Why is Gaming declining?

[MrTrust]

6 hours ago, zzip said:

If your definition of great game is it has to be paradigm shifting then you are going to be in for a world of disappointment.   That can only happen every so often. 

 

Didn't used to be the case. Used to be you'd get one every couple of years, and in between you'd get many that pushed things forward substantially.

 

6 hours ago, zzip said:

stop cherry picking,  I cited two games from this year and one from last year.

 

So TotK, Hogwarts, and Elden Ring?  You would say these are not just good games that sell a lot, but they're good evidence we're actually in a golden age?  Do I have this correct?

 

What about these games leads you to believe that?

 

6 hours ago, zzip said:

For me it has to be a fun and engaging game,  it doesn't have to push technology forward in a big way.

 

"Fun and engaging" isn't a particularly high bar.  Crossword puzzles are fun and engaging.  Bar trivia is fun and engaging.  A snowball fight is fun and engaging.  Wrestling with your kids is fun and engaging.  Sex is fun and engaging.  Watching a guy accidentally get his head stuck up an elephant's ass on YouTube is fun and engaging.

 

That you and I get to enjoy fun and engaging experiences says nothing about whether the form is declining or not.  

 

Put it this way, you and I agree that rock music is in decline.  Is it your contention that no good rock music is still being made If You Know Where To Look?  Can you not listen to all kinds of fun and engaging rock music on Spotify, listen for hours on end to new and novel songs to your heart's content?

 

If the mere availability of fun and engaging games precludes the possibility we're in decline, I don't think there can be a time where we would be.  What would be your criteria?

 

5 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

I've loved gaming since the late 70's, but I don't think any game ever truly "blew me away" and made me rethink what was possible until PS2 when I played Dragon Quest 8 and FZero on Gamecube.

 

These strike me as weird examples.  They're fine games and very nice to look at, but they're both very incremental developments on prior entries, so I would be interested in what you think makes them so special. In any case, these games came out 20 years ago.  There are voting age people who weren't yet alive then.

 

5 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

Then I was blown away again when I took a chance on this game that reviewers kept saying "there's no way to truly explain some of these mechanics other than to suggest everyone give it a shot" -- that game was Demons Souls on PS3...

 

Yeah.  Great game.  A masterpiece.  No argument there.  It's 14 years old.  We're as far away from Demon's Souls now as Metroid was from Pong, and as far out as Half-Life was from Metroid.

 

I mean, dude, I didn't put those games in your mouth.  You want to refute this point and you proffer two games that came out under the friggin' George W. Bush administration and one that's almost old enough to drive.  

 

We're a quarter of the way through this decade.  What have you got from this decade?  Hell, name three games that are on the level of Demon's Souls in the last 14 years.  I'll spot you Breath of the Wild; it's not one I care for, but it's almost unanimously accepted as a masterpiece.  So, there's one.  What else?

Edited June 7, 2023 by MrTrust

[Tommy2D]

@Creamhoven will you let us know when you publish this thread, as part of your MFA Thesis on: "Reflections on Artful Trolling: The Post-Modern Process of Gonzo Forum Disruption as a Function of Creative Word Salad and Persistent End-user Engagement.". 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by Tommy2D

[Razzie.P]

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

Yeah.  Great game.  A masterpiece.  No argument there.  It's 14 years old.  We're as far away from Demon's Souls now as Metroid was from Pong, and as far out as Half-Life was from Metroid.

 

I mean, dude, I didn't put those games in your mouth.  You want to refute this point and you proffer two games that came out under the friggin' George W. Bush administration and one that's almost old enough to drive.  

 

Well, my point was that not all of us were even "blown away" by the games you you mentioned when you said "you're not going to find something that blows you away like..."  so some of us can, will, and do find newer titles than those.  And I mentioned a couple of titles starting with PS2 through modern games on PS5 that had that effect on me personally.   I did "proffer" newer titles as well that really blew me away - a couple from PS4 and a couple from PS5 - but I guess you missed those or they didn't work with what you're trying to say there, or something.

 

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

We're a quarter of the way through this decade.  What have you got from this decade?  Hell, name three games that are on the level of Demon's Souls in the last 14 years.  I'll spot you Breath of the Wild; it's not one I care for, but it's almost unanimously accepted as a masterpiece.  So, there's one.  What else?

Sure.  I'm assuming you're asking what games from this decade that blew me away, personally, from this decade and not actually asking for Demons Souls clones (which would be Elden Ring for sure) or something like that --

 

 

Breath of the Wild  😁  I don't really like this game much, but since you were so generous to spot me, we'll roll with it.  I do think it's a masterpiece, though, and can see why other's love it so much.  But it's really not for me.

 

Deathloop -- once I realized this one's "schtick" and it clicked, it was one of my most amazing game experiences ever.

 

Ghost of Tsushima - I went in with a "I'm not gonna like this one much" mentality and it shut me up nice n' quick

 

Witcher 3

 

Divinity: Original Sin  -- part 2 is actually a much better game that builds on and improves the greatness that was part 1

 

Rocket League

 

Beat Saber VR

 

Superhot VR -- this game made me feel like I'm in a John Wick type of fight more than any game I've ever played.

