Kerbal Space Program Demonstrates Demand for Non-Childproofed Games

 Don't let the painfully cutesy aesthetic fool you. Aside from KSP, every game is childproofed. Constructed so that the kiddies don't whine about how it's more challenging than the candy store. Kiddies like "mature" games with gritty aesthetics because it makes them feel like grownups. The more photorealistic the game, the more likely the target audience is tiny babbies.

 Imagine a game where you had to navigate a sailing ship by the real-life stars, using a sextant, and you could brick your entire save by sailing into the blue yonder, getting lost, and starving to death. No extra lives, no floating AR objective markers, no omniscient god's-gamedev's-eye-view NPCs. If you confuse orion for arcturus, you die. If you put the chart on the table upside-down, you die. If you forget reefs exist, you die. Start over. Although in this case at least the stars need to be photorealistic, for gameplay purposes.

 The forums would explode, right? Wow gamers must hate this game, right?

 And your game's entire competition would be KSP. Sextant game would print money.

 This is very much a supply problem. Faustians are just too dumb to recognize this kind of demand. KSP is an accident. Oopsie, did something culturally forbidden. Thought it was on-brand, hence the aesthetics.

 That and of course it means knowing how sextants work. Who has time for anything that doesn't show up on the news? Or on Joe Rogan if you're "sophisticated."

 Unless the game is also on learning about gunpowder logistics, then maybe fantasy up the cannon and such to make the tradeoffs more interesting and reduce busywork. Likewise the game can automate the tedious repetition parts of sextant wayfinding. 

 You do need to know the distinction between compromising realism for gameplay and compromising gameplay for convenience. 

 

 Come to think, you can bring back the arcade.

 Why not sell a game for like $2? Then it phones home and invalidates itself every time you die, so you have to add in another 'quarter' to keep playing. With digital distribution, this is not only possible, but easy.