Challenge used to the be entire point of video games, to the point that even RPGs used it in their marketing because they knew challenge sells.

>>11870401
>but I don't think enough people talk about how the exact way the old games were difficult helped sell the experience.

For the average player these days, and even among "retro" circles there are a lot of people for whom the concept of difficulty is completely alien, to the point that they can NOT comprehend that things used to be different and that challenge was the entire point of video games, so they create all kinds of copes like "rentals", "artificial difficulty", "devs didn't know what they were doing" etc etc It doesn't help that re-releases catter to this mindset by adding """QoL""" like rewind/savestate/press a button to win.

>open up magazine from the 90's
>see this everyone
>modern "retro gamers" still insist that difficulty is bad design and it was all because of rentals anyway