 

 

And not a game that I personally enjoy, but Fortnite -- because I'm blown away by how it managed to pretty much hook in virtually everyone in a way that I've never seen before.

 

 

I could effortlessly "proffer" title after title (like Metal Gear Solid V and  Mario Odyssey -- the New Donk City finale alone blew me away more than any other Mario game in its entirety) but I'm sure you'd cut 'em down because they're sequels and/or built on pre-existing game mechanics and such.

 

[Razzie.P]

5 hours ago, Creamhoven said:

If you are not gaining ground your in a losing position.

Sounds like some words of wisdom I've heard somewhere before --

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Austin]

2 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Hell, name three games that are on the level of Demon's Souls in the last 14 years. 

IMO, Elden Ring is Demon's Souls times a thousand, so it counts for a lot. I've got over 200 hours into it with multiple playthroughs and it's only been out a year, haha.🙃

 

Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal are some of the best FPS games ever made, IMO.

 

Halo Infinite is supposedly pretty good. Still haven't tried it myself, but have been meaning to.

 

Sunset Overdrive from 2014 was one of my most played games of the last 10 years. The Spider Mans on PS4/PS5 take a lot from it (made by the same people).

 

Breath of the Wild was, no pun intend, a major breath of fresh air for me. Clocked about 150 hours into it, and I don't normally do that with modern games.

 

Played a bit of Returnal on PS5 recently and it seems pretty bad-ass.

Robo Recall (by Epic Games, 2017) for Oculus VR was one of the most enjoyable score-chase experiences I've had in a long time.

 

I could probably name a lot more, but I do spend more of my time focused on retro stuff. What I named above just barely scratches the surface of good modern gaming, from what I understand.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Austin

[MrTrust]

46 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

Well, my point was that not all of us were even "blown away" by the games you you mentioned when you said "you're not going to find something that blows you away like..." 

 

Yeah, and I also said "or whatever it happened to be for you." And, yeah, you found titles newer than those, and they were all old as balls.  All of that dovetails perfectly with what I've been saying.

 

46 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

I could effortlessly "proffer" title after title (like Metal Gear Solid V and  Mario Odyssey -- the New Donk City finale alone blew me away more than any other Mario game in its entirety) but I'm sure you'd cut 'em down because they're sequels and/or built on pre-existing game mechanics and such.

 

Yes, I would say that Odyssey is a particularly bad example.  Not only is it the umpteenth iteration of a design that came into vogue in 1997, it is clearly inferior to Galaxy 2.

 

Yeah, that was a neat sequence to watch as you played through it, the New Donk thing.  The game is fine.  The game is fun.  I got no particular issues with it.

 

But, yeah, Galaxy 2, while it may not have been a genre definer or a technical tour de force, it is still basically the Platonic Ideal of a 3D platform game.  It is a true masterpiece.  That's not be just being overly enthusiastic; that's a pretty widely-held belief by critics and players alike.  I don't see anything out there now that even comes close to surpassing it.  Odyssey I know does not.  

 

You don't like the phrase "blown away".  Galaxy 2 impressed me as much as any game has ever impressed me (that better?), not because it had the most exciting visuals or immersed me in some fantasy (although those things could be part of what makes a masterpiece), but because it is very obviously a work of brilliance.

 

You may like those games you listed.  I may like others.  There's no point in trying to debate the merits of each one individually.  Are you saying that those games are brilliant in the way that Galaxy 2 is?  That Demon's Souls is?  That Breath of the Wild - allegedly - is?

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

[MrTrust]

18 minutes ago, Austin said:

Robo Recall (by Epic Games, 2017) for Oculus VR was one of the most enjoyable score-chase experiences I've had in a long time.

 

Like I said to Razzie, I'm not going to sit here and try to debate you out of liking whatever games you happen to like.  That is not the point here.  Point is, this is not the kind of language one uses to describe a truly great game.

 

I'm saying yes, gaming is in decline.  It is stagnant.  It has no vitality left in it.  There is no excitement like there used to me.  There's no innovation like there used to be.  The aggregate level of talent just ain't what it was.  It's greatest promises have gone unrealized.  The boundaries aren't being pushed.  The ratio of wheat to chaff is worse.  There aren't the kinds of masterpieces there neither in number nor quality.  Its best days may well be behind it.

 

That's a different thing from saying there are no games that you like and you played a whole bunch.  I honestly don't know what you guys are trying to tell me with this.  You both listed a bunch of games, but explanations of why they're supposed to be great are basically just describing experiences of subjective pleasure.  I liked this one a lot.  I played that one for 200 hours.  When this clicked for me, it was a great experience that I had.  It made me feel like I was X Y Z.

 

All that tells me is that you enjoyed yourself.  Great.  Good for you.  More power to ya', but that's not describing a great game.  A great game is a Great Game.  It is a Classic.  It is a Masterpiece.  It is not an experience I had that was at least as enjoyable, if not moreso, than all the other comparable experiences I've had in an indeterminate period of time.  That's the way you talk about a bag of potato chips or a porn magazine.  It's not the way you talk superlative specimen of a true creative form.

