"You're going to compare a novel to a game? What a strange analogy. "

How so? They're both things people do for enjoyment and difficulty can certainly affect, though I mostly choose it because of the absurdity of having a novel with no subtext and dumbed down to a point where almost anyone can grasp it.

"An old-school platformer for example could have a hard mode of only 3 lives, normal 5 lives and easy 10 lives."

This leads to the question I asked in my other comments. When is an easy mode easy enough? Like if we're talking about an old school platformer, then 7 additional lives is going to help, but you're STILL going to need skill and it STILL might not be enough. In some cases you could bump the total up to 50 and its not going to make a difference if you simply don't have the skills to accomplish whatever is being asked.

I'll even give you an example that deals with my "ruins the experience" comment that you can't refute. Spelunker HD is a challenging platformer, which many people disliked because of the extreme difficulty. After a while they released some DLC levels that were even harder and here is a video of some of that DLC https://www.youtube.com/wat... . Now, you could give someone unlimited lives, remove the energy system, give them unlimited bombs and flares, disable the ghosts, but that level is STILL going to be a pain in the *** for them to finish. I would go so far to say that you could double the windows required to accomplish every jump and it would STILL be frustrated and people would want to give up. The only way to actually make this stuff easier would be to redesign the level / dumb it down.

"Demon's Souls"

Isn't that closer to skill / proper tactics than an actual easy mode? You figure, with the right gear and helpful tips, you can theoretically get past any challenge regardless of difficulty. Take BioShock, probably the hardest thing on hard is killing your first big daddy, though you can circumvent a lot of this difficulty by hacking the turrets and luring the big daddy to them. But again, is this an easy mode or skill / tactics?

"An easy mode "

Again, this links back to my, when is a game easy enough question.

"Why argue against options other than trying to justify you want to prove you are a better gamer by not allowing easier access to others?"

See, now you're bringing me into a strawman argument. I am actually all for people having options, but this point YET AGAIN runs into the "when is a game easy enough?" This is an important question, since you can play Ninja Gaiden on easy and STILL have a hard time / want to give up. You can play Demon's Souls with the good gear / royal class and still get stuck on a part for hours. You can play Super Mario Bros. 2 with 100 lives and yet still fall short of beating the game. In some cases simply adding a buffer is not enough to make the game more accessible, which is what I was getting at with it ruining the point of a game. Some people simply aren't going to like the esoteric nature of Demon's Souls, nor are they going to like dying in a couple of hits / having to dodge bosses / having to play smart / get punished for anything. It doesn't matter that there is an easier option, because in many cases that STILL isn't easy enough and the game would have to have mechanical changes in order to allow most people to defeat it. At that point do you tell them to get better / play smarter, which would fly against your point above or do you really think the game should be set up in such a way where you can take multiple hits from a boss just so it isn't an elitist experience?

"I think you are confusing making a game easier with making games all easy. Every game has its own set of challenges and by design some will always be harder than others. "

Did you perhaps not read the article? I mean, easy mode is a very conceptual thing and you can look at how many people read it differently, but the author is ABSOLUTELY NOT asking for games to be slightly easier and is wholeheartedly asking for options like unlimited character respawns in Dark Souls.

"They talked amongst each other and came up with a plan. A way that everyone could play through the game, no matter how good or how bad they were at FPS’s. That invention was the Vita-Chamber. A way in which you could die in a game, but come back at same point, endlessly if need be. I realize there were probably games and game companies that may have done this before Bioshock, but Bioshock was the first game I remember pretty much insisting I beat the whole game (whilst giving me the tools to do so). To me, I really believe every game should have a vita-chamber option."

"I do not have the patience for a game like Dark Souls. I respect what it does and would LOVE to see that game from start to end, but nope. How about throwing a Vita-chamber-esque option in?"

"Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto Five finally came up with what I consider to be the greatest “everyone can make it to the ending” option I have ever seen in a game... they would offer you to skip that section of the mission. This may seem small and insignificant, but it is not. There were moments in old GTA games where MANY gamers just stopped playing"

"Ultimately, ensure we can play the game we want to... We are not all hardcore gamers. Some of us just need to escape our lives sometimes. Death to the rage quit. Up with Easy mode!"

"Again, this isn't about making every game easy with no challenge, it's about making games with various degrees of difficulty."

Thats not what the article is saying per se and in turn, thats not what the term "easy mode" means here. The author very much so wants every game to offer some sort of "anyone can beat this game" feature, not a slightly easier version of the game. Take your example of checkpoints in Spelunker, the author is more so asking for a feature that would award you the keys / get you past the puzzle if you fail enough, not simply a mode that gives you more lives or additional checkpoints.

Because of this, I think something like the literally mentioned vita chambers in Dark Souls WOULD defeat the purpose of the game and really any game defined by difficulty. However, like I mentioned in my first post, it does make sense for a game defined by the story like BioShock.

Anyway, you can continue to debate about this via PM or let it drop. Your call.