A football game that requires you to describe the position that Jerry Rice played for a power-up is real difficulty. The game requires the player to use skills or knowledge that are either incorrect or have nothing to do with the genre.A game that disguises a joke character as a real one has fake difficulty.

(Unless the game is heavily story-based and unforeseen consequences of actions undertaken with incomplete information are legitimate plot elements, or the game offers some way of mitigating or eliminating those consequences.) A game that offers a Joke Character and is clear about the character's weakness has real difficulty.

The outcome of the game is influenced by decisions that were uninformed at the time and cannot be undone.

In a 2D game with no camera control, hiding important details behind foreground elements or Behind the Black counts as fake difficulty if your character should be able to see them. a later level is much harder if you do badly at an early level, and you're not informed of this ahead of time). Also includes hidden Unstable Equilibrium (e.g. Withholding relevant information such that the player cannot possibly win without a guide, walkthrough or trial and error is fake difficulty. A reasonable game may require the player to use information, clues, or logic to proceed.

Denial of information critical to progress.

Unlocking it by pressing a button until you get the right number is not. Unlocking a door by solving a color puzzle is real difficulty.

The outcome is not reasonably determined by the player's actions.

Making that same difficult jump under an overly complicated control scheme, horrible jumping mechanics, or an abrupt mid-air change of camera angle-and therefore the orientation of your controls-is fake difficulty. Making a difficult jump is a real difficulty.

Bad technical aspects make it difficult.

There are five main kinds of fake difficulty, in addition to The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard, a sub-category of this:

Just cause 2 change difficulty