 

Look, like whatever you want to like.  Have your experiences, by all means.  We're just not talking about the same kind of thing here.

[Razzie.P]

59 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

And, yeah, you found titles newer than those, and they were all old as balls.  All of that dovetails perfectly with what I've been saying.

 

Not all of them, no.  Just the ones that you cherrypick to try to prove a point.   So that statement is a wee bit of a lie, unless you have a very strange idea of "old as balls."    Yes, I mentioned games from PS2 and Gamecube as possible "first times" that I've really been blown away by a game.  But I also mentioned a few more that came later, with titles from late 2016, 2019, and 2 titles from 2021.  So no, it doesn't dovetail perfectly at all, unless you continue to cherrypick as needed.

 

59 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

Yes, I would say that Odyssey is a particularly bad example. 

 

Yeah, I know you would. 

 

59 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

But, yeah, Galaxy 2, while it may not have been a genre definer or a technical tour de force, it is still basically the Platonic Ideal of a 3D platform game.  It is a true masterpiece. 

 

I agree completely.

 

 

59 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

You don't like the phrase "blown away".  

 

I have no problems at all with that phrase.

 

59 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

You may like those games you listed.  I may like others.  There's no point in trying to debate the merits of each one individually.  Are you saying that those games are brilliant in the way that Galaxy 2 is?  That Demon's Souls is?  That Breath of the Wild - allegedly - is?

 

I believe that they are, yes.   I adore Galaxy 2 and Demons Souls is quite a special game to me, but I personally feel that each of those brings something equally as amazing, in their own respective ways, that we got from Galaxy 2, Demons Souls, and Breath of the Wild - allegedly. 

 

 

But really though, my comment and titles mentioned wasn't even about what I like, what you like, and the merits of each one.  It's was pretty much just a reply to your comment of "You are not going to find something that blows you away the way you were the first time you saw Star Raiders, or Prince of Persia, or Alone in the Dark, or Super Mario 64, or whatever.."  I did find something (many, many somethings actually) that blew me away far more than Star Raiders, Prince of Persia (original or 2003 version, by the way? 😁) Alone in the Dark, and Super Mario 64.  And I mentioned titles "old as balls" through 2021 as some examples of those somethings.

[MrTrust]

3 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

But I also mentioned a few more that came later, with titles from late 2016, 2019, and 2 titles from 2021.  So no, it doesn't dovetail perfectly at all, unless you continue to cherrypick as needed.

 

And at the point I was referencing in the conversation, no you hadn't.  And I acknowledged your other list, so there's no reason for you to call me a liar and act like a prick to me.  I'm not being disrespectful to you.

 

6 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

...but I personally feel that each of those brings something equally as amazing, in their own respective ways...

 

Like what?  What is amazing about them?  All you've said about these games is, basically, "I had a good experience playing this." I've already said a hundred times that isn't in dispute.  If people weren't having good experiences playing video games, they wouldn't rake in billions of dollars in revenue every year.

 

You want to prove me wrong?  Tell me what 3D platform game equals or surpasses Super Mario Galaxy 2 in terms of fine tuning and brilliance of level design?  Tell me what action game equals or surpasses Resident Evil 4 in terms of generating excitement, suspense, white knuckle thrills?  Tell me what strategy game can even have a hope of rivaling Dwarf Fortress in terms of depth and detail?  What story-driven game has the mystery and pathos of Shadow of the Colossus, or the dense yet unpretentious philosophy and meta commentary of the original Metal Gear Solid games?  What score chaser can best Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for just-one-more-try sentiment, and super wide appeal?  What's the next Guitar Hero; a party game that serious score maxers can still obsess over?  What adventure game can do for the form today what Ocarina of Time did for it in '98?  What crafting game can touch Minecraft?  I could go on and on farther back; these just happen to be a bunch from the general time period you referenced initially.

What, that came out in the last 10 years, does anything like what these games did to advance the or perfect the form?  Sure BotW, maybe.  Doom, maybe.  Those are the two that always come up.  I don't have any particular problem accepting those, two, but that's slim pickin's.  

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Razzie.P]

1 hour ago, Razzie.P said:

But I also mentioned a few more that came later, with titles from late 2016, 2019, and 2 titles from 2021.  So no, it doesn't dovetail perfectly at all, unless you continue to cherrypick as needed.

 

 

29 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

 

And at the point I was referencing in the conversation, no you hadn't. 

 

 

Here is that point in the conversation with the titles that you're saying I hadn't mentioned (from 2016, 2019, and 2 from 2021) underlined in red.   You said the titles I mentioned were "all old as balls," which I feel is either untrue or a wildly irregular interpretation of "old as balls." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyways, best of luck in coming across some titles that reignites the love for gaming that you seem to have had back during the Wii days.

