I think challenge in video games is important at times, but difficulty isn't a prerequisite for an enjoyable (and even lengthy) game. Often, games with shallow and repetitive gameplay benefit dramatically ramp up their difficulty to have more lasting power - but I think fun and immersiveness are crucial to a good game.
People sometimes look back at early arcade games, using them as a benchmark for 'good, but insanely difficult' games. I think their difficulty is often unforgiving, persistent, and simply not fun at all. But 'back in the days', these games often were the norm, and like all childhood memories we only have fond memories of them. Of course, some people still love those games (much like people who can't get enough of Bullet Hell-style games), but in general, people just want to have fun (cue Cindi Lauper).
Game genres do not have that much of an influence in gamers 'craving for more difficult games', because I think all games are unique on their own. Moreover, gamers who prefer a certain genre won't mind a difference in difficulty that much - just because they love this or that kind of game.
Tom Bissell wrote a funny article about the matter, you might want to check it out.
Why games should be challenging?
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@Legendre - I have played Journey and it is a wonderful experience, but I didn't enjoy it too much because it was a bit confusing for me. Anyway, I enjoyed Flower from the same developer and I know what you mean. It is a beautiful and visually rewarding experience, with a nice social component in Journey's case.
@dichterKOENRAAD - Well, in my personal case, it might be related to what you said, because I started out playing very hard games back then. About the article, Demon's Souls still stands as my favorite game of all times (bought the PS3 just for it, maybe played about 2-3 games on the console since then, looking forward to Dark Souls as I didn't have time for it yet). I played that game for so many hours I can't remember, and there is no new RPG that I won't compare to it. For me it felt like the most rewarding game of all times, I played it 3 times in total, 2 on normal and one on newgame+.
@dichterKOENRAAD - Well, in my personal case, it might be related to what you said, because I started out playing very hard games back then. About the article, Demon's Souls still stands as my favorite game of all times (bought the PS3 just for it, maybe played about 2-3 games on the console since then, looking forward to Dark Souls as I didn't have time for it yet). I played that game for so many hours I can't remember, and there is no new RPG that I won't compare to it. For me it felt like the most rewarding game of all times, I played it 3 times in total, 2 on normal and one on newgame+.
Nice write up. But IMHO casual and challenging in one game is really problematic.To overcome a challenge you need not only to learn, but to master it.
But this is very time consuming. You need to learn all the time and don't forget already learned knowledge. But the latter is what a casual gamer want to avoid. He want to start a game, play for some time and then will not touch it for an other month. When he picks it up again, most of the knowledge is gone and he finds it incredible difficult to dive in again.
Even if you make a casual game challenging, you will get in trouble. A challenging game requires mastery, which requires dedication. But a player who will dedicate his time to your game expects suddenly depth.
You are trying to pull at both ends of a rope at once. Casual gamers who are looking to have a good pasttime will avoid a difficulty casual game, and a core gamer, who is willed to dedicate his time in a game, will avoid a casual game, because it has not much depth.
A possible solution to this problem is increasing difficulty/challenge over time and don't start with hi-difficulty or the requirement to learn all the skills to play. A tower defense game is a good example. In fact it is a strategy game with resource management. In an endless mode you will survive only if you master it, but at the beginning a casual gamer can success with randomly placed towers.
But this is very time consuming. You need to learn all the time and don't forget already learned knowledge. But the latter is what a casual gamer want to avoid. He want to start a game, play for some time and then will not touch it for an other month. When he picks it up again, most of the knowledge is gone and he finds it incredible difficult to dive in again.
Even if you make a casual game challenging, you will get in trouble. A challenging game requires mastery, which requires dedication. But a player who will dedicate his time to your game expects suddenly depth.
You are trying to pull at both ends of a rope at once. Casual gamers who are looking to have a good pasttime will avoid a difficulty casual game, and a core gamer, who is willed to dedicate his time in a game, will avoid a casual game, because it has not much depth.
A possible solution to this problem is increasing difficulty/challenge over time and don't start with hi-difficulty or the requirement to learn all the skills to play. A tower defense game is a good example. In fact it is a strategy game with resource management. In an endless mode you will survive only if you master it, but at the beginning a casual gamer can success with randomly placed towers.
Games have to be challenging?
