What cau$ed the decline?

[Tigranes]

More to the point, sure, being a CRPG fan for large parts of time means being involved with a fairly small group of developers and individuals. I wasn't around in real time to see if there was a real plenitude in the 80s or early 90s, so I might be wrong there, but after that the number of competent RPG makers were always countable on hands.

But it's not just a CRPG decline emblematised and to a large part constituted by the French assassination of Black Isle. RTSes stand as the other big example where it's clearly a pretty complicated genre really not amenable to controllers and suffering from a reputation of poor graphics (deserved or not), around roughly similar times getting a big fat decline. That one doesn't even have a real renaissance in the Kickstarter era to the same extent.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

CRPGs did take a nose dive in the early 2000s, but that was when MMORPGs were literally exploding in popularity. Everquest was released in 1999 and experienced year-by-year player base expansion till its peak around 800,000 players in 2004, when WoW released and became the biggest MMORPG of all time, growing upwards to 10.5+ million subscriptions in the late 2000s. This MMO fad was in turn surpassed by the even larger explosion of MOBA games in the last 5-6 years. Between League of Legends and Dota 2, they've now captured upwards of a 80+ million players market - completely unthinkable in the late 1990s.

The thing is, though, MMOs didn't really impact the single player RPG industry much. Sure, you had MMORPGs becoming more popular in 2000s, but at the same time, there was still a very popular single player RPG genre with lots of titles being released throughout the decade: Troika games, Gothic games, NWN 1 and 2, KOTOR 1 and 2, Jade Empire, Morrowind, Oblivion, Mass Effect, Fallout 3 and many other.

It's fine to talk about games being dumbed down for the masses, but were that the only active force, we'd see dumbed down CRPGs at the top of the sales charts, but we don't. The Mass Effect games only sold about 3-4 million units, on average. Same with Oblivion, and even worse with Witcher and DA. Except for Besthesda's Skyrim and Blizzard's Diablo 3, no CRPG game has managed to break the 5 million units mark for a decade. The decline in CRPGs is thus fundamentally different from the 'decline' of the games industry.

Skyrim was at the top of the charts for a while and it's a dumbed down RPG. What you have to realize is that RPGs are inherently a less dumbed down genre than others (shooters, sports games, RTS), so because of that they will generally sell less than other types of games.

It's also a stretch to call a modern FPS eg Call of Duty a 'dumbed down' version of Doom, Quake, etc.

Not really. Modern shooters are dumbed down in a lot of ways from older shooters. The levels are usually much more linear (comically so in Call of Duty's case), gameplay is often replaced with cutscenes, difficulty is much easier, certain elements (e.g. secret rooms in Dark Forces Jedi Knight games) are missing.

To this end, I'd rather see the decline of CRPGs as the trials and tribulations of a very specific group of developers, rather than the fault of the industry at large. Because when it comes down to it, the decline of CRPGs - in the Codex sense - primarily has to do with the decline/demise of three studios: Interplay, Bioware, and Troika, who were responsible for the late 90s CRPG boom that brought the Codex - along with the bulk of the other 'old school CRPG' sites - into existence, and it's their style of games - rather, an idealized version - that is held up as the holy grail of CRPGs. The Codex, despite its edginess, is still at its core a community of BIS, Bioware, and Troika fans/bitter ex-fans.

It's more than just a few studios. There were a ton of really good games made in late 90s/early 2000s by many studios in addition to the ones you mentioned, e.g. Pyranha Bytes, Ion Storm, Looking Glass Studios, Lucas Arts, Larian, IO Interactive and many others, and then suddenly, it all stopped until the recent "incline". It seems illogical that all of these great studios would suddenly all experience trials and tribulations at the same exact time that weren't caused by larger common forces.

 

[Ninjerk]

Except for Besthesda's Skyrim and Blizzard's Diablo 3, no CRPG game

You don't need to say Bethesda's Skyrim or Blizzard's Diablo 3. We all know who shat those titles out.

"CRPG game"? - "computer role-playing game game"?

