The 90s was the apex of coolness in gaming, right?

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

90s were the last decade with any kind of visual (or other) identity, so yeah, it was indeed the apex for many things

Also the last decade with any observable culture aka 'monoculture' meaning a certain look to the decade etc. Everything is so fragmented today.

 

[Korgoth of Barbaria]

Yes. Games used to be good back in the 90's. Now they're garbage.

The sad thing is we have the technology to make the greatest games ever made.

But instead of game developers being small teams of genuine hobbyists, they're people who want to infuse and infect games with political messaging. Games today aren't made by 10-50 nerdish guys and girls on one team over a 1-2 year period. They're made by hundreds of faceless people over a 3-4 year period. Game developers and publishers today have DEI divisions. Game developers today are basically akin to Hollywood.

Pictured:

id Software, 1992

Diablo team, 1996

3D Realms, 1996

Bioware, 1997

Space Quest 6 team, 1995

 

[Johannes]

B, Same applies to rule books and finding out of print stuff. Someone has a copy of Goblin rampage VS Elf hookers version 2.5 but you sure as fuck don't and never will. Unless some Grog decides to scan it and upload it online you cannot play some games because you can never read their rules.
C, You have to find someone willing to play Goblin Rampage VS Elf hookers version 3.0 because that's not as easy as it sounds. Unless you have a regular opponent/group you're at the whims of the many. The many like GW and.. well that's about it. Even modern alternatives are hard to find players for.

You don't seem to understand the trouble we went through, ordering goblin rampage vs elf hookers back in the day. And most ppl back then didn't know about it either. Asking me for a scan of the rules now over the Internet, is a ton easier really

And honestly you could 3d print way better hookers yourself now too, than the ones in the box.

 

[luj1]

3D Realms, 1996

oh god, level0rd...

I feel old

 

[Onionguy]

I liked the PS1 and PS2 era a lot. It definitely defined my taste in games, particularly horror games and RPG's. It's disheartening to think that we won't get new games like Shadow Hearts or Haunting Ground in the current era because they'd be seen as 'problematic'.

there is a slim chance for a new shadow hearts (pennyblood) but they need to get a publisher first...

 

[luj1]

John Romero, Killcreek (Quake pro gamer and his first wife) and Level0rd (legendary Duke Nukem level designer)

 

[luj1]

John Romero‘s Hummer (Quakecon 96)

John Carmack‘s Ferrari Testarossa

Random shot

 

[Nifft Batuff]

If a digital product disappears, then it means that it was a bad product.

Prey, Myth 1 & 2, Nolf 1 & 2 just to name a few.

Prey is on Steam, but they cannot sell any more of them.
(It should go without saying that I mean Prey from 2006.)

Spoiler

I could see VR arcades becoming a thing in the future.

I was thinking more about piracy and hacking. If some digital product was good, then it is probable that someone cracked it to remove drms and patched it to run on modern systems. This means that it is preserved, even if it is not sold anymore. If the product is an online game sold as a service, then by definition it is a shit game, so nothing worth was lost if it is not piratable and hence not preservable.

 

[luj1]

Back when men were men (and women were women)

 

[luj1]

 

[BadassNonbinaryPrincess]

Those dev team photos say it all, they were cool geeks. A lot of talent and experience in those teams. It is so different now.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I have noticed that gaming isn't as creative as it was before the Great Recession hit. There's a huge focus on revisiting nostalgia from 3+ decades ago instead of doing new things, or continuing unfinished creative threads. Conversely, there are times when companies decide to hijack existing brand names and then mutilate it into something unrecognizable while claiming it is actually a continuation.

Now, I don't think reboots or spin-offs are an inherently bad thing. So long as they acknowledge that they are indeed reboots/spin-offs and not trying to displace the original. I like it when we get new games. These older games become bloated messes that write themselves into corners that don't allow for creativity anymore and prevent anyone else from competing due to the small size of the market. Even if new games don't always succeed, at least they tried.

Companies are also very selective in what they revive: e.g. WotC revived (and mutilated) Spelljammer and Planescape, but completely ignored the bazillion other IPs they own and in many cases refuse to offer via back catalog PDFs. Star Frontiers, Star*Drive, Gamma World, etc. are very detailed settings but get completely ignored.

Games either go on long after their expiry date and become unfun zombie franchises that bank on nostalgia that new players don't have, or get cut down before they get anywhere.

