Has gaming had its "Golden Age"?

Associate
Joined
9 Oct 2018
Posts
1,304
Ah yes that golden age of fortnite was pure perfection, i spent my entire childhood on that game collecting skins and replaying the same mode again and again. Couldn't get enough of it! Why don't they make games like that anymore?

Im not sure why you're struggling to understand that most people associate a 'golden age' with their youth when gaming was fresh and new to them. To a 40 year old Fortnite is a load of tosh but to a 13 year old kid who plays it every single day with his mates after school...well they are going to have a lot of memories attached to it once they grow up, in the same way i have memories attached to Goldeneye or NBA jam.

If you ask a boomer what was the golden age of music chances are they will say 60's/70's

If you ask someone from generation X the same question they will probably say 80's or 90's
 
Associate
Joined
15 May 2006
Posts
830
Location
B'ham
Im not sure why you're struggling to understand that most people associate a 'golden age' with their youth when gaming was fresh and new to them. To a 40 year old Fortnite is a load of tosh but to a 13 year old kid who plays it every single day with his mates after school...well they are going to have a lot of memories attached to it once they grow up, in the same way i have memories attached to Goldeneye or NBA jam.

If you ask a boomer what was the golden age of music chances are they will say 60's/70's

If you ask someone from generation X the same question they will probably say 80's or 90's

It is subjective yes, just think its funny that their golden age will be based on one game. I guess i have seen their obsession with the skins and dances that are designed to milk their parents. People create their own reality so yes i can imagine Fortnite going down as that epic game that everybody played and loved. Still will be funny to me.
 
Caporegime
Joined
22 Nov 2005
Posts
45,169
As others have said around 1995 - 2005 ish for me is the golden age
yep good times.
when did the first crappy dlc come along? before that people did proper expansions.
WOW killed mmos pretty much every mmo since has been a cash grab or utter crap because it was too much like wow (wow came out at the end of 2004)
bf2 is probably the last online fps I played to death and that came out in 2005

for me gaming definitely started to get worse after 2005
sure every few years we get a big hit like gta4 or skyrim but they are few and far between
 
Associate
Joined
9 May 2009
Posts
1,178
yep good times.
when did the first crappy dlc come along? before that people did proper expansions.
WOW killed mmos pretty much every mmo since has been a cash grab or utter crap because it was too much like wow (wow came out at the end of 2004)
bf2 is probably the last online fps I played to death and that came out in 2005

for me gaming definitely started to get worse after 2005
sure every few years we get a big hit like gta4 or skyrim but they are few and far between

I think the first DLC was Halo 2 but might be wrong.
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Sep 2008
Posts
3,810
Location
Nottingham
The first DLC I remember was Need For Speed 3's three downloadable cars. They were a free download, EA were fairly generous back in the day. The mere fact they released a PC game massively enhanced months after the initial PlayStation release tells you how much things have changed.

Payed might be the infamous horse armour, don't know.
 
Soldato
Joined
16 Aug 2009
Posts
7,728
No such thing everyone remembers when were getting into it as kids/young adults and thats what they remember as the "golden age". What has changed is its gone from basically hobbyists and one guy working on something in his spare time while at college or even at home in the 80's to teams of hundreds of people working on the big titles today that no single person could create in several lifetimes. Its also become a huge business and almost accepted as a mainstream entertainment. That has a downside in that studios have become risk averse so stick with tried and tested franchises that they know will sell so innovation appears to to slowed though there are always small developers hoping to become the "next big thing".

So no, I don't think the "golden age" is over it simply morphs into something thats different from the scene you used to be familar with, but maybe the diversity of ideas has declined.
 
Caporegime
Joined
22 Nov 2005
Posts
45,169
problem is the lack of competition because the big studios bought them all out then basically did nothing with them but hey it was one competitor out of the way.

what are games doing nowdays that pushes the limit?

single shard mmos? where are you? oh eve the 2003 mmo still exists.
fps online games how many players per server are we today? joint operations 2004 up to 150 people on the same server

game AI barely improved, graphics improved, sound improved, cut scenes improved, physics improved, animations improved.

well that's great. but does anyone remember how huge the modding scene used to be before all these developers started making it almost impossible for people to mod their games because.... whos going to buy dlc if people are getting mods for free

the packaging got better, the contents for the most part did not.

golden age was real imo, maybe you didn't get to experience it.

all we have right now is the golden age of bots
 
Soldato
Joined
22 May 2010
Posts
11,686
Location
Minibotpc
problem is the lack of competition because the big studios bought them all out then basically did nothing with them but hey it was one competitor out of the way.

what are games doing nowdays that pushes the limit?

