The common complaint echoing in various outlets coming from long-time gamers is that modern video games are getting easier and easier as time goes by, with developers and publishers pandering to the needs of new gamers, who are less experienced and less able to complete tough titles.

But research undertaken by Bruce Phillips, a user research expert working for the Microsoft Game Studios, shows that even with games allegedly easier, there are still plenty of players who do not complete them and get very low Gamerscores for titles because they do not explore them in depth. The problem is that some of the players who do not complete games and get to see very little of what they have to offer because of the difficulty tend to then slag the game off in front of other potential players, reducing sales and overall appreciation.

A chart compiled by Phillips from the stats of more than 14,000 Xbox Live users that Microsoft employs for its surveys shows that the medium Gamerscore completion rate for very popular titles like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Fable II hover just above 40%, with the rate for Madden NFL 09, Gears of War 2, Battlefield: Bad Company and Halo 3 staying just over 30%. In addition, only about 70% of players have made it to the end of Modern Warfare 2 on any difficulty and only those playing Halo 3 going for a similar rate. Less than 30% of those whose data is used have managed to complete Grand Theft Auto IV and World at War has a completion rate of just over 50%.

In a feature for Gamasutra, Phillips suggests that this lack of game completion and the limited amount of content that players get to see is a direct result of a failure of game design and is not related to a certain trend in the gaming population to simply quit playing once the going gets tough. The Microsoft researcher suggests more feedback and more incentives as the best way to keep players interested till the end.