My friend always says that he want to enjoy and relax with a good game(nice graphics, relatively easy to learn), not feeling like he have to go back his workplace and get stressed again(think hard, make hard decisions, learn complex controls etc.). He likes the idea when the same Nazi(or what ever)jumps out the same bush and he just shoot him... I think this is a bit odd(and maybe sign of a some degree of retardment) but somehow I get the point. His busy lifestyle(demanding job, kids, wife, mortgage etc) is stressing and he like to play games like Skyrim to forget the reality(that his life is actually ****) and be in fantasy world for a moment and enjoy it. Maybe game developers realize this and make an easy games? Or they are just lazy and greedy bastards who just wants to make a pretty game without any depth take the money and jump in the next project...

This. BEST games were between 1995 to mid 2000.... Soon after that they went downhill, there have been VERY few decent releases.

Unfortunately there is a lot of truth to this.. most games these days are trying to pander to the widest possible audience. back in the day it didn't matter if people found a game hard, the game was what it was.. if you found it too hard, too bad. get better. It wasn't just PC either, there was a ton of really tough games back in the day on console too.. I remember throwing controllers plenty of times playing ninja gaiden and megaman, to name a couple. these days its all about getting as many players playing as possible, and unfortunately that means making games easier in terms of difficulty, and instead just throwing more content at users in the form of DLC or otherwise. I personally don't mind this so much since gaming should be about fun and not getting to upset over it (unless you're getting owned online FPS gaming.. different story) but yeah, no doubt that games are just not what they used to be.

Hell yes they are they may get more in 1 aspect but overall I find most new games too easy and uninteresting

Game difficulty doesn't even go as high as it used to. Hard back then is off the scale now.

We need more contra! But on a serious note dumb games sell its as simple as that, compare cod sales to lets say dark souls. The devs are giving "gamers" what they want and if they stray away from the on rails explosion in your face every 30 seconds people get bored and complain its too hard. http://1-media-cdn.foolz.us/ffuuka/board/a/image/1341/14/1341144020538.gif ...

dUh I aM a GaMeR i lIkE tUrTlEs No we all dont like games we play now a days but where else can we get our fix?

Should I say something? No... My opinion is too unpopular. But... that's what this thread is here for, right? Discussion? ......Ok screw it, let the flaming commence, here I go. I think games STARTED too dumb. Back when the games were in their infancy and lacked anything resembling realism, the only logical thing developers could do to keep people playing was to make games longer and more difficult. I think I spent the most time on my NES playing Sunsoft's Batman and Taxan's G.I. Joe. Sure I enjoyed them, but... I never beat them. Maybe I was too young or didn't have the right magazine subscriptions (don't think that wasn't another reason for artificial difficulty, moving copies of Nintendo Power. Oh the age before the internet...) Games don't have to be more difficult to be more enjoyable.

Games should be rewarding in the first place. This effect can often be achieved by high difficulty, but it's not only that. Some try to use unlocks, collectables, achievements, etc. My problem with that is that once you get most of the unlock, collectables, and achievements, you have very little to do in such games, or you just don't care to get them at all. In my opinion, one of the most important game attractors that's often omitted nowadays is the learning aspect. Many gamers enjoy learning, the sense of improvement. Such sense of improvement can be mimicked in short term by unlock, new items, etc, but the most important is getting a better player and enjoying that. Here are some examples: 1. Shooters, RTS, and fighting games (eg Counter-Strike, Starcraft, Street Fighter) - being able to win against better and better human opponents 2. Games like X-COM, Civizilation, or HoMM - winning against harder and harder computer opponents 3. So-called action-RPGs - mastering builds, combos, and tactics 4. MMO-RPGs - improving builds, tactics and cooperation to battle difficult bosses and other groups of players 5. Racing games (especially simracing and sim-arcade blend, like GRID or Shift) - cutting milliseconds from lap times. For me the problem with enjoying the game begins when I can see little to no correlation between my experience and results. There may be different factors involved - game being too random just to be challenging, or other reasons, eg lag, too limiting, with poor balance, or with cheaters, or just with terrible design that doesn't rewards players for being good at stuff they do. Still, if the game fails at these points, it can be enjoyable, for example if it has good story and you treat it as a kind of interactive movie; however at that point you just complete it and forget as yet another random game. It's difficult to make a game that rewards players for being good and letting them improve, so money goes into releasing yet another interactive movie, with some multiplayer aspect. It may also happen that players don't want to play such game. One example that I can share, is MoH 2010 multiplayer - just after release, it was difficult, required learning and it was really rewarding when you mastered the weapons, maps, and could play as a team. Then players started whining on forums, that it's too difficult etc, and devs dumbed it down... sad. Sometimes, there may be problems with expectations or misjudgement of game logic, like in Brink or many MMOs - such games reward you for good team play, people think that it's cool, start playing, but they don't care about teams, the game fails at this point, gamers who care about teamplay quit, and the rest remains running around. And there's a casual players problem - casual games for casual players... It makes sense as the most of the people don't have time or patience to be good at games or they just don't care and want kill time with Nokia 3210 Snake replacement. I have very limited time myself - I work a lot and planning the remaining time is important for me. It may happen that I have no time to even launch a game for 2 weeks. Still, I like games that are rewarding. It's still possible to make such games. Some good examples are BFBC2, Diablo3 (although not for a long time), Borderlands, and various racing games, like GRID, Shift 2, LFS, RBR (considering getting Project CARS). I can't really blame the marketing guys, as they want company to make stuff that gets sold and makes profit - it's their job. But people need some diversity and such needs diversity should lead to some, perhaps very few, but really quality, skill-rewarding games.