why is it that games in the past were so much better than they are now?
>>343879641
Less money spent on marketing and graphics, more money spent on the GAMEplay of the GAME.
However, Anarchy Reigns is my 5th favorite game of all time and that is fairly recent.
>>343879641
because games where made with passion.
>>343879641
Because you didn't have legions of casuals who would buy whatever game they saw ads for.
Plus, most devs consolidated/were bought out by publicly traded companies who only care about profit and not artistic vision
Someone is bound to say 'nostalgia' but I played Chrono Trigger for the very first time last week. Man, what a fucking game.
>>343879641
More focus spend on gameplay than cinematic bullshit and political agendas and shit.
Graphics actually graphics like video games' should be, not a fucking almost realstic bull where you can clearly whine about the polygon count on a fucking blueberry because everything else is too good looking, thus your brain was able to immerse more because it was more aware of you playing a video game.
>>343879641
because the video game industry used to be a risky industry and hence companies used to be more risky when it came to producing games
many games failed, but a few were met with great success
They actually tried.
>>343879641
>>343879641
RE2 was huge when it came out, everybody was talking about it, everybody wanted to have it. It was the first time the PlayStation felt like it could have games that were blockbuster quality for a lot of people.
Back then there was no casuals, because there was no casual market (And you can all thank Nintendo for unleashing that mess on the industry). Everybody bought the game.
Because it wasn't as expensive to be as ambitious as they are now
Relative perpective?
There are more games you know to be good in the past than there are potential games you're aware of which could be good in the future, whilst 'modern' games are just a key selection of games in the immediate past.
There are terrible games now, but few bad games of the past are clearly remembered, outside of the ones with high profiles and/or were infamous for how bad they were.
It's also possible that for every great game you experienced in the past, your expectations for quality in games increases accordingly, so your standards may change. You'll never be able to relive the experience of booting up that 8-bit/16-bit/32-bit console for the first time again, because everything from that point onwards coloured your standards and expectations. This isn't nostalgia, it's simply how you grow according to experience.
Or it's possible that modern game development is just kind of shit, I dunno.
>I ONLY REMEMBER THE GOOD GAMES
but aside from that, modern games are a lot more businessy. More focus testing, market researching, publisher manhandling, AAA devs sticking to safe and stale genres. More money exchanging hands (always a bad thing).
Shitty shitty awful games are prevalent in all generations, but GOAT great 10/10 ones aren't quite. There's no game on my top 10 list that's from the past 7 years.
>>343880078
>(And you can all thank Nintendo for unleashing that mess on the industry)
>Not the PS2's giant casualfest library
>>343879641
Made by nerds, and way less suits running things. It's completely commercialized and soulless now for the most part
>>343879641
>>343881046
>but I can't tell you why yet
Was he talking about the REmasters and REmake 2? Also, that statement in general is pretty depressing.
>>343881046
>we regret to inform you that the market is casual as fuck now, have a nice life
Damn
>>343879641
that game is to bright, all horror games should be mostly black to where you can barely see it which is what makes them scary. RE games were never scary.
cause they actually made games, not marketing schemes on how to sell game + 5 DLC's (that were one game but ripped apart for extra profit)
also ecelebs are a thing now, notch for one needs to shut the fuck up thinking he's a god tier dev for making a fucking block game and selling out to microsoft.
>>343879641
In the past developers put all their love in the products that they make but now they only want ur money.
>>343879641
They still had a magical newness to them. Now video games are 40ish. Just like human life, at 40 it all goes down from there.
>tfw 35
>no kids
>never married
>going to die alone and miserable
At least I'll have VR and it will be good, right?RIGHT?!please kill meI'm too weak to do it myself
>>343881492
Turn the contrast of your monitor down you retard
>>343879716
I wouldn't say more money was spent on gameplay so much as technology limits back then encouraged developers to be more creative into implementing what they wanted which also adds character and charm to their games.
Plus a million people were not needed to develop a single game. Too many cooks ruin the stew.
