Has gaming had its "Golden Age"?

Been gaming a long time and there are times when it has a bit of a lull but overall it just keeps on growing/getting better imo. There are still plenty of great games that others play but you might not like the genre.

There is plenty of regurgitation of the same old game types, however taking a game and improving the genre is not always a bad thing. There are still plenty of innovative games.
 
I think it depends what the criteria are, in terms of graphics those certainly are increasingly improving but in terms of playability and creativity theres been a drop off. Having said that, I think that dropoff is mostly in the AAA titles, with a few exceptions AAA titles dont cut the mustard, the indie titles have some absolute corkers in though and I find that often I am playing an indie game rather than a game made with a budget and large company.

Unless we are talking MMOs, the MMO genre has definitely already had its golden age imo, 1997-2004.
 
AAA games are the same as AAA movies, boring rehashed trash for the masses. Look at the rubbish Star Wars has churned out, DC, Marvel, Star Trek and many other brand names like Terminator, Ghostbusters, Rambo, the list is endless. Remakes, sequels, prequels no creativity whatsoever. Exactly the same with the big AAA game franchises. It's Star Wars people will go and watch it, its FIFA Deja Vu, have another £60, see you next year.

The BF/COD FIFA/MADDEN bro's are money in the bank, they'll buy anything so its understandable that the publishers milk them dry every year with the same game. I think if they're milking FIFA players, they're not milking me.
 
I don't think it's fair when looking at fifa, sports games, driving games etc. They are fixed things, football is football, f1 is f1. Maybe they take the pee on pricing but can you blame them if people pay :s
 
Still a few gems like Far Cry for me or Alien Isolation all be it its getting on a bit now.

Decent flight combat simulators seem to be a thing of the past.

I miss games like BF1942 and BF2. So much more could be done if they were massively open world. With internet connections and PC power you could build a truly huge theater supporting hundreds of players.

Alien vs Predator never quite cut it especially in multiplay which has the potential to be very good with open world and hunters and hunted.

Too many movie spin offs with poor gameplay. But nothing has really changed there.

Not really found anything other than Far Cry that keeps my attention nowadays.
 
LeMson said:
I don't think it's fair when looking at fifa, sports games, driving games etc. They are fixed things, football is football, f1 is f1. Maybe they take the pee on pricing but can you blame them if people pay :s
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It is when you consider the amount of removed features and modes, the reused assets etc. They haven't built on these franchises they remove modes and features, and then sometimes add something then remove it later. So although yes, football is football, but they don't innovate enough, Madden and FIFA after 20 years have perfected their art, but they haven't. They just produce a yearly half-baked rehash and they're often buggy on release as well.

They're no different from the recent Warcraft III Refunded.
 
It's all about money now and making it through multiplayer and loot boxes. Just look at GTA... Rockstar has missed an entire generation on consoles because they have been too busy keeping GTA Online alive. Then there's EA and all the other big devs/publishers who pump out the same crap every year but just slightly reskinned. I know they've always pumped out games in this way but they were certainly better back in the day.

The only game that will save gaming this year and for the next few years is Cyberpunk. No preorder bonuses, no loot boxes, no nonsense. The fact that they've even delayed it to make sure it's as best as it can possibly be speaks volumes about CDPR as a developer. They truly care about their games and customers.
 
They are good eggs no doubt but they are not the only ones. Ninja theory are great Devs and whilst I was very worried when MS bought them out it does seem they have not meddled too much.
Hello Games had a disaster of a launch with NMS, a lot of Devs would have just walked away and pocketed their cash but they stuck with it and now not only have they delivered in pretty much all of their pre release content they have actually gone way beyond it, and all for free as well.
Earlier in this thread I agreed that gaming is past its golden age, and I stick to it but it does all depend on what you mean by golden age.
In the 80s and 90s video gaming was a new technology everything was new and developers were pioneers. Moore's Law was very much a thing and so every few years we saw stuff that had never been seen before....... Helped by developers finding their feet combined with massive improvements to technology.