Skyrim and Diablo 3 are cRPGs to you?

cRPG game

 

[Mustawd]

It's fine to talk about games being dumbed down for the masses, but were that the only active force, we'd see dumbed down CRPGs at the top of the sales charts, but we don't. The Mass Effect games only sold about 3-4 million units, on average.

That's flawed analysis. You're assuming that each genre is equally popular, which is far from the truth. RPGs, even in a AAA environment, are still a niche product in a sea of FPSs, sports, games, and GTA-like action sandbox games. It's a lot simpler to just look at the most heavily sold/popular games, and ask yourself "Is this decline?"

To this end, I'd rather see the decline of CRPGs as the trials and tribulations of a very specific group of developers, rather than the fault of the industry at large. Because when it comes down to it, the decline of CRPGs - in the Codex sense - primarily has to do with the decline/demise of three studios: Interplay, Bioware, and Troika, who were responsible for the late 90s CRPG boom that brought the Codex - along with the bulk of the other 'old school CRPG' sites - into existence,

If the AAA industry saw value in the incline CRPGs more would be created. Simple as that. I mean just look at the long list of Diablo clones out there. It's typical action RPG. That's what sold. That's what they value.

The easy answer to "Why was there a decline?" is simply that the masses started playing RPGs. The harder answer is why did the decline last until kickstarter if demand, albeit niche, always existed?

 

[belowmecoldhands]

Apologies if this subject has been done to death, but I realize that while it's generally accepted that cRPGs (and, arguably, gaming as a whole) went into a decline starting in the early 2000s, I don't have a very firm understanding of what caused it to happen and what is ultimately driving the recent promise of a turnaround.

Decline in what sense?

What Codex calls decline, the suits call expansion. CRPGs did take a nose dive in the early 2000s, but that was when MMORPGs were literally exploding in popularity. Everquest was released in 1999 and experienced year-by-year player base expansion till its peak around 800,000 players in 2004, when WoW released and became the biggest MMORPG of all time, growing upwards to 10.5+ million subscriptions in the late 2000s. This MMO fad was in turn surpassed by the even larger explosion of MOBA games in the last 5-6 years. Between League of Legends and Dota 2, they've now captured upwards of a 80+ million players market - completely unthinkable in the late 1990s.

At the same time, you had the concurrent expansion of the EA sports franchise, Call of Duty, GTA, and all the mainstream games that Codex loves to hate, each boasting tens of millions of sales each year. It's not though the games industry crashed around this time. No, the games industry exploded during this time. Revenues quadrupled from 1997 to 2008. It was not till the advent of online distribution and free-to-play business models in the late 2000s that retail sales began to fall. But in fact, revenues are still increasing, just not in the same areas:

It's fine to talk about games being dumbed down for the masses, but were that the only active force, we'd see dumbed down CRPGs at the top of the sales charts, but we don't. The Mass Effect games only sold about 3-4 million units, on average. Same with Oblivion, and even worse with Witcher and DA. Except for Besthesda's Skyrim and Blizzard's Diablo 3, no CRPG game has managed to break the 5 million units mark for a decade. The decline in CRPGs is thus fundamentally different from the 'decline' of the games industry. It's also a stretch to call a modern FPS eg Call of Duty a 'dumbed down' version of Doom, Quake, etc.

To this end, I'd rather see the decline of CRPGs as the trials and tribulations of a very specific group of developers, rather than the fault of the industry at large. Because when it comes down to it, the decline of CRPGs - in the Codex sense - primarily has to do with the decline/demise of three studios: Interplay, Bioware, and Troika, who were responsible for the late 90s CRPG boom that brought the Codex - along with the bulk of the other 'old school CRPG' sites - into existence, and it's their style of games - rather, an idealized version - that is held up as the holy grail of CRPGs. The Codex, despite its edginess, is still at its core a community of BIS, Bioware, and Troika fans/bitter ex-fans.

