Trent Oster - Editorial @ Gamasutra

Gamasutra has a new article were he ponders should developers dumb it down for the masses, or stay hardcore and accept fewer sales?

I've just finished watching my 50th "let's play" video of Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition and at the start I felt like a bag of S**t.  After watching the mis-clicks and general confusion that abounds when new players meet the Baldur's Gate learning curve (aka the wall of pain) I started to feel very worried.  But, in almost every video after a few moments it started to change.  The voice of the player changed, the comments about interface disappeared, the rules questions were way less frequent.  Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition had worked its magic and they were hooked. You saw a player become enthralled in the world and the characters, getting drawn along by some truly great voice work and an epic musical score. But I have to wonder, could we have engineered a way around the wall of pain?