Support NeoGAF

[StreetsofBeige]

games actually can cost way less to make nowadays, it's just that AAA devs artificially inflate the budget by pouring all of the cash into visuals and marketing, and then say that "games take too much cash that's why we add MTX" even though they know damn well they can lower the budget and still get great visuals

And for the large publicly traded companies with big budget games, what they do to promote to gamers they need the budget is to focus strictly on that - budget. Because the common gamer will assume a big budget with high costs = low profits as the dev team is giant and a better quality game. But as you said, they never tell you that budget also covers ginormous marketing expenses. So gamers think the budget is solely for programmers and artists.

I dont think I have ever seen a company PR that their game with a $80 million budget splice it across function. But they sure know how to focus on "But our department is 250 people!" and then show a bunch of graphic artists sitting at a desk making it look like it's all in programming.

But in reality, EA, Activision, UBI etc... are at record sales and profits the past bunch of years. But they never promote that part to gamers. But you hear and see it during quarterly earnings reports when they brag about record digital and GAAS financials at high margins.

Big modern games are stuck in templates, that's the real issue here. Back in the 90s, you had a much greater variety of games. Budgets were lower and the big games could be made by smaller teams.

Now everything has to fit the mold. Currently everything needs to be an open-fucking-world. Content is padded to no end. You get shit to pick up every two steps. Fetch-quests. Crafting. Skill trees. We knew how to make awesome games without any of this before. And developers are struggling to make their open-world interesting, because the real issue here, is that it is impossible to make an interesting world when it is so big. You have to resort to copy/pasting stuff, and it become obvious to the player. Games nowadays are super predictable : you know way too much without having played the game before.

Open-world needs to die if we want to get back to more interesting designs and shorter games.

At least we get some nice games like Brigandine or Valkyria Chronicles 4 every once in a while. Support these games. They are proper games, not some more tedious work to do after you have completed your days actual real work.

For me, I dont mind it as I like open world games. Battle royale modes are another form of open world. But for people who dont like them, I can see why. I agree it's way too big for anyone but a completionist taking years to conquer.

And you what is the worst part for people who don't like open world? Not just that the trend is there. But every game has to be bigger than the last game. Not too often you see a new sequel and the land mass and things to do got reduced. Bigger is better forever mentality.

 

[Cutty Flam]

Are those people that say older games were better correct

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

The difference is Halo CE revolutionized console FPS, in terms of controls and gameplay.

Halo Infinite is just another FPS.

That's the difference, games back then made way more impacts in terms of game design.

This. Also, Infinite is straight up not a better game anyway. Infinite has the same problem many upbisoft games have. You are in this beautiful world with the best controls a Halo game has yet had but there is no variety and you are basically doing the same 1 or 2 type of fights over and over no matter where you are in the story.

Not only is it not breaking new ground but it gets boring from this redundant gameplay structure.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

It depends on the genre - point and click adventures, those xwing/tie fighter games - even some sports like SWOS and the late nineties NHL games and ISS Pro 98 are still excellent and unsurpassed now.

However, if you are looking at other things - I mean comparing Mario Snes with 8 deluxe, Odyssey with Mario World. Call of Duty with Wolfenstein 3D, Valhalla with Heimdall, Forza with Lotus Turbo Esprit . modern games are obviously infinitely better

Mario world is every but as good as Odyssey despite being two diff types of games. Weird example

 

[WoJ]

I turn 40 in a month and the first game I ever played was the original Legend of Zelda so I've seen the old days and modern day stuff.

I'd say gaming today has higher highs and lower lows and less in the middle. AAA games, when they are good are amazing. The problem is there are a lot of duds and the focus on micro transactions or player engagement, just general GaaS crap is just hit or miss.

I know people adore the PS2 era, but I've always felt it was kind of meh. The best games of that era are games I enjoy but don't hit the highs of the new IPs we saw in the 7th gen like Mass Effect, Dead Space, Uncharted, The Last of Us. And then when you factor in Nintendos output? Amazing stuff.

Since then it feels like things have just stagnated and instead of focusing on creativity it's just iterating on tried and true formulas. This can still produce amazing games but it feels like punishments are more severe.

Games like Days Gone and Deus Ex aren't being iterated on to improve what worked because they didn't sell enough - despite selling millions. Something is wrong about that and as gamers we lose out.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The 90s were definitely the biggest advance in tech (3D being new). You had such a shotgun of different games across console and PC and even the trashy CD-rom FMV games which became big in the mid 90s were something cool to watch.

The jumps were amazing. I never had a Dreamcast but seeing Soul Calibur or NFK 2k was such a big jump, you'd never get that in modern eras where the big power using programmer is for tiny improvements some people cant even notice. But compare Soul Calibur or 2K sports to any console/PC game and it was night and day.

