I can understand that. My thinking was that it wouldn't need to be available from the get go, but maybe reach a certain level and unlock the feature. I enjoy the gameplay, so I'd still try and avoid the forced cuddles when I want to play and challenge myself.
Someone in the discord mentioned that arcade might be some sort of custom settings mode, maybe include toggles of who is active so that we could select who we'd want to cuddle us in the chance we lose?