Games Were Harder Back Then, Right? [S01E07]

Al, Tim, and Ian debate whether classic games were genuinely harder or if technical limitations just made them seem that way, examining everything from quarter-eating arcade machines to Dark Souls’ deliberate punishment.

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This episode tackles gaming’s most nostalgic debate: were games actually harder in the past, or have modern conveniences like autosave and difficulty modes made us soft? The discussion covers arcade machines designed to drain quarters, console limitations that eliminated save features entirely, Battle Toads’ deliberate rental-prevention difficulty, and why Resident Evil weaponized anxiety through limited ink ribbons. Three grumpy gamers conclude that games weren’t harder by design—they were harder by technological limitation, and modern “hard” games artificially recreate those 1990s restrictions to challenge players in 2025.

Grumpy Old Gamer Podcast – Episode 7 Show Notes

Episode Title: Were Games Really Harder Back Then?
Hosts: Al (host), Tim, Ian
Episode Length: ~44 minutes

Episode Summary

In the seventh episode of the Grumpy Old Gamer podcast, Al leads Tim and Ian through gaming’s great difficulty debate. Starting with arcade machines engineered to eat quarters and progressing through the no-save hell of Sonic the Hedgehog, they examine whether classic games were genuinely harder or just limited by technology. The conversation explores the PlayStation memory card revolution, the rise of difficulty modes and “story mode,” why Battle Toads was deliberately made impossible, and how Dark Souls brought back genuine challenge. The hosts passionately debate save-scumming, perma-death mechanics, and whether developers have the right to dictate how players experience their games, ultimately concluding that 1990s difficulty was technological limitation, not intentional design—and modern hard games recreate those limitations artificially.

Key Topics Discussed

The Arcade Era: Designed to Drain Quarters

The Business Model:

• Arcades designed games to reach “game over” screen quickly
• More game overs = more quarters
• “Figured out, if they made the games a little bit harder and they got that dreaded game over screen, that equals more quarters”
• Rental fees for arcade cabinets incentivized quick player turnover

Direct Console Ports:

• Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat ported directly from arcade
• Same difficulty on console as arcade version
• Felt easier at home due to unlimited play time
• “With the console version I had unlimited amount of time to play in order to get better”

Arcade vs Console Experience:

• Arcades: Pay per play, limited time, high pressure
• Consoles: Unlimited attempts, learn at own pace
• “You’re paying in an arcade. You only have a limited amount of time. You have a console at home. Just bung it in. You can play all night.”

Hardware Advantages:

• Arcade machines “looked better”
• Superior graphics to home consoles
• “Made it harder, made it look better, and then ported it onto a console”
• Same game, lesser visual experience at home

The Leaderboard Culture:

• Top scores with three-letter initials (D-I-K, C-U-M, etc.)
• “Juvenile” exploits
• Social competition: “Hey, I beat this at the arcade. You have a go.”
• Stranger Things reference: Mad Max dominating leaderboards
• “Part of the fun”

Early Console Era: No Saves, No Mercy

Technical Limitations:

• Master System, NES, Mega Drive/Genesis, Super Nintendo
• Couldn’t save games at all
• “You couldn’t have any saves”
• Storage space didn’t exist for save files

Sonic the Hedgehog (1990) Example:

• Japanese import Mega Drive
• Complete game in one sitting or start over
• “If you didn’t complete the game in one sitting, you were back to the first level”
• No capability for saving whatsoever

Learning Through Repetition:

• “Really forced you to learn the games”
• “You didn’t have a second chance. That was it.”
• Power outage = back to beginning
• “Angry mom. Boop. Back to the beginning.”
• Masochistic persistence required

No Tutorials:

• “Spoiled by tutorials” in 2025
• Modern games: Steam, PlayStation, RTS, city builders all have tutorials
• “Hold your hand and teach you how to play”
• Classic games: “Put the cartridge in your console, switch it on, press start, straight into it”
• “Had to learn as you played”

Game Length Limitations:

• Games couldn’t be 10+ hours
• “No one’s ever going to finish it”
• Technical limitations prevented long campaigns
• Sonic the Hedgehog: “No more than a couple of hours, three hours at the most”
• Couldn’t support live service models

The PlayStation Memory Card Revolution

Revolutionary Technology:

• First widespread console save system
• “Quite revolutionary when it came to console gaming”
• Allowed developers to create longer games
• Changed game design fundamentals

Unlockable Content:

