Why are games so easy these days?

[emeraldrafael]

When I usually hear this question, I have to ask the person what they found was so hard about a game back in the day, and more often than not, it comes down to something that today would be a broken game mechanic or if it was from the person's era of gaming they wouldnt dare take it. EDIT: and of course if they're playing every new game they play on the hardest difficult or not, and usually hte answer is no and but if moderate is this easy then hard wont be much more challenging.

usually thats immediately drown out by "well people are so used to easy now they couldnt takea challenge, and all games have to hold your hand or you hate it" and thats true to the extent that if youre used to a certain way then its going to be challenging, but its for the better in the long run.

would games be as popular of a medium if every game decided to fuck the player and drop them off somewhere with no hint of direction or idea of how to play? or if every game was like the "hard" games of yesteryear? doubt it.

Personally I dont care for difficult, but then agim im on of those people that plays a game to play it, so i always have a first go on easy just so i can experience the game in full wihtout having to worry about it beating my ass and frustrating me so I dont get to finish it.

 

[CrashertheSmasher]

Didn't Extra Credits cover this topic?

 

[Broady Brio]

Isn't it because of the movement to mainstream audiences? Gaming used to be a small market. Of children. Now everyone has a console of some sort, of all ages.

 

[T8B95]

Because you're not twelve anymore. Games are more or less the same difficulty they've always been, you've just had 10+ years of experience playing and learning from them. You've gotten better, and the games haven't gotten harder.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Personally I could use more games with alot more depth. These days they are rarely anything more than a clickfest or a boring buttonmash. Those games are needed too, but the lack of other types of games is just making it all look so fucking beige and boring.

Speaking of things roguelikes do right...

I think the problem is less that games are getting easier, more that a lot of devs are conflating "easy" with "shallow" and deciding they want to balance their games around easy/shallow.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

Modern warefare 3 had the difficulty curve of circle, as well as gears of war 3, halo reach, homefront, fable 3, assassins creed revelations, countless others!

Maybe you should stop looking for difficulty in the most mass market appeal games. If you actually want difficulty, or complexity, you cant expect to find it in a game designed to appeal to the lowest common denomonator in terms of difficulty. Its like complaining your cheeseburger doesn't come with pineapple.

Itd be a lot easier to recommend games if I knew whether you had a PC, but try Far Cry 2 (No Death Run perhaps), Fallout New Vegas on Hardcore, Mount and Blade, The Binding OF Isaac, Amnesia, Demon/Dark Souls, Starcraft/II, League Of Legends.

 

[Eusebius]

Games are no longer an endurance test like they were in the arcade days. Games were harder on a technical level back then because developers were limited in what they could do and the presentation of games in arcades necessitated a format in which you could easily pump the quarters out of a kid's pocket. Also, games are now being developed for a wider and more mainstream audience that is not willing to invest the practice time it would take to play technically harder games. Game developers want their games to attract newbies too, who haven't built the skills yet.

Also it's possible that you're just not a kid anymore and are more difficult to challenge.

 

[Joseph Alexander]

Because you're not twelve anymore. Games are more or less the same difficulty they've always been, you've just had 10+ years of experience playing and learning from them. You've gotten better, and the games haven't gotten harder.

haha, thats total bullshit and you know it.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

So im currently ploughing through mass effect 3, while the universe is huge (im making a point of visiting every system and draining it of everything i can find), and there?s many ''ooohhhhh'' and ''aaahhhhh'' moments of delectable eye candy, i cant help feel i have been cheated. Iv heard about how crap the ending is (PLEASE, no spoilers) but every mission so far is run and shoot enough ammo at any enemy until it drops. i wasn?t aware i was playing gears of war 4. And i'v found many games lately to be far far to easy. Modern warefare 3 had the difficulty curve of circle, as well as gears of war 3, halo reach, homefront, fable 3, assassins creed revelations, countless others! games these days seam to cater to people of a lesser intellectual capability.

Im no brainiac, but i would like more of a challenge than shoot this, run here, stab this. collect the right armour or weapons and the games play them self?s. i have smashed many a controller in frustration over the original resident evil, silent hill, metal gear, conkers bad fur day. games can be knocked over ina few hours now, it used to take weeks. This was meant to be an observation and has turned into a rant, my apologies, but frustration is making my brain melt!! im interested to know what does the wider gaming community think of the level of difficulty today?s games have. i just cant justity spending $100 on a new release to find im twiddling my thumbs the day after.

Halo Reach is too easy? Really? Then I guess you've played the game solo, on legendary, and with all the skulls on before making that complaint right?

No?

Yeah, didn't think so.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Halo Reach is too easy? Really? Then I guess you've played the game solo, on legendary, and with all the skulls on before making that complaint right?

No?

Yeah, didn't think so.

+1

Say what you want about the Halo series, it does difficulty settings right.

 

[way2sl0w]

Watch and learn

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/3769-A-Different-Kind-of-Difficulty

 

[snake4769]

Id have to say Witcher 2 was refreshingly difficult. Actually one of the hardest games ive playing in a long, long, time.

