Current Events > Was gaming better 20 years ago than it is today?

(+) Yeah! (+)

topic

*insert disc
*play game*

Eyup, much better.

It was better back then. Not even nostalgia talking. There's no ambition anymore, everyone just plays it as safe as possible unless it's an indie game.

Games were REALLY bad 20 years ago. Look at how poorly ps1 and ps2 games have aged; they were still trying to figure out 3D. 25-30 years ago, though, games were incredible.

Anyone who thinks gaming isn't constantly getting better is completely deluded.

Yes and no

specialkid8 posted...

Anyone who thinks gaming isn't constantly getting better is completely deluded.

Only the surface quality is higher

I played Ocarina of time for the first time last year and it was AMAZING. The art, the music, the atmosphere, the world building... You rarely get that quality in the current "play it safe" climate

Njolk posted...

Only the surface quality is higher

I played Ocarina of time for the first time last year and it was AMAZING. The art, the music, the atmosphere, the world building... You rarely get that quality in the current "play it safe" climate

Funny, I loved OoT. Beat it at least a half a dozen times growing up. I returned to it after playing through BotW. I couldn't make it passed the 2nd dungeon because I was bored.

I think it's mostly silly to believe gaming hasn't gotten better. The issue is mainly that you've gotten older.

The only exception being genres that have more or less dropped off, like platformers and turn based JRPGs.

Ignoring that technology improves and valuing that as "better", yes gaming was better without microtransactions, games as a service and DLC expansions.

Njolk posted...

Only the surface quality is higher

I played Ocarina of time for the first time last year and it was AMAZING. The art, the music, the atmosphere, the world building... You rarely get that quality in the current "play it safe" climate

Thats how I felt when I played FFVII. The whole vibe and those prerendered backdropsits hard to imagine an experience like that today.

FPS and MMORPGs were better. Everything else is better these days

DeadBankerDream posted...

Ignoring that technology improves and valuing that as "better", yes gaming was better without microtransactions, games as a service and DLC expansions.

Ubisoft and EA are not the only people making games.

Heck no, those were darker times

Games are better now.
The gaming industry was better 20 years ago.

20 years ago we didn't even have yearly releases of the latest online FPS shit that retails for like 150 euro+ for the full package

old gaming SUCKED

Oh god no, we pretty much either talk about the greats or the really horrible and ignore that mountain of mediocrity that fell in between. Im sure that in 10 years from now we pretty much will be doing the same with games of this time and only talk about the really good or the garbage games as if they were better or worse than what they were and forget about the meh that fell in between.

Nah, it's probably about the same or slightly better.
Everything just "felt" better as a child

Except for Pokemon.
The old games are objectively better

nexigrams posted...

Games were REALLY bad 20 years ago. Look at how poorly ps1 and ps2 games have aged; they were still trying to figure out 3D. 25-30 years ago, though, games were incredible.

Tony Hawk 3, GTA3, Halo, Metal Gear Solid 2, Paper Mario, Advance Wars, Super Smash Bros Melee, Conkers Bad Fur Day, Twisted Metal: Black, Final Fantasy X, ICO, Black & White, Civilization 3, Pikmin, Phantasy Star Online, Silent Hill 2, Shenmue 2, Red Faction, Baldurs Gate 2, Europa Universalis 2, Serious Sam, Super Monkey Ball, etc are all REALLY bad?

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Melee alone is better than all gaming combined that has been since. And you got FFX in there too, wow.

I think there are a few reasons to make it feel like gaming used to be better:

1) Games that bring innovative new means of gameplay seem exciting in the present. However, the leaps in technology that effect gameplay and realism have been smaller and smaller with the last few generations, making the opportunities for completely new game ideas fewer and fewer. Twenty years ago, 3D was largely still a fairly new thing, and the graphics were making huge leaps. Today, the improvements are in the subtler details.

2) The cost of making a AAA title has become so extravagantly high that only a small number of them can be made per year, and the amount of time to make them is much longer, thus cutting down on the number of those games. We dont get as many of those blockbusters anymore, but we do get many, many more smaller scale games to make up for it.

3) Nostalgia is definitely a factor. Yes, we remember the games like Mario 64, OoT, MGS, and the other great games of the day 20-some years ago but there was also a lot of crap back then, too. We just choose not to remember the crap as vividly, making the previous era seem better in comparison.

Overall, Id say the games are about the same as they were back then, and thats mostly a good thing. There are plenty of fantastic games to play these days, along with plenty of disappointments.

Consider that 20 years ago, they didn't even know Melee had wavedashing.

KeeperOfShadows posted...

Games are better now.
The gaming industry was better 20 years ago.

Probably a fair assessment, though not to say that there weren't major shitstain issues with the industry back then, too.

All the best games in history were made about 20 years ago. Starcraft brood war and diablo 2 are still 2 of the greatest games ever. tony hawk 3. GTA 3. smash 64. melee. damn breh.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

well there you go, gaming was so much better back then.

i really don't think conker's bad fur day was that great a game and the gameplay parts to it i really liked were ones that other people generally hated.

Foppe posted...

*insert disc
*play game*

Eyup, much better.

I still go the physical route, and I agree with this on the surface, but there are counter arguments. For one thing, someone today has the option to predownload a game prior to launch and be ready to play it the very second a game comes out. Or you can buy the game from your phone and have it download, so it is ready when you get home.

Also, not to mention that release street dates werent a consistent thing back then. For a lesser known game, it could be a complete mystery for when a local store might actually get it. Or for a well known game, if prepay wasnt an option, it could be rough to get a copy. (Alternatively, I was able to get my hands on several games prior to release dates back then because retailers didnt give a fuck about that stuff all the time.)

Video games are one of the few entertainment mediums that I feel actually hasn't dropped off in quality over time.

We are getting better in better since 1980.

Better now but it has some cancerous growths that can bring down the experience in some areas.