Problem is PS1 3D was sketchy, and PC gaming was solid if you had a good PC and early 3D card. My bro's PC wasnt state of the art in any way so all that shit you'd hear about like anti-aliasing, GLIDE and duo SLI whatever he never had, so PC gaming was pretty gimped. And thats how he wanted it as he wasnt a 3D sports of shooter fan. So 2D was fine for him. But that meant 3D was meh and software based.

 

[jufonuk]

Mainstream games were willing to take more of a risk back then Also a lot of indies are emulating this time frame. So.

A lot of game genres we play today came out of that time.

They were just hampered by the technology. So nowadays you have the best of both worlds.

But I do hate MTX etc from today.

 

[ozz ex machina]

It’s interesting that workplaces are way more diverse now yet most games come across as watered down piss. I don’t know how a bunch of rotten straight white males from back then managed to do it? It’s almost like…nobody has the balls to make an interesting decision now because there are so many checks and balances of approval to go through that nothing radical gets approved.

I think the solution would be more diversity and less creative control given to a single person.

 

[Arsic]

Certain genres definitely peaked then. Best example is JRPGs. So many bangers then year after year but now it’s very hard to get even 1 non shit JRPG per year .

 

[Handel]

Certain genres peaked due to being perfect for the era, primarily JRPGs as dev costs hadn't risen super high and the turn based gameplay didn't struggle in ways that many early 3D games did. While lots of new things were being experimented with, that was due to a lack of standardization which would be figured out via player reception. It was much more common for games to be broken, janky and/or have terrible control schemes until a gold standard was formulated. Camera controls sucked most of the time, and tank controls were commonplace (bearable but not ideal for the majority of games). Translations were also quite bad even for big titles like FFVII, and the average quality of game writing was significantly lower.

Games on average are much better now then back then, but due to finding out what brings the most sales, as well as dev costs rising, companies are more risk averse then in the wild west days of gaming where you could put out a lot more games hoping to get one big hit (shotgun method of releasing games). So you get less hidden gems within the standard gaming space, but the hole left there has largely been replaced by indies. The problem is that the same people on GAF griping about AAA games sucking these days and how things were better back in the day, are also the ones who mock/turn their noses up at indie games. They also don't have the introspection to realize that they have also become stuck into only playing certain kinds of games, not taking chances with something new that they might have back in the day, either because they're too settled into their tastes or they don't want to use their rare free time and/or limited funds on something they might not like. Like the companies they gripe about, they are risk averse.

 

[tmarmar]

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness and Baldur's Gate.

 

[cortadew]

I turn 40 in a month and the first game I ever played was the original Legend of Zelda so I've seen the old days and modern day stuff.

I'd say gaming today has higher highs and lower lows and less in the middle. AAA games, when they are good are amazing. The problem is there are a lot of duds and the focus on micro transactions or player engagement, just general GaaS crap is just hit or miss.

I know people adore the PS2 era, but I've always felt it was kind of meh. The best games of that era are games I enjoy but don't hit the highs of the new IPs we saw in the 7th gen like Mass Effect, Dead Space, Uncharted, The Last of Us. And then when you factor in Nintendos output? Amazing stuff.

Since then it feels like things have just stagnated and instead of focusing on creativity it's just iterating on tried and true formulas. This can still produce amazing games but it feels like punishments are more severe.

Games like Days Gone and Deus Ex aren't being iterated on to improve what worked because they didn't sell enough - despite selling millions. Something is wrong about that and as gamers we lose out.

Dead space doesn't hold a candle to Silent Hill 2 nor Silent hill 3

 

[64bitmodels]

I'd say GTA III + sequels are largly to blaime for this shift as they showed the mass appeal of Open World game play.

No, GTA3 showed the appeal of SANDBOX open world gameplay. there's infintely more stuff to do In GTA compared to other open worlds. You can-
-shoot up civilians
-blow up cars
-buy guns
-drive around a beautifully rendered world
-run around a beautifully rendered world
-trade on the stock market
-go into underground fighting
-fly helicopters and jets
-buy property
-go bowling (with your cousin)
and much more... while also having the option of doing missions as well.
GTA makes the open world expirimental and explorative to the point where you WANT to keep exploring, keep doing fun stuff in the open world. its gameplay makes it far more unique than most other RPGs because it isn't predictable. It's a formula that encourages fucking around in the physics sandbox than is GTA. open world RPGs like Assassins creed, BOTW, and elden ring (as much as i love that game) don't even do this. That's why you can't blame it. Blame assassins creed, as it killed off a drastically superior series (prince of persia) to introduce people to a much more shoddy, padded, overly bloated version of it.... and people ate it up anyways

 

[DragoonKain]

I think there were just fewer of them so each gaming experience stood out more. Now there’s way more games and so many borrow the same styles and mechanics so you get burnout much easier today. If an open world game was out in the 90s it would be one of a kind and would feel so unique and amazing. Now? Dime a dozen and there’s too many of them.

