Decline is gaming officially over

[anvi]

oldies grew up with pure gameplay

You mean like Disco Elysium

That's new?! I mean all the old classics that people grew up playing, Flight Sims, Elite, Doom, Mario, Streetfighter, SimCity, Command & Conquer, Eye of the Beholder, Duke3d, etc... it was the birth of all types of gameplay. So yeah we are gonna be bored when it all turns to total crap.

 

[Hobknobling]

I wouldn't say gaming is " over", but computer/video games reached their creative zenith over two decades ago and it's been a slow and agonizing downward spiral ever since.

Those who lived to see the evolution of the medium had a pretty unique opportunity. Thankfully the preservation efforts are top-notch, benefitting both those who feel nostalgic about those times (I do) and those who are curious about them and wish to try some of the games first hand, although playing them so many years after the fact really doesn't capture the totality of the experience.

Games are now a fully commodified, assimilated industry, not unlike movies or music. The vast, vast majority of output is awful. Some cool games are still being produced, but most of the time they pale in comparison to the classics. There is almost no space for experimentation, so even talented, "independent" developers are forced to stick to established formulas since they have to compete with an infinite number of talentless hacks in storefronts that have done an awful job at curating content.

Old games were cool because you could see that norms had not yet been established, and you could see unique perspectives everywhere - control schemes, the way the player interacted with the world, weird interfaces, etc. Now everything is standardized and sanitized, and that familiarity runs counter to the feeling of wonder and escape that games used to provide.

As for my own personal experience of getting older (I'm 41), whenever I spend time playing games lately I keep thinking that I should be doing other things, like reading, exercising, working or sleeping.

I'm ok with the fact that new games are not made for me. I don't like them and I don't want to like them. There is an almost infinite back catalog of good games to go back to, and I couldn't possibly find the time to play them all.

I don't fully agree with this, but it is close to truth. I would argue that the market is nowhere near as bad as it was between circa 2004-2012 because PC is a viable platform again and indie games have picked up some of the slack. Japanese developers also no longer ignore the platform.

The biggest storefronts are decent on PC and definitely better for the developer than competing for shelf space in some shitty GameStop store. Not to mention some other platforms like iOS or Android which are basically views to some alternative hellscape that would probably have happened on PC too if EA and Activision got their way before Valve. It blows my mind how much money mobile platforms leave on the table because they are too busy trying to take all the control away from the customer. Some very incompetent and misdirected people work on those things and the stores would instantly die outside the cozy walled gardens of the duopoly.

Turn of the millennia was a perfect storm of circumstances: the tech bubble provided massive amounts of funding, bleeding edge games could be made by smaller teams and gameplay trends weren't as calcified as they now are.

AAA is fucking terrible now and the anglosphere is leading the charge. The good games almost always come from Eastern Europe now with some Japanese stuff sprinkled around. Everything that requires more than 10-15 developers and a large publisher is fucking derivative trash and often filled with decisions made by people who have zero respect towards the legacy of the format and probably haven't even played that many games to begin with. The market feels more polarized than ever.

E:

I also think this is a larger trend in tech and Jonathan Blow has a great speech about the topic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSRHeXYDLko

 

[the mole]

I almost paid 30 bucks for a glorified early access game the other day

 

[samuraigaiden]

How about that Radiohead game that they are giving away for free on the Epic games store?

 

[Moonrise]

is gaming officially over

Everything is over. It's the end of the ball, and the liquor's worn off.

 

[samuraigaiden]

is gaming officially over

Everything is over. It's the end of the ball, and the liquor's worn off.

and a stygian silence lurks in wait.

 

[anvi]

When I started gaming this was one of the best and most advanced games:

And within 10 years it was like this:



^ That game blew my mind and made me so excited for the future of gaming. It was already doing open world RPG/FPS hybrid gameplay, with vehicles, characters, minimap, injuries, and objectives and stuff, but it was doing it 32 years ago. You could feel and see the progress games were making, and it continued through the 90s then hit a brick wall in the early 2000s. I don't think most gamers today even know this unless they are oldfags too or had someone try to explain it.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

But the GTA remasters are very good.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Yeah, the

claiming that the classics were super creative and experimental, while at the same time ignoring any and all creative and experimental games of today

bs is one of the most laughable "arguments" in those discussions. When I moved away from console gaming to PC, games considered ahead of the curve were titles like System Shock, Quake or Myth TFL. "Creative and experimental" today is rather obviously associated with some quirky xddd indie titles with zero tech behind them that gained traction through social media and neckbeard "gaming" portals. Modern games that are actually good and worth devoting 100+ hours to are pretty much exclusively honest modern takes on old classics.

