heywood on 9/12/2015 at 13:19
Quote Posted by Starker
Hmm.. can't say I agree. A lot of my all-time favourites like Silent Hill were console games. NES, SNES and PS had some amazing libraries. Parasite Eve, Metroid, Chrono Trigger, Donkey Kong Country...
I think you missed my point, which is that the popularity of PC gaming peaked in that period. Consoles dominated before and after. TTLG was founded to celebrate game developers and game franchises that started out on the PC and arguably hit their peak during the PC golden age.
One reason for the golden age of PC gaming is that everybody was buying PCs in the 1990s to get online, so it became a mass market platform for the first time. Another reason is that CPU and GPU power available on the PC platform was well ahead of the consoles and increasing at a faster rate. During that period, most game developers and players were chasing the leading edge of 3D graphics performance, so they were primarily following the PC gaming scene. The gaming press was paying more attention to what John Carmack put in his .plan file than any Playstation title. And during that time, my friends and I might play an occasional game of Gran Turismo or an EA Sports game on the PS1 when we got together, but we were mostly focused on 1st person PC games.
That started to change with the XBox 1, and after the introduction of the XBox 360 and PS3, the PC gaming scene pretty well died out for a while. In recent years, it has seen a little bit of a revival thanks to Steam and GoG and indie devs. But the AAA games industry is still targeting consoles first and PCs second.
Neb on 9/12/2015 at 13:21
I'd say that right now (on PC at least) it isn't so much of a golden age where everyone is along for the ride, where we get a lot of front-and-centre main attractions that are popular and ground breaking, but more defined by large niches that are more accessible and visible than ever, and that even manage to better their predecessors. I've played a lot of Prison Architect recently. It's good. I mean really damn good. I think it's better than a lot of the management/god games that we'd consider classics, and it sold well too, but it's not something that I'm looking back on right now in the same way that Sim City 2000 reminds me of sitting in a summer haze reading the manual, excited to get started building a virtual city on my computer for the first time ever.
I don't feel much of a zeitgeist any more. Everything is fragmented. A lot of the games now are awesome, but what of it? (
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5sRmEB0VdY) Racing and (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn3D8SuUp7Y) flight sims are capable of more fidelity than ever, and it's no biggie. (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onuJbpAb7Ho) Tactical shooters are so good that I don't miss those hours staying up playing Rainbow Six (as great a game as it was). Point and click (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tuhm8QWGhYs) adventures styling themselves on the classics from the 90s can tell more sophisticated stories than ever, but not everyone needs to play them.
There's just something great everywhere, but you need to go looking. I think it's the way that most media is now - this decade especially. There's a mainstream that everyone likes to dip into, but the rest of it exists in fragmented enclaves, some of which become really popular, but because the barrier to entry is now low, and distribution so simple and easy, it's not hard to let something great pass you by.
Or, maybe that's just me. I spent the last half of the 2000s frustrated with mainstream AAA gaming. All I needed was something very different to go with it, and now we have that in spades. Things are great right now, and the future will probably be better still.
Manwe on 9/12/2015 at 13:26
Quote Posted by GMDX Dev
A Whole New Dimension
3D gaming happened...
And they were all shite, with retarded tank controls and barely functioning cameras. Even the early classics like Super Mario 64 and Tomb Raider are nigh unplayable by today's standards.
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Infancy of Business in the Industry
Experimentation was happening here too, and while trends were followed and sly business practices were partook in, it was far from modern times. Now we have season passes, on-disc DLC, DRM...
We had worse DRM back then, but now we also have a booming indie scene, the Kickstarter scene, and the modding scene. Indeed, the greatest mods ever made were made in the 2000s as you can probably attest yourself. And it might even be possible in the future for modders to get remunerated. Although I admit there is a lot of potential for things to go wrong there.
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Graphics are Expensive
Budgets have increased considerably. AAA game budgets have seen around lets say a rough 5,000% increase (compare SS2 to Skyrim). In the 90's we got reasonably good graphics (and developers getting creative with the budget & engine limitations) without it notably impacting other fields of game design.
I guess you didn't notice the whole sub-genre of retro games we're being flooded with. Shovel Knight, Axiom Verge, Castle in the Darkness, just to name some of my favorites but also La Mulana, Spelunky, Super Meat Boy, etc... All focused on perfecting gameplay in their respective genres. I'd tell you to compare SS2's budget to that of Minecraft, or the budget of Abe's Odyssey to that of Castle Story.
Seems to work fine for Assassin's Creed. Not saying it's a healthy environment to work in but it seems to get the job done.
