Define "the change". What are we talking about? Difficulty levels being added to every game, "or else"?
"Or else" feels like the realm of folks who brigade, swat, and doxx. No outlet is ever going to run an "Or else." piece.
If they choose not to add difficulty levels for artistic reasons, then that's their decision.
And if people choose not to grind skills into a game for practical reasons, that's also their decision. But they'll be ridiculed for that. Why is it so harmful there's an audience lobbying for accessibility, but the audience defending artistic vision above all is definitively the right one? There are mundane, practical reasons for both.
Define "wrong". Morally? Of course not. "Wrong" as in "not the intended way"? Absolutely yes, it's the "wrong" way to play the game.
Unless the game developers intended to give you a toybox to allow you to make your own fun, there's an "intended" way to play, and a "wrong" way to play.
However, nobody objects to you playing the game the incorrect way, unless you're a games journalist. Given the scenarios you described with "house rules", nobody would object, and nobody cares. That's not what people are arguing against.
Speedrunning isn't the intended way to play a game. Yet you don't call it wrong. The argument you're making is that someone who "should" play games a certain way isn't, but the correct ways all boil down to "If you want to discuss games, you have to meet an arbitrary threshold of what I deem should be important."
Yet any gaming community has had at least a handful of "I'm trying to get my partner /child / friends into games, what games should I use to introduce them?" threads. Turns out by trying to enforce arbitrary thresholds of behavior that weeds out accessibility for decades makes games really unintuitive, and professional critics have noticed and are speaking up. Now you're trying to enforce the arbitrary standards on them, whole cloth, because... You're convinced they don't know what they're talking about? You think they're not really attentive to games? You think games are perfect and should be above criticism? I'm not sure I'm really getting where these standards are coming from, but they always boil down to gatekeeping in a way that isn't helpful, useful, or good.
That's why those who are passionate about their hobby speak up. They don't want to see this happen. If the journos have megaphones, passionate fans only have cupped hands, and they will use their voices to say "this guy doesn't represent me. Don't listen to him". They can't wait around until a lucky journo wins the game dev lottery and gets to make an impact. They have to nip that in the bud or else not at all.
It's like what's going on now with the coronavirus. Even if only 1 out of every 100 people are infected, you still have to take preventative measures to avoid getting, or spreading, the virus. Are people overreacting? We might never know. But we sure will be able to look back to see if we didn't do enough. Which would you rather do?
Not compare folks' beliefs to viral infections, for one.
Again, you're generating a clear Us and Them in this discussion. Game critics are all folks who play games. This profession is too unstable, too low paying, and too fickle for anyone to be in it for the profit. Folks in critical spaces are lobbying for ways they think games could be better, and a simple way to do so is to put more emphasis on accessibility, particularly because there is a lot of room for it to be given attention. More often than not without significant loss.
I don't remember saying anything about "they're trying to take away old-style games", but it's probably because old-style games were inherently "un-inclusive", and to make them "inclusive" would mean changing what they fundamentally are to better suit people who don't even play those games in the first place.
It's tough because you're making me argue against a concept, but no specific examples. So I have to take guesses about what you mean. So, let's bring up a specific example:
Celeste is a game with a wide variety of accessibility options, but playing "as intended" without those turned on enables achievements and certain accolades within the game. But those who want to experience the game for the game's experience can just dial down the difficulty and play through the story with enough tools to not have to struggle through hours of precision practicing.
This is the ultimate goal of folks lobbying for easier game modes. Something to let in wide audiences, and costs nothing for the more hardcore audience's experience should they want it.
So what most critics are asking for isn't actually going to harm what a game could be, it just wants to amplify
potential accessibility practices that can make games well-suited to wider audiences.
Turning niche hobbies into mainstream hobbies destroys them. The core group of that niche hobby ends up leaving. You can't make artisanal products at scale. That's why your local burger place is better than McDonalds.
A good, current example of this is what's happening to Street Fighter V.
The pros are disappointed with the game because it's "more inclusive" and "more accessible" at the expense of the core audience, and all the things that made great to begin with. Their artisinal product was turned into McDonalds factory-grade beef. They don't like it.
Turning niche
titles into mainstream titles destroys them. Niche hobbies at large have always had introduction vectors, though. Capcom trying to squeeze accessibility into core Street Fighter mechanics is a bad decision because the playing audience is already set up and built their vocabulary for the title, but that's not what critics are asking for. That's not what anyone in the gaming communities is asking for. That's what a boardroom wanted. Ditto Bethesda's recent approach to The Elder Scrolls and Fallout series.
However, putting in a mode to Street Fighter V that introduces wider parry windows and easier links could have been accomplished without taking away tournament-level skill viability. Tournaments just won't use that mode, same as the Smash scene doesn't enable big mode or items. You're casting the behavior of a profit-motivated corporate figure onto a freelancer that makes hundreds of thousands less.
I'm not sure how that follows. You're saying that, since the "bad" journos don't campaign to remove the content from the "good" journos, that means that they aren't incompetent or disinterested? If that's what you're saying, I don't see how a lack of campaigning makes them not incompetent.
This is another place where I have to take guesses at what you mean. Give me specifics, what is the "incompetence" specifically you think is pervasive in the games crit space, and why do you think that it's a fair title to give to critics in general?
So how would you make a game like Dark Souls more "accessible" to everyone? How long would it take, and how much would it cost? What other features would have to be stripped because of it?
In a menu called "Accessibility Options," include a toggle for reduced enemy damage, a toggle for increased player damage, a toggle that gives all shields the long parry timing, a toggle that reduces enemy attack knockback, and a toggle that makes it so players cannot roll or be knocked off of ledges. Any of these can be toggled on or off.
I'd imagine that is a pretty decent starting point.
I'm not a developer, so I have to make a few guesses as to what of those would be most challenging to code for. I'd assume the ledge-immunity toggle would be the most complex behavior, so that one would probably be what leads to cuts, if at all. And I'd probably cut one of the optional mini-bosses, which should shave some time off of development and reduce relatively little of the existing content while giving extra time to the toggle coding.