• Tekken series example
• Unlock characters and save progress
• “Revolutionary was the memory card”
• Play later with saved unlocks
• “Really noticeable compared to other games”

Portability:

• “Could have my memory card, take it home, take it to school with me”
• “Go to my friend’s house, plug it in”
• Show off save progress: “This is the save where I beat the whoever”
• “It was portable. It was something you could share.”
• “Kind of miss it”

Limited Save Slots:

• 15 games = 15 save slots
• One or two slots per game maximum
• Created natural Iron Man mode
• “Can’t save all the time”
• Strategic save management required

Metal Gear Solid Impact:

• Long, difficult game
• Story-driven narrative
• “No way you could do it” without saves
• “Too long or too difficult? Bit of both”
• “When you’re telling a story that takes a very long time to tell”
• Wouldn’t exist without memory card technology

The Save-Scumming Question

What is Save-Scumming:

• Save before difficult section
• Try different methods
• Reload if failed
• Try again repeatedly
• “Hit F5, saves your game. Go around, try it. If you die, reload at that point”

Does It Make Games Easier?:

• Not back at start, just before failure point
• “Try again and try again and try again”
• Removes punishment for experimentation
• “Warped perspective of how difficult things were”

Doom/Quake Example:

• “I know there’s a big bad around this corner”
• F5 to save
• Trial and error without consequences
• Through repetition, complete it

Modern Autosave:

• “One of the biggest features that really made a quality of life improvement”
• Expected common feature now
• “Nowadays it’s expected”
• Changed fundamental game design

The Perception Problem:

• Modern convenience creates skewed difficulty perception
• Past games seem harder due to lack of saves
• Current games easier due to unlimited save points
• “Give us like a warped perspective”

Difficulty Modes and Accessibility

The Evolution:

• Early games: one difficulty, take it or leave it
• “That was the game that I was playing”
• Modern games: multiple difficulty options
• Easy, Medium, Hard, Very Hard sliders

The “Story Mode” Revolution:

• Don’t call it “easy mode”
• “Story mode” psychology
• “Makes me feel so much better”
• “I’m not shit, I just want to enjoy the story”
• Clever psychology to remove stigma

Skyrim/Fallout Examples:

• Difficulty sliders
• Very Easy to Very Hard spectrum
• “Lots of options”
• “Should be able to game the way you want to game”

The Banquet of Options:

• “Such a banquet when we play a video game”
• Expect choice in difficulty
• Play however you want
• “Something you used to never really see”

Personal Gaming Philosophy:

• “I don’t play games to be stressed or to be frustrated”
• “I’m not shit, I just want to enjoy the story”
• “Never proclaimed to be a great gamer”
• “Love games. I’m just terrible at them”
• Evocative stories without dying constantly

Modern Hard Games: Dark Souls and Souls-Likes

The Dark Souls Revolution:

• “Testament” that hard games can still succeed
• Demon Souls, Dark Souls, Elden Ring
• “Hard games. Those are not easy games”
• Part of the experience
• Director wanted “really be punishing”

Intentional Design:

• “Learn from dying”
• “Losing everything and starting over”
• Challenge is the point
• Sense of accomplishment
• “People had a pleasurable experience”

Market Shift:

• Industry moving toward accessible, fun games
• Dark Souls: “No, we’re not doing that anymore”
• “We want to challenge players”
• Market exists for genuine challenge
• Easy games: “didn’t really feel that you’d achieved anything”

Souls-Like Genre:

• Al avoids entirely: “I see Souls-like I skip it straight away”
• “Don’t want stress in leisure time”
• “Enough stress in life”
• Not for casual gamers
• “Perverse to me that somebody would actually want to put themselves through that experience”

Cuphead Example:

• Daughter trying to get Al to play
• “That game is just so freaking hard and so unforgiving”
• “Had to walk away from it”
• “Not every game is meant for every player”

Artificial Difficulty: The Rental Prevention Theory

Battle Toads (1991):

• “Deliberately made nearly impossible to prevent weekend completion”
• Video game rentals started late 1980s
• Companies renting same game repeatedly
• Developers not getting additional revenue

The Cynical Strategy:

• Make game impossible to beat in one rental period
• Force repeat rentals or purchase
• “Really fucking cynical”
• “Deliberate” design choice

The Counterargument:

• Correlation doesn’t mean causation
• Could just be difficult game that happened to get rented more
• “Just because there’s a correlation doesn’t mean there’s causation”
• Alternative: Make 30-hour game nobody rents
• “That’s a buy one. You got to buy that game”