Counter point to that idea: Osmos. While I feel it does get somewhat challenging in later levels, I have spent far more time playing the early ones and just relaxing. It is simple, enjoyable, and fun. The only real challenge I have is the new twists that come along in later levels. If thrown in far along the game without having played earlier levels it is down right hard, but by slowly progressing through the game it remains enjoyable without offering what I would consider an exceptional challenge. They usually aren't 'easy', but they are far from being 'hard'.
The point should not be that games need to be Challenging, but rather they need to be Interesting. I will take an interesting and easy game any day over a boring one that is also hard to beat.
(I also didn't click your link, because it feels like spam to drive traffic to your site.)
Counter point to that idea: Osmos. While I feel it does get somewhat challenging in later levels, I have spent far more time playing the early ones and just relaxing. It is simple, enjoyable, and fun. The only real challenge I have is the new twists that come along in later levels. If thrown in far along the game without having played earlier levels it is down right hard, but by slowly progressing through the game it remains enjoyable without offering what I would consider an exceptional challenge. They usually aren't 'easy', but they are far from being 'hard'.
The point should not be that games need to be Challenging, but rather they need to be Interesting. I will take an interesting and easy game any day over a boring one that is also hard to beat.
(I also didn't click your link, because it feels like spam to drive traffic to your site.)
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@Ashaman73 I think your points are the best I read up until now on the three forums I've been discussing the idea.
It is very hard and time consuming as an indie developer with limited resources to to design and develop such a game that slowly draws the player in and then if he wants he can spend even more time to master it. You have to dedicate half the efforts into teaching the player everything in the game, step by step, carefully not to lose them on the way, and figuring out how to do that is a hard task in my personal view.
Also the fact that players can forget their mastery of one specific game after a time and because of that they consider it hard to get back to it might be a valid argument since I experienced it too sometimes.
@Luckless I am sorry but I haven't played Osmos, just heard of it, I will try it when I'll have some spare time. Meanwhile, I would like to understand what do you mean by "Interesting and easy" game and also it would be great if you could give me an example of "hard but boring" game, as I don't recall any in my personal experience.
About my link being a spam, well, it would have been nice to get one more visitor on top of my daily ten to see my development blog, but then no big loss there isn't it
However I still think you should read something before commenting on it as a general rule of thumb 
It is very hard and time consuming as an indie developer with limited resources to to design and develop such a game that slowly draws the player in and then if he wants he can spend even more time to master it. You have to dedicate half the efforts into teaching the player everything in the game, step by step, carefully not to lose them on the way, and figuring out how to do that is a hard task in my personal view.
Also the fact that players can forget their mastery of one specific game after a time and because of that they consider it hard to get back to it might be a valid argument since I experienced it too sometimes.
@Luckless I am sorry but I haven't played Osmos, just heard of it, I will try it when I'll have some spare time. Meanwhile, I would like to understand what do you mean by "Interesting and easy" game and also it would be great if you could give me an example of "hard but boring" game, as I don't recall any in my personal experience.
About my link being a spam, well, it would have been nice to get one more visitor on top of my daily ten to see my development blog, but then no big loss there isn't it
However I still think you should read something before commenting on it as a general rule of thumb
I am under impression that while you may have a point at the core of your post, you phrase in a questionable way. I don't agree that games must always be challenging, they must be engaging. They should engage the user with their mechanics, atmopshere or story, or any other way they can come up with. Fun doesn't always come from challenge, it comes from exploring a new pattern, a new feature that was previously unknown to the player. That is not to say that said features can be mind-numbing easy that they become boring, but they don't need to make you grind your teeth.
For example while Dear Esther (which is questionable if it can be classified as a game, but that's not the point) is hardly a challenge, it was engaging. Same goes for Journey. Fun from games comes in many forms, it can be from sense of discovery, artistic joy, challenge or from many other ways. I don't think you can just sweep all games under "they should be challenging". Sure there is theory of Flow, where a player has most fun when there is nice balance between his skills and challenge, which I fully agree on, but that is not the only way to engage your player.
Another important point you overlook is that not everyone's skill is equal to yours. Why should a more casual crowd be denied the joy of gaming only because they are less skilled, and therefore can't get into the "flow" zone of your standard challenging game? Some people don't have the ability or time to learn advanced games, it's just not their thing, therefore the barrier into flow (where challenge meets player skills) should be lowered to meet those peoples skill. Yes, such games are perceived as casual by you, but my mom is still trying to master angry birds and that is a challenge to her. "Challenge" is a very relative term. This is the main reason where your post comes short IMHO.
