Are games today really that bad?

[Space Spoons]

Each gaming generation has it's hits and misses, same as music, movies, books etc.

Now is no different.

I would actually argue that with the rise of indie developers, more gamers, more competition for sales etc, gaming is now at it's strongest.

This person has it right, I think. I guess you could make the argument that gaming's current business practices are pretty scummy (because they are), but the quality of the games themselves has never been higher.

 

[DJjaffacake]

OT I think games today are no better or worse, just diiferent, although my experience of older games is a bit limited in fairness. All of my favourite games have come out within the last 5 years (except Oblivion), but like i said, my experience of games is mainly recent ones.

Well, then there's not much point talking to you, is there? If you've just played Skyrim and Gears of War and Halo and consider Oblivion an "old" game of course you're going to think they're totally awesome, maybe you could broaden your horizon xD

Well I play games on my PS3 and PC so I've never actually played Gears and only played bits of Halos 2 and ODST, and I don't particularly like Skyrim. Also, at no point did I say Oblivion was an old game, i said it was the only one of my favourite games that didn't come out in the past 5 years. Since I wasn't even born when Doom (for example) came out i can't compare it to more modern games, but that does not mean 'there's not much point talking to me, or make my opinion more or less valid than yours. As for 'broadening my horizons' I don't have unlimited money, so i can't just go out and buy old games on a whim, although after I finish my exams this year I'm planning on getting KOTOR, so I'm trying.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Games aren't getting worse, standards are just way too high.

I actually think that, if anything, standards are too low. Particularly among reviewers.

 

[Ironbat92]

No, it just retro gamers complaining that games aren't like what they grew up with, I.E Platfomer games with characters trying to be the next Sonic and Fighting games trying be Street Fighter are no longer popular, But FPS games trying to be Call of Duty and Cover Base Sci-fi shooters trying to be Gears of War are popular. They also claim that games are lacking "visual" because every thing is brown, griddy, testosterone driven, and realistic, rather than Bright, Colorful, and cartoony. It's a load of BS. What their doing is saying is that games should be just cartoon art, rather than realistic.

Watch this video made by Jim Sterling, pretty much sums up everything about the community and why their wrong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWHHlnbZOYQ

 

[Mike Richards]

The assumption that games used to be comes from the fact that no one remembers the games that were terrible, excluding the truly legendary failures they only remember the great ones because those are obviously the ones that made the biggest impression.

Games aren't any worse today then they were back then, they've simply becomes new entities. And while the remission of certain genres or styles in disappointing for at least the sake of variety, we have no more crap to wade through now.

The advantage is that we now have the capability to do much wider range of things then ever before. Something like Heavy Rain would only have been the wildest, most distant dream of the exclusively 2D late 80s, yet now we can have both Heavy Rain and a Kickstarter for Wasteland 2 at the same time. No part of that is a bad thing.

 

[MrLumber]

Frankly I do feel on average newer games are 'worse', but only because of a change in design philosophy. While this may seem rather cynical, the vast majority of games nowadays are all designed to be guaranteed to turn a profit, which overall reduces adventurousness in regards to conceptual design. There are two big reasons for this, one the world economy is in a rough patch, and two enough data has been gathered to make it really easy to market to specific (albeit large), less discriminating crowds. Additionally, these markets often are catered to easily and without much effort on the designers part, leading to even more lack of innovation. Sure most modern games are technically sound, but that doesn't do much in my book considering thats the bare minimum of quality. Unfortunately this laziness is becoming even more prevalent, even with traditionally 'core gamer' oriented companies such as Bethesda, Blizzard, and even Nintendo in some cases.

This isn't to say there are still some good games floating around, the problem in my eyes is the increased production cost of modern games significantly reduces the actual game length. This means I often find myself in a dry spell so to speak, where there are long stretches between quality game releases seeing as the average game takes me about a week to complete.

 

[Sexy Devil]

Well I mean the older gaming days were pretty subjective in terms of quality. If you didn't care for DnD then you were pretty much shit out of luck (barring Fallout). They can be the best written games in the world, but if you just don't like DnD then those times aren't really nostalgia-worthy. On the contrary, in these modern times we tend to have a lot more variety in everything and you can find your niche in gaming.

