Thirith on 14/7/2016 at 10:18
Many of the oldtimers here have been playing games for at least a decade and often considerably more than that. Myself, I got started in the mid-'80s when we got a C64, which means that I've been playing computer games for more than 30 years.
I'm curious, though: what do you consider the big, revolutionary changes that have happened in gaming while you've been a gamer? The following are the ones that I've been able to come up with:
* Home computers: affordable computers for personal use. I'm thinking especially of the C64, the Speccy, the trusty 8-bit machines that got me and my generation into gaming.
* 16-bit and beyond: The jump to more powerful home computers made games possible that simply wouldn't have worked on the 8-bit machines. Graphics, sound and memory went up considerably, making this one of the bigger steps I can remember, compared to more incremental improvements.
* The PC era and modular systems: I got into PC gaming relatively late, which meant that add-on hardware was already on the horizon. Soundblasters, Voodoo cards, that sort of thing - and with them came increased fiddling with drivers, setup etc.
* 3D acceleration: While 3D games had been around for a while, the jump to accelerated 3D was huge at the time. At least technically: when it came to depicting more organic worlds, creatures and objects, early 3D was considerably less pleasing to the eye than pixel-based art.
* Modding: I can't say all that much about this since I've never modded myself, but at the very latest with Doom modding became big, and while sadly not all games or developers foster modding, those that do can result in amazing community work.
* The indie revolution: I do enjoy some AAA games, but the rise of indie gaming has been a godsend in producing a vastly more varied gaming landscape, as far as I'm concerned. There's more space for experiments in gameplay, storytelling, settings. (There's also a lot of crap, but that's true for any and every creative industry.)
* Crowdfunding: This is perhaps ambivalent - for one thing, not all projects succeed; some produce games of questionable quality, others don't even produce complete games. There's also the problem of overly masturbatory nostalgia fapping. At the same time, crowdfunding has produced a lot of cool games that otherwise might not ever have seen the light of day.
These are the ones I could think of, but you might have other ones, or you might disagree that these constituted revolutionary changes. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Malf on 14/7/2016 at 11:57
As a gradual but no less revolutionary change, Internet multiplayer.
Multiplayer used to be either arcade or couch based, almost exclusively. Now that exclusivity has shifted to individual users on individual consoles or computers. It's opened up a whole world of skill-levels for players to play at, but I definitely miss beating my mates up IRL when games of Mario Party weren't going well.
I'd also say that storage speed hikes really affected how I played games. The leap from tape to floppy, then floppy to cartridge, taking a step down from cartridge to CD, then from CD to HDD, and finally from HDD to SSD. Each had noticeable impacts on the way I played games and the way those games were paced.
When I started gaming at home, having to wait 10 minutes or more for a game to load on tape was the massively frustrating norm. Often, the load would fail, or the successfully loaded game would crash. While improved graphics and rendering speeds have obviously made massive leaps throughout the years, I still think load times have had the biggest impact on my gaming life.
And the humble mouse of course!
WingedKagouti on 14/7/2016 at 12:08
Quote Posted by Thirith
I'm curious, though: what do you consider the big, revolutionary changes that have happened in gaming while you've been a gamer? The following are the ones that I've been able to come up with:
I only really agree with you on the 3D accelerator thing.
Home computers weren't a revolution, they were the genesis. 16 bit was a natural evolution, as was gaming on a modular system. While modding has spawned several game modes, games and genres, I do not feel that modding in and of itself is a revolution. While indies have become more visible (a lot of it due to Steam), they've always been there. Crowdfunding is basically just preordering for indies.
You did miss two very massive revolutions IMO:
The Internet and Steam.
The rise of the Internet in the mid-90s changed how people played their games, how developers push games out and support them and it changed the expectations of gamers as a whole. The Internet also gave people a chance to form international communities with lasting impacts.
While not the first online game store, Steam established the current model of "Client as DRM & Storefront". Steam sales changed the way people evaluate games while Steam Greenlight gives hope to aspiring developers that their product may become popular.
A third, lesser revolution would be Unity. While creation tools and engine packages have been a thing for a long time (I remember some primitive stuff back in the late 80s), I do feel like Unity has been the biggest revolution in that space. It has taken some lessons from Steam in integrating a store front in the client and from the internet in general in building a community around itself.
