The Case for Hard Games

Back in the day, when video games were young, you had “casual” games (e.g Tetris), decently challenging games (e.g Megaman), unfair awful games (too many to count), and supremely difficult games like the first Ninja Gaiden. You’ll find everything but the last category of video game in today’s market except the last type of game...[and so]...the Inverseman will argue that we need more “hard games”.

[SilentNegotiator]

"Back in the day" games were made stupidly hard so that you would buy magazines, cheat devices, and/or insert another coin.

Hard games still exist, especially in the indie scene, where everyone has a wannabe 8/16-bit style game. Just look for them.