 

 

 

 

 

[Creamhoven]

4 hours ago, Tommy2D said:

@Creamhoven will you let us know when you publish this thread, as part of your MFA Thesis on: "Reflections on Artful Trolling: The Post-Modern Process of Gonzo Forum Disruption as a Function of Creative Word Salad and Persistent End-user Engagement.". 

 

 

If you want to know about my twitch channel, I got mixed results and am considering to make some adjustments. If you want to provide any suggestions you can do so here.

[roots.genoa]

9 hours ago, Creamhoven said:

Especially these days. Stagnation is a decline on its own. If you are not gaining ground your in a losing position. I think it is important not to lose sight of the historical context as well. When you think of wagnerian opera, absolute art, you can argue against it from multiple angles. However, living in times when this stuff was developed and released is radiacally different from what we are dealing with these days. The development of all those instruments, the symphonic form, having so many gifted people performing a piece of art together.

 

We are obviously not able anylonger to develope something like that at all. The gaming stuff it is impressive technically, but it is resting on lorals of past generations and we are currently seeing how its seriously losing steam. This in a prolonged time frame means we are moving in a state of regression, because if you are not able to develope forms on the level of opera your civilisation has already regressed. Seeing other forms losing steam as well indicates that we will see a regression on many fronts eventually. First you lose those who push things forward, than you lose those who cant maintain the current state and next is a decent into barbarism.

Opera sucks. It's not even a good web browser.

[roots.genoa]

6 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Yeah.  Great game.  A masterpiece.  No argument there.  It's 14 years old.  We're as far away from Demon's Souls now as Metroid was from Pong, and as far out as Half-Life was from Metroid.

 

I mean, dude, I didn't put those games in your mouth.  You want to refute this point and you proffer two games that came out under the friggin' George W. Bush administration and one that's almost old enough to drive.  

 

We're a quarter of the way through this decade.  What have you got from this decade?  Hell, name three games that are on the level of Demon's Souls in the last 14 years.  I'll spot you Breath of the Wild; it's not one I care for, but it's almost unanimously accepted as a masterpiece.  So, there's one.  What else?

How many times will we have to repeat that masterpieces and golden age are rarely identified on the spot??? You'll see that in maybe ten years, we'll regret the golden age of video games that gave us Tears of the Kingdom, Diablo 4, and Street Fighter 6 in a few weeks span.

At the end of each year, I find it difficult to establish my top 10 of my favorite movies of the year, but I realized it's way easier to come up with the top 10 of the last decade, because after a few years, the real masterpieces become obvious to me.

It seems you're part of the people that don't realize how much subjective art is; you think that game X can be objectively considered a masterpiece while game Y can't. That's completely wrong imho.

 

3 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Yes, I would say that Odyssey is a particularly bad example.  Not only is it the umpteenth iteration of a design that came into vogue in 1997, it is clearly inferior to Galaxy 2.

Well, once again that's your opinion, dude. I know people who even prefer Galaxy 1 to 2.

[Tommy2D]

4 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Opera sucks. It's not even a good web browser.

How dare you; I love Opera Browser! 

 

 

Edited June 7, 2023 by Tommy2D

[MrTrust]

8 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

How many times will we have to repeat that masterpieces and golden age are rarely identified on the spot??? You'll see that in maybe ten years, we'll regret the golden age of video games that gave us Tears of the Kingdom, Diablo 4, and Street Fighter 6 in a few weeks span.

 

I don't know how old you are, but I'm going to assume you're old enough to have been into video games in 1998.  1998 saw the release of the following games:

 

Ocarina of Time

Metal Gear Solid

Half-Life

Banjo-Kazooie

Baldur's Gate

Thief: The Dark Project

Resident Evil 2

Turok 2

Rainbow Six

Xenogears

Final Fantasy Tactics

Parasite Eve

StarCraft

Star Wars: Rogue Squadron

Grim Fandango

Tekken 3

Gran Turismo

 

Classic after classic after classic after classic.  One year. If someone was arguing in 1998 what I am arguing today, it would be obvious that person was nuts.  Are you seriously going to tell me that you went through that time and had no idea you were living through something special in the evolution of this thing?

 

If that's the case, the you my fried have got blinders on.  You can't predict the future, but it should be obvious when you're in the midst of greatness.  In 1998, it was inarguable.  In 2023, it isn't.

 

8 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Well, once again that's your opinion, dude. I know people who even prefer Galaxy 1 to 2.

 

Okay, so you know people who are wrong.  Sucks to be them.

[Flojomojo]

You left F-Zero X off that list, Mr Trust!

 

I agree, 1998 was a very good year for video games. I don't think that makes the subsequent years any less interesting, though.

 

Didn't you write a big manifesto on how there's too much product out there for anything to shine through? With one side of your mouth, you complain about music and movie streaming having too broad a catalogue so there's no shared culture. Then you dump on modern gaming for not having the same mid-budget glut as 25 years ago. Seems like you should pick a lane? 

 

The market is gonna do what it wants regardless of our individual preferences. Pick what you like, ignore what you don't like, there's enough out there for everyone to enjoy. 

[zzip]

12 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Didn't used to be the case. Used to be you'd get one every couple of years, and in between you'd get many that pushed things forward substantially.

