Games getting too easy or too hard?

Just a post about something I talked about with a friend over the weekend. It seems nowadays more and more games are trying to capture a wider audience because well, video game devs want their games to sell. As a result many games over the years have constantly tried to become simpler in design to pick up and play for anyone potentially new to it's series. However, this seems to also give the impression that games are getting much easier nowadays.

Some classic Arcade Cabinets where players paid per game

See a long time ago when video games were more based around being pay per play arcade cabinets where people would pay a few pence to have a shot at the game, which of course meant games back then were insanely, brutally, unfairly difficult. From cheap one hit kill deaths to enemies who could react to whatever the player was trying to do, games back then often used methods to try and have the player fail multiple times in order to get them to splash out the cash for another shot. This was a particularly common trend amongst early fighting games like the King of Fighters where players would play through it's Arcade mode where they battle about half a dozen CPU opponents before battling a final boss character who was tougher than the rest. By tougher I mean like comparing cotton wool to diamond in how much harder they were compared to the initial fodder of characters one had to fight just to get to said boss. It was a clever (and cruel) way of getting frustrated players who made all that progress to get to the boss to want to keep paying for another go or else have all their progress lost. The fact the game doesn't have any means of telling the player what button does what or what  their character can do also doesn't help, sure they can button mash their way through the first few levels and be fine but they'll hit a brick wall near the end if they don't know everything.



Nowadays with games being bought in full upfront for home play and the concept of paying for another shot at it being a dead concept, more and more games have often toned down the difficulty of insane late game battles in order to not have players be turned away from wanting to play or telling their friends not to play the game if they didn't enjoy it. More and more games will start up with a text dump of a tutorial telling the player literally how to walk, talk and scratch their backside in lengthy detail just to be clear they know what to do and won't be frustrated if they can't figure something out. While this may seem like a good thing in comparison to the Arcade days of "tell them nothing and throw the player into the bear pit" method it can become irritating to players who just want to dive in and start playing. It's even more irritating if the game feels the need to hold your hand all game and constantly remind you every 2 seconds like the player has severe short term memory loss if they haven't used a certain game mechanic in the last 5 minutes.

So what's the solution? Well there needs to be balance and a rate of difficulty that rises gradually and not just go from flatland scape to Everest Climb in the span of one level. Games should slowly introduce the player to how it's mechanics work and let them test those out in a series of simpler areas near the start until they're comfortable with them before introducing something new with slightly increased difficulty. Once the player has learned everything, just leave them to their own devices so that you don't take control away from them like an overprotective mother. Don't make the player feel like an idiot. That way they have all the tools and knowledge necessary for when they start to face increasingly tougher challenges, the key word is increasingly. Throwing in a cheap boss that they can't realistically fight with the skills they've obtained from practising on weaker challenges up until that point won't make the game more "difficult" in a legitimate way, it will just make players who actually understand how the game works become frustrated when all their skill and knowledge they learned off their own back to get to that point means nothing if their next challenge is all about luck and cheap tactics.

At the end of the day the player wants to be able to feel like they are in control and actually accomplishing something and not merely being dragged along for the ride or having anything they learned become meaningless when it's not relevant against a cheap boss.

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