 

[Elios83]

It's mostly nostalgia, the fact that people experienced certain things for the first time back then.
It's true though that back then the advent of 3D hardware allowed for many new concepts and ideas to be implemented for the first time.
But those games were not better at all, they had tons of issues and were clunky as hell.

 

[GenericUser]

no, but I was younger and more impressionable and had a much lower bar for quality. Doesn't mean they were bad though, my favorite games are all from that time, and its 90% rose tinted glasses and nostalgia. Except for FF7, that game is a masterpiece, and even with the Remake, I still hold FF7 above all else.

FF7 remake is utter trash and a disgrace. FF7 is the GOAT.

 

[MikeM]

Yep.

- games were released complete.
- games were built for players first, not shareholders first.
- games didn’t have always online nonsense.
- online competition consisted of playing your buddies side by side, farting on eachother and eating doritos.

 

[fart town usa]

Yep.

- games were released complete.
- games were built for players first, not shareholders first.
- games didn’t have always online nonsense.
- online competition consisted of playing your buddies side by side, farting on eachother and eating doritos.

 

[Fenix34]

Also i remember two things why this time was best first

 

[NightmareFarm]

No, most games from back then have aged badly. I'll admit that they had more soul and heart put into it than modern games though.

 

[Efren is G.O.A.T.]

S-Tier Final Fantasy
S-Tier Resident Evil
S-Tier Splinter Cell
S-Tier Prince of Persia
S-Tier Legend of Zelda...and so on.

 

[OZ9000]

There were a lot more quality games from the PS2 to PS4 era imo.

There were some gems from the 90s like Unreal/UT, Half Life, Metal Gear Solid 1 but it was after the millennium where we had really good games.

This gen has been the worst with everything being open world and padded to the max with useless shit.

 

[SHA]

Alot of people are praising games from the 90's and 00's and they say that it was the best time to be a gamer , those games had better game design , better gameplay , better characters and those games just had a soul unlike most modern games that just give you chores to do until you reach the end of the story

Im 32 years old so ive played alot of 90's and 00's games , deus ex , thief , system shock , doom , metal gear , old fallout games , baldurs gate , never winter nights , resident evil games , silent hill , fear and many more

In my opinion games today are so much better as long as developers really want to make good games and not cash grabs and im gonna give you a positive and negative example

First the negative , old thief game compared to the 2014 one , the difference is huge , the olders games are so much better , so much freedom to do the missions and interesting story

A positive example is doom , old doom games were awsome but doom 2016 and eternal (except the parkour stuff ) are so much better

Are those people that say older games were better correct or just cant see beyond nostalgia ?

Sh2 got 7.8 score at that time and didn't receive any praise without the negativity surrounding it on the gaming sites , all what you hear now is nostalgia , back then , a psychological horror game with bad gameplay , mixed opinions to be more precise.

 

[cortadew]

S-Tier Final Fantasy
S-Tier Resident Evil
S-Tier Splinter Cell
S-Tier Prince of Persia
S-Tier Legend of Zelda...and so on.

We still have S tier Legend of zelda and resident evil

 

[Comandr]

In some ways, absolutely yes. Great games like Chrono Trigger, Gunstar Heroes and RE4 are just as great today as they were back then.

As someone stated earlier, once upon a time games were shipped as a complete package. Games were designed and created as an out of the box complete experience. They had to be throughly tested for bugs because short of some catastrophic bug that would make them have to recall and reprint, that was it.

I’m against today’s practice of copious amounts of DLC and all these season passes containing more content that will be available down the line for more money.

The only franchise I’m okay with it these days is probably Monster Hunter. The G expansions are usually huge amounts of content, and then free content updates trickled in with purely cosmetic dlc available a la carte.

TL;DR: Good games will always be good, no matter when they were made. Today’s games are very shareholder focused with the customer as a secondary consideration.

 

[Gamerdude123]

much, much, much better.

Nowadays games are being made by diversity hires with at best mediocre talent that are riddled with woke propaganda and microtransactions.

We still get the occasional great game by non Western game devs like Nintendo, Fromsoft and some Eastern European devs, but the golden age of gaming is definitely long past.

There is no more innovation, everything is either a sequal or a remake.

 

[rkofan87]

nm

 

[Excoman]

There are some timeless titles, but overall, games today are much, much better.

 

[Bippicaster]

Games today are better overall. People who say older games are better aren’t wrong per se, but I think they’re remembering the technological and design leaps that often come from young media.
Games and the tech that drives them have matured, so you have subtler changes.
I think another factor that causes people to remember older games as better is something that happens with older generations remembering “their” music or movies as better. The things you experience during formative years have a more dramatic impact on you, and you also tend to only remember the standout things from the past. If you take time to look at the entire library of the 90’s and 00’s you’ll see a lot of mediocre and lacking titles that you’ve probably just forgotten or never knew existed.

