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

[Zed Duke of Banville]

We can never go back

Spoiler

 

[Zothique]

Less trannies, so yes.

But they were still there in the shadows, tho.

 

[Storyfag]

We can never go back

You don't need to go back. The supermajority of the movies/games/books/ttrpgs produced back then are still available.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

You can totally go back. Make your own stuff inspired by the 90s.

 

[wideman]

2000sands were better in my opinion. The graphics started to get good, there were good cutscenes, gameplay got more complex, and a lot of things came together. Games were made for gamers and as experiments.

90s people were still discovering systems.

 

[The Nameless One]

Yeah I'm not sure.

Then:​

Now:​

 

[Johannes]

Did you get laid at E3, and was it with Chris Avellone?

 

[The Nameless One]

Did you get laid at E3, and was it with Chris Avellone?

If there was anyone to screw back then, t'was Sheena Easton.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

We can never go back

You don't need to go back. The supermajority of the movies/games/books/ttrpgs produced back then are still available.

The problem is that the people are not available.

 

[Darkozric]

Chris Jones and Aarron Conners

 

[RaggleFraggle]

The problem is that the people are not available

There are plenty of people alive right now. They just need to get off their lazy asses and make new games.

The current crop of game IPs are crap and never coming back. Make new games that recapture the magic of the originals.

D&D has the whole OSR movement. Other genres don’t, but you just need to make some.

There’s plenty of creative people who want to make stuff, but many of them seem to be under the mistaken impression that it’s bad to make new things and they have to write fanfic of something that already exists. Teach them how to make new things. Teach them that we need competition for a healthy economy.

 

[Tyranicon]

There are plenty of people alive right now. They just need to get off their lazy asses and make new games.

The current crop of game IPs are crap and never coming back. Make new games that recapture the magic of the originals.

D&D has the whole OSR movement. Other genres don’t, but you just need to make some.

There’s plenty of creative people who want to make stuff, but many of them seem to be under the mistaken impression that it’s bad to make new things and they have to write fanfic of something that already exists. Teach them how to make new things. Teach them that we need competition for a healthy economy.

We tend to overestimate the number of

1. Creative people that exist.
2. The above who are also interested in genres we enjoy.
3. All of the above that can actually produce something good.

This already weeds out a massive number of people, and if you add the various forms of political and ideological filtering, in addition to removing anything that's overly corporatized, it reduces that number to almost nil.

 

[DannyRope]

(...) but many of [the creative people] seem to be under the mistaken impression that it’s bad to make new things and they have to write fanfic of something that already exists.

In addition to the spitting of facts of Tyranicon there, it's not so much that creative people are under the impression that making brand new stuff is bad but that the publishers, the money people, are extremely risk averse. I'm sure a hefty number of creative people are itching to do videogames with their own ideas and original characters (that those games would be any good is another issue entirely). They just don't get the chance, other than in the very DIY indie gamedev scene.

We too tend to overestimate:
4. The power creative people hold in the industry.

 

[Great Deceiver]

People grossly underestimate the universal crisis of competence that the world is going through.

The main reason why games suck now is because people developing games now are entirely incompetent. It's that simple. Society has developed mechanisms to reward subterfuge and other weird shit than competence, and people respond to incentives.

"Creatives" don't mean anything if there are no hypercompetent turboautist to implement their vision on a technical level, and those are very very rare and thoroughly disincentivized from working in the games industry, not the least reason for which being the terrible hours and pay.

The 'publisher bigwigs are too greedy!' line doesn't cut it anymore - in fact, it hasn't for a very long time. 'Legacy' developers of classic games are washed out and fail to realize that they were a part of a perfect storm at the time and recapturing lightning in a bottle is almost impossible - all the proof you'll ever need of this phenomenon is the string of terrible shit supposedly great developers have been putting out for well over 15 years at this point.

 

[DannyRope]

Talented passionate creatives and legacy devs get burnout. Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise American McGee? EA refused to greenlight what would have been the third Alice game, Asylum, because it wouldn't be profitable according to a BS market research, or another equally inane reason, but at the same time refuses to sell the IP to the one guy who's really passionate about the franchise and believe in the project. EA would rather sit on the rights doing nothing with them. Result? American McGee gets so fed up that decides to abandon the videogame industry altogether.

 

[Nutmeg]

EA would rather sit on the rights doing nothing with them

IP laws as they are currently formulated, exist to rob employees from the fruits of their intellectual labor, as well as consumers, and serve only to sustain the parasite class.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

EA would rather sit on the rights doing nothing with them

IP laws as they are currently formulated, exist to rob employees from the fruits of their intellectual labor, as well as consumers, and serve only to sustain the parasite class.

Exactly. That’s why I advocate for copyright reform. Shorten the default term to 14 years, and allow owners to register extensions up to the current terms (depending on country) if they still care after that time.

Originally extensions had to be registered. Under that law, only about 15% of copyrights were extended. Most of the time, the owner didn’t care.

 

[That_Scumbag]

We can never go back

You don't need to go back. The supermajority of the movies/games/books/ttrpgs produced back then are still available.

The problem is that the people are not available.

That is a problem indeed. The older media still existing is undoubtedly a good thing, but it feels less satisfying when you have nobody to share it with. You can still play Front Mission 3 for example, but most people around you talk about Fortnite or D.A. Failguard. A crude and perhaps last ditch solution is to network with people that like retro stuff and set up game nights/days/whatever where you play/watch older stuff. I do that with my buddies and it does give back that sense of camaraderie. It also helps introduce media of older design mindsets to new people.