TannisRoot on 14/7/2016 at 16:44
YouTube and Streaming are definitely revolutions in how games are experienced and talked about.
heywood on 14/7/2016 at 16:59
These are the highlights and advancements which were most meaningful to me:
1. Pong. The first game I ever saw. I was a young kid in the late 70s and my friend's family got a Pong set. I think it was a Magnavox Odyssey.
2. LED hand held games, e.g. electronic football. These were crude, but helped pass the time on long car rides.
3. The arcade. This is where the industry really started. When I was growing up there was a bowling alley with a large arcade a mile from my house and my friends and I would walk there to play whenever we could scrounge up some quarters.
4. The first wave of home video game consoles: Atari 2600, Mattel Intellivision, ColecoVision. Arcade gaming in front of the TV!
5. 6502-based home computers. For me, the Atari 400 and C64. More memory than consoles, keyboards, plus removable storage meant games could be more sophisticated and varied in design. Suddenly home gaming became better than the arcade. Also, tapes and floppies led to the widespread exchange of pirated games.
6. Colossal Cave Adventure - The first text adventure. It ran on DEC mainframes. I first saw this on a science field trip to a local college when I was in 7th or 8th grade.
7. NES, which revitalized console gaming and gave my generation some of our most memorable classics.
8. PC gaming. I got my first PC in 1990 and it's how I got my first taste of sims and RPGs.
9. Doom. It kicked off a whole new world of 3D gaming and LAN multiplayer for me and most of my friends.
10. Quake and QuakeWorld. This kicked off internet multiplayer gaming for me. My friends and I didn't have to haul our computers around to play together anymore, and you could always find a game going online. It also got many, many more people into designing levels and modding. It really changed my view of what a "game" could be, since Quake was more of an gaming ecosystem than a specific game. Quake also kicked off the hardware 3D acceleration arms race, and introduced the idea of gaming as sport with clans and tournaments.
11. LGS and spin-offs. I don't need to explain this one.
12. The Xbox 1, because it drove convergence of PC and console gaming. I'm undecided whether this is a good thing.
13. Indie games
icemann on 14/7/2016 at 17:04
Considering that I was born in 1980 and have witnessed first hand the transition from computers with no hard drives (Commodore 64) to present day with all of the technical jumps that have happened in between the list would just be too big.
To compare:
This:
Inline Image:
http://www.8-bitcentral.com/images/reviews/atari2600/pitfall2600Screen.jpgTo this:
Inline Image:
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/kxnz8yzofzcd4abeeqma.jpgIs just immense.
For me practically every few years brings with it a revolution of some sort. For me the whole Pokemon Go craze (which I've played a bit of myself) with it's use of augmented reality is a revolution of sorts. Especially if you factor in that it's the first game I can think of that has had quite a fair few people going outside to walk (or drive) to a location just to get items for use in a game. That to me is just amazing.
There is just so many big things that have happened. If I was to just go into one that I consider a big revolution I would have to say Doom's release as it has had a profound effect on the video game industry ever since. Yes I know there was Wolf 3D and Ken's Labyrinth and all that prior, but no other FPS prior had that level of an impact. Also on the multiplayer end it had a massive impact as well.
I'd call Kickstarter a revolution as well. The things it has done for gaming as well as technology (eg the Oculus Rift) has been huge.
The rise and fall of Arcades would be another. Only us oldies know just how great arcades were, and of the level of difference graphically to playing a game in an arcade vs playing a game on our Atari 2600's or later Super Nintendo / Sega Mega Drives.
Nameless Voice on 14/7/2016 at 18:07
Should probably add Starcraft, since it kind of started/popularised the whole e-sports trend.
Renault on 14/7/2016 at 19:13
VR seems like the next obvious one. I wonder if another might be Steam's attempt to bring PC gaming into the living room via Steam machines, Steam Link, controllers, etc.
Jason Moyer on 15/7/2016 at 00:22
Pong, Atari VCS, Apple ][. Everything since has been more evolution than revolution.
On the subject of VR, after 30+ years of it being the next big thing I'm not holding my breath.
demagogue on 15/7/2016 at 04:39
The big revolution that meant somethng personal to me was probably the early 90s shift to 3D, 92-93, VirtuaFighter at the arcades & UltimaUnderworld on PC. (Doom wasn't important to me personally, though I recognize it was culturally.) Well it was really games in the 2nd gen of that, 95-99, that conncected with me the most, right as I was entering college and got my own pc, and in the so-called second golden age of gaming.
