A new golden age for gaming?

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Many things have changed this gen that IMO has started put us on the verge or we are in the very beginning of a new golden age in gaming. There was a 3-year period where I didn't play a game I'd rate an 8/10 or higher. Obviously some of that is from not being able to literally play every game. However, I believe a large percentage of that is from how homogenized the AAA gaming market has become. Every game has to be open world. Every melee system has to be Arkham's combat (even Uncharted 3). Every 3rd-person shooter had to be basically Gears. Every FPS had to basically be COD. Genres like survivor horror were too niche to be developed for AAAs. Every publisher wanted every game to appeal to everyone while the PS3/360 gen squeezed out that middle area between indie and AAA, much like how JRPGs were sorta designated to portables.

I think a combination of the PC gaming coming back along with current consoles having standard x86 architecture (and having RAM) has enabled a new golden age for gaming. Also, the ability to Kickstart games has added a new avenue for game development. Would we have Shadowrun, Pillars, or Divinity without Kickstarter? Would we have Resident Evil 7 without the PC horror push? With consoles being a lot more like PCs hardware-wise, games like Pillars and Divinity have found even bigger fanbases than if they just were on PC and we've found games like that work just fine with a controller to boot. I'm currently playing Divinity on PC with a controller, it works great. Games like Shadow Tactics work great on a controller as well, I'm playing it on PS4. I think AAAs are seeing you can make games with lower budgets and be successful like the new Hitman (there's other issues with that) at least was something that people wanted vs Absolution; a Hitman game with homogenized mechanics/design that Hitman fans didn't want nor non-Hitman gamers.

Don't get me wrong, AAA gaming may be at its worst with stuff like pre-ordering, microtransactions, loot boxes (game gambling basically), what Bethesda just did, and more. However, they have real competition now. Why even deal with Skyrim and Bethesda when there's Divinity? Why ***** stealth games being ruined with games like the new Thief, Hitman Absolution, or the new direction of Splinter Cell when there's games like Shadow Tactics and Invisible Inc.? For the most part, you can buy BETTER games that don't have any of this bullshit everyone bitches about. Was a game like Hob possible 10 years ago?

I really think gaming is in the midst of readjusting due to the competition from mid-tier developers. I think AAAs have just started to see each game doesn't have to appeal to everyone to be profitable so we can start seeing some innovation and more diversity in games at the AAA-level.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

No. I would consider gaming to be in a great slump actually.
Everything is still about money and control, when it's not about politics.

That most popular games are released and optimized for consoles and controllers doesn't make it any better, speaking as a PC Gamer.
Even though retro graphics has made a comeback, it's more about art style than ease of recognition for gameplay.
Brown, gritty and realistic graphics are still in focus.

When gaming start being about games and gameplay, that's when gaming could be considered coming into a new golden age.

 

[DefunctTheory]

How could it be a Golden Age of Gaming if Max Payne 3 wasn't released during it?

Now that I've gotten the snide comment out of the way, no, I don't think it's a 'New Golden Age.' It' just a continuation of our timeline - I don't think anything big enough is happening for such a grandiose term.

However, you are correct about one thing - The return of 'mid-tier' game development is a boon. Niches that have gone unfilled and itches unscratched for years are finely being serviced, and its great.

 

[Hades]

The increased frequency of microtransactions inherently ensures this isn't a golden age just yet.

But I do think we're seeing a big improvement over the later years of the last generation. Japanese developers(minus Konami) seem to have overcome their decline to some extend and are releasing quality titles once again. This increases the amount of great games.

 

[Catfood220]

No. Don't get me wrong, there have been some fantastic games released. But while developers treat their customers like walking wallets, console manufacturers are charging ?50 for the privilege to play online. Sony are refusing to allow cross platform gaming, Nintendo refusing to release more than a handful of whatever console they release and Steam refusing to regulate what ends up on their store. Idiots getting upset because you make your main character a woman. Games being released without a single player mode, but being expected to pay full price for it.

I would say this was a pretty poor time to be a gamer.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

That most popular games are released and optimized for consoles and controllers doesn't make it any better, speaking as a PC Gamer.

I was saying that stuff like Divinity and Shadow Tactics show that many games that were considered to be only for KB/M work just fine with a controller. Are you saying Divinity or Shadow Tactics were designed with controllers in mind and the games suffered for it? Being able to move via analog stick vs point-click in Divinity is much better IMO.

