Is dynamic difficulty a better alternative to auto-pilot controls?

I wrote a mainstream story for Fox & Friends this week on Nintendo’s bold and novel use of Super Guide. Although I think it’s a pretty inventive way to make difficult games more accessible, one of the designers I spoke to for the story made a good counterpoint:

“I don’t think it makes a game any more accessible to a broad market, but rather helps reduce frustration among the existing demographic,” game designer Adrian Crook told FoxNews.com. “Watching a ghosted character is not a terribly fun way to engage with a game, but rather a brute force method to get a player past a problematic area,” Crook said. “And since Super Guide has to be enabled at the start of a level (after you’ve already died eight times), you might end up pretty frustrated by the time it’s enabled, and that could be a lot of dying and waiting before moving past the tough part.”

As Crook sees it, the best way to appease both die-hard and novice gamers is to include smart difficulty, which increases or decreases mid-game depending on the skill of the player. “For truly casual games, I use dynamic difficulty adjustment that kicks in after only two or three failures,” he says, referring to an upcoming Facebook game he’s busy working on.

What do you think works best: Auto-pilot or smart difficulty?

See also: Donkey Kong Country Returns to become third Nintendo game with auto-pilot control