>>343879641
There's still some good games being made by foreign indie faggots, american indie faggots have mutated into something else with a few exceptions.
That said majority of games have gone to shit because people with bad taste or don't actually understand the games they're making. Stealth genre is one of the worst examples of this with nuthief. The devs just didn't understand what made the old one good. So we lost all the superior mechanics in it. And with a lot of other games especially RPGs, even /v/ posters will eat them up in some case people actually believe "Why should other games have to try and meet the bar set by previous games?"
>>343881783
At least you don't have to take care of a woman's son, like every other normie in their 30s
>>343881963
>american indie faggots have mutated into something else with a few exceptions.
Read: because of steam's opened asshole, there are now a lot more western indies but there is still the same number of yearly great games. this might seem like a bad thing because the average game is shittier but there's still the same number of good ones.
>>343879641
Games project budget now:
80% marketing
5% other shit
5% other shit
10% game.
Games project budget then:
20% marketing
5% beer and snacks
75% game
movie project budget then:
x
x
x
x
etc
tl;dr corporations rape everything because they metagame business and spend money directly creating value in a product via marketing psychology/sociology than creating an actual valuable product, because capitalism is awesome but becomes quickly fucked when players get so rich they can metagame.
>>343880129
This.
A half-competent failed art student with a tablet could create assets for SD games, especially textures, but the move to HD increased asset cost exponentially.
Those 6000 people in the credits of an Ubisoft game are 95% creating textures and 5% creating models.
>>343882024
Most women in their mid 30s now have kids that are almost adults.
I have never and will never raise a child. That makes me feel less human. Like a failure. I was in the middle of building a new PC this week. I don't care anymore. I'd rather just not order anymore parts and let the half build collect dust. I want to quit life. But I just can't do it.
>>343879641
If you want the absolute truth it's a lot more complicated then can fit into a single post so it's better to just greentext a few points instead.
>normal/casual people flooded gaming
>microsoft entering the console race
>online taking off the way it has
>dlc, season pass stuff makes a person feel like they aren't getting the complete product
>games weren't afraid to be as goofy back then where as now they are super serious with cringe stories that appeal directly to casuals (TLOU for example)
>the japanese USED to be the dominant force instead of america
>consoles actually felt very different from each other back then
>tons of exclusives that were truly exclusive
>games that could only be done (at the time) on specific consoles (OOT for N64, FF7 couldn't be done on N64)
I'll just stop there. Probably missing so much more I could elaborate on into more detail.
>>343882261
Not raising children is a godsend, it means you aren't a cuck and you fit in here.
Games back in the day were basically regarded as toys and therefore inconsequential. The developers were given full creative control.
Now it's a multi-billion dollar industry backed by investors who don't play games themselves. They want to see technological innovation because that's the only thing about electronic media they can understand.
>>343882690
But I wanted my own kids, anon. I am the last of my family name.
>I am the end of my family's lineage
I'm a worthless failure. I don't know why my dad hasn't killed himself yet.
>>343879641
because you jaded faggots were younger
fucking aspies
>>343882838
even if you had kids, they wouldn't be your kids.
>>343882893
you make no sense
I'm ending this discussion
>>343882965
if you had kids, they would be your wife's kids, not your own. That's what /v/ taught me.
Please respond.
>>343880402
This, we forget the bad games from the past
>>343879641
They're not. RE2 was a good game, but RE4 was easily the best game in the series, even if it was more action based. The Evil Within was better than all the old Resident Evils too, if you want more recent games. I don't think I ever felt as genuinely tense and intimidated in a survival horror game as I did in the early parts of that game.
Tech limitations made sure tutorials stayed in the manuals where they belong and that devs had to focus on the most important parts of games without filling them with a bunch of unnecessary garbage. Games were heavily influenced by the arcades where you played to get challenged and improve yourself, so that philosophy stuck around with console games for a very long time. Developers loved games at least as much as the players did, often more.
>>343883136
You lost all validity when you mentioned evil within. Re4 can't really be compared its an on rails shooter without any need to explore
>>343883136
Also...