I even found this post on Gamefaqs from 2 years ago concerning Divinity and controller support:
"The game is so reliant on the mouse, the only way you could use controller is a complete overhaul on the UI(AKA console port). Even that will not happen, so grab your comfy mouse pad, and good chair, and start clicking away."

Obviously, the game plays perfectly fine with a controller without sacrificing any of the gameplay.

How could it be a Golden Age of Gaming if Max Payne 3 wasn't released during it?

Now that I've gotten the snide comment out of the way, no, I don't think it's a 'New Golden Age.' It' just a continuation of our timeline - I don't think anything big enough is happening for such a grandiose term.

However, you are correct about one thing - The return of 'mid-tier' game development is a boon. Niches that have gone unfilled and itches unscratched for years are finely being serviced, and its great.

Haha...

I changed my wording a bit in the opening. I'm more so calling that a new golden age is on the verge or that this could be seen as the very start when looking back years from now. There was very little that excited me with gaming basically until the very end of last year with Dishonored 2 and The Last Guardian and 2017 has been pretty good in both AAA and that mid-tier as well. There's also a lot of shit to point to as well and I think we're finally over that hump if just barely over it. I don't even think I've played a game this year that's had microtransactoins. I was even looking for new stuff to buy (mainly themes/avatars, not in-game content because that's BS) for Horizon Zero Dawn because I just loved that game so much but there was literally nothing to even optionally buy. It was also pretty cool you got a free theme for getting a Platinum trophy.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

GTAV is a prime example of how far we have grown in this medium. It even stands for 'Golden Totes Age Vindication' but hardly anyone knows that because I eat them before they spread it.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Well, the best game ever made (The Witcher 3) was released in this generation.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Not only are we not in a golden age, we're not even in a good age. This entire generation should never have happened. Everything this new, fancier generation promised to be to justify its existence was a lie. All the fancy gadgets were dropped at launch, graphics are purposefully kept PS3/360 era to keep programmers happy, half of the games are just lazy sequels to old IPs and the other half are remasters of games from just last generation.
Micro-transaction and pre-order culture is infecting ever corner of the industry to the point I don't think I'm gonna be buying a new game for the rest of the year. Not one game is on my radar that I just to be both a full, finished title worth full price, and to actually work at launch, or be an active game 4 weeks after or not be riddled with micro-transactions and DLC.

Name one game, ONE, on a PS4 or XBone that couldn't have been on the PS3/360, 'cause the only one I can think of is Order: 1886, and that game was shit on every level, graphics aside.

And just think in a year or two the PS5 and Xbox Universe will be coming out, and we can look forward to the elite Remastered edition of For Honor and Horizon Zero Dawn. And Skyrim.

Seriously how can anyone feel anything but dismissive cynasism and dispassionate loathing for gaming these days?

 

[B-Cell_v1legacy]

Well, the best game ever made (The Witcher 3) was released in this generation.

Best game ever made released in 2000 and that was Deus Ex 1.

anyways i cant say golden age but lot of games returning back to its roots that were ruined in last generation.

 

[Odbarc]

The goldenest Golden Age of gaming was probably the SNES era.
(Hence, why the recently released and otherwise unobtainable Snes Classic is such a hot item)
PS2 and the late-in-it's-life-cycle Xbox gets the Silver.
Nes/PS1 are tied for bringing new life into gaming but had some bad qualities too.
Runner up: Handheld gaming, mostly the original Gameboy.

The problem with games, other than the obvious complains, is that what gaming could have become, it hasn't become. Games don't offer us more and more, it's offering us the more of the same. Companies prize profit to such a degree that they can't simply make a great game when they can instead make a mediocre one and resell it as different ten times, add DLC to scrape more pennies, add season passes to scrape them all at once, and fluff in microtransactions.

I don't know why things need to cost millions and millions of dollars to produce but top-of-the-line graphics aren't what interest me when dated 20+ year old pixel graphics can be appealing (sometimes more so) than photo realism.

Too much focus on the things that never mattered and not enough focus on the things that always mattered.
If you want to make a list, start by finding your favorite games of genres of any generation and seeing how close they were to being the original innovator and how far they were from being the last of it's kind.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Seriously how can anyone feel anything but dismissive cynasism and dispassionate loathing for gaming these days?

People who like quality games? Which, dispite micro-transactions, remasters, and a lesser leap in graphics quality, are still being made.

Name one game, ONE, on a PS4 or XBone that couldn't have been on the PS3/360, 'cause the only one I can think of is Order: 1886, and that game was shit on every level, graphics aside.