 

[Quantum253]

Alot of people are praising games from the 90's and 00's and they say that it was the best time to be a gamer , those games had better game design , better gameplay , better characters and those games just had a soul unlike most modern games that just give you chores to do until you reach the end of the story

Im 32 years old so ive played alot of 90's and 00's games , deus ex , thief , system shock , doom , metal gear , old fallout games , baldurs gate , never winter nights , resident evil games , silent hill , fear and many more

In my opinion games today are so much better as long as developers really want to make good games and not cash grabs and im gonna give you a positive and negative example

First the negative , old thief game compared to the 2014 one , the difference is huge , the olders games are so much better , so much freedom to do the missions and interesting story

A positive example is doom , old doom games were awsome but doom 2016 and eternal (except the parkour stuff ) are so much better

Are those people that say older games were better correct or just cant see beyond nostalgia ?

A lot of the games that have had several reboots/remakes had the originals in the 90s-00s. Being able to experience so many genre-defining games for the first time makes it feel like the golden age in retrospect. Are there current high-profile games that are awesome, sure there are. However, there are more games that feel stale and focused on micro-transactions/streaming/cultural pandering than creating a world/story that captivates the player. I can think of many gaming mascots from the 90-00s genre, but very few in recent years, would that be a good indicator?

 

[Efren is G.O.A.T.]

We still have S tier Legend of zelda and resident evil

Absolutely but for a while Resident Evil had an identity crisis I think

 

[light2x]

Hell naw. Just like nostalgia driven boomers who think their time was perfect when nothing was is just the childhood years they hold dear to them that all fall apart when you realize what was actually going on the in the world.

For most people their childhood days are the dearest and it makes sense. Unfortunately it's not something I can say about all people who had fucked up childhoods. That's just one of the realities of life. Some even die as children.

 

[Drell]

Well E3s conferences weren't about 100 zombi survivors FPS for sure. Then the rest is about nostalgia for me.

 

[HumanoidSharks]

Not at all. But nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

I actively try not to revisit most games I have fond memories of because they usually end up being not as good as I remember them being.

 

[Trogdor1123]

They weren't better. They were more innovative.

I think both really, I also think it is hard to be truly innovative now, so much more has been now compared to then. I think they were more focused on core gameplay though. Do one thing and do it well rather than the way they are now.

 

[cortadew]

Absolutely but for a while Resident Evil had an identity crisis I think

True that, some even say the identity crisis has always been there in Resident Evil since the beginning!

 

[Mattyp]

Way better, could abuse anyone on multi and they would take it like a champ.

Reporting for sooking and abuse never existed.

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

Halo 2 split screen lan party those we're the day's.

 

[SegaHeart]

It was the best for us Sega fans.

 

[Bavarian_Sloth]

I think the time was just different.

Significantly lower production costs, many new game ideas and without having to sell tens of millions of copies of a game in order to survive.

The only thing I really miss today are the LAN parties in buddies' living rooms while the parents were on vacation... Quake III, UT, CS, Pizza and pr0n on hard disks.

 

[DGrayson]

in the 90s and 00s games werent as big of a business, and were cheaper to make. Therefore, developers often took more risks. It worked in some cases and failed in others.

However now AAA games are so costly and expensive to make, and there is so much revenue to make from them, that it seems no one pushes the envelope anymore.

 

[Danjin44]

I personally enjoying games as much as I did back then, for me my enjoyment hasn’t really changed that much but based on most response here and the amount thread we get about people no longer enjoying games, I guess I’m in minority.

 

[Jimmy_liv]

Let. Me relive the 90's and Commodore Amiga any day of the week.

 

[mxbison]

They were mostly polished and bug free at launch and weren't stuffed with mtx and dlc.

So yes, even ignoring the actual gameplay, they were better.

More ideas, creativity, and risks from developers obviously also make a huge difference.

 

[Danjin44]

In my most honest opinion the biggest thing that has changed in gaming is social media. Thanks to social media people have more opportunity to **no offence** to bitch and complain and create unnecessary “drama”.

 

[Banjo64]

It was pure innovation back then.

Every industry goes through this, music and film too.

In the end the vast majority want to chase safe money with sequels and well known tropes. We, the consumer don’t help, clamouring for sequels instead of something new and innovative.

 

[Tarin02543]

Absolutely.

Japan does not want the ps5. That says it all.

 

[DEAD ORIGINAL]

90's biggest drama 4 player Golden eye
(NO SCREEN WATCHING!)

 

[THE DUCK]

It's not just about nostalgia, it's about playing something new. These days the games are much better, but so similar to what has come before, it loses a little magic.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Old games were mostly childish. This is the best era to be a gamer, and the next one will be better as well.