rumbadumba : We think alike. Maybe it's just a more hopeful outlook or maybe it's partial self delusion or maybe, just maybe it's maturity but it's how I approach almost every type of creative form. Definitely there can be dry spells where I find little that interests me even after deeper inspection but then there's always something on the horizon which sparks my interest again and leads me off into new directions and if I'm lucky engenders warmy fuzzy feelings of nostalgia too, even when it may be something as simple as a cute 'Pleiades' arcade sound effect in Iron Man's heads-up display being played for the first time. Games that at one point I would have little interest in play often later appeal to me for entirely different reasons so I end up sampling almost all of them in one way or another and it's frankly something I feel pretty happy with even if the end result doesn't change my perception of certain games that much.

The whole first post smacks of someone pretending to be someone else posting like a cock in order to get a rise out of others. I doubt its humour but can guess at the intent. I can also guess at the 'someone' too...but that's a non-issue really. Some people just need the attention I guess.

dh4rm4 wrote:

Seriously guys, do you even hear yourselves? Are you aware of what kind of glory period computer gaming is currently experiencing? More games, bigger projects, more press coverage and even moreso ACCEPTANCE of gaming as an adult past time than ever before.

This had been done to the death before. Yes, yes, we do have more games, but we also have more generic and uniformed gameplay. And frankly, I don't see how do "press coverage" and "bigger projects" benefit gamers unless they translate to better experience for gamers. Daikatana perfectly falls into the category of "big project" and "great press coverage", but its gameplay is a yawn. Doom 3 even made it into big screen, but list of complaints can be made on its gameplay.

The argument above only works from gaming industry perspective, but then again, just because boys band clones are such a great thing from record labels' income statement, it doesn't mean such safe formula won't eventually get boring for the audience.

dh4rm4 wrote:

How anyone who's a gamer can complain about and even generalise something so varied as the state of modern gaming defies logic. There's such a depth and breadth of games, genres and games systems these days that modern gaming can't be explained in the nomination of a single phrase, let alone a singular complaint.

Nice rethoric, but I just cannot see the "depth and breadth" of modern games when the game I'm playing basically plays the same with the latest one I've just finished.

dh4rm4 wrote:

Anyway, music is like gaming : it comes down to personal taste.

Red herring. Just because personal taste is subjective doesn't mean people cannot get bored with the same basics of gameplay over and over again. Let me put it this way; I love flightsims, but if every single game out there is flightsim, then even I would eventually get fed up. This has been done to the death before, and I fail to see how this irrelevant excuse matters.

dh4rm4 wrote:

people just can't deal with evolution. Survival of the fittest and all that.

Survival of the fittest in consumer products doesn't always translate to quality. EA makes a lot of boring sequels, yet they're the biggest player in gaming industry today. Origins Systems made a lot of excellent games, yet they were absorbed by EA and got killed by its new parent. Besides, you are the one who insists to use "personal taste" argument in defending new games. If taste is personal, then why aren't gamers entitled to dislike what gaming evolution has brought them?

By the way, I wonder why you often use coloring and labeling. First, you said old game-favoring arguments were nothing but "nostalgic waah-waaah" despite that was clearly not the case. And then, you used the word snobs. Finally, you label old gamers as people who can't deal with evolution. Seriously, WTF?

dh4rm4 wrote:

I do see a bunch of people who are generally younger than me complaining

Riiiiight... like the guy who wrote this article? Younger than you, eh? Are you claim to be 80 or something? What are you compensating for, really? 🤣

Seriously, I don't understand why you need to point out this "younger people" thing, especially since the writer is an old gamer who makes comparison with his gaming experience from the past. Why you ever posted this thing is beyond me.

dh4rm4 wrote:

Of course, they aren't really motivated enough to do anything about the situation either...

Frankly I'm already tired to see this being repeated over and over again. This had been done to the death, and had been rebuked weeks ago: gaming industry is fully entitled to launch another profitable clone, but the consumers are also entitled to express their contempt as well. Maybe someday we will all live in a Orwellian capitalistic society with 100% free market and zero free speech, but until then, we are still entitled to express our discontent.

For me, the discussion is already over. One can always defend the gaming industry with rethoric, excuses, and red herring, but it doesn't change the fact that games are more generic today than in the past. And frankly, no amount of gaming industry fap-fapping will make me spend more money to buy another game that basically plays the same with the one I've just finished. Meh.

Unfortunately, nothing changes the fact that the majority of people are content with generic things. Safe route is profitable, FPS is profitable, and Britney Spears is profitable. As DosFreak has put, the majority of the population are contend with the gaming equivalent of non-complicated TV shows.

On the other hand, people who want more are the minority. In the past, most PC gamers were nichers compared to console and arcade gamers. After PC games become more mainstream, such old gamers have become minority compared to all PC gamers in overall. Fortunately, we have now companies like GoG who think that niche markets can be profitable too. And personally, I always appreciate small-time/independent game publishers who dare to make something different.

The probelem these days aside from copy protection?

back in the 90's there was what? 5 or 10 good games per year and 50 bad games? now there's 5 or 10 good games and 200 bad games per year?

With that in mind, chances for a good game to get overlooked these days is pretty high and this does nothing but hurt the company that made the awesome game, causing them to go out of business or to resort to cheap games.