Developer Mindset:

• “That’s the approach that some of the game designers had in the 90s and the 80s”
• Exploiting rental market
• Would “encourage them to flat out buy the game”
• Punishing legitimate customers

Difficulty Design Philosophy

Resident Evil’s Anxiety Weaponization:

• Limited ink ribbons for saves
• Only save at typewriters
• “Built-in gameplay mechanic”
• “Weaponized anxiety”

Survival Horror Genre:

• Not just horror—survival horror
• Manage resources, saves, ammunition
• Mix herbs strategically
• Conserve ammo: “Can’t shoot this zombie in the head because I’ve only got two shotgun rounds left”
• Everything limited intentionally

Developer Vision:

• “Does the developer have a right to tell me how to play that game?”
• “It is their game at the end of the day”
• Best version of their creative vision
• vs. Player freedom to play their way

The Balance:

• Developer vision for best experience
• Player desire for personal playstyle
• “I don’t want you to tell me how I should play your game”
• vs. “If me playing it my way detracts from experience”
• No clear answer

Artificial Time Extension:

• Limited saves extend game length
• “Artificial way of extending a game”
• Without limitations: “Very short game”
• Padding vs. meaningful design

Perma-Death and Iron Man Mode

Historical Context:

• Sonic the Hedgehog had perma-death
• “Once you died, you were back at the start”
• Don’t think of it as perma-death mechanic
• “Just the norm back then”

Modern Implementation:

• Intentional difficulty mechanic
• “Now it’s called perma-death”
• Choice, not default
• Path of Exile: “When you die, you have to start all over again”
• Diablo’s Iron Man mode origin

XCOM Example:

• Featured perma-death for soldiers
• Long-running mechanic
• “Been around since XCOM”
• Added stakes to decisions

Path of Exile Success:

• Die once = start over
• “Really rewarding” if you survive early levels
• “Semi online” so you can gloat
• “Hey, look what I’ve got in this league”
• Want to play again despite punishment

The Choice Factor:

• “It’s a choice. It’s not this is just the game”
• Modern: choose perma-death mode
• Past: default state
• “Back then, when you were done, you were done”

MMO Difficulty Scaling

Age of Conan Example:

• Level-appropriate challenges
• Higher level enemies = better rewards
• More XP for fighting harder mobs
• Level faster with greater challenge

Player Choice in Difficulty:

• Return to starting area (Tortage) at level 80
• “Slay level four mobs with your guardian in epic armor”
• “Glory in wiping out huge groups of enemies”
• vs. Raids for genuine challenge

The Flexibility:

• Choose difficulty based on mood
• Want challenge? Fight higher levels
• Want relaxation? Fight lower levels
• “Based upon how you were feeling at that particular time”
• “I want a challenge. I want to go and be involved in a raid”

Diablo’s Approach:

• “Incorporate the difficulty into the game design”
• Complete game, do it again with harder enemies
• More health, more damage
• Characters level up more
• “Built that into the gameplay loop”
• Extends playtime naturally

Modern Gaming Philosophy

The Abundance Problem:

• “So much out there, especially on Steam”
• Dying Breed example: Fourth mission, tried three times
• “Played something else”
• “Why bother when I can just play this”
• “Just easier just to switch”

Persistence vs. Switching:

• Past: Stuck with game you bought
• “That was the game that I was playing”
• “Paid however much it was for the game”
• “Almost masochistic” to continue
• Present: Infinite alternatives available

The Dying Breed Story:

• Playing new RTS throwback
• Developer: “It’s really difficult”
• Patching to make easier
• Al tried three times, moved on
• Won’t remember as difficult because switched games

Perception Impact:

• Difficult games don’t stick in memory if abandoned
• “Skew our ideas of difficulty”
• More forgiving options always available
• No longer forced to master hard games

Value Expectations:

• “If I pay my 20 bucks or my 40 bucks”
• Expect 30, 40, 50, 100 hours
• Al: 7,000 hours in Cities Skylines
• Modern games: longer experiences expected
• Past: Shorter but complete experiences

Casual Gaming Identity:

• “I’ve always considered myself a casual gamer”
• City builders, strategic games
• “Take your time”
• Avoid 100,000 things at once
• “I enjoy city builders”
• Never played Dark Souls
• Skips Souls-likes immediately

Notable Quotes

On Arcade Difficulty:

