Lets talk about QTEs as an example. Because for QTEs, a developer can easily add an option to entirely circumvent them, with just a single boolean and a single line of code in the QTE input method.

I think that, for accessibility reasons, it is perfectly reasonable to ask for an option to switch between tapping a button and holding a button to complete a QTE. I think it is unreasonable to ask developers for an option to completely remove QTEs from their game (such as auto-succeed/auto-complete). For many games, this would turn an interactive part of the game which is normally followed by an uninteractive cutscene into an uninteractive cutscene immediately followed by another uninteractive cutscene. Players that disable QTEs could easily be sitting through very long stretches of uninteractive parts of the game instead of interacting with the game, leading to those players complaining about long cutscenes since they usually completely forget they disabled QTEs.

Shenmue has Quick Time Events. A lot of them. If someone hates QTEs, it would be better for them not to play the game at all than to play without them. It is a core part of the intended experience that enhances the player's time with the game. You get to interact with the cutscene instead of dropping the controller and turning off your brain. As a player, you pay more attention and keep your controller ready because at any moment you could be hit with a QTE and you want to be ready for that. You as a player have anticipation, excitement, nervousness, fear, etc that the developer makes you feel using mechanics like QTEs. You are more engaged with the game than someone that wants those deleted from the game, and in the end that means you will get more enjoyment out of the game. Someone that wants that turned off wants to play a different game.

Not every game is made for every person. And thats okay, thats good even.

I didn't mean to get caught up in exceptions or exaggerations. I'm no developer either, so I have zero background-knowledge about game-development or game-engines.

Though as I work in IT (again, no developer) and live within a zero-IT-knowledge friend circle, I tend to try and shine a little light on some things that, to the outside, might seem simple but maybe aren't. I guess sometimes I'm trying to err on the side of caution a little too much.

I definitely think there are a few of those one-line, true/false settings that could just be toggled, especially things that are handled by the engine instead of the game-logic itself, though I cannot speak of experience here.

You are in essence gatekeeping enjoying a video game as a concept. Like people must enjoy them the way you envision.

What an incredibly inaccurate statement. I love modding video games, I spend more time modding video games than I spend playing video games. I understand that the vision developers have doesn't often align with what I want from their product.

I don't agree that developers should be spending dev cycles making a game functional for a user that turns off any configuration of gameplay mechanics.

Saying you can just set a variable from "true to false" is so laughably misunderstanding what goes into software development much less game development that it sounds entitled. What gameplay mechanics are you even saying should be configurable? All of them? Just turn off the combat in a fighting game? At what point is a gameplay mechanic integral to the genre/experience? And who is the person or persons that decide?

Developers should be free to create what they want, and the end user is free to mod it however they want. That includes, for the devs, not purposefully obfuscating things so that modding is more diffcult.