Lastly your line about "they arn't real gamers" really gets to me, and I must admit I can't really pinpoint exactly why. Gamer as a word is too overused to use in any argument imho. Because I watch few movies each month, doesn't mean I'm a cinephile, does it? Same goes for games. Games are a medium of entertainment that have stopped being exclusive to "gamers" long ago, and imho there is nothing wrong with developers adapting to a broader audience. It's a dynamic medium that becomes what it's audience and developers wants it to become, it develops together with its audience. There is nothing wrong with casual games; as much as I like dark souls I dont think I would enjoy playing them on a subway to the work
For example while Dear Esther (which is questionable if it can be classified as a game, but that's not the point) is hardly a challenge, it was engaging. Same goes for Journey. Fun from games comes in many forms, it can be from sense of discovery, artistic joy, challenge or from many other ways. I don't think you can just sweep all games under "they should be challenging". Sure there is theory of Flow, where a player has most fun when there is nice balance between his skills and challenge, which I fully agree on, but that is not the only way to engage your player.
Another important point you overlook is that not everyone's skill is equal to yours. Why should a more casual crowd be denied the joy of gaming only because they are less skilled, and therefore can't get into the "flow" zone of your standard challenging game? Some people don't have the ability or time to learn advanced games, it's just not their thing, therefore the barrier into flow (where challenge meets player skills) should be lowered to meet those peoples skill. Yes, such games are perceived as casual by you, but my mom is still trying to master angry birds and that is a challenge to her. "Challenge" is a very relative term. This is the main reason where your post comes short IMHO.
Lastly your line about "they arn't real gamers" really gets to me, and I must admit I can't really pinpoint exactly why. Gamer as a word is too overused to use in any argument imho. Because I watch few movies each month, doesn't mean I'm a cinephile, does it? Same goes for games. Games are a medium of entertainment that have stopped being exclusive to "gamers" long ago, and imho there is nothing wrong with developers adapting to a broader audience. It's a dynamic medium that becomes what it's audience and developers wants it to become, it develops together with its audience. There is nothing wrong with casual games; as much as I like dark souls I dont think I would enjoy playing them on a subway to the work
Author
@Cronnix - Nice write up. So the first part of your comment is basically about tuning the level of difficulty to meet the player skills, which I agree with. Although for me personally a "grind your teeth" game is the one to play (because I have accumulated to much gameplay experience over the years and I consider less challenging games uninteresting, maybe that is why I never play on the go), I agree that the difficulty should meet player's skill so everyone could enjoy playing.
On the other side, it should also try to challenge players to increase their skill. So it should be somewhere close to their skill level, but a bit harder, so the players have to improve, and I think this situation can also create engagement for the players. My intention when I stated about "educating" players is just that: rising up the bar a bit, of course not to drive the player away, but enough to make him want to beat the challenge. Once he get used to that level of skill requirement, he might want some more, and so he will try something harder (in an absolute way) but with the same relative difficulty when it comes to his available skills. If every developer would try to achieve that, people that previously weren't playing games at will get more and more involved with the gaming world.
The line you are talking in your last paragraph is a bit out of context there. The definition of my version of "gamer" comes out of that context. A gamer is not necessary a person who plays games on a regular basis. A gamer is a person with the right attitude towards playing games. This person must be playful and creative, ready to accept challenges just for the fun of it or ready to learn new things a game would throw at it. It requires a certain state of mind to have fun with a game. Someone who plays a game with an attitude of rejection for any challenge or mechanic or stuff that the game requires him/her to do/learn is a non-gamer in my view.
On the other side, it should also try to challenge players to increase their skill. So it should be somewhere close to their skill level, but a bit harder, so the players have to improve, and I think this situation can also create engagement for the players. My intention when I stated about "educating" players is just that: rising up the bar a bit, of course not to drive the player away, but enough to make him want to beat the challenge. Once he get used to that level of skill requirement, he might want some more, and so he will try something harder (in an absolute way) but with the same relative difficulty when it comes to his available skills. If every developer would try to achieve that, people that previously weren't playing games at will get more and more involved with the gaming world.
The line you are talking in your last paragraph is a bit out of context there. The definition of my version of "gamer" comes out of that context. A gamer is not necessary a person who plays games on a regular basis. A gamer is a person with the right attitude towards playing games. This person must be playful and creative, ready to accept challenges just for the fun of it or ready to learn new things a game would throw at it. It requires a certain state of mind to have fun with a game. Someone who plays a game with an attitude of rejection for any challenge or mechanic or stuff that the game requires him/her to do/learn is a non-gamer in my view.