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Bigger Budget, Bigger Risk
Everyone plays it safe because a financial failure could kill a company outright with no chance of recovery. There's too many games that attempt to cater to such a wide audience and are pretty damn brainless. The industry is bankrupt in creativity as developers are on a leash.
Two words for you: Star Citizen. It's big, it's risky, it caters to a niche audience. We're also seeing enormous innovations in other areas with the whole non-game genre. Not my cup of tea personally, but you can't say stuff like Her Story, or Papers Please! don't take risks. Also with the widespread availability of development tools, risks have never been so insignificant. We have a goat simulator and a janitor simulator on Steam for Christ's sake!
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PC and Consoles in Unison
Heh consoles are as good as gone. With the death of physical media they have no reason to exist anymore. This is good for PC gaming, doubly so in fact, since we've now reached a point where the PC version of a game is usually vastly superior to its console counterpart, and as consoles are becoming wannabe PCs, their traditional genres are exporting themselves to our platform. The Japanese publishers seem to have seen that coming and this is why we are seeing all those JRPGs and Platformers coming our way. Basically consoles are becoming multimedia boxes catering to non-gamers, while gamers are being relocated to the PC.
Now I'm not saying everything is rosy these days, but you can't just dismiss the whole thing as "not being as good as it used to". The gaming industry has never been so big and diverse. For every EA there's a Paradox, and for every Uplay, there's a GoG.
Malf on 9/12/2015 at 13:34
Quote Posted by GMDX Dev
No. There's degrees of subjectivity and objectivity. A broken game hinders the overall quality of it objectively, for example.
Well, that's just, like, YOUR opinion man.
PigLick on 9/12/2015 at 14:13
I am starting up a company. gonna call it "goldenage".
Melan on 9/12/2015 at 14:58
Quote Posted by PigLick
I am starting up a company. gonna call it "goldenage".
That niche is (
http://goldeneragames.com/) already filled by the famous Neanderthal, Cleveland Mark Blakemore.
PigLick on 9/12/2015 at 15:26
godammit
GMDX Dev on 9/12/2015 at 15:52
Quote Posted by Manwe
And they were all shite, with retarded tank controls and barely functioning cameras. Even the early classics like Super Mario 64 and Tomb Raider are nigh unplayable by today's standards.
Duke Nukem 3D, System Shock 2, Doom, Thief, Tenchu etc etc were shite? Heathen. And sluggish controls don't make a bad game, they merely hinder the potential, or sometimes fit it perfectly: the extra tension created in Resident Evil/Silent Hill as a result of tank controls for example. Tomb Raider is another: the way the platforming, controls and simplistic geometry came together was a perfect formula for logical challenging gameplay. Sure old games had dodgy camera moments (Tomb Raider especially), but it was just another challenge to overcome really. If not, a caveat of the time that can be accepted. Additionally, this applied to third person real time games ONLY. RPGs, First person games, strategy games etc had no such flaws.
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We had worse DRM back then, but now we also have a booming indie scene, the Kickstarter scene, and the modding scene.
Hmm? An indie scene where the likes of GOAT Simulator dominate? Kickstarter scene full of scams or nostalgic games that do not rival the classics, let alone succeed them? As for DRM, well PC games often no longer have disc versions and require Steam exclusively.
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Indeed, the greatest mods ever made were made in the 2000s as you can probably attest yourself.
Oh? something in particular I should check out?
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I guess you didn't notice the whole sub-genre of retro games we're being flooded with. Shovel Knight, Axiom Verge, Castle in the Darkness, just to name some of my favorites but also La Mulana, Spelunky, Super Meat Boy, etc... All focused on perfecting gameplay in their respective genres.
The vast majority of what you listed are 2D platformers...such booming innovation and variety.
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Seems to work fine for Assassin's Creed. Not saying it's a healthy environment to work in but it seems to get the job done.
Ass Creed? You do realize that's the trite of stealth/adventure games, and the gameplay consists of the game playing itself to some degree, right?
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Two words for you: Star Citizen. It's big, it's risky, it caters to a niche audience.
"Risky" he says. "Niche" he says. The game got millions thrown at it before it was anywhere close to completion! That's the opposite of risky and niche. It was a wild success beyond what any dev could dream of before the kickstarter campaign had even ended. Kickstarters by their very nature are less risky than other possible game dev opportunities. People throw cash at you for simple promises (that can easily be broken).
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We're also seeing enormous innovations in other areas with the whole non-game genre.
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but you can't say stuff like Her Story, or Papers Please! don't take risks. Also with the widespread availability of development tools, risks have never been so insignificant.
