I understand what you are trying to prove here, in fact, from memory (I would have to go looking to actually find the relevant studies), you would be correct. If I am guessing correctly, your hypothesis is that younger people who make less money but have more time on their hands due to not having as many obligations (children, etc), care far more about balance than older people who have much more limited time to play. I won't indulge your fancy because I value my privacy to some extent, but I will say that for the purposes of your little experiment you should also require people to state the country they live in, because the US and the UK are not the only countries in the world and you need to adjust the income based on the cost of living depending on the country the person lives in. Someone living in Harare will have a lower cost of living than someone living in San Francisco.
Essentially, though I think that may also apply to people who perhaps have a disability making them incapable of work or have a low stress job - as those with much higher pay tend to have. But the issue is specifically with "game balance issues" that involve exploits like repeated saving - not game balance in general.
If I go to say some FPS tournament I doubt I would totally suck as a newbie, but to win in some gamer competition be among best gamers in the world well doubt that I would do it.
There are some players that are really good they have played Dungeons Dragons before example Pen and Paper like me. In addition many that work with IT (I do are perhaps less emphatic (I am less) then a social worker like you). These people can be great also at say tactical strategy and like hard challenge in games.That being said the group of players that I will play this game with both me and my brother and a friend of mine are fairly high education would rate as smart players and we have played Dungeons Dragons from before. I work with IT support and my brother is IT programmer.We like challenge. We are not hardcore gamers there are not many games that we play or that we play many hours/week. In addition time for MMO:S has passed us they are to much of TIME SINK in the long run. My brother has children and I date women in Tinder (though sucks during COVID 19 time) and stuff like that so it is not possible to play huge amount /hours week for us.
What I am saying while your theory might have some merit there are those that are very good gamers and want Hard or even Nightmare challenge.
Please note I do not look down on anyone that want to play on example Easy or Normal challenge level. Everyone should enjoy this game at the challenge level they choose. If you think that even Easy is to hard for you then use some mod but I do not want this game to become broken with bugs that people exploit to make it easy for everyone.
I and my brother and my friend live in Europe and not USA. In USA they have like maybe 2 weeks vacation+some days of Christmas etc and I suspect in USA it is more common to do overtime then in Europe.
In my country everyone that has full time job has 5 weeks paid vacation+other special holidays/year and that is minimum by law on top of that you can sometimes even negotiate extra unpaid vacation example 2 weeks unpaid +5 weeks paid vacation=7 weeks time vacation. To that extra vacation application not paid my employers in my country might very well say yes unless you are example doctor in hospital that is really needed. In my country doing overtime is very rare my employer would most likely say no if I ask for permission to do overtime.
Before you go angry or sad in USA about your 2 weeks vacation?
Salaries in USA on average is much higher then in Europe exception perhaps some countries in Europe like Norway.
Within spoiler comments wealth and money has NOTHING to do with Baldurs Gate 3 you might skip reading this:
I would not consider myself wealthy due to work income. However what makes me fairly wealthy is that I am landlord (and not newbie landlord I rent more then 1 apartment to other people) anyway though not millionaire and when I say million it means 1 million euro net wealth. 1 million euro is currently 1 217 449,00 United States Dollars roughly that is the netvalue one must have that I consider someone rich millionaire. Please note I am not rich millionaire however if I would marry someone that I consider wealthy then well... lets say it is realistic then I might become millionaire.
What makes economy compare difficult USA vs Europe is also the pension system. In USA you can have example 401k that would be rare in Europe to use such private things though some do (I do not ). When we hit pension age in Europe we get pension /month there is no fixed 401k sum. The sum is that government decide (subject to change yes) and goes on how much you have earned and payed taxes as worker.
When I said what I consider RICH is minimum 1 MILLION EURO net wealth ( 1 217 449,00 United States Dollars roughly) that was not counting some pension system at least for my part in Europe. In Europe 401k and such systems usually not used people take pension/month depending on what government pays. I do know how 401k works people in USA can lift money from that much like from a bank account we usually do not use such pensions systems in Europe.
However you can become millionaire before pension age which is I would say very difficult and challenging yes specially in Europe where salaries usually are much less then in USA. One realistic chance that I see for that if I would marry someone that as wealthy as me or more then yes I am confident I become millionaire long time before pension age perhaps even ASAP depending on how wealthy my wife would then be. Well anyway I am content and I do not must become millionaire.
Finally of course money is not everything, I have been in relationships but I do not rush to marriage. Marriage is not must some move together.
I only explained how I would realistically see how I could become millionaire ASAP and that is not the reason I would marry someone of course you need to love and like your wife.
There is one other way I could perhaps become millionaire. I start with huge risk a company and become Entrepreneur however I feel that is to much risk. I do not feel like take risk and quit my job and become Entrepreneur.