• “The whole point of it was to eat as many of the quarters as humanly possible”
• “If they made the games a little bit harder and they got that dreaded game over screen, that equals more quarters”
• “You’re paying in an arcade. You only have a limited amount of time. You have a console at home. Just bung it in. You can play all night”

On Early Console Limitations:

• “If you didn’t complete the game in one sitting, you were back to the first level”
• “Really forced you to learn the games because you didn’t have a second chance”
• “Angry mom. Boop. Back to the beginning”
• “Almost quite masochistic what I put myself through”

On Memory Cards:

• “Quite revolutionary when it came to console gaming”
• “Could have my memory card, take it home, take it to school with me, go to my friend’s house, plug it in”
• “It was portable. It was something you could share. It was awesome. Kind of miss it”

On Save-Scumming:

• “Hit F5, saves your game. Go around, try it. If you die, reload at that point”
• “Give us like a warped perspective of how difficult things were”
• “One of the biggest features that really made a quality of life improvement for gamers everywhere was the autosave”

On Difficulty Modes:

• “I don’t call it easy mode, they call it story mode”
• “Makes me feel so much better. I’m not shit, I just want to enjoy the story”
• “Really clever bit of psychology”
• “Should be able to game the way you want to game”

On Dark Souls:

• “Testament that hard games can still succeed”
• “Those are hard games. Those are not easy games and that’s part of the experience”
• “Wanted it to really be punishing and wanted you to really have to learn from dying”

On Battle Toads:

• “Deliberately made nearly impossible to prevent weekend completion”
• “Really fucking cynical”
• “That’s the approach that some of the game designers had in the 90s and the 80s”

On Resident Evil:

• “Weaponized anxiety because you’re running around and you’re a lot more anxious if you only have so many saves”
• “Can’t shoot this zombie in the head because I’ve only got two shotgun rounds left”
• “Limited saves played into the limited ammunition thing. Everything was limited”

On Developer Vision:

• “Does the developer have a right to tell me how to play that game?”
• “I don’t want you to tell me how I should play your game”
• “If me playing it in the way I want to play is going to detract from the experience that you believe as a developer is the best version of your game, then I kind of understand”

On Personal Gaming:

• “I don’t play games to be stressed or to be frustrated”
• “Never proclaimed to be a great gamer. I love games. I’m just terrible at them”
• “I’ve always considered myself a casual gamer”
• “I have enough stress in life without dealing with stress in my leisure time”

On Modern Options:

• “So much out there, especially on Steam. Why bother when I can just play this”
• “Not every game is meant for every player”
• “If I see Souls-like I skip it straight away”

On The Verdict:

• “I don’t think by design, I think by limitation”
• “Those limitations are being artificially introduced into games in 2025 in order to give you the experience of this game is difficult”
• “Games were harder back then and anybody who tells you differently is lying”

Memorable Moments

The Quarter-Eating Revelation:

• Realization arcades engineered difficulty for profit
• “Dreaded game over screen”
• Not about challenge, about revenue
• Cynical business model exposed

The Three-Letter Leaderboard:

• Juvenile exploits: D-I-K, C-U-M
• “You’re all just fucking juvenile”
• Stranger Things Mad Max reference
• Nostalgia for arcade competition

The Sonic Memory:

• Al as “coolest kid on the block”
• Japanese import Mega Drive
• One sitting or back to level one
• “Almost quite masochistic”

The Memory Card Love:

• Taking to friend’s house
• Showing off progress
• “Kind of miss it”
• “It’s not the same” as sending save files

The Story Mode Psychology:

• “Makes me feel so much better”
• “I’m not shit, I just want to enjoy the story”
• Recognition of clever manipulation
• “Because you’re crap”

The Cuphead Defeat:

• Daughter trying to get Al to play
• “Tried, man. I tried”
• “So freaking hard and so unforgiving”
• “Had to walk away from it”

The Battle Toads Controversy:

• Deliberate rental prevention
• “Really fucking cynical”
• Debate over correlation vs. causation
• Industry exploitation of customers

The Resident Evil Defense:

• Limited ink ribbons as gameplay mechanic
• “Weaponized anxiety”
• Survival horror distinction
• “Can’t shoot this zombie in the head”

The Dying Breed Abandonment:

• Fourth mission, three attempts
• “Played something else”
• Modern abundance enabling quitting
• Won’t remember as difficult

The Path of Exile Gloating:

• Perma-death league
• “Semi online so you can gloat”
• “Hey, look what I’ve got”
• “If you die, you die. That’s the point”

