@xbob42: Difficulty is a matter of perspective in a critics approach to covering games. As Jeff has said many times, he used to work at Gamespot back in the days when they tried to be as objective as possible in their reviews and coverage. Even though Jeff and the rest of the gaming press have come a long way since then, I think that approach continues to inform his and his staff's approach to covering games. If you're providing what is essentially purchase recommendations to your users, then you need to try and look at the games from the perspective of your average player. It's less about about what you think about the game, and more about how you think the wider audience will engage with it as a product. Hence, it becomes possible to form multiple perspectives on a game.
Although GB is now focused on a much smaller audience that generally knows more about games than the average player, they seem to approach and understand games from the perspective of the people who are the target audience of the game itself, rather than the GB target audience. When a game says that this level of difficulty is normal, that is being normalised against the expected audience for that game, and the success of the game will be dependent that difficulty matching the level of experience of the majority of buyers. As an example, let's say that hypothetically Jeff is going to review Barbie Horse Adventures. He's not going to go in looking for a Megaman level of difficulty, even though that's the kind of game he might enjoy. The right approach is to try and imagine how a 6 year old girl might feel about the game. The same can be said for Dark Souls, the expectation is that a game like that is going to be very difficult, so there would be a much higher focus on the level of challenge within the game.
So it's not only fair, but necessary, for critics (including GB) to put themselves in the shoes of the game's target audience when reviewing a game. It's legitimate feedback to say that a game is too easy or hard, regardless of your own idea of difficulty, enjoyment of the game, or level of experience, because you're speaking to a wider audience. There's always going to be a balance between trying to engage with your audience while also expressing your individual opinion, but it remains important for the critic to assess the experience of games at the level that the developers expect most people will play it. After all, the skill of a good critic is being able to understand the mind of the average player, and think how they will interpret the experience as it is presented to them.
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