Well yeah, when gaming is new, then every game had the opportunity to define a new genre so of course novel ideas were going to be much more frequent.   Now so much has been done that it's so much harder to find a completely original concept that works.   But if you want that feeling again, you should try VR since developers are doing interesting things to see what works with that medium.

 

15 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Put it this way, you and I agree that rock music is in decline.  Is it your contention that no good rock music is still being made If You Know Where To Look?  Can you not listen to all kinds of fun and engaging rock music on Spotify, listen for hours on end to new and novel songs to your heart's content?

 

If the mere availability of fun and engaging games precludes the possibility we're in decline, I don't think there can be a time where we would be.  What would be your criteria?

The way I defined golden age was when investment, creativity/talent, and audience are all aligned to create something special.   It doesn't mean everything produced during the golden age is good, doesn't mean everything produced after is bad-   but it's when the thing is at it's heyday, when it has the biggest impact on the culture and young people aspired to be part of it.

 

Rock music was a big part of the culture,  the biggest rock stars could fill stadiums, have decades-long careers and were household names.  We and our peers watched MTV, listened to Casey Kasem, would like much of the same music and go to concerts together.   Some of us dreamed of becoming guitar heros.

 

Now?  Sure I can find a few dozen good tracks every year, but the bands I'm finding aren't filling stadiums.   Maybe fill a club if they're lucky,  none of my friends/family know about them since I did the digging to find them.    So the social/cultural aspect is gone.    Rock music seems to have fallen behind R&B, Country, Hip Hop, and EDM in popularity, it's barely a blip on the culture these days.   Or at least the popular "Rock" bands of the past decade like Imagine Dragons and Twenty One Pilots seem to be only marginally rock at best.   And there isn't as much money in music anymore thanks to downloads and streaming..   and that's part of why music is less complex,  you can't hire as many musicians, singers, as you used to.  So this is something that is clearly in decline.

 

Contrast that to gaming, which is still well-funded, has lots of talent and young people aspiring to be game designers, has a huge audience.   It's nowhere near the state music is in.   Maybe you could argue gaming is a little off its peak,  but the decline hasn't happened yet, you will know it when it happens.   People won't be complaining that gaming isn't innovating enough,  the complaint will be that we can no longer even hit the heights of the past if we wanted to, because the money isn't there.

 

That's not to say that everything being created has to be to everyone's taste.     At the height of music,  I never cared much for the music of Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston, but I can't deny their sheer talent as singers.   Nowadays they'll take nearly anybody as a singer and "fix" them with autotune-- it's cheap!  

 

 

[Creamhoven]

7 hours ago, Tommy2D said:

How dare you; I love Opera Browser! 

 

 

What about Vivaldi?

2 hours ago, zzip said:

Rock music was a big part of the culture,  the biggest rock stars could fill stadiums, have decades-long careers and were household names.  We and our peers watched MTV, listened to Casey Kasem, would like much of the same music and go to concerts together.   Some of us dreamed of becoming guitar heros.

 

Now?  Sure I can find a few dozen good tracks every year, but the bands I'm finding aren't filling stadiums.   Maybe fill a club if they're lucky,  none of my friends/family know about them since I did the digging to find them.    So the social/cultural aspect is gone.    Rock music seems to have fallen behind R&B, Country, Hip Hop, and EDM in popularity, it's barely a blip on the culture these days.   Or at least the popular "Rock" bands of the past decade like Imagine Dragons and Twenty One Pilots seem to be only marginally rock at best.   And there isn't as much money in music anymore thanks to downloads and streaming..   and that's part of why music is less complex,  you can't hire as many musicians, singers, as you used to.  So this is something that is clearly in decline.

This is quite unfortunate. I think that quality music is necessaty, can you see a rebound coming? What could lead to more quality popular music?

2 hours ago, zzip said:

Contrast that to gaming, which is still well-funded, has lots of talent and young people aspiring to be game designers, has a huge audience.   It's nowhere near the state music is in.   Maybe you could argue gaming is a little off its peak,  but the decline hasn't happened yet, you will know it when it happens.   People won't be complaining that gaming isn't innovating enough,  the complaint will be that we can no longer even hit the heights of the past if we wanted to, because the money isn't there.

 

That's not to say that everything being created has to be to everyone's taste.     At the height of music,  I never cared much for the music of Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston, but I can't deny their sheer talent as singers.   Nowadays they'll take nearly anybody as a singer and "fix" them with autotune-- it's cheap!  

 

 

I hear alot of stories that developers get treated badly and are unhappy. LA Noire was such an example and from what I hear it hasn't gotten much better since. If there is no respect for this people, they will lose their interest eventually.

[zzip]

4 minutes ago, Creamhoven said:

This is quite unfortunate. I think that quality music is necessaty, can you see a rebound coming? What could lead to more quality popular music?

I mean music will always exist in some form,  but I don't see how the music industry as it existed in the 20th century that allowed all this can make a comeback.    It's existence was probably a historical aberration too since so much of it depended on recorded medium that couldn't be easily duplicated and spread.

