Like always you will find pro's and contra's for the difficulty in games.Make it possible for the gamer to make a choice.
Take for example Marvel vs. Capcom 2....even on the easy difficulty the AI will kick your ass hard time.It's even very clear that the difficulty gets harder with every new opponent.
I don't understand why Capcom even botter to give you 4 difficulty levels?
I like games like COD or Gears of War with insane or very hard difficulty,but when you play it on easy you get a good chance to finish it.
Give people a choice so everyone can enjoy his 50 bucks.When you like a challenge...play it on hard.

It depends on the kind of game for me. I like my side scrolling games and JRPGs to be difficult. I loved Mega Man 9, Ghost and Goblins, the Eterian Odyssey games, the SMT series (especially the old ones), and even Baroque. I'll likely love Demon's Souls.

I'm not so good at First Person Shooters, but I still like playing them, so I tend to play the campaign modes in the easiest setting.

meh. like we have a choice. the developers pick the difficulty/s, and sometimes they do it well, sometimes, not so well (itagaki). demons souls is hard, ive died a billion times and im loving it. that obviously wouldnt work with every game though

Short Answer: Yes
Long Answer: YYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESS SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Some games don't work..others do. I'd say it'll become some sort of sub category: Hard Games.

This way, when people play them, they conciously know what they are getting into...i don't like getting into a cinematic / chilled out game only to find out its insanely hard...road blocks me =( esp if it spikes difficulty all of the sudden

However, i def support old school difficulty! Bring it ON!

i love hard games especially on the nes virtually every game on that system was hard its rewarding when you beat a hard game

I do think games are easier these days. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I recently played a couple of my old Amiga games (Alien Breed, Xenon 2 Megablast and Paradroid 97) and I was surprised at how much I sucked at those games. Just give me Wolverine and Bionic Commando (Rearmed), those have a nice fun-challenge balance for me.

Harder games? Bring it on. I've got all the in-game achievements in Mega Man 9, 100%'d Mercury Meltdown Revolution, got gold medals on every stage in Geometry Wars: Galaxies, completed all challenges in Punch-Out!! Wii and Wario Land: Shake It!. Are there any harder (yet fair) challenges on the Wii?

There's a difference between a game being difficult and being challenging.

Pixel perfect jumps with millisecond timing, was frustrating to me in old school games. That was a level of difficulty I am not prepared to invest in these days - the level of precision required in stuff like Jet Set Willy, or Dizzy (both of which I completed) is best left in the past.

However, a challenging game that forces the player to play smarter or die is great. Demon's Souls is a good example of this. At first it is extremely tricky - but I found myself getting better and better at actually playing it.

Too many games these days hold gamers hands far too much, and provide almost zero challenge.

There will always be a place for hardcore difficulty in games, and so it should be, but in these slightly more evolved gaming times we need challenge and fairness - not frustration and cheap shots.

The old hardcore gameplay is tied in with games intended to make you put in more quarters to continue and the mass majority of gamers never saw the end of the game.

But, we've progressed many of our games to a point of storytelling mixed with gameplay, and this won't work well with the old hardcore difficulty considering they _want_ players to see the full storyline. This is why there are easy to elite and harder difficulty configuration options.

I want all games to be challenging. Some games are way to easy.

And I dont like games that are only difficult at one part, and that part is usually some stupid mini game that is completely different from the actual game.

One example is gears one driving part, or the asteroid shooting in dead space. I beat both these games on the hardest but had trouble with these stupid parts. I had to really concentrate to pass these parts, and I didnt have fun.

IN deadspace I thought shooting the asteroids was really hard, but after a few tries I beat it easily. But in both games those were the only parts that were remotely challenging. Theres a problem if you have to put in some mini game part to make the game seem like theres a challenging part.

Some games can still hold up to great difficulty these days.

Ninja Gaiden always drives me up the walls.

But still, would love to see "DEATH" as a difficulty or something haha

Example of how a game's difficulty should be.

If you put most games on their hardest setting they'll give you a good challenge. Maybe not like a Mega Man or an Ecco the Dolphin challenge, but a challenge nonetheless.

Games back in the day were simple but HARD.

Today they are more Complex but easier.