Diverse Games Suck - Gaming is ultimately about empowerment.

This is easily one of the best videos by Harmful Opinions I have ever seen. The main thing that was brought to light in the video is that gaming as a medium does not mix well with applying limitations on the player that cannot be overcome. Ultimately the most popular games are the ones that empower the player to overcome all challenges while doing everything it can to hold you back.

As game developers our job is to present interesting, solvable situations. Never have I worked on a game where the entire point was to limit the player to a permanent victimized state. Even in the case of games where the player is not given the ability to defend themselves against a certain challenge they are given tools to overcome it in different ways.

I have often found myself even wanting to find a middle ground in some situations. For example when I first played Skyrim I thought the dragons are not meant to be dealt with but rather avoided. I quickly learned that is not the case and commenced to kill every dragon I encountered even while fairly low level. When playing more hardcore survival games most players hate not having enough bullets to kill every single zombie but to me I actually find it refreshing. But even in the most dire hardcore survival games I have ever experienced, if you make the right choices you can survive.

Games care nothing about who or what the player is, they only care about the choices they make and they almost always reward attuned reflexes and fast thinking. Video games teach you that no matter how badly the enemy wants you dead, no matter how perplexing the challenge is, you have the power to overcome and conquer.