What makes you think The Order: 1886 couldn't have been possible on previous consoles? If it's just graphics I can point to Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, The Witcher 3, and any other of the numerous graphics heavy games released since the start of the 8th generation. And while sure, a lot of those games could be made to run on a PS3/360, that's probably not any game you would want to subject yourself to. Remember how there was a PS3/360 port of Dragon Age: Inquistion? Yeesh.

OT: At best we're seeing a resurgence of the japanese game. The 7th generation wasn't too kind to japanese gaming, with the only real stand-out being Fromsoftware (Nintendo doesn't count since they were still developing on older hardware). But the 8th generation has seen them pick up the slack quite a bit.

 

[BreakfastMan]

I think most of it has to do with just how easy it now is to make and distribute a game. That really prompted the emergence of the indie game market in 2008 (similar to the emergence of indie film in the 70's), and I think that is a lot of what is fueling the current trend of just a ton of good/great games coming out every month.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Seriously how can anyone feel anything but dismissive cynasism and dispassionate loathing for gaming these days?

Some of us play games on the PC. That is basically the answer, there. There are a shit-ton of great indie games on the PC (and even console), that you don't even have to dig far to find.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I kinda prefer the sweet spot between the last generation and the one before it.

 

[American Tanker]

I think we're more likely headed for an '83-style Crash and Dark Age, myself. The big thing for me is all this political bullshit.

On one side, you've got the types that look at anything with attractive characters in it and demanding they be uglied up. Then you've got the people that suggest that the former types make their own games, and end up getting called Nazis just for disagreeing. You've got Western devs and gaming news outlets that actively despise the very people they expect to buy their products or read their websites. And worst of all, you've got social media, that gives the dumbest people voices far beyond anything they've ever had before; and the social media sites are all too eager to ruthlessly censor anyone that doesn't agree with a specific narrative.

All of this combines to make it where it's impossible to have an honest discussion about games and what they should be. I'm not going to suggest that games like Gone Home shouldn't exist; they have every right to. But claiming that just because a Gone Home or Depression Quest failed financially means that all gamers are Nazis cannot be tolerated.

 

[Squilookle]

We will never see a renaissance in gaming until we return to the risk-taking bold game decisions that marked the 90s, attention to fleshing out existing ideas as much as they can be that marked... well, the 90s but also the first half of the noughties, and the abolition of microtransactions, DLCs, and preorder offers. That last one I can't see happening anytime in the next 15 years.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Seriously how can anyone feel anything but dismissive cynasism and dispassionate loathing for gaming these days?

Some of us play games on the PC. That is basically the answer, there. There are a shit-ton of great indie games on the PC (and even console), that you don't even have to dig far to find.

But even then most PC games are just ports of the console version, or are so poorly optimized with locked graphics that the expensive hardware doesn't matter. You get the console gaming experience for 5 times the cost.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Seriously how can anyone feel anything but dismissive cynasism and dispassionate loathing for gaming these days?

Some of us play games on the PC. That is basically the answer, there. There are a shit-ton of great indie games on the PC (and even console), that you don't even have to dig far to find.

But even then most PC games are just ports of the console version, or are so poorly optimized with locked graphics that the expensive hardware doesn't matter. You get the console gaming experience for 5 times the cost.

Like... None of that is true? Most PC ports nowadays are pretty damn good, and almost all indie and mid-tier games are made with PC in mind now. The bad ports of yore are mostly the exception to the rule now. Gaming is more than just AAA on console. :\

 

[Hades]

I think we're more likely headed for an '83-style Crash and Dark Age, myself. The big thing for me is all this political bullshit.

On one side, you've got the types that look at anything with attractive characters in it and demanding they be uglied up. Then you've got the people that suggest that the former types make their own games, and end up getting called Nazis just for disagreeing. You've got Western devs and gaming news outlets that actively despise the very people they expect to buy their products or read their websites. And worst of all, you've got social media, that gives the dumbest people voices far beyond anything they've ever had before; and the social media sites are all too eager to ruthlessly censor anyone that doesn't agree with a specific narrative.

All of this combines to make it where it's impossible to have an honest discussion about games and what they should be. I'm not going to suggest that games like Gone Home shouldn't exist; they have every right to. But claiming that just because a Gone Home or Depression Quest failed financially means that all gamers are Nazis cannot be tolerated.

But isn't that all incredibly easy to ignore? Gaming culture isn't in a particularly good state but you can just pick up great games, play them and not come into contact with that stupid culture war at all. Great games remains great games no matter how hard idiots yell at each other.