Game difficulty and its relation to Money spent

Do ppl play games at higher difficulty to make the most out of the money spent on it? What are your views on this topic. I specifically mean your view when it comes to you and not what other ppl think or should do.

Since I have started buying games, I was wondering if a dollar spent on a game would be worth more if played at a higher difficulty.

BTW just bought Mafia at $1.35 and I am planning to play at higher difficulty than the normal.

I don't think difficulty has anything to do with the money spent on a game, instead, I'd say a game is worth the fun it provides.
Yes, difficulty can be something a person enjoys in a game, along with the dopamine rush it gets (e.g., Dark Souls).
But fun can come from other factors, like a good story (e.g., Deus Ex), enjoyable mechanics (e.g., Patchwork Heroes) o other stuff. I personally enjoy playing some games on higher difficulties since it makes the game more fun for me, and current games tend (in general) to be easier than older games.

I wouldn't never play the game on higher difficulties if it wasn't to make the game more fun.

Playing a game on a higher difficulty may artificially increase the game time, but if it makes the game less fun or more frustrating, it's not worth it.

I usually pay little attention to the length of the game. I just want to experience the story and gameplay, and move on. If the game manages to satisfy me while it lasts, it's all good. It may overstay its welcome, too; say, Persona 5 is far too long for its own good.
To me, "getting my money's worth" from a game is something from the childhood, when I couldn't pay for the games I wanted. (Not that I pay for all of them now, mind.) Playing longer games also helps; there's really no way I'd beat more than a couple of long RPGs in a single month.

I know that a lot of people play games for the challenge, and seek it out. But a lot of people including myself don't really get any enjoyment out of that. I don't mind challenges in games if it's a game that I really enjoy. Otherwise I just get enjoyment out of good game mechanics and level/world design regardless of difficulty, on top of things like nice visuals and soundtracks. For games that I don't particularly like I'll lower the difficulty because I think high difficulty just sours the experience more, if I'm already frustrated with a game a higher difficulty won't help that.

The only pricey game I've gotten recently was Donkey Kong Bananza, and while it was challenging at times with some of the optional content it was mostly easy. But I didn't feel obligated to go for 100% completion and finish all the post game content and challenges just because I paid so much for it. I'm sure others feel different which is perfectly understandable. I don't hold the philosophy that you need to get your "moneys worth" out of every game you get, there's no good metric for that other than overall enjoyment, which itself is impossible to measure. Which if difficulty gives you enjoyment then that's great.

I did back when I was teenager and I regretted it most of the time. I tried to play stuff like CoD Modern Warfare 2(2009) on the hardest difficulty because I just hated the multiplayer so damn much but that was barely any better. If a game is fine to play on normal and at the very least easy, that's fine for me. My days of getting one or two games a year is long past. There's also emulation now too which makes older games arguably more accessible than ever even more so back when they were new.

I get the idea of higher difficulty bringing more out of a game's design but it can also backfire horribly and expose problems in the game design that were always there. Higher difficulty can risk doing the latter a lot of the time. So what was once issues you can just up now becomes rage inducing and can sour an opinion on a game you really liked or make you loathe a game that you might think was mediocre.

Two examples are this:

I just finished Gears of War 1 Reloaded for example and if I'm playing solo Delta Squad's crappy AI is going to be even more problematic than it already was on normal. So a game I think is a 6 out of 10 might become a 5 or possibly a 4. No way in hell would I ever want Act 5 to last any longer.

DmC is a game I mostly enjoyed but must style mode actually reveals issues I never noticed before. Like the over abundance of flying enemies or how time consuming it is to reach S rank just to damage ONE of them. You sometimes have to kill these enemies in order for Dante to use the grapple on red platforms but when there are no other enemies around to hit to reach S rank so now it's combo, knockback, grapple rinse repeat. Without must style, they are minor roadblocks, on must style they somehow get a massive power boost for being immortal punching bags until you hit S rank.

There are other cases where I can't play on normal like Trepang2 and other games like Halo 3 but they are the exception, not the rule.

I'm pretty much in line with Veriamo on the topic of "getting my money's worth" being something from childhood. As a 40yo+ player, I grew up in a time where we could only bought a few games from our wishlist, and back then, yes, they should better worth the price. Now that games are way more accessible, with digital stores, sales every other week, bundles... the idea has been 'diluted' (for me). It's more a question of whether the game is worthy of my time than my money.

Sounds a little off-topic, since I don't need the games to last longer (I already think many games are way too long for their own good), but I'm curious: are you really sure that playing on higher difficulty has any effect on the global lenght of a playthrough? I mean, if you play any type of game on higher difficulty, and even tough no one's universally good at gaming in general, you can only improve in the end.

I've never increased difficulty to increase the length of a game, I play everything on normal. If I'm really enjoying a game, I might go for some optional stuff and achievements but that's it

I only ever play on harder difficulties if it's a game I've played before, or it's a series I'm familiar with. Most recently I did Doom: The Dark Ages on Ultra-Violence, and I'm planning on playing MGS Delta: Snake Eater at Extreme. I don't see how playing on the highest difficulty would justify the price, it would just make me frustrated.

I don't think selecting a higher difficulty is a great filler to use to extend the runtime or increase the value of a game. It is more of a spice for a player to add or reduce until the "flavour" is just right for them. Stuff like NG+, modifiers, extra modes, challenges/medals are pretty good for squeezing out more value out of the dollar you spent on the game though.

I thought this was going to be a ratio of most difficult game compared to money spent. Anyways difficulty should not matter even if it extends your playtime. Just because a game is shorter doesn't mean it's worse, neither does longer mean better. You play games for fun, even if completion is part of it. Shorter games tend to open up more opportunity for replays and challenge runs rather than long games. Me personally for games with difficulty settings I usually set it to the highest I can handle, I like a good challenge but not to the point I can't make it past the first level.

Like the others, I usually play a game on normal, beat it and then move on to the next.

If I really like the game then I might go for the extra content and/or higher difficulties.
If I REALLY love the game or if it's relatively easy to 100% then I might go for the completionist route.

There's also the replay factor. Let's say even if you don't go for higher difficulties or extra contents, but you can still make most of the money spent by replaying the game on the future since it's yours.