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Comment by lmkg | Hacker News Reader

This jogs my memory of another game designer saying how some gross percentage of people always choose 'normal' difficulty, making difficulty modes somewhat redundant anyways. Since all of the people who need the easy mode will play on normal, it probably should be called normal.

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Similar to how McDonalds no longer has a 'small' size of french frys?

How many people are going to play a game on easy and then also play it on normal? I doubt very many at all, and those who do probably won't take the time to go back and compare the two difficulty levels. So you could make normal and easy the exact same. (Hey, this thread was started as an appeal to marketing...)

Having just gotten the new Tony Hawk game as a gift, I was wondering to myself if I would ever play on any setting other than "casual". I'm not a huge gamer, so I kind of doubt I will, except possibly to see what the difference is.

Also, I just ordered a small fries from McDonald's when I was there last week.

Counter argument, I grabbed Rainbow Six Vegas 2 when it was on sale on Steam. I play that on "Realistic" because it's so hard. I normally don't like hard games, but in this case it really changes the feel of the game itself, beyond just making it harder.

It depends. For example, you couldn't play the game all the way through in easy mode in Doom. You had to play it in a harder difficulty to get to the third area. This was motivation for me to replay the game at harder difficulties.

Someone who needs easy mode might start on normal, get to some point where the game becomes impossible, then switch to easy. (Speaking from personal experience here.)

Smart games will do this for you. For example, Warcraft 3 initially lets you choose between normal and hard, but if you lose a mission, it unlocks easy mode. This way, nobody will end up playing through the game watered-down unless that is the only way they can make it through. Everybody who turns out to be competent will experience the game as intended, regardless of their initial estimation of their abilities.

Left 4 Dead's director does this on the fly in-game.. Having and easy time? It throws more at you, less items. Too hard? Opposite.

It's actually a lot more sophisticated than that. Here's a great presentation from Valve about the "AI Director" in Left 4 Dead:

http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2009/ai_systems_of...

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