I believe it's by SorcererDave. They both raise some good points, if I remember their videos right. The main thing I would say before you watch Dave's video is to remember that he isn't arguing that the features he 'defends' are good, he's simply arguing that they aren't implemented simply to dumb the game down.
Quest or important NPCs shouldn't be immortal, players should have the option to kill them. But it would suck if a quest npc was killed by random enemies, so they should only be killable by the player. If you break quests because you killed somebody, then well tough, you shouldn't just be killing people if you're worried about breaking quests.
It's especially annoying when the "essential" npcs are clearly evil and/or jerks to the player, like Maven or the Thieves Guild or the Silver-bloods, Delphine, etc. It's very disappointing that a heroic character can't kill an evil person or organization. Or vice versa, an evil character can't kill good people, like Mjoll, Arngeir or some Jarls.
I know, I've tried. What I'm saying is you can't kill all of them, the Thieves Guild will still inhabit Riften. And then you can't get rid of the bounty by killing witnesses because the witnesses can't be killed.
Plus, when unkillable citizens chase after you for murder, you are forced to run because they cannot be killed. And there's essential townspeople in every town or city, except for Karthwasten.
The kid throws a fit because he cannot get this AWESOME NINJA SWORD because he killed Balgruff, and doesn't know how to load a save, and so he trades the game in to play Call of Duty, where he can kill anything without crying.
Okay, I don't see the difference, or how it poses any problem for Bethesda. They've already sold the game, at that point, so the kid trading it in isn't has no impact on their profit. Heck, they managed to get into the hands of someone outside the game's ESRB rating, because who else other than a 10 year old doesn't know how to load a save, so that's just a bonus for them. And what's the kid more likely to do? Tell all his 10 year old buddies "Don't get that game, you can kill quest-givers!" or "Don't kill everyone, some of them give quests."
It just takes an extreme combination of ineptitude and laziness to fall into the niche you've described.
Ultimately we can't kill some npcs because the world just cannot react in a sensible way to that death.
I disagree, but can you offer some examples? As far as I can tell, if you killed a quest giving NPC, that instantly creates less for the game to account for. It no longer has to look at check marks for a questline, because the quest has been permanently closed off.
"Don't get that game, you can kill quest-givers!" or "Don't kill everyone, some of them give quests."
Honestly, from a child, I would expect them to say the former. That's just how naive people are. You went on to inquire that they've already made a profit from buying the game, true enough. However, the kid probably wouldn't buy the next TES game, simply because they couldn't go on a killing rampage spree. Thus Bethesda may possibly lose money in the future, if the NPCs were non essential.
This is still regarding a demographic that isn't even targeted by Bethesda. I find it extremely unbelievable that anywhere near a significant portion of gamers 17 and older don't know how to work a save file, or throw a fit because their digital killing sprees have consequences. Take Deus Ex: HR. Save for a couple of areas where you aren't able to draw your weapon, no one, including quest givers, is invincible. They prepare you for it right in the marketing with one sentence "Your actions have consequences."
Borom, I like you, I really do. I just can't understand one thing, WHY CAN WE NEVER BE ON THE SAME SIDE OF THE FENCE IN ANY SORT OF ARGUEMENT. Now that I've let out my odd frustration, I'm going to have to stop arguing, as its late here in the EST zone and I'm tired. Good debate, buddy.