How hard is "hard"?

[Nintendork666]

Sometimes really easy games are hard because they're such a breeze that they become boring far before you can finish them with dignity.

[Nemoide]

I think frustration counts a lot. I don't really consider the Mega Man games to be too hard even though I certainly die a ton while playing. They're so much fun for the most part that I forgive the times when I get stuck at a certain area and continue again and again.

On the other hand, something like Ghosts 'n Goblins feels like it's too much. It feels like so much of that game is working against you that you have to be superhuman to make any progress at all.

[Menegrothx]

Then there are the good hard games that are taken to extremes. These games are fair and balanced, but require a level of skill, reflexes and ability that either come from LOTS of practice or unusually natural talent. I would lump bullet hell shooters into that category, or playing 1 on 1 fighting games at a tournament level.

ALL Player vs Player games have an "infinite skill cap", that doesn't make the actual games hard. Humans opponents will adapt to your playstyle, learn new techniques and tactics and keep on getting better and better while AI opponents will always remain the same. Naturally some PvP games have more gameplay depth and thus have a higher skill requirement and offer more variety at the top level (=harder to get to the top level), like DOTA does when compared to LoL and so on.

[Erik_Twice]

like DOTA does when compared to LoL and so on.

This is totally not flame bait

But yes, versus games don't have a fixed difficulty, it always depends on who you are playing against.

[GigaPepsiMan]

Remember no matter how hard a game may seem it is never too hard.

The only games that are too hard are those old British computer games that came on tapes. They were too hard, like a kid would make the game and then not write the ending so he would just put a bunch of obstacles in the way so that no one would finish the game.