I've played games for 20 years now. While I haven't enjoyed everything the NES and the SNES had to offer, I do admit that both consoles did have their prominent games that still hold up until this day. However, this elitism that dictates that every game back then is superior in any form to those nowadays is ridiculous. Sure, games back then were insanely hard; I too had a hard time going through a few of them. Mainly because I was a kid. But trying to downplay the games from nowadays just because they were unforgiving back then is stupid. They have to accept gaming has evolved, while it still retains the same concept. From the shovelware games to the unforgiving hard ones. Besides, I just want to have fun. A challenge every now and then is more than welcome. But I don't want every game out there to be impossible to complete. What's the point? Where's the fun?

No because we ARE superior

also Don't watch RTU, he's boring as fuck, hell I could make more entertaining videos than that guy.

games today are not easier, they just have different difficulties, so you can decide how hard it is,
there are some super easy games too, but nobody forces you to play them if you want a challenge

I actually agree with Rich 100%. He's not making himself look superior. He's just a 33 year old man who's been gaming all his life, just like how I'm a 29 year old gamer who's been gaming for 25 years. It's not like he gave up gaming 20 years ago and is making observations. He still plays games today and is making these observations based on his own experiences and these kids are further proof of his accusations. I'll go over these arguments one at a time.

Holding gamers' hands

 Do you know who also complained about games holding your hand too much? Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma. He admitted that his very own The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was guilty for doing this and has stressed the need for future Zelda titles to not do this as much. What's funny is Zelda probably does a lot less than other games.

Easy Games

Yes, games today are too easy. Based on my own experiences, games have gotten increasingly easier as the generations have passed. While I feel that the Castlevania games and Ninja Gaiden games on the NES were too difficult, games today tend to be much easier than they should be, especially given how short they are compared to just one generation ago. I think the 16-bit era had a perfect balance of having games that required skill and provided challenge but didn't torture you as much as the NES games.

Meaningful Game Endings

I'll also argue that yes, finishing a game 20-25 years ago did mean something. If you beat a difficult game back then like Contra, chances are you'll probably remember that very day 20 years later. As further proof of this, statistics have shown that a lot of gamers these days don't even finish a lot of games. It's not that they can't. The motivation just isn't there. This was an exuse many publishers have used when explaining why their gave have gotten increasingly shorter over the previous decade.

Gamer Skills

While I don't speak for all gamers today, I will say this. If you can't beat Glass Joe in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, then you do suck at gaming. Punch-Out has some of the most intuitive controls imaginable, meaning that anytime you mess up is your own fault, not the game's fault. When I was 5 or 6 years old, I only lost to Glass Jow once. That was deliberately done because I had beaten him so many times and wanted to see what his sprite animation looked like when he won. I could understand if a firstime player lost to Piston Honda or King Hippo, but not Glass Joe. The truth is, a lot of the more challenging 2D games tested kids' hand and eye coordination a lot more than the modern 3D games. For a lot of these old games, especially Contra or Castlevania, or NInja Gaiden, you had to be good at them in order to win.

Mainstream Games

As for mainstream games, they are made to appeal to the largest number of people possible. This means that gameplay isn't always made for the most dedicated gamer. It's not just gameplay either. The overall look and feel of a lot of these games reflect this. Marketing reflects this. Ever wonder why there are so many dark haired males protagonists with the 5 o'clock shadow? It's what a lot apparently sells.

You also mentioned that you started gaming in 1996. The thing is a lot of those PS1 games and N64 will get scrutinized by both young and older gamers alike. This was at a time when 3D gaming was in it's infancy and older games like Resident Evil and Tomb Raider have aged rather poorly. Still, what Rich is saying and what I'm saying is that kids today are not challenged enough with their games. I think it's a much bigger issue of old vs. new. If a game fails to challenge the player, then that player will lose interest in that game and thsat franchise very quickly. If a game is not compelling enough, then what will keep they player involved? Also, about the last thing you said. Not all the people in the videogame hated the game. Some of them, even the bad ones liked the game and wanted to play more of it.

I'm sorry, but we are superior.

No. I'm tired of younger gamers being inferior.

No, actually they are clearly superior. Today games mostly are "experiences" (wannabe movies), including some Nintendo games.

But we are superior!

