I used to like hard games when I was a kid, because I had time to play them over & over and memorize every move.

Now I'm old(er) and get easily frustrated if a game seems harder than is necessary and tastes have changed after playing other games.

For example the original SMB was awesome. Now they made SMBU trying to emulate the classic gameplay, and I can't stand it at all. It feels dated and frustrating; I don't know how many times I've fallen because the controls are sloppy and don't register button presses sharply like their modern counterparts like SM3DW.

People want to have fun with a game rather than being frustrated. The whole point of video games is to have fun, it's as simple as that.

Because the developers want their games to appeal to a wide demographic.

And believe it or not, a lot of people play games to have fun and relax.

They don't want the frustrating experience of dying over and over until they mastered a level just to get to an even harder one.
Call them casuals, but they made the industry as big as it is today.

The difficulty back then in games and the difficulty now in games are very different.

Nowadays the difficulty in the popular games come from playing their online multiplayer. If you want a challenge in Call of Duty, Battlefield, Halo or even POKEMON (Yes Pokemon), go online and play against some real people with skills. Your noob ass is gonna get pwned so bad it won't even be funny. Single player is more to get people to feel better after they get their ass beat against real players and to get them used to the controls.

I really agree on that. Save changed everything. It made games easier, but also made harder game more painful.

Lack of time (or skill ?) make it especially boring for me. You don't have time to improve so much, and you don't have time to repeat until you pass. So you repeat again and again the same difficult part, and could even be stuck and start from the same part the next day if you don't pass. And it's not about getting a timing right, which would happen quickly, but have you master some combo or target faster.

Also games I play are more about a story than old games where it was only about finishing the game. I have simply more fun going to the next part than beating the current one.

Back when I was 13 playing DKC on SNES, I'd always laugh at Cranky Kong when he'd bitch about "todays gamers are soft" etc. Now, I have BECOME Cranky Kong. Kids THESE days are soft as hell.

Kids who's first console was NES, we have twitch skills that other generations will never have.

Same for me.

a) no time
b) too many other games to play
c) difficult doesn't always mean fair
d) games back then were short as hell, that's why they were difficult. The same could be said about bad games trying to cover themselves in great graphics. It's a developers trick to hide flaws.

Because PS games aren't long enough to build up difficulty. Lol.

There are just as many hard games.
I play the games I really like on the second playthrough on hard/hardest difficulty.
Try The Last Of Us or Killzone2 on elite, some Vanquish on GodHard, some Bayonetta or some DMC on hardest or mgsrising or how about some god of war :)
Games are still pretty hard today there are just more people overall playing them and some of them just don't want the gameplay challange and more of thee story, so the developers put in the option to lower the difficulty :) aaaand thats why you have trophys. To challange yourself :)