Titan Extreme is NOT Fun

[Raikki]

Instant death is artificial difficulty. It's a cheap way to make something hard without actually making it hard. Because programming something legitimately hard takes talent.

I completely disagree with this statement. Instant death mechanics are commonplace in even the most critically acclaimed games. They aren't the product of a "lazy" and "talentless" designer. Platformers, in particular, are rife with instant deaths, whether it's getting eaten by the big fish in Super Mario Bros. 3 or touching spikes in a Mega Man game. Both of those series are considered great classics. MMOs have shifted to including more and more action mechanics these days (hence the big issue over latency). You might not like the direction MMOs have taken, and it's fine to say so, but that does not make them "cheap" or lazy.