Are older games more challenging than modern titles?

2012-12-17 02:19:03 pm

Meet Stakhanov!

This one I've been considering a lot, and many of my friends indeed agree and think that older games are far, far more challenging and more difficult than the modern day games. Even some of the ultra modern titles and modern ones too seem to have their differences, and wondered if it's just me and my friends who feel this way about gaming, not JUST from a speedrunning perspective, but completely in general.

For example; When I pick up a brand new title, let's take Call of Duty: Black Ops for an example. When I played this on Veteran Difficulty for the achievements and to max out my gamerscore on the game, I went through and completed it in roughly three to four days, with a couple of trouble spots, but most of the game was completely straightforward. Sounds fair. Black Ops I believe was a 2010 release?

Now let's backpedal about three-four years. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Call of Duty: World at War. UGH! I remember the slaving away trying on World at War, with every mistake being punished by instant death, raining grenades and flying by the hem of your pants! Man, that was so difficult and painstaking! But it's still not at all some of my oldest memories.

Super Mario 64. Hell. I'm 19 now, and I had that game when I was about 8 years old, and I STILL haven't got all 120 stars in my life yet. That's how challenging I found that game. I still adore good old Super Mario 64, which is why seeing someone destroy one of my childhood classics in 2 hours or so never ceases to make me smile Cheesy

Backpedalling a little more, Goldeneye on Nintendo 64. The first game I think I ever owned on any console. It took me years to finally figure out how to finish it on 00 Agent. Eventually I cracked it though. I may have to chalk some of it up to experience and the fact I was a simple child at the time of these games, but I know for sure they'd still challenge me as an adult.

Now, I haven't had a whole ton of experience past the SNES, I played many games back there, Rival Turf being one of my favourites, alongside Goldeneye and Super Mario 64, but I do find now that gaming seems to be much more beatable. When I wrecked a boss in the old days it used to be something I jumped in the air and cheered about, but now it's a little more... Meh, what's next sorta feeling. I've seen some of the snippits from previous marathons I've heard a lot about, and those arcade speedruns where there were no health systems, it was just death if two pixels on you and your enemy touched makes it seem as though the old days were much more challenging.

I'm not bashing this, I still vastly enjoy gaming and always will, I just found that to be the case over the years now I look back.

Thread title:

This one I've been considering a lot, and many of my friends indeed agree and think that older games are far, far more challenging and more difficult than the modern day games. Even some of the ultra modern titles and modern ones too seem to have their differences, and wondered if it's just me and my friends who feel this way about gaming, not JUST from a speedrunning perspective, but completely in general.

For example; When I pick up a brand new title, let's take Call of Duty: Black Ops for an example. When I played this on Veteran Difficulty for the achievements and to max out my gamerscore on the game, I went through and completed it in roughly three to four days, with a couple of trouble spots, but most of the game was completely straightforward. Sounds fair. Black Ops I believe was a 2010 release?

Now let's backpedal about three-four years. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and Call of Duty: World at War. UGH! I remember the slaving away trying on World at War, with every mistake being punished by instant death, raining grenades and flying by the hem of your pants! Man, that was so difficult and painstaking! But it's still not at all some of my oldest memories.

Super Mario 64. Hell. I'm 19 now, and I had that game when I was about 8 years old, and I STILL haven't got all 120 stars in my life yet. That's how challenging I found that game. I still adore good old Super Mario 64, which is why seeing someone destroy one of my childhood classics in 2 hours or so never ceases to make me smile :D

Backpedalling a little more, Goldeneye on Nintendo 64. The first game I think I ever owned on any console. It took me years to finally figure out how to finish it on 00 Agent. Eventually I cracked it though. I may have to chalk some of it up to experience and the fact I was a simple child at the time of these games, but I know for sure they'd still challenge me as an adult.

Now, I haven't had a whole ton of experience past the SNES, I played many games back there, Rival Turf being one of my favourites, alongside Goldeneye and Super Mario 64, but I do find now that gaming seems to be much more beatable. When I wrecked a boss in the old days it used to be something I jumped in the air and cheered about, but now it's a little more... Meh, what's next sorta feeling. I've seen some of the snippits from previous marathons I've heard a lot about, and those arcade speedruns where there were no health systems, it was just death if two pixels on you and your enemy touched makes it seem as though the old days were much more challenging.

