I basically don’t disagree with much of what you’re saying, but I do have a few comments.

For the monopoly, I guess that I made myself fall into this because what typically causes a problem here is that it’s multiplayer, which changes everything. People trying to make others play a certain way is what makes it unbearable, it’s not really about messing up the gameplay loop; the proof of that is that no matter how messed up the loop is, if the players are liking the alternate system, they will enjoy it fully. With a solo experience, it’s different. If I start playing rimworld on easy difficulty, and it’s boringly easy, I can just pick a different difficulty that I prefer. No one else will ever be impacted, and I’ll pick whatever is more fun for me.

Where there is a little nuance that I will give to you, is that some games are meant more as an art form or an experience than as a game (narrative games, horror games, etc) and in such a case things are much more constrained. But most games aren’t like this, and can be enjoyed either way.

For dark souls, they are unfair as a lot of things involve an unexpectable event that kills you, that you then memorize to be able to avoid it. That first part is what is unfair, the second part is what requires skills (and the skill requirement is another issue)

Even for minecraft, the game has a peaceful mode that locks out a lot of the content, because the devs didn’t bother changing the hostile drops to be given through alternate ways.

And for the roadblocks, you’re totally right, but those roadblocks are always tailored to the “average player” that the devs defined, which generally will completely block (at least for a good amount of time) the less “skilled” players. And my observation is that the definition of “average player” has been leaning more and more towards the hardcore gamer, and that’s in my opinion making things worse and worse.

I would say that not every game needs to be for everyone, but that most games should be for playing, not working. And most games now like to make you work for them.

But overall, I still agree with you on many things, we’re just seeing the same things from a different perspective in a way.