Again, I'd like to mention a fun detail about the linear nature of time.
If you take a bunch of games played by bad players or with bad characters, knowing they're going to die at some point in the game, with an equal % chance on each floor to die, those statistics will look like the early game is more dangerous. Why? Because if you die on D1 you can't die in zot. If you die in lair you can't die in zot. The fact that you had a 10% chance to die on each floor means in fact, the game was equally difficult the whole time, yet the statistics will clearly show more early game deaths, because you get a lot more chances to die early game than you do late game.
Boring list of basic math stuff here:
Out of 100 games by this theoretical player, with a 10% chance to die on each floor:
10 games end on d1 (10% of 100 is 10, now there are 90 games left)
9 games end on d2(10% of 90 is 9, now there are 81 games left)
8 games end on d3(73 games left)
7 games end on d4 (66 left)
7 games end on d5 (rounding has to happen eventually, 57 games left
6 games end on d6 (51 games left)
5 games end on d7 (46 remain)
5 games end on d8 (41)
4 games on d9 (37)
4 games on d10 (33)
3 games on l1 (30)
3 games on l2 (27
3 on l3 (24)
2 on l4 (22)
2 on l5 (20)
2 on l6 (18)
2 on l7 (wow, so few deaths here, the game must be easier, right? 16 games left)
2 on l8 (14)
1 game on d11 (13)
1 on d12 (12)
1 on d13 (11)
1 on d14 (10)
1 on d15 (9)
1 in snake1 (8)
1 in snake2(7)
1 in snake 3 (6)
1 in snake 4 (5)
1 in snake 5 (4)
1 in swamp 1 (3)
1 in swamp 2 (2)
1 in swamp 3 (1)
Just for fun lets say the last try beats the odds and wins. Lets give the poor guy a break, huh?
Ok, so lets look at the statistics. out of 100 games, 65 ended before lair. OMG! So early game is harder! But no, of course that's not true, we know we set this up so every single floor is equally hard. But since you have to not die a lot of times to get a chance to die in late game, obviously your deaths are going to be concentrated in early game. Note that this remains true even if we set pre lair death chance at 10%, and post lair death chance at 99%! More characters will die pre lair than post lair, even though post lair is almost impossible to win! Yet 65% of people would die in pre-lair, and only 34% in post lair.
So obviously the fact that more people die in the early game is not in any way a supporting argument for the fact that it's harder. It's actually quite obvious if you think about it. The early game would have to be quite dramatically easier than the late game for more people to die late than early.
Going by that line of thinking, very few people die over the age of 110. Lots and lots and lots of people die under the age of 110. But, a person over age 110 is a lot more likely to die than a younger person (It's actually guaranteed, as people are not immortal). The reason less people die over 110 years old is that they never get the chance! The reason less people die in late game is because they never get the chance!