I'm not bashing this, I still vastly enjoy gaming and always will, I just found that to be the case over the years now I look back.

Judgy

Edit history:

Judgy: 2012-12-17 03:05:05 pm

Judgy: 2012-12-17 02:57:28 pm

2012-12-17 02:54:50 pm

Borderlands 2 Glitch Hunter/ router.

question is were they harder or did your skill increase?

Also things back in the day tended to be a simple concept made difficult (puzzlers, platformers etc) whereas nowadays things are based on much more complex scenarios simplified so that any idiot could do it ... "Press (LT) to perform over the top cinematic knife kill" not saying all games these days are easy but they all fall into the same bin in the end.

take ninja gaiden (xbox or later) used to be hard as hell until with NG2 they made it easier to get more sales and NG3 which.. the less said about the better "Use LT + RT to scale this wall" ..... ¬_¬

Simple Term is "they don't Make Em like they used to" mainly because its sales people think "what will make this appeal to a wider audience .... i know!!!! NERF IT!!!!"

Edit# looking back i pretty much answered the question yes new games are too easy lol

presjpolk

2012-12-17 05:19:27 pm

HELLO!

Just reading the title: Yes.

In the old days, 'beating the game' was an accomplishment. Now, it's something you're expected to be able to do after X hours of gameplay.

MAS8705

2012-12-17 09:40:14 pm

SDA Apprentice -- (3-1)

hard to say in all honesty. Granted that the reason why games were harder back this was because the developers wanted people to suffer while playing. There is a reason why games back in the day was called "Nintendo Hard". Still, I can't deny that games are easier nowadays in comparison to back in the day.

Somehow I can imagine that kids nowdays that spend all their time playing Call of Duty and Halo can't beat Mario bros.

JackintheBox333

2012-12-17 10:30:10 pm

Professional Shaq Fu Speedrunner

Street Fighter X Mega Man definitely stands out as HOLY CRAP NINTENDO HARD. But that game is deliberately retro. Of course there is also games like Dark Souls but games that push the difficulty scale are few all things considered, but they still exist.

ZenicReverie

2012-12-17 10:42:38 pm

Waiting hurts my soul...

A lot of the basis for difficulty in games came from arcades, which were built around the idea of killing you off to start at the beginning in order to get more quarters. As games moved to consoles, there a question appeared, why are we making gamers start at the beginning? Save games and continues increasingly allowed more gamers to reach the end. It becomes more about being able to enjoy the whole game, experiencing the entire game, instead of overcoming the challenge, beating the whole the game.

A lot of difficulty I've seen is more now about maxing scores and achievements rather than actually beating the game. Even then, some games are just too easy to even consider a challenge.

bangerra

2012-12-18 01:50:47 am

Quote from JackintheBox333:

Street Fighter X Mega Man definitely stands out as HOLY CRAP NINTENDO HARD. But that game is deliberately retro. Of course there is also games like Dark Souls but games that push the difficulty scale are few all things considered, but they still exist.

I beat SFxMM in just over 2 hours, completely blind. And there are gods among us that did it way faster. So I don't really see that one as very hard. There's some NES games that were way more hardcore than that.
Also, I own a Commodore 64 and the games on that thing have INSANE difficulties!

Yagamoth

2012-12-18 02:49:05 am

INTJ

Generally I'd say it's a mix of...
- The general "skill level" of people today is higher
- Games back in the days were often not "properly tuned" or "hard for the wrong reasons"
--> Stiff and unintuitive controls
--> "Boss 2" being unreasonably hard while "Boss 3, 4 and 5" were as easy as the first one
--> 'Cheap deaths' were part of the game (--> Memorize, repeat, progress was the norm)
--> To make the lifespan longer of a game, they were intentionally hard
--> The point about "Arcades" mentioned above
- Games nowadays are made to appeal wider audiences
--> Selling more (It's more of a business to make money than for developers to express their passion)
--> More casual gamers want to see the whole thing (and vice versa, developers want everyone to see everything of their game)
--> They are easier to understand (concept- and ingame explanation-wise)

In short: Yes, in general they were more challenging, but not necessarily for good reasons

gammadragon

2012-12-18 03:00:27 am

Might be magic...

