@LukeAlmighty @matana I've made this observation before too. It's kind of hard to explain, but a LOT of gamers and even people who are typically not gamers (think like, female twitch streamers who only play LoL) enjoy these games despite them being pretty challenging.

A good example is that in my entire friend group, even extended friend group, I'm the ONLY one who bought Kirby instead of Elden Ring. That's like a 1:10 ratio. Not counting online friends.

I think part of it for many is because of the social aspect, where everyone is getting the game to talk to each other about it. It's about being part of the experience, everyone figuring stuff out about the game from day one together. It reminds me a lot of like, Marvel movies, where everyone is going to watch it so they can talk to their friends about it. Not the only reason of course, but still a big reason.

This kind of happened with the Harry Potter game as well. All of my friends bought it but I was saving my money for Tears of the Kingdom. Again, I'm the only person who bought that one. When everyone bought Doom Eternal, I bought Animal Crossing.

What I think might be happening, for the most part, is that non-gamer normies/kids will go for something like Kirby/Animal Crossing and think Elden Ring is not their thing. Gamer normies will go for something like Elden Ring and think Kirby is not their thing. So you get a weird mix of total normies and weird gamers playing Kirby, while the majority of gamers are playing Elden Ring.

Does that make more sense?