Decline When did decline start to you?

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Most of codexer use term 'decline' mostly for the fall of RPGs but let's face it - it infected almost every genre sooner or later so...

When, in your own experience, decline began? What was its symptoms? Which were the games responsible for it?

Personally, I went through gaming hiatus between 2001-2011 thanks to:

GTA3 - I was a big fan of first two 2D games and just couldn't stand that edgy, boring shit. I think this geam was an entrance for many casuals when gaming became total mainstream. San Andreas and Vice City strenghten the trend. In my middle school every gaming dude was into that crap and babbling about it like it was the best thing ever.

Medal of Honor / Call of Duty - pre-2000 fps were in 99% a non-realistic stuff filled with crazy weapons like nailguns, shrinkers, plasma guns, railguns, voodoo dolls, compact rocket launchers etc. I agree that there was demand for real gunz but once WWII/Modern Warfare shooter were introduced they instantly wiped out entire crazy weapon trend... which last until recent years. Damn, I hated that shit.

WoW - in '90 the brand Warcraft was top notch, W3 destroyed it but it was WoW that made Blizzard utter garbage. Horrible, ugly online geam that aimed to create a horde of vicious, brainless addicts that deliver money. Unfortunately, it still existst.

There were more of harmful titles but I consider the ones mentioned above the most influencial, they destroyed industry and cured me from urge to upgrade my hardware for almost decade. In 01-11 only modern titles I played was '94-tech based SNK titles (KOF2002/2003, SNK vs Capcom Chaos), SiN2 and PS2 Mortal Kombat run on PCSX2 in 2008.

Edit: I forgot about Half-Life 2, Valve and Steam.

 

[Wilian]

The moment I joined Codex and was baptized in cynical bitterness.

 

[Sreggin Etah I]

When i joined RPGCodex,now everything is decline.

Edit: Except Pillars of Eternity, of course.

 

[luj1]

Oblivion (2006) started the decline for me. Fallout 3 (2008) cemented it.

 

[abnaxus]

1988

 

[smaug]

Once I joined the codex and got opened up to a lot of games I didn’t know about my perspective changed. But being a young zoomer, I didn’t have much awareness of decline, I played most of it and considered it great incline, unfortunately this is the case with almost all young gamers.

Can’t really distinguish incline and decline, if you only experience decline.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/when-did-decline-started-for-you.126161

 

[Bigg Boss]

 

[octavius]

The games that exemplified decline for me:
Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault and Quake 4: heavily scripted and in Q4's case on rails. The last new FPS games I bought.
Bishock: the first game I was interested in but didn't buy due to DRM (could only be installed five times).
This was in the mid 2000s, but of course the real difining moment of decline was in November 2001 when the X-Box was released, and we could no longer have big, open levels in games, and 3rd person view became more prevalent.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Agree on that, Id were the essence of PC gaming during 90' and releasing such mediocre shooter was total failure.

 

[karoliner]

For me it was 2005/2006 when for some reason every new game had to look grey and brown.

 

[DalekFlay]

Oblivion (2006) started the decline for me.

Same. There were signs before that, but Oblivion really cemented that all my favorite PC genres were going to be turned into console focused dumbed down trash. Thankfully things (eventually) got a little better.

 

[Poseidon00]

The end of the SNES era started it for consoles, the end of the 2000's started it for PCs. Imo anyway.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

decline started with psx widespread piracy. before that videogames were only for rich kids, nerds and rich nerd kids. once videogames became accessible to monkeys (all it takes to make a console work is pushing a button) they became the new market. sony itself was the biggest blank cds seller. the market became bigger and bigger as the target dumber and dumber. now we live in the "press a button and something awesome happens" era.

 

[Nutmeg]

Decline started 2000, Peak was 1993 and the great plateau was from 1993 to 2000. The wheels of decline were set in motion in 1987, with the popularity of the first Zelda which showed a game designed to extend over multiple (not self contained) sessions can have broad appeal. Turning to the PC world, those same wheels were accelerated by the strong influence of games coming from Origin (and its progeny), as well as the popularity of point and click adventure games.

 

[Tehdagah]

- When Shadow of the Colossus and Resident Evil 4 were praised for the wrong reasons.

- PC fusing with consoles.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I would say it was with the end of Looking Glass that the decline awakened. With 2006 being the year where it's growing influence became undeniable.

RE4 is a great game though...

the first Zelda which showed a game designed to extend over multiple (not self contained) sessions can have broad appeal.

And this was bad because...

 

[†††]

2004/2005

 

[Gregz]

Somewhere between 2005-2008.

Themepark MMOs, mobile gaming, loot boxes, file-sharing, and pay-2-win all started during this era.

 

[Tweed]

Sixth generation consoles were the beginning of the end.

 

[octavius]

Decline started 2000, Peak was 1993 and the great plateau was from 1993 to 2000.

Playing chronologically it looks to me like the peak of the peak may have been the the end of June/start of July 2000, with Deus Ex, Diablo 2 and Icewind Dale, and the best user made maps I've played for HoMM 3 (Grandmaster) and Thief 1 (Calendra's Cistern) released within a time frame of about two weeks.

1992-1993 was the peak for CRPGs, though.

 

[Farewell young Prince into the night]

When I realized questmarkers had become the standard.

 

[Bigg Boss]

decline started with psx widespread piracy. before that videogames were only for rich kids, nerds and rich nerd kids. once videogames became accessible to monkeys (all it takes to make a console work is pushing a button) they became the new market. sony itself was the biggest blank cds seller. the market became bigger and bigger as the target dumber and dumber. now we live in the "press a button and something awesome happens" era.

This only applies to whatever shitty region you were in at the time. Literally nobody pirated PSX games where I am from.

 

[samuraigaiden]

The root of the decline, it's true origin, was circa 1995, when gaming industry began moving towards 3D polygonal graphics. Up until that point making videogames was craft work. The iterative nature of 3D enabled an unprecedented cutthroat approach to game development. Developers that had spend the last decade or more creating 2D games were asked to adapt or GTFO, a new generation was introduced to the Industry as we know it today. An evolutionary process was cut off, a new one began. Decline.

 

[DalekFlay]

The root of the decline, it's true origin, was circa 1995, when gaming industry began moving towards 3D polygonal graphics. Up until that point making videogames was craft work. The iterative nature of 3D enabled an unprecedented cutthroat approach to game development. Developers that had spend the last decade or more creating 2D games were asked to adapt or GTFO, a new generation was introduced to the Industry as we know it today. An evolutionary process was cut off, a new one began. Decline.

The adjustment to 3D was pretty fast, looking back on it. It was rough as hell at first but by 2000ish we had the classics Deus Ex and Thief 1/2. I don't think it had anything to do with anything. It's not like you couldn't make a great Fallout 3 in 3D in 2002, just no one did.