Quote from Yagamoth:

- Games nowadays are made to appeal wider audiences

On this note, one thing that I think contributes is the general aging of the gaming population. When I was young I didn't care how many deaths it took me to finish a game, I was hooked until the endgame and loved every minute of it, usually playing the game again three times over.

Now that I have to work during the day I have a very different approach... on the rare occasion that I feel like playing a new game, dying a couple of times is likely to annoy or bore me enough that I go off and do something different (unless it's a really awesome game, then I keep at it Smiley

)

The Soviet Warlord

Edit history:

The Soviet Warlord: 2012-12-18 07:35:19 am

2012-12-18 07:32:01 am

Meet Stakhanov!

I can see Reverie has a good point there, older games, not that Pac-Man had an ending, but starting at the beginning for the ability to get another bit of money does seem pretty logical. I often visit my local arcade, and I have literally every high score on Rambo III, Razing Storm, Terminator and Guitar Hero and I can complete all of them with just one credit now, but someone who hasn't played them would definitely find it quite difficult. Luckily for me, I have pretty excellent reflexes. Tongue

Appealing to a wider audience I wouldn't quite say so actually. I believe they make it easier so that people who've never picked up a controller before can get the hang of it. I know that almost sounds like exactly the same thing, but it ties in with another point about the overall skill level of players. Honestly, I don't think it's higher on a massive scale. I mean, if anyone has ever played with me on a modern shooter title on the multiplayer element, everyone knows that I honestly get some of the baddest teammates ever. I'll give you an example. Imagine five of these guys as my teammates:

Warning, strong language

But what I mean is, what someone mentioned about one button for an epically overdone knife kill is more built for people who've never picked up a controller rather than people who know their way around a console and play often.

I can see Reverie has a good point there, older games, not that Pac-Man had an ending, but starting at the beginning for the ability to get another bit of money does seem pretty logical. I often visit my local arcade, and I have literally every high score on Rambo III, Razing Storm, Terminator and Guitar Hero and I can complete all of them with just one credit now, but someone who hasn't played them would definitely find it quite difficult. Luckily for me, I have pretty excellent reflexes. :P

Appealing to a wider audience I wouldn't quite say so actually. I believe they make it easier so that people who've never picked up a controller before can get the hang of it. I know that almost sounds like exactly the same thing, but it ties in with another point about the overall skill level of players. Honestly, I don't think it's higher on a massive scale. I mean, if anyone has ever played with me on a modern shooter title on the multiplayer element, everyone knows that I honestly get some of the baddest teammates ever. I'll give you an example. Imagine five of these guys as my teammates:

Warning, strong language
[hidden][url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcISt4cQFJE[/url][/hidden]

But what I mean is, what someone mentioned about one button for an epically overdone knife kill is more built for people who've never picked up a controller rather than people who know their way around a console and play often.

General Vagueness

Edit history:

General Vagueness: 2012-12-19 09:19:23 am

2012-12-19 09:10:49 am

Faster than the speed of love

They were to some extent, but to make a real comparison you have to draw a line (or several of them) separating games before from games after, and pretty much any line like that will be arbitrary. Part of it was arcade games and carry-over from arcade games, where once you've beaten the game you're not as likely to feed it quarters any more-- of course a lot of early games didn't properly "end", for that and other reasons, which sometimes led to the difficulty just spiraling up and up until it's on the fringes of what's humanly possible. Tetris, as usual, is a good example: if you were to make a really full version of it, it would keep getting faster forever, and at some point blocks fall in less than the time it takes for a signal to from your eyes to your brain and another signal to go to your hand and move a muscle, and soon after that they're so fast they fall in less than one frame of standard video. Another part of it was as people have said, it was supposed to be an accomplishment-- you might be furious at the game and whoever made it when you're dying for the 80,000th time, but when you beat it, you feel like you got your money's worth. One factor is being able to save your game-- if I had been able to do that with Rygar or the first three Mario games I probably would've beaten them in a summer or winter break, but I couldn't, so it wasn't until I picked them up again when I was older that I actually beat them (and with Rygar I actually used an emulator and some save-states). Another part, and one I'm glad has diminished, is that a lot of the time that difficulty was "fake" difficulty, that came from "cheap" stuff, like a boss basically breaking the rules of the game, or limiting lives or health to a very small amount-- Mario comes to mind here, where 2 hits from anything would kill you in the best case scenario, and then for American SMB 2 it could take a variable number, and then in SMB 3 it was 3 hits, and in SMW it was 4 in the best case scenario. Fractional health is a factor, partly because of technology and partly because of design. Zelda (among other games) was there right along with Mario but you could have a bunch of hearts, and then they added half-hearts (or had them from the beginning?), and then quarter-hearts, and games as a whole moved from hearts or other units to health bars. Regenerating health, and other things that regenerate, are also a factor, more because of design than technology, and I think that concept somewhat unfairly gets a lot of the flack for games being too easy (however you define "too easy")-- a good example is Halo 2 on high difficulties, the enemies make it difficult a lot of the time to take enough time for your shields to come back, assuming they don't kill you in the first hit 8-bit style, and if you do take that time it might not do much good because a lot of the enemies have the same advantage.

