Check the like to dislike ratio of the IGN video. 2k upvotes and 10k downvotes. Meanwhile, on steam, PoE appears frequently on the most played games and over 90% of the users recommend...
Yes, you have the entire hardcore fanbase downvoting it and you're completely ignoring the stats provided by GGG when they state that barely anyone makes it beyond Kitava or even reaches maps. Most game journalists have to cover a game for the general population not for a niche crowd. Thanks for missing the point.
And you know that PoE only appears near the top when a new season releases and then drops after two weeks. Among Us has already beaten its highest concurrent user count. So, how would you reconcile that on a single scale rating? Give 10s for both? Then you dilute the value of your rating system. Give Among Us 0 because you only review RPGs?
What is the problem of end game being hard to get? You as a casual player CAN GET a hell lot of fun and enjoy a lot of good content for free, the journalist even criticized that the game is too long. What is the problem? The journey on this types of games tends to be better than the end game.
Depending on your goals having an end game being hard to get to (or impossible for a lot of the populace) reduces the efficiency of development and scales poorly economically and in dev time.
And honestly PoE does take too long. The entire campaign is a waste of time and the entire end game is more or less a grind just to see if your build works which is what the IGN reviewer hinted at. I happen to enjoy that, but do you think casual players sit around with Path of Building open for hours on end trying to theorycraft out or fix their builds? Even veterans of the game will not argue and say that the game play is fun because everyone zips around and clears out a map in one minute.
Do you even know what playing casually means? It means maybe an hour or two per day if you're lucky. Do you also know how punishing the game is to a casual? How many 'casuals' actually have fun dying to Merveil in PoE dozens of times in a row? Not many. Here's something to consider: PoE will never be as popular with the general audience as games like Among Us, League etc.
And you keep saying that "hardcore game", "niche game", to refer to the most popular TT game ever and the most played isometric ARPG on steam. What is an on niche/non hardcore for you??? An game which the game journalists that can't pass the Cuphead tutorial can enjoy? Any game which requires 2 digit IQ is too hardcore and niche for you???
I while a child who could't even read English had no problem playing 90s RPG's like Might & Magic VII, my very first RPG. Nowdays, if a game like it was released, the brain of game journos would melt.
Yes D&D is still a niche game but it's growing and maybe one day it won't be. How many people play D&D? 20 mil? How many play League of Legends - 115mil? How many people play soccer/futbol? How many people play Chess (605mil) or Go? Or play Counter Strike?
It's stupid to think that because D&D is the most popular table top RPG that it somehow means that it isn't niche when the whole perspective of what is and what isn't is usually measured against the most common. Also, lol @ you trying to include PoE in here when it doesn't even come close to the others. Just look at
https://steamcharts.com/ right now and show me where PoE is. Oh yeah there's also Fortnite which is 350 million.
Also, it's equally stupid to lump all game journalists together.
I derped through Dark Sun and Eye of the Beholder when I was a child but there's a thread that you can't grasp which is pretty apparent: you have no idea what a casual player is and you're severely overestimating what the average person can do without hours of video game experience to aid them.
