The Golden Age of Gaming?

[LawyerScumGhost]

My first console was the Atari 2600 and I've been involved in every generation of console/PC gaming since, so I think I have a pretty good perspective. For me, the golden age was 1990-2000...there was a time when big game makers took chances and tried amazing new ideas. Now it's mostly trite sequels and DLC to scrape a few more bucks out of you. When do you fellow Escapists think the golden age of video games occurred?

 

[Limecake]

SNES generation but that might be because of my absolutely devotion for that system (seriously SNES is the best system ever) and the genesis wasn't bad either.

But that's not to say that any of the newer generations are worse, they have their ups and downs like any generation (SNES had Shaq Fu which was god awful)

 

[TehCookie]

Depends on how you look at it, I consider now to be the golden age of gaming since I can go back and play all the older ones while still enjoying the new games. The future of gaming is going to suck when you can't play old games. If you're asking for what decade had the best games I couldn't really say, each one has something great.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

The PS2 generation will always hold a special place in my heart.

Serious answer though, as least in my experience, no other generation seems to compare to the sheer amount of titles the PS2 offered.

Games where cheaper and easier to make so you have more of the small devs making games. At the same time, the PS2 had enough graphical power when the games didn't look horrible.
It was the happy middle.

 

[Hal10k]

As a general rule, the golden age of anything is always purported to be the one immediately preceding the current one.

 

[MammothBlade]

No such thing as a "golden age" of gaming. It's not going to die out. It is not finite. It is still growing in popularity as a recreational activity. Any such speculations are foolish and blind...

 

[Atmos Duality]

No such thing as a "golden age" of gaming. It's not going to die out. It is not finite. It is still growing in popularity as a recreational activity. Any such speculations are foolish and blind...

Or maybe they're harmless musings and totally opinionated?

You're correct in that there aren't any objective "golden ages" in gaming, but it's not unreasonable to assume that some time periods in gaming offered better games for certain people at that time (not purely for nostalgic reasons either; but the trends of that market at the time allowed for it).

ON TOPIC:
I rather enjoyed a great deal of gaming from the late 90s/early 2000s. I never found another platformer as odd, interconnected and interesting as Tomba again for example, or a space simulator that had dogfights as fun as Freespace/X-Wing Alliance.

Ah, and there was also Mechwarrior 4. Good times..

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The late 90's/early 2000's were probably as close as we've come to an objective "golden era" as far as the Western CRPG is concerned. With the lamentable exclusion of Ultima IX.

 

[Launcelot111]

I will unscientifically say 2004-2006 for me. I just had a blast with 90% of the games I picked up, and there was a lot more diversity of quality games among different genres compared to today (platformers were still a thing), and we had the great graphic leap forward from the N64/PS1, and the franchisation (if that's a word) and monetization (DLC/online passes) hadn't taken off yet. Local multiplayer still reigned because online wasn't quite there yet, and local is the best, and all in all, good times.

 

[Luca72]

I agree that the late 90's to 2000 were a sort of golden age, but I think that's just because of the way technology was being utilized. Back then a really well-realized 3-D environment was mind blowing, and it was really shocking to see some of the new particle effects, sound design, etc. It seems like it was around that time that a "video card" even became a necessity.

Today you don't see any games that are stellar technological leaps, even though I'd argue the quality of the AVERAGE game is much higher than it was during the golden age. Computing technology seems to grow exponentially each year though, so I'm sure there will be some unanticipated game-changing tech that goes and... er... changes games?

 

[Scarim Coral]

To me that was Playation and N64 era. I remember seeing the E3 trailer that showcase their games and I was blown away by it (I remember seeing Pokemon Stadium).

 

[DustyDrB]

I guess it's now for me. Though there are tons of games I like basically all from the late 80's to the present.

 

[Zhukov]

We're still in the bronze age. A few developers are in the process of discovering iron.

The golden age is yet to come.

Or at least it damn well better be. If the 90s really were our golden age then I weep for the medium.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

We're still in the bronze age. A few developers are in the process of discovering iron.

The golden age is yet to come.

Or at least it damn well better be. If the 90s were our golden age then I weep for the medium.

The Golden Age predated the Bronze Age. The Iron age is the last age, and it's when the decline begins.

Golden Ages are always in the past. Often far enough back to be positively mythological.

Unless we're using the Civilization approximation of Golden Age, in which case you can have as many as you want. And they'll be twice as long if you choose Persia!

 

[Zhukov]

We're still in the bronze age. A few developers are in the process of discovering iron.

The golden age is yet to come.

Or at least it damn well better be. If the 90s were our golden age then I weep for the medium.

The Golden Age predated the Bronze Age. The Iron age is the last age, and it's when the decline begins.

Golden Ages are always in the past. Often far enough back to be positively mythological.

Unless we're using the Civilization approximation of Golden Age, in which case you can have as many as you want. And they'll be twice as long if you choose Persia!

Fine then, keep your gold.

I'm still hoping I live long enough to see the advent of tempered steel.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Fine then, keep your gold.

I'm still hoping I live long enough to see the advent of tempered steel.

For some reason I've always thought of you as being fairly old already.

Then again, I also think of you as being an orc in a tuque.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Yes that brink of industry boom was a very fine time, where devs were actually doing their own thing on their own coin, pushing what could be done with what they had.
Obviously things will always progress mechanically, but those golden oldies really felt like someones hearth and soul has been poured into it, and not some accountant skimming off content and features every year.

Mind you those gates aren't closed it's just a neglected art of doing things.

 

[Zhukov]

Fine then, keep your gold.

I'm still hoping I live long enough to see the advent of tempered steel.

For some reason I've always thought of you as being fairly old already.

Then again, I also think of you as being an orc in a tuque.

Heh. People often overestimate my age, both online and in real life.

In fact, I'm significantly younger than you, assuming you haven't been deceiving us.

Y'know, I wasn't aware that smug-looking puffer fish could live that long.

 

[DeathSwitch109]

It's subjective. Each had it's ups and downs. For some people gaming was great when they had a lot of free time on their hands. For others it was when they first started playing games.

Gaming had it's biggest impact on me up until 2005. So from Super Mario World on the SNES to Shadow of the Colossus on the PS2 (1991-2005) I spent a lot of my free time at home or at a friend's house playing video games. I didn't have a car, job, or a lot of responsibility in general so I wasn't worried about these things. The thing is however, there is no definitive "Golden Era" of gaming. Each generation has it's ups and downs; the only concrete factor is that gaming now appeals to a wider audience and *at the moment* technology is at it's peak.

I will say that in 2001 I finally decided I would devote my time to play Ocarina of Time. I got past Gohma in the Deku Tree and step foot onto Hyrule's open fields, the rest was history. This current generation isn't perfect but for everything it has done wrong, it has done a lot of things right.