Also, if people honestly think that these days are nothing but generic grey-brown shooters then you display a clear inability to think outside of the AAA market.

 

[GonzoGamer]

No, they aren't. Go out to any game shop that sells old PS1 and PS2 games (and so forth) and marvel at the utter depthless crap that we were offered alongside the actually memorable games of those eras.

That's the thing. Most of the games made today are crap but that isn't really any different from any other generation going back to the intellivision.

However, one thing that's gotten worse is the money grubbing. Hasn't been this bad since the arcade days.

 

[lord.jeff]

Game like any medium change to fit the times, so today's games are gonna be worse if compared to Planescape do to the simple fact it's not planescape but at least now a days we have developer wanting to deliver that old school experience, how many 64 games said we want to give the NES experience? We have more people playing games then ever before and more variety then ever before, if you take a little time to look then I'm sure you'll find several great games that came out recently, even if you have niche tastes.

 

[Indecipherable]

No, they aren't. Go out to any game shop that sells old PS1 and PS2 games (and so forth) and marvel at the utter depthless crap that we were offered alongside the actually memorable games of those eras.

That's the thing. Most of the games made today are crap but that isn't really any different from any other generation going back to the intellivision.

However, one thing that's gotten worse is the money grubbing. Hasn't been this bad since the arcade days.

Well to be fair, games were much more expensive then than now.

Doing a bit of quick research (I played NES games but was too young to buy them myself so I don't know the pricings off hand), games were around $45 to $60. SNES got up $80, and N64 up to $100.

Looking at the N64, you can basically double that in modern terms (5% inflation for 15 years) so that's a game at $200.

For NES, you can over triple the cost. 25 years is a long, long time.

There's a lot more that goes into it than just this very brief glance - development costs were much lower, but the market was a great deal smaller, and cartridge costs much higher - but $ for $ we get games far cheaper than ever before.

 

[getoffmycloud]

I think yes and no to this. I mean yeah sure most AAA games play it safe but there are the indie titles that are more experimental with what they do so sure they are better in that respect but most AAA titles are tremendously well put together so you don't get as many game breaking bugs and other issues that smaller games will often have so really you can have the best of both worlds now .

 

[Mikeyfell]

The ability to make stuff look nice has precluded all attempts at creative input on the part of the creators.

Couple that with the death (or dwindling into obscurity) of most of the generas that don't involve a gun, or some broadly marketable brand recognition and you have a recipe for a bunch of samey, half baked, guaranteed to sell schlock.

And now that Bioware is starting to suck Japanese games are the only thing a lot of people have left.

 

[Lunar Templar]

the one on the left looks like it'd make a good 3rd person game to

I'm going to say OT though

the have gotten more 'safe', way more so then any other generation of gaming. cause as

People look around and see that 90% of games are mediocre or crap and that there are Call of Duty imitations everywhere. But that's how it's always been. Twenty years ago 90% of games were mediocre or crap. The only difference was that we were knee-deep in 2D platformers instead of FPSs.

has point out, the 'knocks offs' have always been around, the difference, is though, even just one generation ago, the flood of knock offs wasn't nearly this bad. meaning, there was games, easy to find and get a hold of, for every taste still.

now -.- hope you like FPS, grit and and Marines from various era's in a realistic setting

 

[Raven's Nest]

Games are becoming more cinematic because people want to see big budget movies, just paying 60$ for them and playing them for 5 hours.

I'll just leave this right here

Since you advocated the photo let me explain why I think its an unfair, apples to pairs comparison.

-BTW, it appears I'm about to go on a rant so don't think i'm arguing with you directly or anything...

I imagine the 93 map comes from a game like Doom 2. Everybody remembers and loves Doom 2.

Lets say the one on the right is Gears of War. Everybody remebers Gears and everybody either loves it or at least recognises it as a milestone in modern FPS design.