single shard mmos? where are you? oh eve the 2003 mmo still exists.
fps online games how many players per server are we today? joint operations 2004 up to 150 people on the same server

game AI barely improved, graphics improved, sound improved, cut scenes improved, physics improved, animations improved.

well that's great. but does anyone remember how huge the modding scene used to be before all these developers started making it almost impossible for people to mod their games because.... whos going to buy dlc if people are getting mods for free

the packaging got better, the contents for the most part did not.

golden age was real imo, maybe you didn't get to experience it.

all we have right now is the golden age of bots

Yup games these days, i am really reluctant to pay full price for them simply because on release they're usually riddled with game breaking bugs. Wait for reviews before even considering purchasing... never ever pre-order! Games these days are all hype and zero replay-ability provided you can even be bothered to complete it in the first place!

I mean jesus even Sims franchise did a better job with the expansions and they were tosh!

Game's just don't have that feel about them anymore that give you that adrenaline rush, that makes your heart pump faster and makes you want to come back to it time and time again. I really do feel like, that games released now are half finished then DLC's are basically what should have been included in the first place to complete the game.
 
Soldato
Joined
19 May 2005
Posts
18,049
Location
Lancashire
I think open world/semi open world, story based games are only getting better and better. The Witcher 3, STALKER, Metro, GTA5, Skyrim, Fallout 3/NV, Alien Isolation, Dishonoured and Borderlands are some of the best games I have played and all fairly recent releases. I think a lot of it is nostalgia and if an old game was released today it wouldn't be anywhere near as good as you remembered it without the nostalgia.

We will see if we are at the peak with the next GTA, STALKER 2, Skyrim, proper Fallout and Cyberpunk. I have a feeling Bethesda have lost the plot and will ruin both franchises though.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 May 2009
Posts
19,885
I was going to say yes, but i actually think no.
To me the golden ages were late 80s early 90s on my Amiga as a child (Dizzy, Shadow of the beast, Cannon fodder, Sensible soccer, Gunship 2000, there are too many to list).
Then came a newwave of golden age from mid 90s to mid 2000s (Quake, Unreal, Dooms, Half life, Redalert, Diablo, Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, Theme park/hospital, again too many to list.

It seems a bit stale in comparison nowadays however when a good title comes along it will be the only thing i play for hundreds of hours unlike some of the 80s, 90s, 2000s titles - BF2, Starcraft, Squad and now the incredible COD Modern Warfare. The content seems endless and also being constantly updated.
I paid £30 in the early 90s for 1 or 2 Amiga games, which were frankly shocking, same in mid 90s. Games like Starcraft 2 and COD MW cost £30 and you get a LOT of great game for your money.

So no, I think there are multiple ‘golden ages’
 
Soldato
Joined
28 May 2007
Posts
3,348
Location
Saturn’s moon Titan
Im not sure why you're struggling to understand that most people associate a 'golden age' with their youth when gaming was fresh and new to them. To a 40 year old Fortnite is a load of tosh but to a 13 year old kid who plays it every single day with his mates after school...well they are going to have a lot of memories attached to it once they grow up, in the same way i have memories attached to Goldeneye or NBA jam.

If you ask a boomer what was the golden age of music chances are they will say 60's/70's

If you ask someone from generation X the same question they will probably say 80's or 90's

This is my wee lad he puts my head away with this crap everyday every nite he's spent a lot of money on it. I put games on his pc but he doesn't play them I even got him forza played it a couple of times I used to play fortnite with him but the kept changing things in it .
 
Associate
Joined
5 Mar 2017
Posts
2,216
Location
Cambridge
I think it's the same with movies. Not too much room for something really new. And most games now are really online focused (which I don't actually enjoy) or easy, with few exceptions. Now seems more suitable for the gameshark generation, everything has to be easy. Good old times of Alex Kidd.
 
Soldato
Joined
6 Feb 2019
Posts
17,466
I think it's the same with movies. Not too much room for something really new. And most games now are really online focused (which I don't actually enjoy) or easy, with few exceptions. Now seems more suitable for the gameshark generation, everything has to be easy. Good old times of Alex Kidd.

fully agree

I'm just not amused with movies anymore. It's like I've seen everything and anything the human mind can create and every movie just gives me déjà vu because I've already seen where this goes and it's so easy to predict the endings in movies now
 
Soldato
Joined
19 Aug 2005
Posts
4,103
Location
Ealing, London
No, there's great stuff out there. I went to a retro gaming event at the science museum last year and quickly realised that "rose tinted spectacles" had been in full effect. I think it's more that most of it has been done before, so it's just better looking, there's little surprise left so people get jaded.
 
Back
Top Bottom