It's not really "dumbed down", it's more "don't like anymore." For example, I like the old text-based conversations, heck, even the ones fromn long ago wher you had to actually enter "Open cabinet". The voice-overs, in my opinion, limit a game and make it cost more. As a player, I feel ess free. However, most gamers prefer it as it's now. Skyrim uses voiceovers, as well as many other features which I don't really like either. For example, I really hate the trend from non-linear random dungeons in Daggerfall to linear dungeons afterward. They even linearized travel. It started out with the ability to levitate and climb and swim in underwater dungeons. I'm not sure about swimming, but levitate and climb were completely gone post-Morrowind. And then there's things like wearbles and equipment. Daggerfall had the greatest diversity of wearables and equipment. The number fell with each successive game. Now, most people do not like these things which is why a game like Skyrim is so well loved and why I like it less.

Games arne't dumber than they used to be, they're just different. They're more accesible and have more (and better) effects, like voiceovers and more polygons and cinematics. But each generation reduces the grip stats have on the game by making them simpler. Each generation cuts away technical things, like item weight or diseases (AND pisons AND traps AND etc) or cryptic skils. Now, I sometimes will agree with t choice, bu it's almost universal tht if something requires me to read a manual or experiment on my own or get frustrated for a time hen ti's removed - all in the name of acessiblity.

What gets me is I don't like some things about older games. There're some things which're too inaccessible for me - believe it or not. And there're thigns which just haven't been touched for too long. Old games are OLD. I like to see new things too. And I don't like grind or to waste time on boring travel. But inevitably the mainstream games just don't do it for me. They're too friendly. They're like a teddy bear. I really hate to get into arguments about these things. I don't like "accessbility" for accessbility's sake.

I'm probably just an old fogey. I played MOO2 in the 90's. Maybe one day some of you younger ones will know what i's like to not like the new games or to not feel like you're in the crowd. I don't wish it on you, but some of these things might be unavoidable and just hte result of aging. I don't think it's nostalgia, I think it has more to do with our brain becoming cemented.

 

[Tigranes]

Well, let me ask those who were actually old enough. Did people complain that RPGs were 'too hard' before 2000, before 1990? That they were too complicated? That they had too many wearables? Too much stats? I mean, there's this narrative that Verbs in adventure games started becomign simplified (through transitional things like Full Throttle) because of complaints back in the day, though I don't know much about the adventure genre to say how accurate that was.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

Well, let me ask those who were actually old enough. Did people complain that RPGs were 'too hard' before 2000, before 1990? That they were too complicated? That they had too many wearables? Too much stats? I mean, there's this narrative that Verbs in adventure games started becomign simplified (through transitional things like Full Throttle) because of complaints back in the day, though I don't know much about the adventure genre to say how accurate that was.

I'm sure people complaiend about the text-based RPGs. I'd be shocked if theh ydidn't. My first exposure to games was on the atari 2600 or nintendo or sega genesis. Oddly, the one game which strieks me as the most special would be the one I saw at school on an apple pc. I think the name was Cosmic Osmo. I was a 6th or 7th grader. The company which made it went on to make Myst. I startee playing games on the home PC in 94'. From the start my expereiences were with 3d military simulation games. I evolved to play adventure games. I played like Hugo's House of Horror and Myst and Cyberia and o thers. Sometime later I played The ADventjures of Maddog Williams and loved hte text-based scheme. I was used to the mouse by then, but still loved it.

And you know some people avoid hating RPGs by playing adventure games. I also think game makers renamed RPGs action-adventure or adventure so they could change them and not be attacked. I have an ongoing disagreement with many on this board, but I think adventure games have al ot in common with RPGs. Whether or not I'm right, I think adventure games are lite-RPGs. To me, they're less tight around hte collar, more concerned with jumping around freely and unearthing wondrous things.

Anyway, I was not a child o the 80's, so I enver really GOT into text-based games. I have played some MMORPG muds. I used to play them a lot, circa 2004-2009. I noticed their systems were more diverse than graphical MMORPGs. They got lots of skills and stats and hidden things and even sandbox features. Players were building homes in MUDs in the 80's and 90's. You didn't see players building homes in grpahical MMORPGs until around the time of UO circa 1998. And yet UO, in many ways, was well ahead of its time in this regard. Most graphical MMORPGs didn't allow you to have a home until years later.

