There's the key: Gamers have been complaining, not normal people. When I used to be a gamer (meaning I didn't have anything else to do with my life than get better at games), I could literally spend hundreds of hours mastering a single game. When you're at that level, games seem easy. Now, I casually will pick up a game once every three months or so and play, and for some games unless it's the easiest difficulty level, I get my ass kicked. Online (vs. "gamers")? Forget it. I totally get the "difficulty inflation" that's happening.

I'm finding that games seem more like work than they used to. Hard isn't the right word; grinding, is more like it.