Do the majority of gamers even play on hard difficulty levels?

I've noticed that on  gaming message boards  a lot of people seem to play on hard difficulty levels and are actually good at it. But the people I know in person only really ever try normal or easy mode and seem to be content with it. I only play on hard difficulties once in a blue moon, but hardly ever at all. I am not that great of a gamer, but I want to try Ninja Gaiden Sigma out, but I've heard horror stories on how hard that game is. Not to mention it was TONED DOWN in difficulty compared to Ninja Gaiden Black. On God of War 1 I am having trouble enough on hard mode (NOT god mode). I will not even ATTEMPT a run on God Mode when hard mode for me is challenging enough.
 
What about anyone here? Anyone here know anyone that never plays on hard difficulties on any video game? Or yourself for that matter? 
 
I do know that some people on gaming message boards ramp the difficulty up on multiple playthroughs but I am not talking about that, I just want to know if there is anyone that doesn't even care to try hard difficulties, or if they do they stop playing and play on an easier setting ASAP. Peace.

I do regularly play the Hard difficulties in games, just to see if I can handle them. A lot of my friends don't though, due to the fact they're not even interested in the single player. Typically they intend to just pay for Xbox LIVE and use it exclusively.

Why are all of your threads asking a question that should be obvious to everyone? Of course the majority of gamers don't play on the hardest difficulty, especially not on their first time through a game. If you really wanted results, too, you'd have made this a poll.
 
I usually only play on Normal because I want to play the game how the developers intended it and that's usually the difficulty setting accompanying that sentiment.

only for achievements really. I play on normal because that is usually what is best for me

I know a few folks that will only play on the hardest difficulties. They're fuckin' insane, though. Me, I only play on normal. Otherwise, I'd be having to devote a good half of my paychecks to controller replacement...

I almost always play on the hardest difficulty

I play on whatever difficultly the developer intended.

Really depends...
 
But mostly if i am looking for a challenge i play multiplayer.
Some single player game I played on higher difficulties cause i enjoyed em so much or cause i felt like it was kind of part of the experience. Mainly actiony stuff like devil may cry and so.
 
But a lot of RPGs or very story driven single player games i'll just play on normal or even easy.
Mass effect for example for me is just something i'll play through on normal or even easy. For me that making it harder adds nothign to the experience.. mainly even detracts from it i feel.
And there are many more.

Hard has become default for me now, I can't seem to enjoy playing on Normal anymore, I need to have some threat of failure or dying.

I usually start on the hardest available.  I guess I kinda started doing it for achievement reasons, but  I kinda like doing it that way...I guess at some point after playing various games for years, and playing on hard all the time, normal settings got too easy in most games.  That being said, I have no problems with turning the difficulty down if the hardest setting is annoying me too much(I just recently took Alice off of Nightmare down to Hard).  What really annoys me is games that have one or two difficulty levels that you can't play until you beat the game...especially when it's a game I have no interest in trying to play a second time.

I do hard difficulty more often than not.

Rarely in games with linear progression and stories. Bayonetta and Tales of Vesperia come to mind, playing on harder difficulties felt or were made meaningful in ways other than achievements.

With arena shooters, fighting- and strategy games I crank up the AI when I feel comfortable.

Usually if I like a game enough to play it a second time through I'll put it on the hardest difficulty.  But for the most part just normally and depending on the game I'll sometimes start off on the hardest available. 

How much I like a game determines the difficulty I'll play it on. Halo I always play on Legendary, and I'm working on insanity run throughs of the Mass Effects, but I only played Black Ops on Recruit just to get it over with. I also often switch to easy difficulty for second playthroughs, if they're primarily a story based game, like Dragon Age. 
 
EDIT: I find usually the difficulty just above normal is how most games were meant to be played.

The second thing I do after inverting my stick.

Play through on the hardest difficulty every time, makes the game last longer the first time. On later playthroughs i relax and play on easier settings.

I always start on normal, and only if I really enjoy a game do I go back and play it on hard. There is usually too steady a stream of games to do that.

I play games to have fun and relax, and hard AI usually just seems cheap, thus terribly frustrating.

I always start on normal. Normal all thing considered should be the way the developers intendant the game to played at. Hard should only be there for the extra challenging.

Depends on the game. Some developers have a skewed sense of what "Normal" and "Hard" actually are.

medium for me, sometimes easy if I can't be bothered. 
 
rarely hard unless I adore the game enough to get brilliant at it.

The only games I tend to play on Hard are First Person Shooters. Even then that's only because I've played so much Doom and Duke Nukem that I could probably sleepwalk through the Shores of Hell on Nightmare.  
 
Games are a lot less about the challenge for me and much more about the experience. Kinda sad to say but I think I lost my hardgamer edge. I'd blame Fable for showing me that games don't need to be a challenge to be a worthwhile investment.

@Lights_Up_The_Shaft said:

I play on whatever difficultly the developer intended.

It depends on the game. A lot of the time difficulty levels in games aren't implemented intelligently, and result in playing in ways that are "gamey" rather than in ways flow with the way the game is meant to be played. I like to play most shooters and some action games on the standard "hard" setting, but a lot of action RPG's end up feeling rather broken when I try to bump it up. I don't like to take the game to anything past the standard hard setting, however; anything higher than the standard three tiers ends up not being that fun for me.

I like the level just above normal, unless I hear normal is intended. That does not at all mean the hardest level, usually there is something imbetween. 2nd playthrough I'll then step up for the challenge and keeping my interest. Once in a while i hear normal is best.