 

I'm sure there will be some kind of musical renaissance in the future but have no idea when or what form it will take.

[Creamhoven]

8 minutes ago, zzip said:

I mean music will always exist in some form,  but I don't see how the music industry as it existed in the 20th century that allowed all this can make a comeback.    It's existence was probably a historical aberration too since so much of it depended on recorded medium that couldn't be easily duplicated and spread.

 

I'm sure there will be some kind of musical renaissance in the future but have no idea when or what form it will take.

I hope you are correct. There should come something new, but in a form that is high quality.

 

In my thread about the 50th anniversary of the last moonlanding, I referenced 'David Bowie - Space Oddity'. I recently was fortunate enough to listen to it on Vinyl. It was mindblowing. Real strings on a pop song. Wow, much better than canned strings. Stuff like this, music that really pops out of your speakers, the warmth and harmony, is only possible with human hands I feel. It is awesome. Things like this are dearly missed and need to return.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Creamhoven

[roots.genoa]

4 hours ago, MrTrust said:

Classic after classic after classic after classic.  One year. If someone was arguing in 1998 what I am arguing today, it would be obvious that person was nuts.  Are you seriously going to tell me that you went through that time and had no idea you were living through something special in the evolution of this thing?

Yeah 1998 was a great year for video games, but frankly I'm not sure I realized it back then, since I didn't play most of the games from your list at the time (and some of them are not classics to me, because that's subjective once again). What I mean is that instant classics are not that common, and if the classics some people mentioned are "already 10 years old", it's precisely because they're 10 years old that they're considered classics now. For instance, a lot of movies that are considered classics today were commercial (and sometimes critical) failures when they were released. This is really well documented.

 

And I don't see how the fact that 1998 was a great year for gaming proves that gaming is declining. At best it's a cycle (1986 was a great year as well while 1983 and 1984 kinda sucked), so we may be in a more quiet period (even though I'm not even sure of that), but that doesn't mean we won't get a great year soon, especially if a new system gets released typically. Actually, VR has brought a lot of great and innovative experiences, and the only reason they were not successful is that VR is still a niche. I found Nintendo Labo VR awesome, never had that much fun for a while. It was my 2019 GOTY. And maybe when more people will have access to VR, then some of its best games will be considered classics. Once again, it happens all the time for cinema.

[MrTrust]

3 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

I agree, 1998 was a very good year for video games. I don't think that makes the subsequent years any less interesting, though.

 

We could have a debate about whether that's true or not.  The reason I bring up 1998 is to push back on the idea that you can't really know when you're in the middle of a "golden age" while you're in it.  If it wasn't obvious to you in 1998 that we were in something like that, you just must not have been paying attention.  It was obvious to me at the time and I was 15 years-old.    

 

3 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

Didn't you write a big manifesto on how there's too much product out there for anything to shine through? With one side of your mouth, you complain about music and movie streaming having too broad a catalogue so there's no shared culture. Then you dump on modern gaming for not having the same mid-budget glut as 25 years ago.

 

I can't really make sense of this.  If you're telling me that we're somehow in less of a choice overload, product glut situation now than we were in 1998, then we're just not living on the same planet.  Either way, I don't see what that has to do with whether gaming has managed to reach the same heights it did 10-15 years ago or more.  If there were 50,000 games coming out every year, and 17 of them were on the level of the games I listed, I would be on much shakier ground, but there aren't 17 games like that this year, or last year, and there won't be next year, and so on.

 

3 hours ago, zzip said:

Well yeah, when gaming is new, then every game had the opportunity to define a new genre so of course novel ideas were going to be much more frequent.   Now so much has been done that it's so much harder to find a completely original concept that works.   But if you want that feeling again, you should try VR since developers are doing interesting things to see what works with that medium.

 

Novelty is not a sine qua non for having a masterpiece.  None of the games I've listed on this page are particularly novel in the sense that they're defining new genres, but in may cases they are fully realizing the promises of certain genres.  Metal Gear Solid, for instance, is not substantially different in terms of gameplay from any of the games in the series before it, but the idea of a game putting you into an auteur spy-themed action/adventure picture was essentially fully realized with that game.  Other sequels or derivative games may have refined what it does or improved on it, but none of them moved the ball the way MGS did.  Nothing in the genre really has in my view.  

 

Karateka is a classic because it spawned a genre, and it expanded the vocabulary of the game designer and also the critic.  Prince of Persia developed it.  Another World pushed the boundaries even more, and then Flashback came along.  Even at the time, you could kind of spot it as PoP-but-Blade Runner, so it wasn't particularly original in the bones of its design, and the story is just an obvious pastiche of a bunch of 80s sci-fi pictures.  The way the game came together, though, in its time and place, it was revelation.  This was now a medium with settings and characters; not just the stick-drawn Marios and Pac-Mans, or the reams and reams of babble that came with JRPGs.  This was these toys starting to morph into a grown-up thing.

 

Or, like I said, it could just be Super Mario Galaxy 2 and just have the best level design ever.  I have a wider latitude for accepting something as a masterpiece than people seem to think I do.

