TZODnmr2k5: ^ This, games with oppressive difficulty just for difficulty's sake are not gonna keep the lights on in your company, as only elite gamers will flock to your games, and not a wider demographic; I'm talking about actual game balance, as games that are too easy are just as unbalanced as ones that are oppressively difficult…
I'm of course speaking in general, as I never played this game, but from the description, it looks like it's a narrow field of gamers that this game is going for.
Lodium: well
Dark Souls and Elden Ring have sold fairly well
despite some players calling these games quite difficult
Then again measuring the tipping point of what can be called oppressive difficult can be hard as it varies from person to person
*Snip*
Fair point!
It also must be mentioned that FROM soft is a well-established company too, as they were already huge during the 90s/2ks because their market was exclusive to Japan, which traditionally had more difficult games than most western ones at that time…
(I say most as there are some genres that I never played at the time, so…) But yes, FROM soft's games are not difficult for difficulty's sake, as it's completely doable and a fair challenge as it relies on the player's own attention and skill.
I was mainly talking about smaller companies that already struggle with keeping the lights on and others that are still learning about gameplay/game balance; as they pad the game with overly difficult gameplay.
I would define oppressive difficulty as being so difficult as to cripple the gameplay itself, and/or to deliberately frustrate the player in order to block progress as a way to pad out the game…