Copy Protection wouldn't be needed if there were not so many shitty games out there or if there were proper demo's. Many games these days don't sport the same gameplay or levels from the full version game, making it hard to judge if it is worth buying the game. The number of shitty games kinda forces people to try before they buy hence piracy running rampant.

bah, my post is a disjointed mess and I'm too lazy to make it make sense >.>"

I doubt that if there were fewer games, there would be less piracy of them. I think the only reason piracy was less prolific 10-20 years ago is that the Internet was not even remotely as accessible. Sneakernet was certainly fully functional though.

It is just way too easy to steal a piece of software these days. Courtesy of the creation of bittorrent and cable modems, mainly. It's so easy to pirate a game that it almost doesn't feel wrong, especially when there is little real risk of any consequences. Combine that with an immensely larger gaming audience and a much more visible, accepted gaming culture and you get what we have today. I think you can also pile on the MMO phenomenon because non-MMOGs don't have the same unbreakable reliance on authentication, online connection, and lack the social "draw" (what I see as starting to become the primary appeal for the masses) and thus have lost some of their perceived value for lots of gamers. (=me observing many MMO-converted and addicted friends)

Lets also not forget that there are plenty of countries out there that allow sale of pirated software right on the street. That kinda erodes the moral high-grounders too I think.

Frankly I think the only way to stop or even slow down piracy of a title is to make it truly need authentication and online content to work at all. Ala MMOs, sadly.

The problem is that it is substantially more likely for a game to be a waste of your money then what it was ages ago, back then you had the whole first portion of the official game as a demo. Now you're lucky to get the first level of the official game, now a days you get some "test level" that demonstrates whats in the official game, but doesn't show you what the official game will really be like.

Also, these days you have to do research to find a good game, back then most on the shelf where good.

I can't tell much about video games, but modern pc games will be good again when duke nukem forever come out... 😁

Well, yeah, because when it's finally released dnf will be a complete remake of duke3d. 😁

Let's just hope Doom 4 isn't just various shades of brown like Quake 1 was otherwise we'll really be going around in circles.....

If DOOM 3 was any indicator, I expect it would be various shades of black.

you can not have various shades of black because black is black which means all shades will look the same, since they will all never reflect any light 😮.

Geez, listen to this guy, he just won't stop with the social commentary about DOOM 3.

which means all shades will look the same

Probably what Snover was hinting at anyways 😀

franpa wrote:

you can not have various shades of black because black is black which means all shades will look the same, since they will all never reflect any light 😮.

It's kinda sad that people don't recognize a good Doom 3 joke when they read it. Anway, the above statement is not correct. I don't think it's possible to create "physical" black on a display (CRT/LCD), as the colour black displayed on a CRT/LCD always reflects some light. Read this to understand the difference between "physical" black and "perceived" black. So, in a way, there actually are different shades of black. And Doom 3 uses them all. (;

ADDiCT I believe you should , or probably would say there are differents shades of "dark" but since black is what we call it and "dark" is not a colour. Then it is black.

I think a lot of times we tend to forget the forgettable. I don't really think the ratio of treasure to trash is that much out of proportion to what it was years ago. The Atari ST and Amiga were saturated with scrolling shooters, other than a few gems I can't even remember the names of most of them 20 years later. I see that as a parallel. Today it's FPS games that seem to get most of the attention, though basically it's the same game with a different maze, over and over. The same rut as the scrolling shooters years ago.

There are still some really great games being produced. I just finished Kings Bounty The Legend and thoroughly enjoyed it. To me, it's the rare game that holds my interest as long as that did and still left me wanting more when I finished it. I had easily over 60 hours in the game. The Witcher was another, probably the best RPG I have played in years.

I don't think anyone is saying that there aren't any good games today. What we are saying is that they are becoming harder and harder to find. When we do find them, they are generally put out by companies nobody has ever heard of. Many times, we don't even hear of them until they've been out for quite a while. I never even heard of "The Witcher" until just recently. It never appeared (even the censored version,) in any of the stores around here (and I check them very regularly.)

As has been pointed out (and by someone that doesn't share my opinion here,) there are 100's if not 1000's of games coming out on a semi-regular basis now. The "so-called" golden era of gaming. But when 85% are pratically identical to each other, the sheer numbers become a bad thing instead of good.

Maybe your area was different from mine, but in my game stores, there just weren't the massive amount of side scrollers you seem to be indicating for the Amiga (didn't have an Atari ST.) Yes, there were a few every year, but they shared shelf space with truly epic endeavours. Star Flight, Megatraveller, Ultima, Strip Poker (if you're into that sort of thing,) Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (not the arcade,) to name a few.

Now there were also remakes in those days (early 90's,) as well. However, and here is the real key, these remakes took the same game with "major" improvements to the sound & graphics. A couple of examples would include Bard's Tale for the Amiga and Battle Chess. Not like nowadays, when they make a minor tweak or two, then package it like its a totally new game. Or, like some "so-called" remakes that have come out, where they take something else, (like an FPS, or such,) make some cosmetic changes, and say it's a remake of some classic (even though the only similarity is the name.)

I know for a fact that I'm not alone in my recent frustrations. Where, I go to the game stores (usually once every 2 months,) to find something new, only to find shelf after shelf stuffed with absolute garbage. Instead of spending 2 hours to end up with a list of 20 or so games I would just love to get, I spend 5 hours for maybe 1 or 2. Now, back then, I might have only bought 1 or 2 games (and definitely not all 20,) I miss having those choices.