 

3 hours ago, zzip said:

The way I defined golden age was when investment, creativity/talent, and audience are all aligned to create something special.   It doesn't mean everything produced during the golden age is good, doesn't mean everything produced after is bad-   but it's when the thing is at it's heyday, when it has the biggest impact on the culture and young people aspired to be part of it.

 

Mostly agree, and I think it's obvious that this period in gaming was roughly '85-'05.

 

3 hours ago, zzip said:

Contrast that to gaming, which is still well-funded, has lots of talent and young people aspiring to be game designers, has a huge audience.   It's nowhere near the state music is in.

They're not; they're aspiring to be Twitch streamers and YouTubers.  That's not a joke; that's what they literally report wanting to do.  That's what they report wanting to learn in school: video editing and "media literacy", not C++.  When generative AI comes into the picture and removes all barriers to entry, they might all want to become game designers, but they're not going to think about what it is to be a creator the same way you or I would think about it.  They're going to be game marketers.  They're going game brand ambassadors.  The talent pool is not going to be made of the same kind of people that it used to be, I'm telling you.

No, we can't know the future, but we can look at which direction the arrows are pointing, and are any of them pointed in an upward direction?  I don't see any.

 

3 hours ago, zzip said:

People won't be complaining that gaming isn't innovating enough,  the complaint will be that we can no longer even hit the heights of the past if we wanted to, because the money isn't there.

 

This is something worth looking into more.  When you say "the money" in rock music, you're essentially referring to record companies keeping bands on that don't sell very well, and letting them develop and mature, also giving the audience a change to find and catch on.  I would be very interested to know what the demographics of current devs are like, particularly what the churn rate and average age is.

 

It is noteworthy that Nintendo has produced the one game that almost certainly going to be the first one cited as a modern masterpiece.  You look at that company, and most of the guys who worked on the original SMB and Zelda are still there, and still acting as producers on new games.  I understand that's a difference with Japanese culture in general, but I wonder to what extent new talent gets fostered relative to how it used to be?

 

31 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Yeah 1998 was a great year for video games, but frankly I'm not sure I realized it back then, since I didn't play most of the games from your list at the time (and some of them are not classics to me, because that's subjective once again).

 

It's not subjective.  If it was, there would be no point of criticism.  You'd just be reporting your subjective experiences like everyone else on the internet.  What do I care what your subjective experiences are?  You're not me.  The fact that you felt this or that thing while playing a game says nothing to be about its merits.  I mean, I know you're French, but come on.  You're a professional critic, no?  At least try to justify yourself.

 

34 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

And I don't see how the fact that 1998 was a great year for gaming proves that gaming is declining.

 

Because you have to go back a quarter of a century to find that level of greatness in gaming.  It hasn't happened since.  Maybe '01, maybe '05.  You could make that case, certainly not after '05.  It's been a long time.  

[Tommy2D]

2 hours ago, MrTrust said:

 

We could have a debate about whether that's true or not.  The reason I bring up 1998 is to push back on the idea that you can't really know when you're in the middle of a "golden age" while you're in it.  If it wasn't obvious to you in 1998 that we were in something like that, you just must not have been paying attention.  It was obvious to me at the time and I was 15 years-old.    

 

 

I can't really make sense of this.  If you're telling me that we're somehow in less of a choice overload, product glut situation now than we were in 1998, then we're just not living on the same planet.  Either way, I don't see what that has to do with whether gaming has managed to reach the same heights it did 10-15 years ago or more.  If there were 50,000 games coming out every year, and 17 of them were on the level of the games I listed, I would be on much shakier ground, but there aren't 17 games like that this year, or last year, and there won't be next year, and so on.

 

 

Novelty is not a sine qua non for having a masterpiece.  None of the games I've listed on this page are particularly novel in the sense that they're defining new genres, but in may cases they are fully realizing the promises of certain genres.  Metal Gear Solid, for instance, is not substantially different in terms of gameplay from any of the games in the series before it, but the idea of a game putting you into an auteur spy-themed action/adventure picture was essentially fully realized with that game.  Other sequels or derivative games may have refined what it does or improved on it, but none of them moved the ball the way MGS did.  Nothing in the genre really has in my view.  

 

Karateka is a classic because it spawned a genre, and it expanded the vocabulary of the game designer and also the critic.  Prince of Persia developed it.  Another World pushed the boundaries even more, and then Flashback came along.  Even at the time, you could kind of spot it as PoP-but-Blade Runner, so it wasn't particularly original in the bones of its design, and the story is just an obvious pastiche of a bunch of 80s sci-fi pictures.  The way the game came together, though, in its time and place, it was revelation.  This was now a medium with settings and characters; not just the stick-drawn Marios and Pac-Mans, or the reams and reams of babble that came with JRPGs.  This was these toys starting to morph into a grown-up thing.

 

Or, like I said, it could just be Super Mario Galaxy 2 and just have the best level design ever.  I have a wider latitude for accepting something as a masterpiece than people seem to think I do.

