Why all the hate towards harder games?

Here is a recent quote from Kotaku.

"The Behemoth’s last game - Alien Hominid - wasn’t fun. Looked good, but wasn’t fun. It was the gaming equivalent of taking your balls, resting them on a table, picking up a hammer then smashing them over and over and over until you sobbed yourself unconscious." (Wed Sep 3 2008 Luke Plunkett Kotaku)

Wow.

Now I just watched the King of Kong where people were talking about their love of old school games BECAUSE of the skill involved.

Nobody says that Contra was a bad game because it was hard...

I didn't play Alien Hominid, die in game and then throw my controller down like a freaking six year old and claimed that the game was bad. I got my ass handed to me and laughed and tried harder. And it felt good when I got into the flow of the game and learned all the patterns and got better at it. It's not like it took that long to learn.

It's too bad that there is such hatred for games like this. I really think that people are forgetting the point of games. I personally WANT challenge.

I WANT to play God Hand and get my ass kicked if I don't do the right move combos.

I DON'T want to play games like Halo with a rechargeable magic health bar. (One of the worst game mechanics ever introduced)

It's not just action games either. If you wandered to far in an older school RPG like Ultima 6 you would get your ass torn apart by gargoyles throwing chain lightning. Now most RPGs have you on a safe linear path that's not too hard.

The real shame in all of this is that if there continues to be such bad press about games like this we will have no decent games to look forward to in the future.

It's a good thing that there are so many good games to look back on and play with pride.