>shooters
>any top modern FPS games (CoD, Battlefield, Overwatch, even CS) are better than shit like Doom and Wolfenstein
>RPGs
>ARPGs have dominated the market because ultimately, turned based JRPGs are very shallow and unchallenging to anyone who isn't retarded
>sports game
>I don't even need to explain this one
>fighting games
>have only broadened and become more intricate or accessible depending on the series, sometimes both
Video games are only getting better. For every bad modern game, there are HUNDREDS of garbage games that were literally unplayable. Anyone who actually grew up with old games knows this, unlike kiddies who just emulate the most popular games from those eras.
>>343882225
But to counter that, games were a million times harder to program
>>343883476
>You lost all validity when you mentioned evil within
How so?
>Re4 can't really be compared its an on rails shooter without any need to explore
How so? It had no less exploration than old RE games.
>>343883671
>games were a million times harder to program
They really weren't.
>>343882067
>5% beer and snacks
Don´t forget board games.
>>343882878
answered like a true assburger.
stop posting or get more flowery and original with your insults.
>>343879641
Because you're cherry-picking a handful of the best games that came out across decades. The vast majority of old games were shit that you never played, just like today.
>>343879641
>claire spats
>>343883136
You got it backwards senpai, re2 was the best in the series, perfect blend of exploration, horror, action, badassery and memetic voice acting, re4 revolves around the aiming gimmick wich gets either completely obliterated with the Wii version or goes pants on head retarded with sticks or those horrible mouse controls that do nothing but emulate a fucking analogue stick with leon aiming like he has parkinson syndrome, literally babby's first resident evil.
devs tried
>>343879641
Because it was so nerdy that people with a passion made it, and they did it with their own money, which meant that they wanted to be pleased with the result.
Now it's just people getting neat ideas, collecting kickstarter money for their idea, delivering the idea and nothing more.
>>343884481
sooooooooooource
games today have too much marketing exec tampering and curated to appeal to the dumb least common denominator so they're all fucking bland
>>343879750
This. There were lots of small or mid-size developers making games that were good, but not blockbusters, unlike the AAA/indie dichotomy we have now. Because of that, games had more variety, because they weren't all trying to appeal to tens of millions of people and make a billion dollars. It's a cliche, but gaming really was better when it was less popular, because there wasn't so much effort being put into selling everything to the lowest common denominator.
I think another factor was that back then, consoles were just for games. There was no social media integration, no "share" button, no Netflix or other things designed to turn a console into an all-in-one multimedia center. It was just the games.
Also, they still had the ease of plug-and-play. Now you have to install the game, download updates, and so on. Consoles now have many of the same disadvantages of PC gaming, with none of the benefits.
In general, it just felt more innocent and pure, for lack of better words. I'm willing to admit that that might just be nostalgia on my part, but I don't believe so.
>>343881783
>no kids
>never married
You're talking as if those were bad things.
>>343879641
They weren't.
>>343879641
Profit margins used to be better.
Games didnt cater to normies as much.
Games didnt cater at all to artfags.
>>343879641
selective memory. we celebrate the handful of great games of each year and ignore the two hundred crap ones
When games try something original, they're remembered better.
That includes games that were total disasters.
I think Splatoon is one of the best games ever because it tried something new and I loved every aspect of it.
>>343879641
technological limitations meant there wasn't that big of a difference between what a AAA team could put out and what an indie team could put out.
these days the gap is so big most devs are to intimidated to learn anything more complex than java/rpgmaker/gary's mod, stunting their growth
>>343887859
Goddamn man, I so share this sentiment. I'm currently replaying the Pharaoh and Masters of Olympus city builders, those games just burst with genuine passion I rarely find anymore.
Because they took risks, you had really shit games and really good games.
Now we have only the middle road, the bland mediocre type of games, modern games tend to be more safe because it takes insane amount of money and time to produce games these days, we kinda tend to just copycat the old games and the aspects that worked in them.
Look at Ride to Hell Retribution, it's really not THAT bad but still it's considered to be the worst modern game there is, and vice versa the greatest modern games aren't THAT good or remarkable.
