I just had this idea. But some games while difficult to win are very easy to play.

For instance, the one I am playing now: DOOM. Apart from the long loading time when you first start it up - the game is just push the button and you're off! I may die quickly, but I can restart just as quickly.

That's even easier than something like Grim Dawn - which is still pretty easy. But, in Grim Dawn if you've taken a break for a few days, you might have to spend some time reviewing your stats and items and the map and... DOOM, you just hit the ground running and gunning.

And then there's big RPGs - my greatest love. BUT, if you take a break for a few days on some of the bigger ones, you might be shit out of luck - meaning, you might not get a real gaming session in. you might instead spend an hour reviewing, running around doing redundant things, forgetting where you are and what you were doing... It can be disheartening.

Mass Effect 2 is a big game but very easy to start up and start playing no matter how long you've been gone.

Is the easy/hard to start upa nd play a factor for you when choosing what game to play next?

Big RPGs are still manageable if they have a good quest log. What I really can't play anymore are complex simulators (think Shturmovik or Falcon 4.0) because I keep forgetting the controls faster than I can learn them.
With big 4X games it's really hard to get back to them as soon as you are mid-game with dozens of settlements and units to manage.

So those two are former favourite genres that I now avoid.

Definitely. RPGs are the obvious target for the discussion, especially open world or those of a non-linear nature. And those where the quest log is sparse or cryptic.

Turn-based games that take a long time to finish a map / scenario, I usually end up just starting over again if I decide to give it another go. For example, I think I've started one of the Total War games maybe 5 times (I think I have Medieval or something) but never finished a single play-through. Even on the small maps. I tend to forget the 'grand strategy' I was working on if I haven't gone back to a game in more than a week or so.

Got a good fellow going in Morrowind, but he's been festering on the hard drive for at least four years now. If I went back now I'd have no idea what I was doing before. And that would be after learning again how to play it.

Simpler RTS games I can return to, no problem. Often they are as much about twitch as they are 'strategy', so once the muscle memory is warmed up I can usually dive right back in.

That is actually the reason I stopped playing Witcher 1. I was near the end of the first act and took a small break. The small break extended into long break and long break extended into actually never returning to the game for some reason. If I get back to it, I will most likely start over. I remember most of the things that happened but I feel a lot of the details would be lost if I continued my save game.

I've only recently started playing RPGs, but I realised earlier this year that the better the story, the more likely I am to remember it after a long break, so I use it to judge how good I think an RPG is.

I realise this is very subjective, but to give an example, I started playing Avadon: The Black Fortress and Driftmoon at the same time since I'd heard they were good beginner RPGs. I took a 4 week break from both of them but found that when I went back into Avadon, I could remember every bit of the story so far, whereas I'd forgotten everything that had happened in Driftmoon.

So, especially for RPGs, how memorable I find the story is how easy it will be for me to go back and play after a break.

But as toxicTom said, it helps if they have a really good quest log.