Are games easier?

This morning I awoke to see my sister playing Spider-Man on my old Gamecube. She needed help on a level, and so I decided to help her a bit. I figured that since it was old and that I had completed it a while ago, it would be easy. To my surprise, the game was actually difficult, and took me a few tries to get it down. Why should a game this old be that difficult?

I have been playing games for a while now. I would consider myself to be well rounded player, who can handle difficult games. Spider-Man would have never come to my mind as a difficult game. So I tried to remember how difficult it was when I originally played it. That game actually took me quite a while. This continued to irk me all morning, so I decided to play some other old games. I played the original Halo on Legendary difficulty, and that was really tough. Tougher that Halo 3 Legendary. WHY? I played Sly Cooper and realized how complicated some of the puzzles were. Why in the world should these games be harder than today's games? Everything is against this conclusion.

Games these days have better graphics. Illusions and design puzzles can be attained easier and at a harder level of difficulty. Games can now do more things to add an extra level of difficulty. The people (like myself) who have been playing games for a while are more experienced and can handle harder games. Why are the old games so much tougher? More importantly, why are today's games way easier?

One reason that came to me could be accessibility. The gaming industry years ago was an exclusive group of people, usually males between the ages of 13-30. The geeks of gaming. Lately in the last 5 years the demographics have been changing. A recent NPD study stated that at least half of all Americans play games. Women now populate a good chunk of gamers, and the age of gamers has gone from 13-30 to 13-50. Games have become more accessible and more accomodating to the masses. There are now games made for girls, games that are made for the less experienced crowds (casual games), and games that are not real games (Brain Age, My Spanish Coach). The reason games have become easier is because more people have an interest, and game companies feel making the game easier to complete can bring in more people.

Another reason could be that people just don't want a lot of difficulty any more. I know how frustrating it can be to be "stuck" on a level. It is funny how I used to get stuck on levels quite a bit in the early days but now I am rarely stopped at a level for very long. Maybe people just don't enjoy that much of a challenge anymore. Games are starting to reach out into different genres. Games like Heavy Rain want to tell a story and not necessarily make a difficult game. Games have different goals these days, whether that be great design or story or free will or moral choice. As people become more versatile in the things they make, focus on difficulty is less. This isn't a bad thing. In fact, it probably is a very good thing. Games 15 years ago were limited in capabilities. You picked a genre, and you made parts difficult. There are few old games that have different approaches then this.

Maybe games are trying to be difficult in other ways. Games that have moral choices are trying to make the difficulty come from the personal decision you have to make in the story, and the consequences because of it. When faced with a tough decision, making the wrong choice can make the actual game more challenging. Games with a sandbox approach try to make difficulty out of sheer choice. Choosing the easy way makes the game easy but less rewarding. Choosing to go the difficult route makes the game more challenging but more rewarding at the end.

Don't get me wrong. Games are far from being a cakewalk. There are still very challenging games and modes in those games for the hardcore. Call of Duty and Halo will always have Veteran and Legendary difficulties, and those suffice. It just seems that more often than not games now have an easy barrier. Every game has elements that are supposed to be easy in order to appeal to more people. And the bad side affect of this is that difficulty overall is lessened.

There is my interesting observation for the day. Do me a favor and go play an game that is at least 4 years old today. You'll be surprised how much more difficult it is that you initially think...