I don't recall where I read it, but I came across a post by a veteran gamer who was complaining that modern games are nothing like the old ones, that newer games are far too easy.
I've played enough Gog (older) games to begin to understand what he meant. Older games do tend to be much harder, but NOT because they are well-designed.
Challenging is when the AI learns and adapts. Not when something has been deliberately designed with a lame "gotcha!" such as an impossible time limit, or random hidden enemies, or enemy snipers who can see through walls.
I believe that older games have immensely frustrating aspects to them because AI technology was lousy (and still is), and because the relatively-few gamers out there were no-life geek masochists who actually ENJOYED reloading the same scenario for the sixteenth time in a row, to try to beat it......because the games were primitive, and because geeks love doing something over and over and over and over and over.....staring at that same rock, star, virus, no matter how boring and tedious, with yet one more try to figure it out. Most people are not built that way. Fun should be FUN.....variety, excitement and REWARD.
It is not that modern gamers don't want a challenge, they do. It is not that the games are now designed to appeal to "people who don't like video games". People don't like FRUSTRATION and a skyrocketing learning curve.
Frustration does NOT equal fun for most people on Earth. If you do all the right things, but the game says "Nyahhh, nyahhh! You didn't say "ruplestiltskin!" that is going to piss someone off, not make them love the game more.
It's not fun to play over and over and over until you uncover the cheating dirty-trick BS that the designers put into a scenario to make it "challenging".