ixfd64

2012-12-21 11:10:25 am

.: The one and only ixfd64 :.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NintendoHard

Neohart

2013-03-30 12:17:50 am

Final Fantasy VII Fanatic

Game these days are not only a lot more easy but more focused on graphics and making the game look a lot more pretty, more games these days have difficulty options where older games mostly did not, Still to this day there are quite a lot of older games that I've yet to beat.... You can take almost every game that has come out recently and they only take 4-6 hours. I personally enjoy the older games then the new ones.

DK28

2013-03-30 09:24:51 pm

General Kong - Bullets and Bananas

Yes.

IMO games made now, a lot of the time, substitute true difficulty for game length. "Oh man, that took 40 hours". But was it really hard? Look at Contra, still considered one of the hardest games, but a good player can beat it in less than 15 minutes and still consider the game "hard". Also, newer games, once you know how to beat it/solve the puzzle, become insanely easy and there is almost zero replay value. You put in Ghosts 'n Goblins, you know exactly what's coming, and you still want to snap your controller in half after needing to continue on stage 1...

Thehealbus

2013-04-01 12:23:44 pm

Game developers are scared of making games challenging as they feel that it will have an impact on sales, because they feel that many people would not want to play a challenging game. Just look at bioshock infinite, and how the hardest difficulty is hidden by default. Can't have anyone getting frustrated because they can't beat the hardest difficulty and disliking it.

Heidrage

2013-04-01 02:38:25 pm

Willing to teach you the impossible

Quote from Thehealbus:

Game developers are scared of making games challenging as they feel that it will have an impact on sales, because they feel that many people would not want to play a challenging game. Just look at bioshock infinite, and how the hardest difficulty is hidden by default. Can't have anyone getting frustrated because they can't beat the hardest difficulty and disliking it.

Dark Souls. I bought my copy new for $17 because sales were low due to it being too hard. I think it is the greatest game ever made (yes, better than Super Metroid or anything else you want to gripe about. This is my opinion)

garik16

2013-04-01 03:08:41 pm

I'm not buying this argument wholesale - but it does depend upon the genre. For example while popular shooters or platformers have probably gotten easier on single player, I'm not sure games in other genres - jrpgs, strategy games (maybe starcraft?), etc. - are getting much easier. And hell some popular platformers aren't exactly easy - I wouldn't call getting 120 stars on Mario Galaxy easy - most people cannot complete that due to the purple coin stages having some incredibly hard challenges for example.

Mind you, some of what makes games "less challenging" is due to advances in technology. For instance, I'd bet a lot of people back in the day could never beat SMB1 straight through without warps (or WITH warps). Part of the reason for that was that you couldnt save your progress. Nowadays, with a save system, you can beat it after enough tries. That's "less challenging" but no one would argue is worse.

Altairan

2013-04-01 03:48:03 pm

You are correct, my good sir. Older games produce a challenge that modern ones fail to deliver. Now unless you take into to consideration games like Super Meat Boy and I Want To Be The Guy, the new generation games treat us like new born babies by telling us everything about everything. Take Call of Duty for example. I played the Black Ops 2 campaign (yes shame on me for wasting my time) and it literary seems like the game plays itself by how much it tells us on how to beat the level. Also there is aim assist and way too much health, not including veteran mode. But when you take an oldschool game like Contra.. holy crap. You could fill a room with 21st century kids and they wouldn't be able to beat the game to save their life. So in the end, older games are just simply harder than the ones that Activision, Blizzard, and whatever throw at us today.