The Ninja Gaiden Consensus:

• “Fuck this game”
• Tim and Ian both cite it
• “One of the hardest games of all time”
• Taking turns, giving up

The Final Verdict:

• “I don’t think by design, I think by limitation”
• 1990s restrictions = 2025 difficulty mechanics
• Artificial recreation of technical limitations
• “Games were harder back then”

Technical Details and References

Games Discussed:

Arcade Era:

• Mortal Kombat (arcade and console versions)
• Street Fighter series
• Various quarter-eating arcade games

Early Consoles:

• Sonic the Hedgehog (1990, Mega Drive)
• Ghouls and Ghosts (Mega Drive)
• Super Mario series
• General NES, SNES, Genesis games

PlayStation Era:

• Tekken series (unlockable characters)
• Metal Gear Solid (long, story-driven)
• Resident Evil series (limited ink ribbons)
• Final Fantasy series (narrative capabilities)
• Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Modern Difficult Games:

• Dark Souls series
• Demon Souls
• Elden Ring
• Cuphead (“freaking hard and unforgiving”)
• Ninja Gaiden / Ninja Gaiden Black
• Battle Toads (1991, rental prevention)
• XCOM (perma-death soldiers)

Accessibility Examples:

• Skyrim (difficulty sliders)
• Fallout series (difficulty options)
• Fallout 4 (survival mode)
• Diablo series (Iron Man mode, difficulty scaling)
• Path of Exile (perma-death leagues)

Modern Games:

• Dying Breed (RTS throwback, too difficult)
• Cities Skylines (7,000 hours)
• Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (MMO)
• World of Warcraft (mentioned, not played)

Consoles Referenced:

• Master System
• NES (Nintendo Entertainment System)
• Mega Drive / Genesis
• Super Nintendo
• PlayStation (memory card revolution)
• Xbox One (original)

Game Magazines:

• Categorized games as “worth renting,” “worth buying,” “on sale”
• Steam reviews do same thing now

Future Episode Teases

Mentioned Topics:

• More difficulty discussions
• Classic game deep dives
• Continue gaming history themes

No Specific Next Episode Tease:

• Episode ended with general call to action
• Discord invitation
• Request for disagreement and debate

Contact & Community

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Contact: Website | grumpyoldgamer[at]gog.fm

Special Call to Action:

• Join Discord
• “Come and tell us that we’re wrong”
• “Come and tell us that you disagree”
• “Come and tell us that games are much harder now because X Y, whatever”
• Leave YouTube comments
• “Let us know that we’re heard”

Episode Verdict

The hosts conclude definitively that games were harder in the past—but not because developers intended them to be. The difficulty came from technological limitations that prevented saving, required completion in single sittings, and forced players to master games through repetition. Arcade games added profit-driven difficulty to extract more quarters, while early consoles simply lacked the storage for save systems.

The PlayStation memory card revolutionized gaming by enabling longer, more complex games like Metal Gear Solid that would have been impossible in the no-save era. Modern conveniences like autosave, difficulty modes, and “story mode” haven’t made players soft—they’ve removed artificial barriers that existed due to technical constraints, not design philosophy.

Ironically, today’s genuinely difficult games like Dark Souls deliberately recreate 1990s limitations: restricted saves, perma-death, limited resources, and punishing mechanics. These aren’t innovations—they’re artificial resurrections of the very limitations that made Sonic the Hedgehog and Ghouls and Ghosts brutally hard. The difference is choice: modern players can select difficulty, while past players had no option but to git gud or give up.

The hosts agreed that developer vision matters—Resident Evil’s limited ink ribbons weaponized anxiety perfectly for survival horror—but ultimately players should control their experience. Battle Toads’ cynical rental-prevention difficulty represents the worst of game design, while games offering story mode demonstrate respect for diverse playstyles.

Key Takeaway: Games weren’t harder by design; they were harder by limitation. Every “difficulty mechanic” in 2025’s hard games—limited saves, perma-death, restricted resources—existed in the 1990s not as intentional challenges but as technological constraints. Modern gaming’s greatest achievement isn’t making games easier; it’s giving players the choice to experience games their way, whether that’s story mode for casuals or Dark Souls for masochists.

The Bottom Line: If you played Sonic the Hedgehog to completion in one sitting on a Mega Drive in 1990, you’re objectively tougher than someone who beat Elden Ring with unlimited saves and YouTube guides. And anyone who says otherwise is lying.