Some may disagree with me but I think text-based games can do some gameplay things easier than graphical or 3d. 3d adds a whole dimension (on top of 2d) to the game and makes it that much more complicated to add anything to it. To this extent, MUDS get away with things which otherwise would be very expensive and time consuming to make.

 

[tuluse]

Well, let me ask those who were actually old enough. Did people complain that RPGs were 'too hard' before 2000, before 1990? That they were too complicated? That they had too many wearables? Too much stats? I mean, there's this narrative that Verbs in adventure games started becomign simplified (through transitional things like Full Throttle) because of complaints back in the day, though I don't know much about the adventure genre to say how accurate that was.

Yes this was true. I mean not directly, but RPGs had the stigma of being for nerds because they were too number crunch intensive. While something like Doom you could just fire up and play without having to read a manual to understand the game.

 

[Keldryn]

Well, let me ask those who were actually old enough. Did people complain that RPGs were 'too hard' before 2000, before 1990? That they were too complicated? That they had too many wearables? Too much stats? I mean, there's this narrative that Verbs in adventure games started becomign simplified (through transitional things like Full Throttle) because of complaints back in the day, though I don't know much about the adventure genre to say how accurate that was.

I remember some people not liking RPGs because they were too complicated to play or too hard to get into, but the most frequent complaint that I remember was that they were simply boring.

We didn't have the Internet back then, and most of us weren't on bulletin boards either, so it's mostly just going to be anecdotal.

Some RPGs were considered more difficult, like Wizardry, and some players stuck with more accessible games like Might & Magic. But mostly, you were either into RPGs or you weren't. Whoever owned the computer generally liked RPGs, while the friends and family members used it to play other types of games.

That was my experience in the 80s and early 90s, anyway. I played most RPGs that I could get my hands on. My sister played Ultima, Quest for Glory, and Might & Magic.

 

[Apexeon]

Well, let me ask those who were actually old enough. Did people complain that RPGs were 'too hard' before 2000, before 1990? That they were too complicated? That they had too many wearables? Too much stats? I mean, there's this narrative that Verbs in adventure games started becomign simplified (through transitional things like Full Throttle) because of complaints back in the day, though I don't know much about the adventure genre to say how accurate that was.

Yes this was true. I mean not directly, but RPGs had the stigma of being for nerds because they were too number crunch intensive. While something like Doom you could just fire up and play without having to read a manual to understand the game.

So about 1% of the population is nerds and the nerds made crpg games back in the late 80's for the 1 % that can read a manual.

We are a minority group .

 

[Mustawd]

I'm probably just an old fogey. I played MOO2 in the 90's. Maybe one day some of you younger ones will know what i's like to not like the new games or to not feel like you're in the crowd. I don't wish it on you, but some of these things might be unavoidable and just hte result of aging.

Maybe you're right. Getting in my 30s and I can start seeing it other parts of my life for sure. At that's relatively young nowadays, so yeah...can totally see your point on that.

I don't think it's nostalgia, I think it has more to do with our brain becoming cemented.

Hmm. Perhaps. Sometimes nostalgia does prevent us from seeing the flaws. Or at least remembering them.

I can count countless times where I go back and revisit old games, movies, tv shows, music...and think, "How did ever think this crap was good?"

 

[ZagorTeNej]

It's also a stretch to call a modern FPS eg Call of Duty a 'dumbed down' version of Doom, Quake, etc.

On the contrary, it would be a stretch not to call them tremendously dumbed downed piece of shit version of older (far superior) FPSes. Slow gameplay, regenerating health, nonexistant level design (corridor-cutscene-corridor-cutscene), generic weapons and enemies, zero resource management, QTEs etc. etc. often more thought went into design of one single level in old FPSes than an entire Call of Duty "campaign", stop talking out of your ass.