Now I went back and played Doom 2 the other day, all the way through and I have to admit. It really isn't as fun to play as it once was.

Now if I directly compare the two in terms of content and things that make a gamer feel excited, I think the picture becomes pretty clear;

Gears has an established story full of twists, depth and consequence. It has characters worth a damn. It has multiple gaming mechanics, cover usage, tactics, squadmates, reloading perk, shooting, A form of AI for the enemies. It has varying environments, urban, suburban, underground each providing new challenges and targets/puzzles. It through the use of cutscenes shows a continuously evolving storyline, events and gives oppertunities for dialouge, exposition and potentially a clue to puzzles/directions. It has an epic dynamic musical score, usually from a highly skilled and experienced composer. You have a large variety of sound design, from ambient noises, to footsteps, to creature cues, voices etc. A cutscene might introduce a temporary mcguffin or situation that needs immediate attention. All this can be gleaned from the first 10 minutes of play.

Doom 2 has... No real plot, no dialouge, no character development, perhaps 5 different bits of ambient music than play on a loop. A selection of enemies that seemingly have no intelligence, often shooting eachother to get to you. It has no variety betweemn levels. The only goal for each level is find the key which unlocks the next area to find the next key and so on until you reach the exit, kill everyone who gets in your way. That's it. There's nothing else.

I'm sure you won't remember them but there were many many Doom clones out at the same time. Nearly none of them have stood the test of time becuase they simply did not excite enough. Doom was revolutionary when it came out, and still does have a nostalgic charm. But thats about it.

Modern FPS's or 2nd persons for that matter do not need to rely on massively complicated level design because without the cutscenes or at least predermined events (a la halflife) the games plot would fall flat, the player would lose immersion and no longer care about getting to the nest level. This generation of games isn't about just getting to the nest stage as nearly all pre mid 90's games where. Developers can offer so much more than that now. As much as I appreciate the classics, they cannot compare to the latest innovative efforts of modern games and they never will. Modern games will always continue to push the way gamers feel excitement when playing. It's an ongoing evolution. Feel free to point differences and compare games like GOW to Killzone and you'll have a fair comparison.

 

[Raika]

Video games are better now than they've ever been, and no amount of rose-tinted pining for Mega Man 2, Ocarina of Time, or Final Fantasy VI will change the fact that it loses on all fronts to newer fare. Yeah, some older material has stood the test of time(oh, hi, Super Mario World, we do indeed still love you), but the vast majority of it hasn't.

 

[Vegosiux]

Well, I think the amount of games that will still be memorable next generation is about the same as always. The amount of games in general, however, is going up. So, there aren't really less good games than there used to be, there's just more crap around the market for the same amount of good stuff.

 

[peruvianskys]

Bad? Only by 1 criterium that has been missing from this discussion sofar: challenge.

Games are getting easier on average. The action in games nowadays requires less precision, reflexes and muscle memory and the tactics and strategies for games that still feature them, have become shallower and dumber.

On the action side challenges like Dark Souls and Super Meatboy have become the exception now. Compare to Nintendo hard 2 decades ago.

A lot of that has to do with the fact that most games back then were roughly two hours long and artificially lengthening gameplay with a difficulty curve that resulted in inevitable death and restarting. I'm glad we've gotten over that period in gaming. Some are too easy for sure, but I think the average difficulty level in modern games (aside from COD or other military FPS's) is far more conducive to an enjoyable time.

To me, enjoying a video game simply because it's really difficult is like reading a book from the early 1800's just because it's really difficult - you miss out a lot of really great stuff if you're only interested in how challenging it is. I prefer a difficulty that pushes me along but not one that would ever stop me in my tracks.

I agree with you about strategy games though. Luckily Crusader Kings II is pretty neat.

 

[Kahunaburger]

I'm sure you won't remember them but there were many many Doom clones out at the same time. Nearly none of them have stood the test of time becuase they simply did not excite enough. Doom was revolutionary when it came out, and still does have a nostalgic charm. But thats about it.

Doom clones are around. We call them first-person shooters. Perhaps you may have heard of them.