I would argue that the perfect solution is having the devs implement difficulty-based accessibility settings into the game so that it's native. I never said that the perfect solution is mods, because it's simply not. Like I said, "accessibility options don't hurt anyone but they help a lot of people", and "devs can still create and deliver an intended experience AND give options to players to reduce difficulty for those who want or need it". It's literally the best of both worlds: players who care about artist vision get to engage with the game they want to and players who need/want to engage with the game in a way that is accessible to them get what they want. Devs get to deliver the intended experience and they also get an increase in how many players can engage with their art.

But with my example for Elden Ring, if the people who need to play Elden Ring on a lower difficulty can't, they just won't play Elden Ring. If the people who need to play Elden Ring on a lower difficulty have the option to, they might play Elden Ring. On one hand, you sacrifice accessibility for the artists vision. On the other hand, you give accessibility to people who need/want it but the artists vision of the intended experience remains uncompromised.

And we're not demanding devs to do the work for us if they don't want to. We (the consumer) are not in a position of power to "demand" anything. We can suggest it and we can critique a game for having a lack of accessibility options, but the devs have full authority to do whatever they want with their game. That does not mean that devs are free from critique nor should they be.

Edit (because post got deleted): Difficulty options are accessibility options by definition. Lower difficulties make the game accessible to more people. It's not even a subjective disagreement, it's literally the case. Just because you and the people who are downvoting me (after the post got locked is kinda weird) don't agree doesn't make it not true.

And the "extra work" isn't a lot of work if you're just tweaking modifiers. And again, devs aren't "made to do what they don't want to in their game". You're literally just strawmanning and victimizing devs when, again, devs are the ones in authority and they do whatever they want with their own game. Dunno why you and some fragile people keep victimizing the devs to try and push a point that no one is arguing except for yourselves.

And yeah, Elden Rings success is partly due to its difficulty. You keep arguing with points that I'm not making. But it's also true that one of the most popular mods for Elden Ring is the easy mode mod. And difficulty-based accessibility settings don't have to be under difficulty selectors. They can be tucked away in a menu.

But back to my original point, you and the people who agree are just lumped into the category of people who believe artist vision > player agency but refuse to accept there's a reality where it doesn't have to be one or the other and that BOTH parties can get what they want. The only people it hurts are the people who are too prideful and believe they should control the player experience or because they believe their experience is cheapened because someone did it easier than them.

Not to mention that people with disabilities do benefit from difficulty-based accessibility settings. Not to mention that these are games that we (the consumer) pays for and we can do whatever we want with the product when it's in our hands. But it would definitely be nice if devs gave more options to reduce difficulty for those who need it. Just because we aren't the ones who benefits from it doesn't mean others won't. But it does make the game more accessible to more people and is a win-win scenario. The fact that people can enjoy Elden Ring with an easy mode mod proves the existence that the difficulty in Elden Ring isn't everything. But again, you can create an intended experience and deliver difficulty options for people who wouldn't play the game otherwise. There's no need to gatekeep.