To this end, I'd rather see the decline of CRPGs as the trials and tribulations of a very specific group of developers, rather than the fault of the industry at large. Because when it comes down to it, the decline of CRPGs - in the Codex sense - primarily has to do with the decline/demise of three studios: Interplay, Bioware, and Troika, who were responsible for the late 90s CRPG boom that brought the Codex - along with the bulk of the other 'old school CRPG' sites - into existence, and it's their style of games - rather, an idealized version - that is held up as the holy grail of CRPGs. The Codex, despite its edginess, is still at its core a community of BIS, Bioware, and Troika fans/bitter ex-fans.

Yeah, but it can be argued that those studios (among many other mid-tier ones) were simply the casualties of the direction the game industry was taking. If you replaced an entire food industry with McDonalds (and less successful copycats), it would still be a tremendous decline in food quality overall despite the fact that retarded masses love McDonalds. Appealing to the lowest common denominator will nearly always result in an objective decrease of quality, just the way it is.

 

[:Flash:]

Well, let me ask those who were actually old enough. Did people complain that RPGs were 'too hard' before 2000, before 1990? That they were too complicated? That they had too many wearables? Too much stats? I mean, there's this narrative that Verbs in adventure games started becomign simplified (through transitional things like Full Throttle) because of complaints back in the day, though I don't know much about the adventure genre to say how accurate that was.

I don't know about people, but it was certainly true for gaming magazines.
RPGs were the only kind of game where they always warned that they were hard to get into. Even if they thought a game was good, they'd caution it by saying it's only for people who are fans of the genre. It's onle of the reasons I never played an RPG during the first years I owned a PC, and it was the same for my friends. Thus, I guess, the CRPG market stayed about the same size, while the rest of the computer gaming market grew by leaps and bounds. The only exception I can remember (games they recommended without limiting the target group to CRPG fans) were Diablo and Baldur's Gate.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I don't know about people, but it was certainly true for gaming magazines.
RPGs were the only kind of game where they always warned that they were hard to get into. Even if they thought a game was good, they'd caution it by saying it's only for people who are fans of the genre. It's onle of the reasons I never played an RPG during the first years I owned a PC, and it was the same for my friends. Thus, I guess, the CRPG market stayed about the same size, while the rest of the computer gaming market grew by leaps and bounds. The only exception I can remember (games they recommended without limiting the target group to CRPG fans) were Diablo and Baldur's Gate.

Well the RPG is one of the few genres that are adopted into PC gaming and are already developed as a genre at this point, outside of PC gaming. Hence the more complex learning curve than that of some game that was designed from the ground up to be played on that platform. Once the adherence to their tradition had been completely shaken off we got the likes of Skyrim and Dragon Age II, Inquisition, for which the opinions (at least here) vary on whether or not they belong to the RPG genre. Personally I wouldn't call either one an RPG.

 

[Sykar]

What the fuck?

No has ever meant a decline in sales or revenue, it's always been a decline of quality and availability of certain niches.

 

[Divine]

Apologies if this subject has been done to death, but I realize that while it's generally accepted that cRPGs (and, arguably, gaming as a whole) went into a decline starting in the early 2000s....

what defines decline?

there is no verification to this "hypothesis", in fact the facts factual disprove this mere assumption:
economically there was no decline, market shares and audience for rpgs grew constantly in relation to hardware density (global...).
in terms of content rpgs grew as investments due to bigger audience.
in terms of quantity more releases post than pre 2k.

in terms of quality rpgs... what defines quality? (rethorical question, because its almost never the what (event not in academic qualifications), but the who...)


sidekick:
consolization (MMOs also) provoked a de-niche-ing push for rpgs in public acceptance, rpgs are no longer nerds-only.

more audience, more market, more diversity (positions completely changeable ie: more diversity, more audience, more market)...

 

[Xenich]

sidekick:
consolization (MMOs also) provoked a de-niche-ing push for rpgs in public acceptance, rpgs are no longer nerds-only.

more audience, more market, more diversity (positions completely changeable ie: more diversity, more audience, more market)...

Are you seriously trying to make the argument that mainstream has resulted in incline?