A gamer is not necessary a person who plays games on a regular basis. A gamer is a person with the right attitude towards playing games. This person must be playful and creative, ready to accept challenges just for the fun of it or ready to learn new things a game would throw at it. It requires a certain state of mind to have fun with a game. Someone who plays a game with an attitude of rejection for any challenge or mechanic or stuff that the game requires him/her to do/learn is a non-gamer in my view.
I'd disagree with this in part. I feel that a gamer is someone who actively enjoys gaming as a past time. They could be sporadically playing, ie a casual gamer, or play non-stop. I have friends who enjoy playing games, but aren't gamers. They can sit down and play a game, have fun with it, enjoy it - they have the right attitude - but it isn't something that they would actively pursue.
As an example, a friend of mine adores Bejeweled, plays it a lot, enjoys it, but she's definitely not a gamer. It's just an enjoyable thing to do, but it'd be in the same sect as watching a movie or something.
Similarly, I can enjoy playing a game of football with friends, but I'm not a sports-person.
Someone who plays a game with an attitude of rejection for any challenge or mechanic or stuff that the game requires him/her to do/learn is a non-gamer in my view.
This, I think, doesn't have anything to do with being a gamer or not. It could be a gamer who doesn't enjoy the particular style of game, or it could be a non-gamer. Being a gamer doesn't mean being open-minded, in fact I would say that there'd be a great liklihood of gamers rejecting a game outright, on principle, because it's different to previous experience, or just because it's not "insert their favourite game."
personally a "grind your teeth" game is the one to play (because I have accumulated to much gameplay experience over the years and I consider less challenging games uninteresting, maybe that is why I never play on the go)[/quote]
I'm going to have to be a pedant here and try to reiterate something about phrasing:
'Personally a "grind your teeth" game is the one to play... I consider less challenging games uninteresting' - That's fair enough. Everyone has their own taste.
'Personally a "grind your teeth" game is the one to play because I have accumulated too much gameplay experience over the years'- this isn't really true, or at least it isn't going to be based on the fact that you've played a lot of games. Maybe you've played a lot of games, so now there are less games that are challenging, and you enjoy a challenge. It isn't that, the more you play games the more you like challenging games. If you played Hello Kitty online continuously for a while would you like challenging games more?
As a comparison, I like sweets. I've eaten a lot of sweets over my life. Some I like, some I don't like. The ones I love aren't because of all the sweets I've eaten in my lifetime, I love them because I think they taste nice. Maybe eating a bad sweet will make me appreciate a good sweet more. But eating a bad sweet doesn't make all sweets bad. Eating a good sweet doesn't make all sweets good. Eating more sweets doesn't make all sweets better.
Playing a bad game can make you appreciate a good game. But playing a bad game doesn't make all games bad. Playing a good game doesn't make all games good. And playing more games doesn't make all games better.
I know this seems a bit like the grammar police going on a rampage, but it seems like you want your blog to go forward, and I'm just trying to help you see where more clarity may be needed.
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@PyroDragn
Well, about the grammar, English is not my first language, so thank you for explaining some of these concepts, I don't mind:)
About "gamer" - I think we have different views on what a gamer is. For me, a gamer is not necessary a person who plays video games, but all kind of games. I play video games, then I play board games, soccer (ignoring here the sports part, just the game part), I play with my kids and then I also play Airsoft. For me all these are games, with rules, mechanics/actions, challenges and rewards. That is why, in this context, I think the definition I wrote above is correct.
About "gaming experience" phrasing - well you are right, it doesn't imply that, although it is one of the things that might imply and for me as a developer those are the only people I consider as a target for my games (but as you said, I should have stated that and make it clear).
Well, about the grammar, English is not my first language, so thank you for explaining some of these concepts, I don't mind:)
About "gamer" - I think we have different views on what a gamer is. For me, a gamer is not necessary a person who plays video games, but all kind of games. I play video games, then I play board games, soccer (ignoring here the sports part, just the game part), I play with my kids and then I also play Airsoft. For me all these are games, with rules, mechanics/actions, challenges and rewards. That is why, in this context, I think the definition I wrote above is correct.
About "gaming experience" phrasing - well you are right, it doesn't imply that, although it is one of the things that might imply and for me as a developer those are the only people I consider as a target for my games (but as you said, I should have stated that and make it clear).
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