Every time I hear a variant of the "games did X when I was younger, they don't anymore", I have to wonder what do they mean by "games". There is a ridiculous amount and variety of games made today, specially when compared to the eighties. All genres, difficulties and philosophies of design that existed back then still exist today. Most of them in the same amount, even. But when the pie gets very big, as it has, slices that don't grow start looking smaller. Both the "just grind some more" and "you lose you die" games existed in the eighties, and both exist today.
I think there is a real shift though. People talk about "nintendo hard" because most of the games of that era were that hard. Five or ten years ago health was a carefully managed resource in any "AAA" FPS; nowadays regenerating health is very much the norm.
I agree. All you have to do is watch videos of today's kids playing games from the previous era. I've seen some where a handful of kids were unable to finish the first level of Super Mario Bros after several tries. But to be fair, most people never say the third board of Donkey Kong.
Although, I do also agree that there are extremely hard games today. I just think they are aimed at people like me for nostalgia reasons but also the current players that actually want a challenge. Otherwise, the mechanic goes against the current trends best suited for making money in the market.
As for health being a carefully managed resource, there were also the games where you get hit once and you die. In those cases lives were the carefully managed resource. Which that type of game was common. They don't seem as common these days.
But I think most of the hard factor of games of the past was a holdover from arcades where the goal was to kill you within a few minutes so you would insert another quarter. Games at the time tended to mimic that mechanic.
> the goal was to kill you within a few minutes so you would insert another quarter
This is at the heart of "nintendo hard". Games were limited in content and scope, and ramping up difficulty was the only way to ensure the experience would last long enough to justify the cost.