Let me guess, you think New Kids on The Block and Britney Spears are great musicians?

The reason for "decline" is the very thing you argue as the means of their success in the mainstream market. The "de-niche-ing" process stripped out all of the elements of play to which those "nerds" (your words, and very telling of your position) enjoyed.

You see, I am one of those "nerds" you speak of. I am one of those types who enjoyed playing technical PnP games, in arguing for hours over terminal velocity and the physics of casting a lightning bolt underwater. You see, us "nerds" enjoyed the technical and detailed aspects of play. It was us nerds who created those PnP and cRPGs you speak of. When we played them, we were laughed at, teased, called... "nerds", low life's, etc... because all the cool mainstream crowds didn't even know how to turn on a computer. Now that it is cool all of a sudden to be as you call it a "nerd", all of these people gather up like sheep to play our games, watch our movies, etc...

But there is a problem...

You see, they don't like those things. They never liked our games. They never liked our movies. They didn't all of a sudden become intelligent and they certainly didn't decide to just pick up and read the all the literature we did to catch up. So how are they playing and liking all these games now? Well... because all they did was take the dumbed down arcade like games designed for the low attention spans and packaged it under the guise of being a cRPG, one of those "nerd" games because... you know... it is so cool to be a nerd these days, like um... those cool guys on The Big Bang Theory. I mean, look how smart they are and they play real RPG games like AoC, WoW, and TOR!!! They have to be really nerdy games you know, because... "nerds" like them.


That is your decline. It was the mainstream ripping off the genre and raping it to sell to a bunch of low IQ fad sheep. Sure, there are more of them, but don't be confused with thinking that quantity makes up for quality.

 

[Tehdagah]

Good job for posting what amounts to intro, in most other FPS the corresponding part would have been an FMV or in-engine cutscene, if at all present.
It's not really supposed to have gameplay. It's supposed to set the scene up for the gameplay.
The reason why intro in HL was employing the normal gameplay mechanics was seamlessness.
Agreed that HL intro is a bit drawn out, but I suppose it was the way to get the player into the mood and it worked.

Good job for posting a skippable intro (which is 1:16 minutes in length, compared to the 14 minutes unskippable introduction of Half-Life) and proving I'm right.

Yeah, how awful that HL helped popularize a less abstract kind of FPS (along with SiN, System Shock and a few others).

Extreme decline. I like videogames being videogamey.

AI, both in terms of quality and diversity - it was one of the only two really good FPS AIs back then, maybe less smart and environmentally aware than that of Unreal, but compensating with more diversity (different behavior and using different senses to keep track of the surroundings) and better teamwork.

"Realistic" AI is decline, this shit never works as intended. The enemies never really act like humans and can suddenly adopt a "dummy" or a "warrior with sixth sense" instance. I rather have enemies with real patterns.

gunplay and the rest of gameplay mechanics - HL gunplay and hit mechanics was unrivaled by anything released in 1998 or before. The only comparable game was System Shock (at least I loved the recoil modelling in it), but its age and technical limitations worked against it. The rest couldn't really compete with HL's excellence across the board even if they did a thing or two extremely right (like Sin's damage skins and ability to shoot weapons out of hands).

Goldeneye did hit mechanics first. Even MDK (headshots) did it first.

interactivity - being able to break, push or otherwise use stuff, decals, etc.

And this interactivity was used to create unimaginative box puzzles.

telling story without even a single cutscene - never taking the player out of their avatar in terms of perspective and direct control was pretty much *the* HL's shtick - even during otherwise noninteractive intro and outro you could look and move around as you would during normal gameplay (less so during the outro), the only moment player wasn't in control was when they were dragged half conscious after their capture.

Half-Life's story sucks because good characters are completely absent. Really, wtf is Half-Life's "story"? Gordon Freeman is a physics scientist who inexplicably can kill hundreds of aliens. Oh, have some one-dimensional scientists and security guards too.



The rest (cool aliens, scares, etc) is subjective.

