Accessibility - Under which circumstances is it good? When? How much?

[Darkman]

Accessibility is good when it is able to appeal to more people without dumbing down the content

An obvious way to make games more accessible is by having an art style that is attractive and appealing. People like looking at cool shit. This is a universal appeal. Give us a wide variety of cool looking and exotic creatures, armor, races and weapons.

This applies mainly to MMOs, but removing time gates is a another big one. My wow character shouldn't be forced to wait several in real life days twiddling his thumbs to unlock something as essential as an extra equipment slot.

 

[Shadenuat]

Accessibility is good as long as you don't sacrifice the integrity of your game, basically, and it doesn't compromise it's ideas.
All these things are good and won't do it, unless there's some super special thing you're going for (like making UI part of the challenge although I don't know examples of that):
- Good presentation (what is the game about, you can focus on the setting/story/player character and use it to explain player that he is SUPPOSED to be challenged and die cause of these things)
- Good manual
- Good tutorial
- Good UI
- Good, natural feeling learning curve
- Transparent character system (how much hp you have, what do stats actually do)
- Making abilities/skills useful - not necessary sawyeristic, but explain player that while he can't win game by taking 200% in Barter, if he also has Speech and Science and high Charisma to hire companions, he can beat the game like that
- Easy difficulty/Story mode. I abhore "story modes", but it's a way of allowing bad players to try and play without typing cheat codes or finish something when they are just stuck - notice that games today do not often have cheat codes for reasons unknown to me, might be psychological thing - since developers are afraid players would feel bad about using them?

 

[buffalo bill]

Accessibility is good when it is able to appeal to more people without dumbing down the content

Why is dumbing down the content bad? Ultimately RPGs and other types of games are indirect ways to stimulate the brain's pleasure centers. Push-button-to-win games are just a few hops away from the ultimate destiny of computer gaming: electrical deep brain stimulation to directly release dopamine. Instead of having a silly "game" act as an intermediary between you and gratification, there'll be push-button-to-feel-intense-pleasure. Universal appeal, like crack with no physiological side effects. Dumbing down/removing content are just steppingstones toward that blissful utopia.