It was great back when they did. The ability to press a bunch of buttons and get a jetpack and an uzi and an airplane only improved GTA

Do we argue horror games should have options for low horror so we can enjoy it without the horror?

Yes! A huge number of games have toggles that allow people with specific phobias to enjoy the rest of the game. The most common example is a spider toggle. Since up to 6% of everyone copes with arachnophobia.

Story centric games should have low-story varients for those who still want to play?

This one made me laugh, thanks. That said, we do have entire comedy genres making fun of "Unskippable" cut scenes.

A skip button feels like a basic courtesy, but what I really want is a pause button. Life happens, and I can't count the number of games that I've just stopped playing because the only option when my dog was throwing up was to skip the cutscene.

VCRs were invented a long time ago. I find it wild that game developers haven't figured out how welcome pause, rewind, restart, and skip ahead would be. I'm not dropping quarters into most games to play, anymore.

I don't mind strategic combat (I play Civ, BG3 on harder difficulties) but I hate grinding combat and play those games on easy.

What that means is I don't play walking simulators. If I'm railroaded into a story, the combat better be damn good or I'm refunding the game or at best uninstalling it. I'd rather pay $100 for something like the outer worlds with a really interactive and replayable story than $20 for something like greedfall where it's just a tv show with spamming buttons every so often.

Slowing the game down and reducing the damage done by bosses isn't rocket science. It's like ten lines of code, which have been written so many times an AI can probably provide them.

Different people have different capacities to engage with a game. The world is a better place with some simple accessibility concessions.

We don't need to make excuses for game developers who don't even do the minimum, unless it's their first game.

Edit: To me, the "Watch a playthrough" argument misses something fundamental about why people choose games over movies.

Lies of p has a difficulty slider that decreases damage from the enemies and increases the party window. That really doesn't do much. You still need to "memorize" the moves no amount of button mashing saves you even on easy.

It sounds like that's a happy medium between "Mash attack until victory" and "memorize every attack pattern and still get stomped."

Do we argue horror games should have options for low horror so we can enjoy it without the horror? puzzle games should have a second set of easier puzzles for those who find them too hard? Story centric games should have low-story varients for those who still want to play? That dating sims should have aromantic varients for those who just like the comedy?

None of these are analagous to the accessibility options people want in soulslikes. None of these are literally unplayable for people who simply don't like the genre. If you don't like the horror aspects of a horror game, you can look up when jump scares will happen. If you can't figure out a puzzle, you can look up hints. There's nothing preventing you from sitting through a story you aren't interested in. Contrast all of these with Remnant: From the Ashes, which I desperately wish I could play because I like the story and the gameplay, but I can't because there isn't a single boss I can beat. I can't just look up the answers to a puzzle online, I can't just sit through a story that I don't find interesting, there is literally nothing I am able to do to progress. Giving me the option to reduce the insane health pools on bosses would take nothing away from the people who like chipping away at a brick wall for half an hour.

The intense strategic combat where numbers change little and skill changes everything is the point. That's what these games are built around it's their fundamental concept.

What an insult to the writing teams. The only game I can think of that this actually applies to is IWBTG. Numbers change little? The game you're describing is Sekiro. Every single other soulslike in existence relies heavily on boss enemies having really big numbers and the player having really small numbers. What "strategic combat" is involved with killing the Orphan of Kos? Hit enemy, don't get hit, repeat.