It's all narrowed down, it's all bland. There are no more shit games but there are no more spectacular games either.
>>343879641
Game dev/marketing budgets bloated.
No real market for experimental games. Which there barely was to begin with - remember Looking Glass dying due to lack of sales?
Cue a bunch of bland passionless risk-averse slop with follow-the-leader design.
>>343888445
Applies to modern games as well, even more so because of the volume of games released. Fact is you could think of amazing games released each year and realize that the past decade has been pretty shit, and it's only getting worse.
>>343888682
I still have some hope that, with game development becoming easier, there might be a movement of people with the passion for making games, but who lacked the skills to make them from scratch, creating independent games that are free from all that. I think that's the only way it will ever go back to the way it was, because the industry is so consolidated now that there's no way to escape the bullshit if you want to make more mainstream games. A few huge companies control everything, and all of them care about nothing but huge profits.
>>343879641
nostalgia
One reason everyone forgets is that games nowadays are trying to appeal just as much to the female sex as they are to males, which makes sense on the corporate level - why cut your potential demographic in half?
As a result however, their stories and characters need to be as inoffensive as possible in order to cater to them, not to mention the fact that females have different criteria when looking at games. Games like The Witcher or VtMB will NEVER ever be made again, at least not without accusations of misogyny, leading them to have diminished success in sales or be altered from the original vision in the editing room.
It's more profitable to play it safe and to be as inoffensive to as many demographics as possible like EA does, despite the crap they pass off as video games nowadays. You can see the trend in Fallout as well. Fallout 4 was clearly made to play it completely safe, ever since Skyrim had its unexpected widespread appeal. Once you hit widespread demographics of both genders and age groups, you start receiving feedback from everyone (aka WoW) and your games devolve into sterile, unfocused experiences.
>>343879641
because usually the first game of the series will be the best in the franchise
it's only very few cases in which this isn't true
tl;dr normies shit up the industry
normies also shit up 4chan
>>343879641
Games used to cost significantly less and were done by people who were genuinely passionate about new ideas.
Today, current games' budgets have swollen to 8 digit figures, by which the most of it is spent on marketing.
Not to mention developers have less time to craft and design interesting concepts due to limited production phases.
The game industry has become exponentially more business oriented than in the past.
Games were always better back in my days. Prove me wrong.
I sort of fell out of gaming a while back, due to severe depression. I still played games, but it was mostly games I'd already finished, and it was usually more about occupying my mind to keep negative thoughts at bay than actually enjoying the game. I have a backlog going all the way back to the PS1 era. If the depression ever goes away, I should be set for good older games to play until the industry either changes for the better, collapses in on itself for better times to rise from the ashes, or until I just die.
Now if only I could get over my serious OCD about used games...
>>343879641
Too much money is involved now
>>343879641
But they're not.
More complexity = better gameplay. And games are getting more complex each generation.
>>343890235
>And games are getting more complex each generation.
You can't be serious. They're getting more difficult to make, but the games themselves are generally getting less complex.
>>343888079
>keep having dreams of marrying my highschool crush
>things could be so different if i started working out
i just wake up real sad.
my dreamworld seems so nice, everyone proud of me having the cutest wife.
hell she's just a hair stylist now, so she probably doesn't even have high standards.
i could be a happy man, but i am just a fat neet living at my moms place playing vidya all day.
fuck man ;_;
in order to attract big audiences to fund very expensive development cycles, games need to quickly grab players and not frustrate them. blowhard stories, constant cinematics, easy gameplay that only gives the illusion of challenge and goads the player into a false sense of accomplishment, etc.
one of the first huge games to really take advantage of this was CoD4. just look at the multiplayer with the spawn system that lets a player of any skill level get kills as long as they spawn behind someone else, the extremely low TTKs, perks like martyrdom and last stand that reward dying, and a persistent metagame that makes the player feel like they're improving no matter how badly they perform. 2007 was the point when most developers really started to realize how much profit there was to be had appealing to casual gamers rather than "core" gamers . (although blizzard noticed this 3 years earlier with WoW)
Because you faggots killed middlewares and nowadays we get either AAA trash or indie shit.
