Playing on easy

[Florida Man]

Personally I'm a fan of games that do the New Game+ thing where progress made in easier modes carries over into harder difficulties.

[Enex]

I have played one game EVER on anything past normal, and that was Mass Effect 2. Was it a challenge? Yes. What is worth it? No.
I've never ever had the disposition that a game on hard is the "real" game as some people I've met say. I have a life, I've always been a full-time author, writing for a living for over a decade. I've had jobs on top of jobs to pay for the inconsistent income writing offers. The very last thing that I would ever want in my is to play video games and get stressed out. So I don't play games past normal for the simple fact it offers me nothing in terms of further enjoyment.

[Hambone]

Very very rarely If a game has a dynamic difficulty setting I’ll switch it to easy to avoid something that I’ve struggled a lot on. I play straight through on normal though if the difficulty is locked in at the beginning

[Erebus]

Do what you want. For me, removing the challenge takes the fun out of gaming.

[SwordsmanAdraygus]

Rarely I play games on easy or normal, I don't find much enjoyment out of it. I just like the challenge on a harder difficulty. I like to get as much bang for my buck as possible when it comes to games. But that is just me.

[Storm Rider]

I don't play in easy, but normal difficulty. It's been I don't have the time to go through the hard or hardest difficulty anymore. I leave early for work and get home late, so I got like 1 or 2 hours to play games without my girlfriend asking me to do some unnatended home chores.
So, go ahead with easy or normal if that's letting you enjoy the game.
It does not matter if you play on hard or easy, it's the experiencies and enjoymen you get while playing that are rewarding

[umrete]

I recently started playing games on easy(like year or two ago) simply because I don't have time on any other difficulty. I have an 8 year old son and the little time I find for gaming on my PC/PS4/mobile just can't play them all as long as I want. I have like 2 hours or so a work day for games and on the weekends even less.

[JackofTears]

i have edited my statement to reflect that only certain games I play on easy, the vast majority of games I play on normal. So the “your not a real gamer crowd can relax”

Fuck 'em. Play games at the difficulty level that engages you, it is nobody else's business at what difficulty you enjoy a game. Being good at playing video games isn't going to make your penis or breasts larger, your love life more satisfying, or your kid less retarded. Unless you're a professional gamer or a game journalist - someone whose career depends on playing video games - it doesn't matter one fucking iota what your skill level is at. These are just geeks trying to be bullies. Play to have fun, live to have fun, and to hell with anyone who whines about it.

[JackofTears]

When that happens to me, I go to Youtube and watch let's-plays.

[Chompy Said]

Mass Effect. You are so inaccurate and fragile playing on insanity without new game plus. The game is laughably simple with new game plus on insanity, as Colossus 10 armor makes a soldier invincible.

[Matcam89]

Some games I didn’t finish because they were difficult and really bothered me because I really wanted to know more about the world and story are the following

bloodbourne

some of the Ninja Gaiden games

[Matcam89]

Great comment

[JackofTears]

One of the things I really appreciate about Diablo 3 is how each couple difficulty levels notably changes the challenge - enemies start using better tactics and a wider variety of powers. Because of that, I always look forward to playing that game on some level of Torment, so I can face vastly more interesting enemies in nail-biting challenges. Unfortunately, you have to be careful because if your damage output isn't keeping up with your ambition, enemies will start to feel like damage sponges.

[JackofTears]

The way I look at it is this: I grew up in the early days of consoles, the Atari 2600, the NES, Sega Genesis, PS1 - in those days games had very little content so they were designed to be these frustrating grinders that reliably killed you every X minutes until you memorized every obstacle in the game and could practically do the run with your eyes closed. Days when you played, died, restarted, died, restarted, died, restarted, for weeks, for months, and even when it became the most frustrating thing in the world, we still did it because we loved games. I did this until I became so good I could beat any Sega Genesis game in the 48 hour rental window I had for the weekend, for many it would take half that.

I earned my bones.

Now, I'm older, my reflexes aren't what they used to be, my attention wanders more than it did in my youth, and it's time to relax a bit. Thus, the first time I play any game, it is on easy. Should, through the course of the game, I decide it isn't challenging enough, I'll raise it - but more often than not I will finish my first time through on easy mode. If the game is worth playing a second time, that's when I move to hard. Once I have the game down and I understand the mechanics, then I'm ready for a bit of a challenge, but before that, I don't care.

That doesn't mean I won't try to play a hard game. I tried playing Dark Souls ... stress on tried. I did play through the very challenging "Shadow Tactics" and that game was so good that I didn't mind quitting every 15 minutes from frustration because I always went back. I am currently playing "Mutant Year Zero" whose 'regular' mode is hard and it only gets worse from there - and because of Shadow Tactics, I'm patient enough to stick with this one. Prior to the Extended Edition, "Divinity Original Sin 2" was a very difficult game for most people and I became quite handy with it. Hard games that I stuck with because the gameplay was fun, the story and characters engaging.

But that is not my norm. I've paid my dues, now I just want to have fun.

[Errant_Error]

I don't usually drop the difficulty level to easy but ill keep it at medium or whatever the default. My days of chasing achievements and playing a frustrating game on hard to get an extra 20 points are over.