As we reported yesterday, about half of the players who bought Elden Ring, the gaming phenomenon of the moment, have not yet defeated or surrendered to the first “real” boss. At first one might think that the fault lies with the high challenge rate of the game, as per FromSoftware tradition. But is it really so?
Undoubtedly the difficulty of Elden Ring could scare some users, especially those who are approaching a souls-like for the first time, but we doubt that this is the only factor that leads a user to abandon a title in progress. On the contrary, making a more scrupulous analysis it is possible to discover that in reality, FromSoftware games have an average completion percentage in line with those of others considered more “user friendly”.
Let’s take other FromSoftware games as an example. According to the Steam achievement data, in the Dark Souls priom only about 40% of the players have defeated the 4 Lords, the necessary step to reach one of the two endings of the game. In Dark Souls 2, the least popular game in the series, only 38.1% of players saw the ending.
Now let’s take as an example a game of great success and with a lot of difficulties that can be scaled to your liking like God of War. Do you know how many have completed it? Only 42.9%. The Witcher 3 ? 24.4%. And again, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy 37.5% and Doom Eternal 35.3%.
We could go on and on, but the concept should be clear, although there are obviously exceptions in between. All this to prove what?
First, FromSoftware’s souls-likes, despite the renowned difficulty, the one that should bring the “nabbi” to their knees (at least in the twisted minds of some players who are a little too sure of their abilities) have similar or at least similar average completion percentages. comparable to “games for the masses”. This means that deep down, not everyone lets themselves be frightened by a few too many deaths or by a particularly tough boss.
The second, and this is a sore point, is that a large chunk of players spend money to throw themselves headlong into games they will never complete. He buys one, takes a few hours, gets bored and moves on to the next novelty or returns to the comfortable shores of the sports / multiplayer/free-to-play title on duty which is generally structured in such a way as to ensnare users for long periods of time.
Lack of time in an increasingly frenetic and suffocating society, purchases made without in-depth information on a product or to follow the current fashion, endless back locks and encouraged by always abundant and captivating offers … we could discuss them at length, maybe it will be for the next one. Let’s talk about it.
Before leaving, we ask you, have you ever abandoned a game because it is too difficult?
Parliament is a daily opinion column that offers a starting point for discussion around the news of the day, a small editorial written by a member of the editorial team but which is not necessarily representative of the Multiplayer.it editorial line.