Bl00dyBizkitz

2013-04-01 06:52:53 pm

I blame the casual gamer.

dballin

2013-04-01 11:31:32 pm

Balls jerky

Call me casual, but I'm a lazy as fuck gamer. I mainly play games for the story now And with work/school I cant afford to play one game for 20 hour straight anymore. I actually enjoy newer games because they don't take a million hours to beat. :\ Cheap deaths just don't appeal to me like they used to.

presjpolk

2013-04-02 12:57:57 am

HELLO!

It started with Myst. Once people realized there was money in expanding the market for video games, that was it.

Neohart

2013-04-02 03:54:41 am

Final Fantasy VII Fanatic

Quote from Altairan:

You are correct, my good sir. Older games produce a challenge that modern ones fail to deliver. Now unless you take into to consideration games like Super Meat Boy and I Want To Be The Guy, the new generation games treat us like new born babies by telling us everything about everything. Take Call of Duty for example. I played the Black Ops 2 campaign (yes shame on me for wasting my time) and it literary seems like the game plays itself by how much it tells us on how to beat the level. Also there is aim assist and way too much health, not including veteran mode. But when you take an oldschool game like Contra.. holy crap. You could fill a room with 21st century kids and they wouldn't be able to beat the game to save their life. So in the end, older games are just simply harder than the ones that Activision, Blizzard, and whatever throw at us today.

I think this post sums this up perfectly, I was about to use Call of Duty as an example and you beat me to it! Well spoken.

[quote="Altairan"]You are correct, my good sir. Older games produce a challenge that modern ones fail to deliver. Now unless you take into to consideration games like Super Meat Boy and I Want To Be The Guy, the new generation games treat us like new born babies by telling us everything about everything. Take Call of Duty for example. I played the Black Ops 2 campaign (yes shame on me for wasting my time) and it literary seems like the game plays itself by how much it tells us on how to beat the level. Also there is aim assist and way too much health, not including veteran mode. But when you take an oldschool game like Contra.. holy crap. You could fill a room with 21st century kids and they wouldn't be able to beat the game to save their life. So in the end, older games are just simply harder than the ones that Activision, Blizzard, and whatever throw at us today.[/quote]
I think this post sums this up perfectly, I was about to use Call of Duty as an example and you beat me to it! Well spoken.

Dalimyr

2013-04-02 06:07:58 am

Quote from garik16:

I'm not buying this argument wholesale - but it does depend upon the genre. For example while popular shooters or platformers have probably gotten easier on single player, I'm not sure games in other genres - jrpgs, strategy games (maybe starcraft?), etc. - are getting much easier. And hell some popular platformers aren't exactly easy - I wouldn't call getting 120 stars on Mario Galaxy easy - most people cannot complete that due to the purple coin stages having some incredibly hard challenges for example.

I'm not exactly shy to admit that I'm not a Mario fan, but are 120 stars needed to beat the game or are they only needed for 100%? If it's the latter, then to me that's kind of like saying that Final Fantasy VII isn't easier than the older games in the series because Ruby/Emerald Weapon (entirely optional bosses) are tough to beat - they're an extra challenge if you want it, but they're not required to beat the game.

Quote:

Mind you, some of what makes games "less challenging" is due to advances in technology. For instance, I'd bet a lot of people back in the day could never beat SMB1 straight through without warps (or WITH warps). Part of the reason for that was that you couldnt save your progress. Nowadays, with a save system, you can beat it after enough tries. That's "less challenging" but no one would argue is worse.

With or without a method of saving your progress, you could beat something after enough tries, and it's kind of a moot point to make since there were loads of games in the 80s and 90s that used password systems etc to save your progress.
However, advances in technology certainly do make many games a hell of a lot easier nowadays. The easiest example to give is with first person shooters, because of things like headshots being a one-hit kill, auto-regenerating health and aim assist (which really should be something PC gamers can turn off but that's not always the case with half-assed console ports)
I'm not going to just pick on FPS games, though. Assassin's Creed was absolutely ridiculous with how easy it was because of its braindead AI and totally broken counter-attack mechanic - Altair could be surrounded by a dozen guards who all want him dead, but they all keep their distance, are courteous enough to only attack one at a time and a successful counter (which isn't hard to get) would be an instant kill, so all too often Altair would have a dozen dead guards around him without having taken a single hit himself. The tutorial-ish section of the game tries to make a big deal out of finding hiding spots, blending in with the crowd and all that, but it's never needed because of how easy the combat is. In...Brotherhood (I think?) they made things even easier for Ezio by letting him get one counter and then chain a whole string of one-hit kills together, even against enemies you normally couldn't directly counter against (e.g. the brutes with the big battle axes)

