able to watch slasher movies. Some people find it very unpleasant to listen to specific music genres. There is also literature that is hard to read and understand. I can see the point that with these examples, people are still able to consume the art, even if they don't enjoy or get it. Games can present a hard line that some players are not able to cross, because from their view, skill is a prerequisite to see the "complete art piece".

But let's look at this from another angle. What if this unbreakable wall that some people can't tear down is what "not getting it" means in the context of video games? The same way you don't get a book because you lack training you also don't get the full game because you lack the skill or determination. We see a game as a complete art piece only when we have seen and experienced most of what it has to offer. The interactivity stands in the way of experiencing the "actual" art of the game. But it can be argued that not being able to finish a game is part of the experience and that it is a unique characteristic of consuming the art form of video games. I know for some, this may seem far-fetched, but it shows that we don't view the interactivity as an inseparable part of the game the same way we do for the graphics or the music. For many players, it is seen as a hurdle to experience the other parts.

Not the same weighting

My point is that many players don't consider interactivity equally important to the other elements of a video game when judging a game's artistic merit. We see it as something that should be variable and tuned to fit the player. This is in large part because we are used to tuning it, since game designers often present us with difficulty options. But should we have the right to demand adjustments to our preferences if we want to take games more seriously as a work of art? If we value full creative freedom for artists, should they still have to consider the wishes or tastes of the audience?