I'm in touch with a freelancer who told me about how a company hired him to revive an obscure IP that died in the 90s for a new edition, and the company is telling him to completely rewrite the lore and rules into something unrecognizable. They refuse to hire any of the original writing team (who previous tried and failed to produce their own new edition), probably because the company supervisor knows it wouldn't go over well. They're basically making a completely original game with a few ideas recycled from the old game, and slapping on the brand name as if it means anything. The original game did have its problems, and I have no shortage of suggestions for revisions, but they're going completely overboard in trying to address those problems to appeal to players.

What really galls me is copyright law. I wouldn't care what these evil stupid corpos do if they didn't keep the games under lock and key so that fans cannot continue through their own efforts. It's not feasible to publish your own games without charging money, and it's illegal to use somebody else's IP until the copyright expires a century or longer after publication. What about creating original IPs inspired by the classics? Well, I don't see anyone doing that seriously.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I have noticed that gaming isn't as creative as it was before the Great Recession hit.

Which one?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I have noticed that gaming isn't as creative as it was before the Great Recession hit.

Which one?

Both ttrpgs and crpgs across the board.

 

[911 Jumper]

Hyper connected internet culture has helped to stifle creativity. You need boredom and isolation to allow creativity to flourish.
How many people truly experience both in today's Always Online world?
Even a loner today is likely to be on some kind of social media platform, which means he or she will be part of a community and will thus be exposed to its influence.
People are simply too connected for originality to emerge.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Hyper connected internet culture has helped to stifle creativity. You need boredom and isolation to allow creativity to flourish.
How many people truly experience both in today's Always Online world?
Even a loner today is likely to be on some kind of social media platform, which means he or she will be part of a community and will thus be exposed to its influence.
People are simply too connected for originality to emerge.

I don’t believe that. I find that creativity is a skill that you need to practice and nurture. In order to do that, you need to know what’s come before. You need to study and research. You cannot distinguish yourself if you don’t know what your competition is.

The problem you’re talking about is actually the dual problems of ignorance and cult mentality. These feed into each other: the ignorant are more susceptible to joining cults, and the cult mentality breeds ignorance of anything outside the cult.

This where “heartbreakers” come from. If you don’t know what that is: it’s a derivative of another game made by someone who wants to do something new and original but doesn’t have enough life experience to actually accomplish this. So the heartbreaker comes across as a lazy ripoff with just enough originality to be heartbreaking.

I’m definitely hyper connected, but that causes me to feel bored and isolated. I don’t if it’s because I predate the rise of social media, but it just makes the world feel gray and lifeless. The only time I really feel truly alive is when I’m outside doing yard work or exercise.

 

[luj1]

Ken Rolston, Todd Howard, Michael Kirkbride in 2000 (among others) - the team which practically saved Bethesda from bankruptcy

 

[luj1]

Monolith exhibiting Blood II at E3 1998 (Shogo was also shown that year)

Work on what would become Caleb began in October 1996

 

[Silva]

Ahhh the 80s alley-trash-synth aesthetics. Anybody else loved it?

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

man i miss those synchronized leotard dancing on tv shows.

 

[Hydro]

Yeah, I was thinking about Battletech recently — how exciting and interesting it was in 90s, how quickly it’s faded away and how there’s literally nothing nowadays that could offer something similar.

Cool times for vidya are long gone since they all were rooted in the emergence of the affordable home PC. The industry has been marginalized heavily since then with all the big corpos catering to the lowest denominator. Simple as.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Yeah, I was thinking about Battletech recently — how exciting and interesting it was in 90s, how quickly it’s faded away and how there’s literally nothing nowadays that could offer something similar.

Battletech is still going strong in the tabletop scene. It's probably the most popular mech franchise in the western world. It's also been subjected to political controversy, because of course it is. But I echo your point. It's a shadow of its former self and there are basically no other mech franchises with notable fandoms.

The problem here is copyright. If a company goes under or ignores IPs it owns, then nobody else is legally allowed to use those IPs until a century or longer passes. Not only that, but slavish loyalty to dead or debased IPs blinds people to making new IPs inspired by what they liked. But it's not like people haven't tried anyway. The problem is that new IPs rarely get traction, regardless of how original or derivative they are, regardless of their actual quality. Most of the time they feel inferior and uncreative in comparison to IPs from yesteryear, usually because they have to write around copyright and thus cannot exercise creative freedom. There are only so many ways to execute the same idea before you start reaching.

Copyright law is fucked up and destroys culture.

 

[That_Scumbag]

The 90s were indeed the best creative era. Media had the right mix of niche and popularity to make great stuff for their target audience. Now everything is so constantly interconnected and developers are trying to please everybody resulting in media that appeals to either no-one or the lowest common denominator. Add the recent surge of censorship and political correctness into the mix and you have the slop we mostly see today.