The difference now is videogames is a mature thing , way less exciting ***** but with that being said back in the 1980s with my speccy and then Amiga I would have given my left nut to play dirt rally, Witcher 3 or elite dangerous.......

***** The exception which breaks the rule of this is VR. Things are improving fairly quickly in that department because unlike flat games which are a known entity developers are still learning their trade a bit there and finding out what works well and what not so well.
 
Darujhistan said:
It is when you consider the amount of removed features and modes, the reused assets etc. They haven't built on these franchises they remove modes and features, and then sometimes add something then remove it later. So although yes, football is football, but they don't innovate enough, Madden and FIFA after 20 years have perfected their art, but they haven't. They just produce a yearly half-baked rehash and they're often buggy on release as well.

They're no different from the recent Warcraft III Refunded.
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Hurm, I meant a more pulled back macro view of what they could do, fifa looks like football on tv/rl, and f1 games looks like f1 on tv/rl, if you get what I mean. As mike says VR is a game changer, but also it's a big thing stuck on your head and you need room for room scale things, it's a lot of faff really, my rift has been on shelf for months as I cba with it
 
People lose interest as they get older. I could say the golden age of gaming were the 80s on the spectrum but equally the late 90s and up to around mid 00s.

Has there ever been such a buzz since the days of GTA 3, HL & HL2, Portal and the first couple of COD's?

Yeh I'm sure there has, as I said you lose a bit of interest as you age as you've other things to think about like paying bills and death.
 
Yes. It's too big for its own boots.

Too many games made. Too many developers. There's that much money in it that, that's all they make games for, to make as much money as they can.

Gone are the days of having and idea, realising it, releasing it and if they had done they're job they'd make money.

Now they want the money and their ideas are all centered around that. What does x target audience want, how much income they have, what features etc

Yes there are the odd exceptions.
 
G-MAN2004 said:
It's all about money now and making it through multiplayer and loot boxes. Just look at GTA... Rockstar has missed an entire generation on consoles because they have been too busy keeping GTA Online alive. Then there's EA and all the other big devs/publishers who pump out the same crap every year but just slightly reskinned. I know they've always pumped out games in this way but they were certainly better back in the day.

The only game that will save gaming this year and for the next few years is Cyberpunk. No preorder bonuses, no loot boxes, no nonsense. The fact that they've even delayed it to make sure it's as best as it can possibly be speaks volumes about CDPR as a developer. They truly care about their games and customers.
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That's an exaggeration, there will be plenty of good games released this year and in the future without the AAA nonsense, Cyberpunk is just the one with the highest profile.
 
LeMson said:
Hurm, I meant a more pulled back macro view of what they could do, fifa looks like football on tv/rl, and f1 games looks like f1 on tv/rl, if you get what I mean. As mike says VR is a game changer, but also it's a big thing stuck on your head and you need room for room scale things, it's a lot of faff really, my rift has been on shelf for months as I cba with it
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Sure, I agreed with that, football is football etc but that doesn't mean you release a half-arsed cash grab every year, and haven't made a truly great football/NFL/whatever game after 10-20 years of making them. VR is niche, it's a game changer for those tiny minority of people who love it, it's not a game changer at this point for the industry as a whole. I couldn't care less about VR, it's really expensive, clunky and years away from what it may become. I'll buy it when its great, not when it's early-access.
 
Darujhistan said:
. VR is niche, it's a game changer for those tiny minority of people who love it, it's not a game changer at this point for the industry as a whole. I couldn't care less about VR, it's really expensive, clunky and years away from what it may become. I'll buy it when its great, not when it's early-access.
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Our of curiosity what games do you play and what VR experiences have you tried? Some genres translate better than others, you would for instance likely not play COD as it plays now and get on well with it.... OTOH cockpit based games have no interest to me now outside of VR. I dread that VR may fail now because my favourite genre of games has been ruined outside of VR now
 
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The market is bigger now but the quality is not there and I do not mean the eye candy, I mean gameplay/story etc.

The best games ever (talking modern PC games not ones I grew up with on C64/Amiga) were mid 90's to say 2010, you do get a few good games since out esp. hidden gems.
 
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