If hard mode meant better AI then I'd play the shit out of it, but all hard mode really is, is time consuming.

I sometimes play hard, depending on the game. Achievements can help to add incentive.

If hard mode meant better AI then I'd play the shit out of it, but all hard mode really is, is time consuming.

I play on hard when there's a trophy or achievement for it, which is at times a bad call, as it can make some games downright unpleasant (looking at you here, Infamous). If there's no achievement, clever people sat down and decided what difficulty should be the standard, so I go for that. 
 
Then again, I don't play for competition or bragging rights (casual achievement hunting notwithstanding), I play for the experience, so I don't care about taxing my gaming skills in the slightest. People with more free time and less self esteem may want to do things differently, I guess.

I always play on normal. The only reason I've played all the games I've had on their respective higher difficulties was because of achievements.

I play on hard when there's a trophy or achievement for it, which is at times a bad call, as it can make some games downright unpleasant (looking at you here, Infamous). If there's no achievement, clever people sat down and decided what difficulty should be the standard, so I go for that.  Then again, I don't play for competition or bragging rights (casual achievement hunting notwithstanding), I play for the experience, so I don't care about taxing my gaming skills in the slightest. People with more free time and less self esteem may want to do things differently, I guess.

Hard.

Because I come from the era when that was the only mode.

@NoelVeiga said:

I play on hard when there's a trophy or achievement for it, which is at times a bad call, as it can make some games downright unpleasant (looking at you here, Infamous). If there's no achievement, clever people sat down and decided what difficulty should be the standard, so I go for that.  Then again, I don't play for competition or bragging rights (casual achievement hunting notwithstanding), I play for the experience, so I don't care about taxing my gaming skills in the slightest. People with more free time and less self esteem may want to do things differently, I guess.

Totally agree. I don't really understand the need and what one feels out of being completely great at a game and getting every achievement. Different strokes for different folks I guess

I usually start on hard but if it's a game I'm not sure about I will start on medium.

I think its a sign of the recent changes in games that I never used to, but now I do. First and foremost I'm an online gamer and trophies and achievements mean nothing to me. That said, I really enjoy story orientated games and most recently (last 2 years) I've basically discovered large scale RPG's... basically Fallout. 
 
After playing games like that, plus Oblivion, Mass Effect and countless MMO's, I've become quite addicted to this survival aspect of games. Getting your guy pimped out with sweet gear or becoming ridiculously good at a game. I find a lot of satisfaction in using real SKILL in a game, something missing from genres such as shooters. Playing single player games on hard difficultys has become my main past time now tbh. Online shooters are secondary to that now.

its the only way to make games like CoD or Crysis to have any sort of challenge.

  
never on the first playthrough, unless the reason i'm playing the game is for the gameplay, but i'm usually interested in the story so thats the most important thing 
 
second playthrough i'll push up the difficulty, unless i just want to piss around in which case i'll take it even easier and switch to easy and feel like a king 
 
there are too many games to go back and play a second playthrough but if i do i'd probably play it on hard just for the change 
  
i guess it depends on the game, if there are solid mechanics in the game then i don't mind upping the difficulty whether thats smarter AI, less health or more enemies, but if the basic mechanics aren't strong enough to let you play on hard without hating life then i'll play it until it annoys me

Don't know about the majority but I at least do. I don't know why but it somehow feels like games have gotten a lot easier so what I now know as hard difficulty would've been Medium back in the day

Only for achievements and only if I feel like I can play on the hardest difficulty without too much frustration. The only series that I can really enjoy playing on the highest difficulty is Halo. Everything else just feels like it is really cheap.

I almost always play it on normal and the only times I go harder are when I want to replay a game and can get some achievements that way too. 

Most of the time I go with normal, sometimes on a second playthrough I'll go for hard. However lately I have been trying to just finish games. Seeing as I have a huge backlog I have no gone and set some games that I only want to play for the story to lower difficulty settings, just to get the games done. Though it is still my personal quest to one day beat Torchlight on Very Hard Hardcore.

I usually start on hard these days. If theres an option at all, pretty rare these days.

I stick to normal, unless hard makes the enemies smarter not just damage sponges.

I usually go with normal. The only time I played through a game on max difficulty was Mass Effect 2, for the achievement. It made the game a lot more fun, though occasionally also incredibly frustrating. I also played MW2 on Hard for the achievements. But that sucked really hard, I died a lot of stupid deaths.

I usually put it on normal. The last game I had on hard was dead space 2 and that was my second playthrough.

I play harder difficulties sometimes but I do my first run through pretty much all games on normal difficulty.

Normal is where it's at.

Depends on the genre but I mostly play on hard difficulties...I'm not as good at music or shumps so I usually play those on medium....for shooters I almost always start out on the hardest difficulty.

@Lights_Up_The_Shaft said:

I play on whatever difficultly the developer intended.

this

As I get older and look to play something to relax after work, I find myself more often then not putting things on easy. It seems lame, but I really just want to have fun and blow some shit up without too much stress. Another part of it is that I have such a backlog of games that I don't want to get hung up on any one too long. I don't think I'll ever finish even half my games anyway. I don't need anything else getting in the way.

Most of the time I go with normal, sometimes on a second playthrough I'll go for hard. However lately I have been trying to just finish games. Seeing as I have a huge backlog I have no gone and set some games that I only want to play for the story to lower difficulty settings, just to get the games done. Though it is still my personal quest to one day beat Torchlight on Very Hard Hardcore.