 

[samuraigaiden]

I like Tetris. Do you guys like Tetris?

 

[anvi]

1999, a year so awesome for gaming that Grand Theft Auto 2 comes 49th.

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/year/all/all?year_selected=1999

 

[grim1234]

Are we talking about RPGs only or games in general. Because I can point you towards games that are not complete dogshit. No Far Cries or other soulless shit like that, don't worry.

I bet they are tiny indie games with no attention to detail / content.

If you think MGSV, NieR Automata, Dead Space, Portal 1 and 2, Bloodborne, Alan Wake, DOOM Eternal are all indie games with no attention to detail, then yes, your bet is 100% right.

 

[anvi]

None of those are new though, the point is what can you get today or even from 2021? It's a mess of remakes, rehashes, Cyberpunk failures, and 7 year waits. Also most in your list are just iterations of older games.

 

[Ash]

FFS, this is like the 4th or 5th thread we had about this shit topic in the last 2 years...


I think it's difficult to say which era had objectively the better games, when we constantly get obstructered by alot of bullshit that keeps us from looking at it objectively
Bullshit like:
- only considering the "classics" (i.e., the games still popular to this) and disregarding the remaining 95% of mediocre to awful shit from that time (not to mention titles that were obscure even them), while comparing to entirity of today's releases

Bullshit. Even lesser games (6-8/10 range) back then destroy most modern shit.

- forgiving alot broken and nonsensical mechanics in the "classics", that didn't enchance them in any way (and most of the times were actual detriments) just because "muh they still figuring things out, at least they're different!"

There is a lot of broken and nonsensical mechanics in modern games too, more actually (dumbing down makes features pointless and broken).

- claiming that the classics were super creative and experimental, while at the same time ignoring any and all creative and experimental games of today

Such as?

- not taking into account the different era's trends, shifts and overall context in the industry at large

Trends and shifts of the modern age, otherwise known as DECLINE

oldfags need to retire

Funny I mentioned the N64 as one's only exposure to 90s gaming in my previous post, as I noticed you are one such gamer :D

That said, nintendo is the one high profile company that still focuses on making games without adding all sorts of absolute sellout retardation and dumbing down like other devs. The problem with nintendo is their art styles massively declined with the jump to 3D. Ugly transition on the N64 and still largely puke-inducing now. Jesus fuck they're ugly and it's not something other 3D games suffer from nearly as bad, even many cartoony ones.

 

[grim1234]

None of those are new though, the point is what can you get today or even from 2021? It's a mess of remakes, rehashes, Cyberpunk failures, and 7 year waits. Also most in your list are just iterations of older games.

DOOM Eternal is new, now, I didn't play those, but I hear they are as good as their predecessors that I listed: NieR Replicant, Sekiro, Control, Half-Life: ALYX (yeah, not Portal, same universe though), Death Stranding (actually played this one).

You do realise that there is nothing wrong with "iterations" of other games. Also, no, you're wrong, most of the games I listed have no counterparts. Not even DOOM 2016 is similar to DOOM Eternal. Doom Eternal plays like Quake 3 but in single player, plus it's a platformer, and very heavy on the resource management side that is implemented into the core gameplay loop, and brilliantly at that. Alan Wake is even more unique. Portal - same. I can go on.

Obviously there are less and less games, but that's what happens when games take longer to make. I wouldn't say that games are shit today, we just have way too few of them. The quality of the "big hitters" generally went down, of course, but gaming is nowhere near being dead. Thankfully we still have ambitious developers and players who want ambitious games, instead of unpolished shitfests.