Low budget one-man Indie games. Risks/innovations are a must to even get noticed among the sea of shovelware.
anyhow, "non-games" as you rightly put. We're talking about games here. Moving along...
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We have a goat simulator and a janitor simulator on Steam for Christ's sake!
Ah, there's that name again. The GOAT. This shouldn't be a widespread name. Putting the player in control of a goat and having it run around doing nonsensical shit in a little sandbox isn't noteworthy. It's successful precisely because it is half-assed and idiotic, and I take issue with that.
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Heh consoles are as good as gone. With the death of physical media they have no reason to exist anymore. This is good for PC gaming, doubly so in fact, since we've now reached a point where the PC version of a game is usually vastly superior to its console counterpart,
Sorry, consoles aren't going anywhere. They dominate the market. And I wouldn't call consistently shitty ports for games that were console-first throughout development "vastly superior". Consoles are dead to me, but to the industry and the primary demographics they are very much alive.
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and as consoles are becoming wannabe PCs, their traditional genres are exporting themselves to our platform. The Japanese publishers seem to have seen that coming and this is why we are seeing all those JRPGs and Platformers coming our way. Basically consoles are becoming multimedia boxes catering to non-gamers, while gamers are being relocated to the PC.
Oh good, something I don't disagree with.
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Now I'm not saying everything is rosy these days, but you can't just dismiss the whole thing as "not being as good as it used to". The gaming industry has never been so big and diverse. For every EA there's a Paradox, and for every Uplay, there's a GoG.
Bullshit. A compromised "AAA" sector that mostly only produces dumbed down action games & RPGs, and an indie scene primarly focused on non-games and 2D platformers is certainly not as good as it used to be. Of course there are exceptions, but I struggle to find much of what I fell in love with in the '90s and early '00s.
This was not what I had in mind when I pictured the future of gaming:
Top Games by Player Count (Steam)
CURRENT PLAYERS PEAK TODAY GAME
799,889 799,889 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
703,466 803,142 Dota 2
89,223 132,516 Fallout 4
52,329 56,046 Team Fortress 2
41,205 47,065 Warframe
39,669 58,866 Football Manager 2016
35,245 38,899 Grand Theft Auto V
34,171 42,044 ARK: Survival Evolved
30,848 41,672 Sid Meier's Civilization V
28,431 35,448 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
27,954 32,829 Clicker Heroes
26,540 32,414 Garry's Mod
21,709 25,644 Counter-Strike
19,910 21,092 Unturned
19,523 27,724 Arma 3
18,645 23,311 Rust
18,591 26,599 Call of Duty: Black Ops III
17,927 29,250 Rocket League
16,182 23,532 Football Manager 2015
Manwe on 9/12/2015 at 16:42
Quote Posted by GMDX Dev
Duke Nukem 3D, System Shock 2, Doom, Thief, Tenchu
Hmm no tank controls, no tank controls, no tank controls, no tank controls, and yep unplayable turd.
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Oh? something in particular I should check out?
I dunno every single mod ever made? Ever heard of Counter Strike or Team fortress? Yes I count these as being part of the 2000s. How about Dota? Garry's mod? The Dark Mod? T2X? The Nameless Mod? Black Mesa Source? The Stanley Parable? Dear Esther? Minerva? Insurgency? Burden of 80 proof? Zodiac? 2027? CoSas? Natural Selection? The gazillion FMs for Thief, Thief 2, Thief DS and System Shock 2? How about SHTUP? HDTP? How about full engine ports for the likes of Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Heretic, Hexen, Morrowind, Oblivion? How about those fully voiced campain mods for Skyrim?
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Sorry, consoles aren't going anywhere. They dominate the market. And I wouldn't call consistently shitty ports for games that were console-first throughout development "vastly superior". Consoles are dead to me, but to the industry and the primary demographics they are very much alive.
You didn't get my point. They're not consoles anymore, they're mini PCs. Those shitty ports aren't ports anymore. There is no need to port a game made with Unity or Unreal Engine. The hardware is pretty much the same on all platforms, the control scheme is the same. They've successfully standardized every aspect of gaming. That's why most games are now released on multiple platforms at the same time. Games aren't made for consoles or PCs, they're made for an Xbox controller. That's your next generation of consoles: a controller. Fallout 4's UI isn't bad because it's a shitty port of a console game. Its bad because you're playing it wrong.
Jason Moyer on 9/12/2015 at 16:44
I hate to be that guy, but if you want to use 'golden age' the way it's normally used, you'd almost certainly be talking about the late 70's and early 80's when gaming was ubiquitous. The 90's could be a silver age or something, I guess.
