I consider myself a rather avid gamer. PC mostly, but the PS3 distracts on occasion. Every few years I read an article in a magazine or on a site talking about how video games aren't as hard as they used to be. In a true kids-get-off-my-lawn stance, they make it seem like the days of yore held virtual challenges unknown to modern gamers.

To which I say: who cares?

As I've advanced in years, I've found what I look for in a game has changed, in some cases dramatically, since I was a wee one. This is completely separate from what genres I'm interested in: FPS>RPG>RTS>MMO>DrivingGran Turismo>blah blah blah. If I were presented with a table of new games, my interest would go in the order above. Duke Nukem Forever? Sure, so sorry WoW:Cata I'll catch you in a bit.

But what I end up playing is radically different. I'm sure I've played more hours of WoW than Counter-Strike by this point—which saddens me more than anything—but it shows what I'm looking for. After I get home from work, putting on some music and vegging out to WoW for a few hours is an excellent cooldown.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still a rabid CS and Team Fortress 2 player, but the intensity is so much higher that I'd never think to play them to relax. They're an event in and of themselves. Like watching a movie compared to falling asleep watching TV. I might spend a Saturday playing TF2¸ but I generally won't touch it during the week.

And this extends further. Certain types of games I don't want any challenge at all. Most games on the PS3, as I was never a console gamer, tend to annoy the crap out of me. What poses as a "challenge" gives me no satisfaction when I beat it, only annoyance that it slowed me down. This is in stark contrast to a good FPS where I'll play on the higher levels of difficulty.

Perhaps it has something to do with the type of skill required. If I need to jump, press a button, spin around, press another button, all with a countdown timer and no save points, I'm just annoyed. However, if I keep dying because my aim is off, or I need to figure out a decent puzzle, I'm entertained. It's this latter that keeps me from thinking it's just because I'm getting soft.

I won't deny that games are far more likely to be beaten now opposed to 20+ years ago, but why is this a bad thing? I don't see how this means they're necessarily easer. I'd argue that they're often just better designed. Why would a game designer want to make a game that most people can't finish? That would be like making a movie that no one wants to finish. OK, perhaps that's a bad example.

Then there's the larger issue that there are so many more bad games available now that are just poorly done, regardless of difficulty. Are bad games less challenging, even while they tend to be more annoying?

What do you think? Do you want to be challenged by video games? Are you challenged by them? Do you want to be challenged by certain types, but not others?