 

[anvi]

Most of those games are old though. Portal is 14 years old, Dead Space is 13 years old, Alan wake is 11 years old, this isn't helping the games are just fine argument. Also Dead Space was done better and earlier with the System Shock games. Iteration is only ok until you've played the same game several times in slightly different clothes then you'll be desperate for something new.

 

[Grauken]

Also Dead Space was done better and earlier with the System Shock games.

If you think Dead Space and System Shock are the same with only slight differences you might be an idiot. Maybe even a village idiot

 

[Bigg Boss]

I think he meant the mood and setting but that was a retarded post. Gaming is fine just like movies are fine. It turns out they made shit movies in the golden age too. They made shit games in the 80's and 90's too. A lot of them.

 

[the mole]

I think he meant the mood and setting but that was a retarded post. Gaming is fine just like movies are fine. It turns out they made shit movies in the golden age too. They made shit games in the 80's and 90's too. A lot of them.

at least they typically finished them in a few years and aren't gaslighting you to pay for it before they're even done with it

 

[Grauken]

I think he meant the mood and setting but that was a retarded post. Gaming is fine just like movies are fine. It turns out they made shit movies in the golden age too. They made shit games in the 80's and 90's too. A lot of them.

They made a lot of shit games in the 80ies too

 

[Machocruz]

New Dooms are emblematic of trends I hate in current AAA game design.

[Destroy the Icon of Sin' shows up on screen in neon yellow-green]. Well I'll be damned. Kill the large monster standing before you, in a FPS you say? Where was this critical assistance back in 1994?? We were so confused back then. Glad game developers have discovered the most immersive means of relaying that type of information.

Among other things.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I think he meant the mood and setting but that was a retarded post. Gaming is fine just like movies are fine. It turns out they made shit movies in the golden age too. They made shit games in the 80's and 90's too. A lot of them.

at least they typically finished them in a few years and aren't gaslighting you to pay for it before they're even done with it

Nobody forces you retards to buy DLC, Season Passes, and every entry of popular franchise even though you act like you hate it.

 

[anvi]

Also Dead Space was done better and earlier with the System Shock games.

If you think Dead Space and System Shock are the same with only slight differences you might be an idiot. Maybe even a village idiot

I think he meant the mood and setting but that was a retarded post. Gaming is fine just like movies are fine. It turns out they made shit movies in the golden age too. They made shit games in the 80's and 90's too. A lot of them.

They literally set out to make System Shock 3 by playing the first 2 games over and over, you dumb fucks. They changed it mid development because of Resident Evil 4. If you think it is so different to System Shock to not be compared then you are a dumb in denial piece of shit. Also Big Boss you are also a no taste retard.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

gaming is better now than it ever has been
we have every game they had at any "golden era" in the past plus new ones, therefore it can only be better, not worse

 

[gerey]

this isn't helping the games are just fine argument

If you ignore AAA shit as I do for the most part games are doing fine. One must understand that AAA trash like Call of Duty or AssCreed is not being made for gamers, but for the kind of subhuman that thinks watching a Marvel movie is two hours well spent. Might as well view them as a completely separate market.

There's a lot of quality titles being made by passionate devs catering to a verity of niche audiences, and we're seeing a revival of genres and ideas that were long thought dead. Lots of great games released in the past 10 years would never have been created in the 90s or 00s either.

I'd even argue that while games nowadays tend to be formulaic, at the very least many of them achieve average playability, which was not always the case with more experimental games from decades past. What we see as a trend towards the derivative is merely natural selection at work - developers don't feel the need to reinvent the wheel because someone already came up with the most optimal solution to a given problem.

I'm not going to pretend it's a new golden age, but the industry is certainly much better than it was around the XBox 360/PS3 era.

Also, and this must be said, people simply tend to forget just how much shit was being released back in the 90s and early 00s, only remembering the good games that have stood the test of time.

Just how many Doom clones came out during the 90s that nobody talks about nowadays?

Also Dead Space was done better and earlier with the System Shock games

I disagree. While Dead Space takes a lot of inspiration from System Shock 2, it's a very different game that aims to do different things. Also, even if the two were to be compared directly, no one can deny that DS1 does a better job in some aspects than SS2.