Haha, we're all becoming a bunch of Cranky Kongs:

• "You kids today! You don't have any respect for your elders!"
• "We never had movement like this when I was in video games!"
• "All this fun can't be good for you!"
• "I bet they wasted half the memory already, just on this section alone!"
• "They can't keep this level of graphics up for much longer!"
• "We used to be lucky if we got three shades of gray, let alone any real colors!"
• "We used to have to survive with a two frame walk!"
• "Sometimes our sprites used to change size for no apparent reason!"
• "We never had any of this fancy 3-D stuff! Oh no, we had to survive on what we had!"
• "And what little we did have, we were happy with!"
• "Well, I've never seen anything like it!"
• "Enjoy this demo while you can, it can't last much longer!"
• "That's right, 4 shades of gray, in a 2x2 character block, that's all we had..."
• "I can't play this game, the colors are all too rich for my poor old eyes!"
• "Why, even the bananas have more frames and colors than I had in the entire game!"
• "Look!...look at this!...as I rock, my beard swings! Waste of frames in my opinion!"
• "Aye! That was when we had real game play, that was!"
• "And this was developed with the latest state-of-the-art 3D workthingys, was it?"
• "The trouble with you kids, is that you're all too soft!"
• "The old games were far harder when I was a young 'un!"
• "We used to play for hours on a single screen game and think we were lucky, and we were!"
• "You wouldn't last two minutes in a real game!"
• "I could get through D.K.Country with only one life, easy!"
• "I'm talking about when games were games!"
• "3 lives and 3 continues, that's all we had!"
• "Games never looked like this when I was a lad!"
• "And we were much better off in those days as well."
• "Bet you thought this was 64-bit eh, boy?!"
• "I've got more game play in my little finger than you've got in this whole game!"
• "Y'know what they say, all graphics and no game play!"
• "32 meg..? That would be more than 30 games in my day, and they'd be great games, too!"
• "Back in my days, we used to have real game play..."
• "You know what's even worse? When you get to the end, and then have to start again!"
• "You wouldn't know a good game if you were in it!"
• "A single joystick, and a single button is all that's needed to make good game play!"
• "I wouldn't be seen dead in a game like this one!"
• "I say you can't better the graphics, sounds and playability of a Game & Watch!"
• "So you're back again! I knew a punk kid like you couldn't do the job..."
• "That was quick. You didn't leave me enough time to think of any other stupid comments!"
• "I don't know why I'm telling you all this, you didn't listen last time!"
• "You have to do better than that!"
• "You only just left!"
• "Back again?! That was quick!"
• "Came back to the master for more advice, hunh?!"
• "Still got you beat, hunh?!"
• "Yup! Don't make game players like they used to!"
• "Okay, I'll do the level for you!... Naw!.. Only kidding!" (Oh sweet Jesus the irony -.-)
• "I don't know how you dare show your face in here again, after that pitiful performance!"

That's what I've been talking about

I've no interest in watching a ReviewtechUSA video (I think I'm about his age).

But don't take older gamers critisiums of easy gaming personally. Critising some current trends in gaming is an essenial part of being a critiacly aware. It's not an attack on your generation. Many of the devs behind those games are going to be in our age group too and they're the people to blame. There have been a number games I've played recently that have been ruined by an overbaring tutorial systems. And gameplay mechanics that are disigned to remove and risk of death or requirment of skill.

Sometimes a good games don't need to be challanging. Maybe the games just a medium for telling a strong story. If so what purpose does killing the player all the time have. If Bioshock infinate inflicted a more sgnificant plenalty, should you die, it would probably only distract from the exprirance. But sometimes companies miss judge these things. In the past companies often miss judged things in the other direcion and had extreme difficulty spikes or a steep learning curve with little explanation of what to do unless you consulted the manual. This can still happen but it's often excessive hand holding and the removel of any skill requirement that you see.

The two most extreme examples of fucked up tutorials I've played in recent years are Zelda Skyward sward and mario and luigi: dream team. The tutorial systems in those games were like acts of vandalism.

As for game's of 1996 sucking compared to today. That's not totally true. 1996 was a period of transition to 3d gaming and many games of the period are dated. In truth overall it wasn't a great year for gaming but some still stand on their own without any need for notalga. Mario 64, Comand and conqure red alert, civilizaton 2 and some others are all still great games though you can often critizies dated aspecs such as the camara or the controls. There were stonger years both earilier and later but Mario 64 is my personal favorite game of all time.