This depends largely on your expectation for what a 'game' should be.

Puzzle boxes, for example, have zero on ramp, and yet many many people enjoy them, enjoy the struggle of discovery.

Arguably the edges of mathematics and science are inhabited by similar people, living where the rules are ill defined, where there is much to be discovered rather than pre-digested and spoon fed.

I have little patience for games that don't spoon feed, so I get where you're coming from. I watched my brother play DF and decided I didn't want to spend my time like that, trying to parse ascii, trying to figure out how all the things interacted.

I also don't like puzzle boxes that much.

To each their own.

You're totally allowed to have that opinion. Time is valuable. It does have a tutorial nowadays, but it's still not easy.

Not everyone _wants_ to learn Dwarf Fortress, and that's fine - it's not for everyone.

But I'm just providing context that, for those of us that have learned, it is a great game.

Not every game can be for everyone, and Dwarf Fortress is not a game for people who want onramps. “Shitty game design” is subjective, I guess.

Maybe the Steam page is too slick? I can’t imagine somebody going to the old dwarf fortress page and thinking “this is a game I’ll pick up easily!”

Somebody didn't grow up with early console games.

No.

Dwarf fortress challenged what I thought the rules of game design were.

It was absurd amounts of fun. I was happy to go through the tutorials or ask questions on bay12.

Figuring out how things worked, and then using those skills to explore the world was fun. It was also internally consistent.

The game simply isn’t for you.

Is it your job to define jobs?

>It’s the games job to create an on ramp to understanding.

No, it is a games job to be entertaining for those it was designed to entertain.

>It’s not mine to spend 200 hours grasping every concept before I can play “the real game”, that’s just shitty game design.

Certainly there are many people who take a longer time to learn and grasp concepts and find challenging tasks something to be avoided, and this game isn't for you! That doesn't mean that every game should be designed so that the lowest commoner denominator can understand and enjoy the game! Some people not only enjoy being challenged by complex games, but seek those out those challenges and that complexity. The game market is flooded with easy to learn and easy to win games designed and made for simpletons, so there's no reason for you to complain about the rare game (these days) that deviates from that.

Why is it the games job to handhold you?

>It’s the games job to create an on ramp to understanding.

Its the games job to present their unique style of fun to the market, and let the market sort it out. A game made by 2 blokes has to have a set of priorities, and their priority has always been the simulation.

>It’s not mine to spend 200 hours grasping every concept before I can play “the real game”

I mean, ignore Dwarf Fortress for a minute, this is exactly what Paradox has built its little empire on. I was at 300+ hours of Crusader Kings 2 and had only a sort of intuitive grasp of most of the games systems. And at the time, most of the safer european powers were at risk of just getting rolled off the map by the golden horde mid game, and the work arounds for that were quite insane. I still dont reckon I have the war/conflict systems mastered. Paradox does tutorials, they just suck immensely and you end up on the forums or wikis anyway.

Dwarf fortress has managed to create a game with that kind of skill curve with 0.0001% of the resources.

>that’s just shitty game design.

I feel sorry for you, I get the impression that this hostility is coming from a place where you really wish you could share in these fantastic games but haven't quite got the gumption to stick with them. I get it I really do, I mod Battle Brothers to make it easier, because I love the texture of the game but I haven't been able to master the combat or save scumming required to play at a real difficulty.