Yeah, HL popularized immersive shooters, but "immersive shooter" back then simply meant a continuous, unbroken experience trying to make some sort of sense beyond just abstract vidyagame logic - something we could still use more of, even almost two decades after HL's release (HL2 was regressive in that regard with some rather glaring gamey shit here and there).

1) Unbroken experience? Except when a cut-scene was integrated into the gameplay, instead of letting the player skip ahead. Because immersion.

2) HL failed to make sense. Gordon Freeman is an one-man army; you can carry a fuckton of weapons at the same time; medicine magically heal wounds. All of this is abstract videogame logic. Also, we should have less immershun and more videogame logic.

It wasn't cinematic shit, especially in the modern sense. It was quite the opposite - you were in control all the time rather than during fragmented, incoherent bits between cinematics.

Being able to "move and look" during a cut-scene isn't gameplay. Does it challenge the player in any way (reflex, logic, whatever)? No.

 

[tuluse]

gunplay and the rest of gameplay mechanics - HL gunplay and hit mechanics was unrivaled by anything released in 1998 or before. The only comparable game was System Shock (at least I loved the recoil modelling in it), but its age and technical limitations worked against it. The rest couldn't really compete with HL's excellence across the board even if they did a thing or two extremely right (like Sin's damage skins and ability to shoot weapons out of hands).

Goldeneye did hit mechanics first. Even MDK (headshots) did it first.

Didn't Quake have headshots? Of course 2d shooters had different hitboxes for ages.

 

[Apexeon]

gunplay and the rest of gameplay mechanics - HL gunplay and hit mechanics was unrivaled by anything released in 1998 or before. The only comparable game was System Shock (at least I loved the recoil modelling in it), but its age and technical limitations worked against it. The rest couldn't really compete with HL's excellence across the board even if they did a thing or two extremely right (like Sin's damage skins and ability to shoot weapons out of hands).

Goldeneye did hit mechanics first. Even MDK (headshots) did it first.

Didn't Quake have headshots? Of course 2d shooters had different hitboxes for ages.

No it did not. I played it back when I was young.

 

[Xathrodox86]

Well partly because retards like this exist. From a negative Dota 2 review on Steam:

"this game is awful i have no idea why i play it"

Checking his time played on Dota 2: 3,474.5 hrs on record

Holy sweet mother of fucking christ, you play a game you think is awful for NEARLY 3500 hours, you irredeemably retarded dumbass? How the hell do you even manage autonomous body functions? Shouldn't you even lack intelligence to inhale?

I used to run a game I've hated for over a year and play it for another half. It happens.

Which game?

Dark Heresy. The first one.

 

[deranged]

Capitalism caused the decline. Or to be more accurate the fundamental contradiction that is inherent in all capitalist systems, aka suffocating human creativity in favor of global market conformity while reducing its ability to evolve the relationship between base and superstructure. This in turn causes "the forces of production to come into conflict with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto" (marx), causing a social revolution (sic) or, in the case of computer gaming, the evolution of kickstarter projects that can be seen as an alternate form of self-organized anarcho-collectives, in a very limited sense.

As holywood continues to spew copypasta shit for more revenue, so will the computer gaming industry that has bloomed over the last 10-15 years. The more capital invested the more crap will be produced. It's in the system.

 

[Siveon]

So what you're saying is, communism will pave the way for incline.

:russia:

 

[deranged]

Communism is a final, ideal stage, where everyone 'lives happily ever after'. Judging from the stalin photo you posted, you probably meant leninist socialism, which historically failed phantasmagorically, because in the end it simply reproduced the same worker-production relationships inherent in a capitalist system. This is proven by contemporary marxist theorists and history itself. There is no way for humanity to reach communism, except maybe as a result of an alien invasion or a nuclear holocaust as Posadas has theorized.

In the meantime I feel lucky that I can enjoy games without a big budget, as, for me, gameplay is irrelevant to production values. Alas I cannot say the same about movies. I struggle to enjoy indie films.

 

[valcik]

So what's the consensus? Are we safe to say that Lenin is responsible for decline? If so, someone should travel to Moscow and burn his shrivelled moldy mummy corpse!