When I was a kid, it felt like a real accomplishment to actually be able to beat a game. With some games (like Jungle Strike) even just getting past the first level was an achievement for me. Now, I wouldn't dare consider wasting my money on a brand new game because I simply cannot justify spending £40 on something like Call of Duty when I know that even someone like myself who's pretty rubbish at FPS games would have no trouble at all in completing the campaign on the day of purchase, and I don't really find the campaign enticing enough to return to after beating it once. There might be two or three games a year I'd buy on their release because I know I'm likely to get my money's worth out of them, otherwise I'd just wait for a Steam sale or something to pick up anything else. £5 for 5-10 hours of gameplay? Fair enough. £40? You're having a laugh.

[quote="garik16"]I'm not buying this argument wholesale - but it does depend upon the genre.  For example while popular shooters or platformers have probably gotten easier on single player, I'm not sure games in other genres - jrpgs, strategy games (maybe starcraft?), etc. - are getting much easier.   And hell some popular platformers aren't exactly easy - I wouldn't call getting 120 stars on Mario Galaxy easy - most people cannot complete that due to the purple coin stages having some incredibly hard challenges for example.[/quote]I'm not exactly shy to admit that I'm not a Mario fan, but are 120 stars needed to beat the game or are they only needed for 100%? If it's the latter, then to me that's kind of like saying that Final Fantasy VII isn't easier than the older games in the series because Ruby/Emerald Weapon (entirely optional bosses) are tough to beat - they're an extra challenge if you want it, but they're not required to beat the game.

[quote]Mind you, some of what makes games "less challenging" is due to advances in technology.  For instance, I'd bet a lot of people back in the day could never beat SMB1 straight through without warps (or WITH warps).  Part of the reason for that was that you couldnt save your progress.  Nowadays, with a save system, you can beat it after enough tries.  That's "less challenging" but no one would argue is worse.[/quote]With or without a method of saving your progress, you could beat something after enough tries, and it's kind of a moot point to make since there were loads of games in the 80s and 90s that used password systems etc to save your progress.
However, advances in technology certainly do make many games a hell of a lot easier nowadays. The easiest example to give is with first person shooters, because of things like headshots being a one-hit kill, auto-regenerating health and aim assist (which really should be something PC gamers can turn off but that's not always the case with half-assed console ports)
I'm not going to just pick on FPS games, though. Assassin's Creed was absolutely ridiculous with how easy it was because of its braindead AI and totally broken counter-attack mechanic - Altair could be surrounded by a dozen guards who all want him dead, but they all keep their distance, are courteous enough to only attack one at a time and a successful counter (which isn't hard to get) would be an instant kill, so all too often Altair would have a dozen dead guards around him without having taken a single hit himself. The tutorial-ish section of the game tries to make a big deal out of finding hiding spots, blending in with the crowd and all that, but it's never needed because of how easy the combat is. In...Brotherhood (I think?) they made things even easier for Ezio by letting him get one counter and then chain a whole string of one-hit kills together, even against enemies you normally couldn't directly counter against (e.g. the brutes with the big battle axes)

When I was a kid, it felt like a real accomplishment to actually be able to beat a game. With some games (like Jungle Strike) even just getting past the first level was an achievement for me. Now, I wouldn't dare consider wasting my money on a brand new game because I simply cannot justify spending £40 on something like Call of Duty when I know that even someone like myself who's pretty rubbish at FPS games would have no trouble at all in completing the campaign on the day of purchase, and I don't really find the campaign enticing enough to return to after beating it once. There might be two or three games a year I'd buy on their release because I know I'm likely to get my money's worth out of them, otherwise I'd just wait for a Steam sale or something to pick up anything else. £5 for 5-10 hours of gameplay? Fair enough. £40? You're having a laugh.