One thing to throw into here is that "challenge" isn't the same thing for everyone. Which means that for some people the enjoyable challenge in a game is to 100% it where for other people it might just be getting through some particular level.
Challenge is indeed not the same for everyone. Differences in skill/ability allow a gamer to subjectively experience the challenge rating of a game as higher or lower than what it was designed to be.
Playing a game to "100%" it is exactly as challenging as the regular gameplay of the game, but it DOES provide a reason to play. It's a goal, not a challenge.
For example, I thought the first Zeboyd Penny Arcade game was easy enough to complete asleep (no challenge) but I didn't raise the difficulty. I still played it for the goal of maximizing synergy between my classes (further lowering challenge). Because I enjoy that.
It's also worthwhile to remember that games offer interaction and not just gameplay/challenge. There are plenty of games that have a great story or environment or pleasurable experience in general without having a particular challenge for many players.
Gameplay is the purest form of interaction possible, and I'll go as far as to say it's the only one. The rest is just the game engaging the player on an emotional level. Like I said, if not for the gameplay, why not be in a different medium altogether? Becoming emotionally involved is fantastic, but you can do that with any medium. It's not "real" interaction.
Games like the Last of Us, Uncharted and Heavy Rain might be fun for some people...
But to me they look just like the old Laserdisc Video Games, but with better graphics. Oh snap!
As has been said many times, and is said strongly in the video RylandAlmanza linked, challenge and difficulty are not the same thing at all. Conflating them is a serious mistep.
The guys at EC are a bit too smarmy for my taste. (That damn voice filter!)
As for their mentioned core aesthetics, almost every one that's not challenge/difficulty/actual gameplay can be found IN A DIFFERENT MEDIUM.
They claim difficulty and challenge is not the same thing, quoting Kirby's Epic Yarn, a game that is impossible to lose. I can only say that that game HAS NO challenge BECAUSE it has no difficulty. To me the two are joined at the hip. A game with no difficulty has about as much challenge as to be completable by just about anyone willing to press buttons long enough, and I feel gamers should have a bit more self-respect than that. To me, playing and enjoying Kirby's Epic Yarn is
the same fucking thing as talking at the TV while watching Dora the Explorer.
Story in games: It's either something the player invents on his own volition (Dwarf Fortress, Sandbox games), something that's there but not in the way of gameplay (Etrian Odyssey, Cave Story (?), Red Dead Redemption) or something that's extremely prominent in the game (Heavy Rain; aka I WISH I WAS A MOVIE INSTEAD).
I don't count Oblivion/Skyrim under the Sandbox category because the story
a) is bad. I'd almost call it objectively bad. It's just shite, and people don't pick up on that because they have been systematically culturally starved all their life with garbage like the big bang theory and 2 and a half men.
b) has no fucking connection to the gameplay really. You could have replaced Alduin the dragon with Grobnar the Space Emperor, all the swords with space swords
(tm), all the mer and men with eldar and space marines and you'd have had a game that plays just about the same. The game is "story-independant". It's only fantasy because fantasy sells better to the white male gamer demographic. That's not "story in games" in any way I'm willing to respect.
Yes, Planescape Torment had a good story. But when you hear a lot of people saying they "put up with the shitty gameplay" "in order to finish the story", don't you think it would have been better as a book? Or a visual novel? Or an animated movie? Was the greatness of the story amplified in any way by it being in a videogame?
For Cave Story I could say that it was. Sword and Sworcery can claim the same.
There's a lot to be said about the intrinsic value of games and everything connected to them, but I think people should try and evaluate whether we as a society have lowered the standards we have on the entertainment we consume. Also honestly think on what it means to be a videogame, what you expect to get out of it as a consumer that you cannot get elsewhere.
