No, no ,no, you're ALL wrong. My god I feel like Cranky Kong. I was born in 1972. That's right - 19 - fucking - 72. I grew up in the GOLDEN AGE of video games. I've experienced the crash, the rebirth, the first consoles, the height of the arcades, the move to 3D, the shift from cartridges, the birth of portable gaming, the first networked and Internet games. I owned Computer Space! I've seen it all. The absolute greatest times in gaming were -
- The height of arcade years - around 1982 - 1986 (because you could socialise with other gamers - face-to-face!)
- The height of the SNES vs. Megadrive/Genesis years and the release of Doom, Myst, Command & Conquer leading to the emergence of the PC as a serious gaming alternative. Roughly 1992 - 1996
- The PlayStation, N64 up to the Dreamcast era. 1997 - 2000
- Time of the Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, and end of the PS2 era. Around 2008.
If you grew up during any of these times, you were indeed lucky and it's probably why you're into games.
For the record, films in general were better (before the design-by-committee-to-make-more-money phase we're currently in). But games are as good as they've ever been, only in different ways. The Internet is also a much better place than it was. The only things that have gotten significantly worse are: my hearing, eyesight and memory (and my temper, so don't dispute me on any of this).