Are Games Getting Easier?

It seems like a simple question, but I’m willing to bet that it’s one that could be answered a billion different ways. Age might have a lot to do with it as well, since if you’ve been playing games since the earliest days of the PC and game consoles, you probably know what a truly difficult game is. But what’s the true answer here? Are games getting easier?

According to tech blogger Martin Murphy, the answer is “yes”, and I’m inclined to agree. One game title in particular he pokes fun at is Medal of Honor, a game I posted a review for last week. He states a similar complaint to one that I had… that the game was too short, and also that it was too easy. By default, I always select the middle difficulty for any new game I play, and for this one, the middle difficulty was straight out… easy.

Another example Martin raises is New Super Mario Bros. Wii (I also think the developers are getting lazier with titles, while we’re on a related topic), where after eight failed attempts at a level, the game will literally show you the easiest way through the level, and get this… allow you to skip it if you so choose. Wow… you can’t get much easier than that, can you?

In the past couple of years, there have been a handful of games where all I could do was shake my head at the level of difficulty. I played through Modern Warfare 2 at a good difficulty and didn’t have much trouble, and likewise, I could say the same about Mafia II, and to an extent, even Civilization V. So what’s the deal? Why are we getting games that seem to be easier to beat than ever?

I think a true answer is hard to come up with, but if I had to guess, I’d say it might be due to the fact that it’s what people want. Back when games like Zelda: Ocarina of Time came out, it seemed that there just wasn’t a major abundance of quality games. Today, while we’re not exactly seeing quality left right and center, we are seeing a ton of choice, and it’s not unusual for a gamer to be juggling a couple of games at once (I am currently in that  boat).

Still though, I’d like to see a true difficulty brought back, and I don’t mean difficulty in the sense that enemy attack power is increased and your abilities weakened. The same blog post mentions about Half-Life 2, and the challenging obstacles and puzzles. There was no such thing in Medal of Honor… none. That game was about as linear as could be, and required almost no thinking. There’s just no “challenge” in that.

I remember when I got my first console, a shiny grey NES with Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt, it had one Joy-pad and the Nintendo light gun. The original Mario Bros game took me months to complete – MONTHS not hours and when I did it was like winning a gold medal. It was something to be shouted from the roof tops. You went to school the next day and it was something to make your friends jealous, who knows how that works in the school yard nowadays, “So Jonney have you beaten CoD MW2 yet?” “Yeah man I beat it in 3 hrs, you?” “Nah it took me 4hrs I got stuck at the end”.