Can you enjoy a game despite having a low difficulty level?

Sometimes "casual" or low difficulty games are the relaxation you need to unwind from a stressful day :')
/points to Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing

Of course you can, typically i play on normal difficulty, but if game too hard for me to enjoy it i usually set easy difficulty. Its never a shame to play solo game however you want it

yeah. i played games like that faerie solitaire card game or whatever it's called and "braveland" and both were easy but kinda slick and simple. something can be fun without being challenging

I wouldn't be able to play any AAA game from the past 5-7 years or so otherwise. Sometimes a few of them pose some nice challenge (RE7 Madhouse mode), but otherwise they are closer to forced handholding than anything remotely difficult.
Plus I love to play casual games, especially hidden object ones, on the lowest difficulty, because I usually play them for relaxation not to pose a challenge to myself.

I don't really care about difficulty, but seeing dumb shit AI does in strategy games winds me up like nothing else. It's not really about difficulty, not about AI being not-smart and not-challenging, but plain dumb at times.

I thought the title of this thread was "Can you enjoy a game WITHOUT having a low difficulty level?" because that sounded much more puzzling and thought provoking question to pose than this one. :p

To answer this question: Absolutely. Video games are about escaping the difficulties of one's own real life and immersing yourself into a world of unrelated stuff, so if a game lets you just walk around doing whatever you please then that is infinitely more enjoyable than having to struggle in it. I see no enjoyment in having to push and push to pass a horribly difficult section to a point where you are raging and stressing out about beating it - and I've done plenty of that just to get 100% completion on a lot of games. Some people enjoy that push and get a sense of accomplishment out of finally doing it, but I just hate having wasted time. Life is hard and stressful enough, video games don't need to contribute to that.

It's worth to note that I don't play any strategy or dungeon crawler games, where their challenge is their main selling point.

actually I play almost all games on hard or hardest level and even sometimes I'm still bored that game plays itself (that thing I hate)

Its kinda like movies to me. Sometimes I just want an action film with stunts/special effects without really having to engage the brain. Other times, I want something that makes me think so both are fine in my opinion dependant on the situation.

I play to have fun. Sometimes that means being challenged - like Hard Reset challenging my twitch skills, or Fire Emblem challenging my strategic planning, or a racing sim challenging just about everything everything - and other times it means relaxing and just enjoying - like with Life is Strange (one of my favorite games) or Telltale's (RIP) games or Gone Home.

Bump for the last hour. :)

Absolutely. It really depends on the game, and what I'm looking for at the moment. Sometimes a high difficulty can get away of a good story and
sometimes I just feel like breezing through something,
I would rather play an easy game, than a game that's difficult due to poor balance or because it's unfair. I find very little enjoyment in trial and error gameplay. On the other hand, I can really enjoy a well designed difficult game, when I'm in the mood for it.

The giveaway is over, so sorry for those who didn't made it on time again. :(

It's impossible for me to enjoy a game with a high difficulty level, period. I'm that person that always chooses the lowest difficulty available and ignores intentionally difficult games (that is, if we are talking about anything related to reflexes and probability of my character dying; pure brain-teasing is another story, some degree of challenge is welcome here). And I cheat a lot, yeah. Life is fucking hard as it is, I don't need my escapist passtime to be hard as well.

Definitely, I like having a mix of difficulties depending on my mood. The only time I really don't like "easy" games are when they spoon feed you so much the entire time it's basically one big tutorial. It telling you what moves to make, where to go, pick up this, etc. the entire time. I definitely prefer a more chill experience where I can explore or discover the story myself. Some of my favourite games are simple to pick up, especially local co-op where gamers and non-gamers alike can have a blast playing it. I love that.

I much prefer easy games over challenging ones. I like a story without hassle, or just being OP as fuck without efforts.
Of course, challenge isn't a bad thing either, but that's personally not what I look for in gaming.

To me, it depends on my mood. Different kinds of games for different set of moods i am having at that moment. I do not want to destroy my keyboard, mouse, controller due to limited choices of games and the game happened to be hard af to beat on my bad day.

Difficulty is kinda a subjective thing though, isn't it? It's not uncommon for me to find a game that people complain is murderously hard as just... "normal" or games people describe as challenging as just plain easy. I think it kinda depends on what mindset you have when it comes to "difficulty" of a game. I go by the idea that any game can be beaten if you put enough time into it. So a "difficult" game would be one where the time you need to put into it to achieve all the goal it sets before you if high. Of course some games just bloat up that time with useless padding and waiting that brings nothing to the experience (see: every mobile game ever). So while I'm fine with games which are easy merely because they're short (regardless of their level of challenge) if they're completely empty of any challenge ever and are nothing but padding then I'm definitely not ok with them...

...I guess that's a very convoluted way of saying I dislike games that offer zero challenge and are just time wasting. XD

Personally, the main feature I (usually) look for in a videogame is a nice story ; I don't care much about the difficult, as soon as it isn't too much for me to enjoy the game. But you know, I'm nothing but a casual gamer, I'm more like a bookworm, thus I look for the same things in videogames as well as in books.
And now I'll get back to play Goat Simulator :P

Quite frankly, i was expecting more from the hardcore audience. Like, "i have a bigger penis because i can finish Super Meat Boy without even looking at the screen".

I think a good game should have one or more of the following:

• good story that pulls the player in
• challenge- either mental or skill-oriented
• mechanics that are fun to use (Superhot is not particularly hard, but that slowdown is just so good to use, for example)
• graphics / art style / way of storytelling that also pulls the player in - most important in visual novels, walkings sims and in many RPGMaker game as they mostly sell themselves by concept and story.

Many games can work really well without offering an actively challenging difficulty, and they are pretty popular even amongst people who like challenge otherwise (Stardew Valley simply doesn't have a failstate, unless idk, you throw your tools away and someone walls you in :D)

In shooters I like some challenge most of the time, but in same cases, it's just great to be the unstoppable machine of doom. In point and clicks I prefer story, presentation, VO over challenge (also moon logic is not challenging, it's stupid.) Though some games are just a bit off if they are too easy, like iZBOT is a precision platformer which is super easy compared to most in the genre. It was nice to breeze through it, but it could have been just a little bit harder.
I like both, depending on my mood and how well the difficulty is implemented :)

Too easy is no problem. Too hard? F-that! I don't have time for that BS