players complaining about game difficulty is an interesting problem... i wonder how much on that falls on a game's promotional material communicating, or failing to communicate what to expect. i don't think it's a simple problem, anyway.

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players complaining about game difficulty is an interesting problem... i wonder how much on that falls on a game's promotional material communicating, or failing to communicate what to expect. i don't think it's a simple problem, anyway.
I'd also put some blame on trend-chasing and search "optimization" (i.e., making a game come up on as many different searches as possible, even if it doesn't belong there). A lot of genre terms that used to be indications of difficulty ("Roguelike") are now thrown onto vaguely related projects just to get more clicks.
Ooh, also: game descriptions are often deliberately vague about a game's difficulty, again due to marketing. Stating that a game is extremely difficult or beginner-friendly would exclude a part of the market, and that won't do. Every game must be for every player. This is especially true on console platforms where refunds are flatly unavailable.
yea, absolutely. mistagging cases like that are absolutely devs just abusing algorithms & misleading people.
i think the latter part especially makes sense (even if it's shitty practice) for most bigger devs that need the widest net possible... but i can't help but think indies actually thrive in niches where they can catch the eye of people who are into their specific kind of game (hyper-difficulty, etc.). so they're probably shooting themselves in the foot in the long run by hiding it... shrug