>>343890235
Imo, its the oppesite trend. Developers are advocating simplicity over depth.
Video games got too popular for their own good.
Video games started making money, greedy investors and businessmen noticed. Games started getting more and more watered down to cater to a bigger market, and now more and more draconian business models is gaining traction.
It's always about money, video games got crushed and broken down into a science of how to make the most money.
Because you were younger and had lower standards, as well as less money to buy all the games you want.
>>343889351
generally the opposite is true with games. i can't think of many series where the first game was the best, with some big exceptions like Deus Ex. it's much easier to come up with series where a sequel is better
>>343879641
Why is it that op is such a faggot?
Because games were made to be perfect on Day 1 with all content included, not with a "if it doesn't work, we'll patch it someday" mentality and selling season passes
I think it is the love for detail (if we look at games like resident evil). Be it the environments or the puzzles, the game is full with little detail. furthermore we have very solid game play which was build with challenge in mind (most modern games lack the same challenge be it because of different control schemes or people the game tries to appeal to (non gamers)). It's kinda sad that so many years have passed and most people (non gamers) still prioritize some fancy story or graphics instead of gameplay (which was always the most important part for games, if looking at older gen games). It's not hopeless but quite near it.
>>343879641
Catered to us instead of casuals.
Wait for this game to come out. Graphics look like a movie
>>343892270
looks too westernized. if I wanted dark angry games starring generic white dudes I'll play assassins creed or something
passing on now dead FF
>>343882067
What's the difference between the 1st other stuff and the 2nd other stuff?
I feel like most modern videogames just copy popular concepts instead of forming an identity of their own.
basically playing it safe.
just look at all the open world games like Horizon Zero Dawn and MGS 5.
fucking Watchdogs is basically a GTA clone, and we've been getting GTA clones since the PS2 era with the getaway and other shit like that.
i feel like the PS2 generation was the last one where companies used original ideas in their videogames.
hell you get some shit games with "unique" control schemes that turn out to not be working. now every videogame controls the same.
you will never get a videogame with unique controls again.
just look at god hand for example, a game loved by /v/.
god hand wouldn't be made in 2016 cause at this point it would just be a DMC/bayonetta/God of War clone with that kind of control scheme.
companies are just too afraid to try something new.
but then again consumers are also afraid of buying anything that's niche or not marketed like crazy
>>343879641
They entered the mainstream. More people will always ruin everything.
>We want to appeal to a broader audience
>>343880932
Both consoles are resposible for opening the casual floodgates
>>343892270
>Graphics look like a movie
Who fucking cares? I will never understand GRAFFIX whores
>>343892507
>>343892828
>not getting the joke
he literally posted a movie.
>>343879641
Because they were not being made to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Game's for the most part used to be made by people who were passionate about their work for people who were passionate about the hobby.
Now it's just about the money, it's pretty sad and i don't see how it can ever go back to how it was on the golden years.
>>343879641
Games of the past were not superior to the games of the now, rather, the selection process for our minds' associations are unfairly favorable to the games of yore.
The games from the past which are remembered become remembered because they stood the ultimate test: the test of time. Thus, when we imagine game of yore we remember the likes of Chrono Trigger and Metal Gear Solid, because they were the ones which survived the test of time.
When we think of games of the now, we think of whatever has been the most popular most recently - the likes of Fallout 4 and Star Wars Battlefront. What causes something to be the most popular of it's market, though, is mass appeal, and mass appeal is achieved by producing the lowest common denominator.
In truth, every era has fair share of highlights and nadirs of quality. The last two years have seen the release of many games which may very well be looked back on fondly in years to come, and the years of yore had their own share of shovel-ware sports games and movie tie-in titles.
Therefore, it is disingenuous to assert that games of yore are superior to games of the now, because our minds are inherently skewered in their perception of the past, and inherently prejudiced in our perceptions of the now.