 

[T8B95]

Because you're not twelve anymore. Games are more or less the same difficulty they've always been, you've just had 10+ years of experience playing and learning from them. You've gotten better, and the games haven't gotten harder.

haha, thats total bullshit and you know it.

I like how you say that my points are bullshit and then completely fail to give any sort of justification for your opinion.

When I go back and play the games that took me forever to beat as a little kid, they're much easier now. It's much more reasonable to assume that I've gotten better at the game than to assume that the game has somehow gotten easier over the past decade.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Not all the time, my argument is why should i have too.

So... let me get this straight: You're complaining about a game not being challenging enough while ignoring the option that makes it more challenging? Because...?

Games are meant to be challenging and exciting,

No. That's apparently why you play games. Amazingly enough, not everyone wants the same thing you want.

For example, I just got done playing Journey for the third time. The game isn't challenging at all. However, I enjoy it because i am not playing it for a challenge.

Call of duty for instance is not much different on veteran than on recruit, just have to duck more.

Bullshit.

Stop twisting my words, I?m not saying i want the most hardcore extreme game mankind has ever seen, (dark souls can suck my dick) i just don?t see why games have to be spoon fed to people who don?t want to accept that they may die in the trial and error that is gaming. the Alone in the dark remake they did a few years ago, if a level was too hard you could SKIP THE ENTIRE GAME and get the same pay off as someone who completed the game for real, what the fuck is the point of that. Games can be fun without being easy enough that a blind toddler could knock it over in an afternoon.

A. He didn't twist any of the words you've said.
B. The above rage basically completely ignores the idea of a difficulty setting (which damn near every game has)
C. Deus Ex Human Revolution. End. Of Story.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Because you're not twelve anymore. Games are more or less the same difficulty they've always been, you've just had 10+ years of experience playing and learning from them. You've gotten better, and the games haven't gotten harder.

haha, thats total bullshit and you know it.

Haha, that's totally logical and you know it. You want more difficulty but you don't want to increase the difficulty using the option that is so ironically "spoon-fed" to you in the settings menu.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Haha, that's totally logical and you know it. You want more difficulty but you don't want to increase the difficulty using the option that is so ironically "spoon-fed" to you in the settings menu.

In most games, changing the difficulty setting doesn't do much to affect the difficulty in any meaningful or interesting way.

 

[Eddie the head]

Two words "dice rolls"

Old games had them, newer games, thankfully, don't, at least as much.

Back in the day YOU didn't actually play games, you told the computer to do something and it used random uncontrollable dice roll to determine if you, really it, won an action.

Now that we get to actually play the games its considerably easier because its based on you ability to do something, not a computers ability to pull numbers out of its ass.

The more and more I think about the "challenge" of some games the more and more I go yeah that's true. I would go with this along with stuff you don't realize you know, and better controls.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Haha, that's totally logical and you know it. You want more difficulty but you don't want to increase the difficulty using the option that is so ironically "spoon-fed" to you in the settings menu.

In most games, changing the difficulty setting doesn't do much to affect the difficulty in any meaningful or interesting way.

...he wants greater difficulty. There's a difficulty setting. This isn't rocket science. Truthfully, it seems he's searching more for complexity than he is difficulty, in which case, he's going about this the wrong way.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Haha, that's totally logical and you know it. You want more difficulty but you don't want to increase the difficulty using the option that is so ironically "spoon-fed" to you in the settings menu.

In most games, changing the difficulty setting doesn't do much to affect the difficulty in any meaningful or interesting way.

...he wants greater difficulty. There's a difficulty setting. This isn't rocket science. Truthfully, it seems he's searching more for complexity than he is difficulty, in which case, he's going about this the wrong way.

Complexity is an important part of most genuinely difficult games. Dark Souls isn't harder than Skyrim only because the combat is less forgiving, it's harder than Skyrim because it demands additional engagement from the player in terms of learning enemy attack patterns, level layouts, and so on. Halo: Reach on Legendary isn't harder than MW3 on Veteran because the player dies faster when he or she makes a mistake (if anything, the opposite is true), it's harder because the enemy A.I. is smarter and has more options available to it.

 

[LiquidSolstice]

Haha, that's totally logical and you know it. You want more difficulty but you don't want to increase the difficulty using the option that is so ironically "spoon-fed" to you in the settings menu.

In most games, changing the difficulty setting doesn't do much to affect the difficulty in any meaningful or interesting way.

...he wants greater difficulty. There's a difficulty setting. This isn't rocket science. Truthfully, it seems he's searching more for complexity than he is difficulty, in which case, he's going about this the wrong way.

Complexity is an important part of most genuinely difficult games. Dark Souls isn't harder than Skyrim only because the combat is less forgiving, it's harder than Skyrim because it demands additional engagement from the player in terms of learning enemy attack patterns, level layouts, and so on. Halo: Reach on Legendary isn't harder than MW3 on Veteran because the player dies faster when he or she makes a mistake (if anything, the opposite is true), it's harder because the enemy A.I. is smarter and has more options available to it.

Skyrim isn't complex?? @_@