 

 

Mostly agree, and I think it's obvious that this period in gaming was roughly '85-'05.

 

They're not; they're aspiring to be Twitch streamers and YouTubers.  That's not a joke; that's what they literally report wanting to do.  That's what they report wanting to learn in school: video editing and "media literacy", not C++.  When generative AI comes into the picture and removes all barriers to entry, they might all want to become game designers, but they're not going to think about what it is to be a creator the same way you or I would think about it.  They're going to be game marketers.  They're going game brand ambassadors.  The talent pool is not going to be made of the same kind of people that it used to be, I'm telling you.

No, we can't know the future, but we can look at which direction the arrows are pointing, and are any of them pointed in an upward direction?  I don't see any.

 

 

This is something worth looking into more.  When you say "the money" in rock music, you're essentially referring to record companies keeping bands on that don't sell very well, and letting them develop and mature, also giving the audience a change to find and catch on.  I would be very interested to know what the demographics of current devs are like, particularly what the churn rate and average age is.

 

It is noteworthy that Nintendo has produced the one game that almost certainly going to be the first one cited as a modern masterpiece.  You look at that company, and most of the guys who worked on the original SMB and Zelda are still there, and still acting as producers on new games.  I understand that's a difference with Japanese culture in general, but I wonder to what extent new talent gets fostered relative to how it used to be?

 

 

It's not subjective.  If it was, there would be no point of criticism.  You'd just be reporting your subjective experiences like everyone else on the internet.  What do I care what your subjective experiences are?  You're not me.  The fact that you felt this or that thing while playing a game says nothing to be about its merits.  I mean, I know you're French, but come on.  You're a professional critic, no?  At least try to justify yourself.

 

 

Because you have to go back a quarter of a century to find that level of greatness in gaming.  It hasn't happened since.  Maybe '01, maybe '05.  You could make that case, certainly not after '05.  It's been a long time.  

 

Your argument seems very similar to people who claim that music was "better" when they were young.  Shockingly, people who were coming of age, in the 60s, tend to prefer 60s music. Ditto for folks who hit their stride in the 90s, the 00s, etc. I don't think you need a PhD in sociology or musicology to recognize that trend. Those same folks tend to dislike contemporary music.  I've seen the same basic argument for cars, clothing, movies, TV, etc. 

 

You mentioned that you were 15 in the late 90s.  This is a wild idea but do you think that your connection to the classics, from that era, may be stronger because of nostalgia? 

 

 

 

[MrTrust]

18 minutes ago, Tommy2D said:

You mentioned that you were 15 in the late 90s.  This is a wild idea but do you think that your connection to the classics, from that era, may be stronger because of nostalgia?

 

When the NES and SMS came into the house, all the Atari and Coleco stuff got put away and my old man only would hook them up on occasion.  I was nostalgic for Atari stuff even when I was 8 or 9.

 

The subjects of my nostalgia are mostly early 80s games.  I get every new Spelunker game not because Spelunker is great, but because I have nostalgia for it.  I still play Miner 2049er and Gateway to Apshai because of nostalgia.  I don't get any acute feelings of nostalgia about games made after maybe '89.  I would not prefer to play Ocarina or MGS over some of their sequels, for instance.

 

If I was listing games from '98 that I had fond memories of, I would have included games like Body Harvest, Trap Gunner, Heart of Darkness, Space Station Silicone Valley, things like that.  Fine games in their own right, but not classics.  The games I listed are all recognized as classics as close to universally as you can get.

 

No, I don't believe nostalgia has anything to do with it.

 

33 minutes ago, Tommy2D said:

Your argument seems very similar to people who claim that music was "better" when they were young.  Shockingly, people who were coming of age, in the 60s, tend to prefer 60s music. Ditto for folks who hit their stride in the 90s, the 00s, etc. I don't think you need a PhD in sociology or musicology to recognize that trend.

 

My Boomer parents and their generational cohort massively overestimate the quality and importance of their 60s and 70s.  They're absolutely correct that their music was better than my generation's music, however.  When I was in high school, we were listening to trash like KoRn and Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock and Cottonmouth Kings and just all kinds of vapid, juvenile garbage.  Yeah, I liked it when I was a teenager, and then I grew up and realized that that stuff sucks.

 

So, yes, by all means, make fun of Millennial music and call it garbage.  It is garbage. Just because everyone makes a similar claim doesn't mean nobody's ever right about it.

[Tommy2D]

1 hour ago, MrTrust said:

My Boomer parents and their generational cohort massively overestimate the quality and importance of their 60s and 70s.  They're absolutely correct that their music was better than my generation's music, however.  When I was in high school, we were listening to trash like KoRn and Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock and Cottonmouth Kings and just all kinds of vapid, juvenile garbage.  Yeah, I liked it when I was a teenager, and then I grew up and realized that that stuff sucks.

 

So, yes, by all means, make fun of Millennial music and call it garbage.  It is garbage. Just because everyone makes a similar claim doesn't mean nobody's ever right about it.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhht...So because Kid Rock existed in the 90s that erases REM, Weezer, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, etc.?