Pre-E3 thoughts... were they better before?

I won\'t attack against the current videogame market, the consumerism etc, neither to tell like our old grandparents, battles that all was better before. The certain thing is that in spite of the title, I never liked certain abstractions when we refer to the world of the video games, thing that can have been deduced from my opinion on the casual player. For example: were the games really better before to those of now?  
 
Those that began in the last generation will have Final Fantasy VII or Ocarina of Time in a pedestal. Who began in the 16 bits era, would say that the current platforms don\'t reach the height of Super Mario World or Sonic. Hoaxes for those who started with the consoles of 8 bits, and who enjoyed a bigger variety of genres and innovation in all the fields, amen of bigger gameplay and less commercial games.  
 
Undoubtedly, all this is stupid for those that began with the computers of 8 bits and their beloved magnetic tapes that really founded many of the genres that the defenders of the consoles 8 bits have appropriated. Games that, on the other hand, are so hard to play and of difficult amusement for those that the word "Atari" is part of his childhood, true meetings in the living room around a television with curved screen as a bubble and where the color was a novelty, with games so simple as effective.  
 
Amusements that destroy the authentic spirit of the video games and which lose all the grace for those who believe that they should never have left the arcades, where a play with your girlfriend to the Pong was not much less romantic that going to the cinema. Remember to those who say right now that the electronic format removes humanity to the written works, like it was also said about the typewriter or the printing before.  
 
What conclusion can we take out of this? That the video games go backwards as the crabs? That they have not made more than to worsen from Pong? What generation is right? Which "before" was better? It is obvious that none. The only thing that they have in common is the period: the childhood. Because there were also commercial games, monopolies, clones and licenses film in the eighty or the first half of the ninety. Fewer because they had less games, but yes in a very similar proportion to the current age.  
 
Undoubtedly, we were not the same ones. We didn\'t mind what company made it, or if it had pre-sequels, and furthermore, we didn\'t know anything about him neither we very probably saw his screens (or very few), and neither we demanded more than entertainment. Each game was an event. The technical lacks were replaced with the imagination that is more potent than any current or future system. Today in those circumstances they would call each other casual player, and we demand from the intro of each game a certain quantity of frames per second, of bump mapping and of graphics in general, a memorable orchestra and that it belongs to the company to which we are alienated. According to this, it is rather normal that we now complain more than before.  
 
It is certain, the games have changed so much. It is evident that it is not the same Pong that Vice City. Which one is worse? They are different. Neither better, neither worse. I remember that in an interview to Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari and creator of Pong) asking him for the fall of the arcades like social phenomenon, he replied that now the arcades are limited to racings of sport cars and to see two ninjas fighting". AND it is true, in the same measure in which the time referred, the homemade systems were limited to combine bars moving and hitting a pixel, and now the diversity is outside of all doubt. It is like the matter, the market of the video games doesn\'t go neither to better neither to worse, it only transforms.  
 
The obvious reason of missing those times doesn\'t only belong to the video games, and it is the nostalgia, the idealized version of certain games that we have now in mind and that it is very different from the true game when it was launched. This in fact has been quite profitable for many companies. Nintendo without going farther, counteracts the player\'s tedium of getting used to a new control system or introducing new licenses (characters etc) and elements of last games that make the player to sit down much more comfortable and familiarized with the title. With it, besides having a game of a certain quality, it is added part of that nostalgia of the games that mentions to the final consumer, with that we already have the factor "magic" that you can chain from a game to another during many years, increasing it, besides predisposing the player to take contact with the game in a more open and less more demanding way, like you made in the past (other big titles don\'t have that luck).  
 
The truth, I don\'t believe neither that the video games (word that I believe, is antiquated) they were better before, neither that a game can be better than another for the factor "magic" or charisma, because they are two things that are inside the player, and not in the product or in its creators.


(It took me 1 hour to express myself in english, sorry for the odd expressions)

Nice read. Well, here\'s my 2 cents. I\'m 25 now and videogames are still very entertaining for me. I stepped into games rather late
when I got myself a Sega Master system 2.
Sure, I played  "Game&Watch" handhelds, lotsa cassette games on the MSX at my friend\'s but up until my first Sega console I considered videogames just like other \'toys\'. Becuz before I was more the kind of kid that went outside and play with my kidfriends, or when the weather was bad I prefered Transformers , Lego or any other tangible toys. Btw, my parents weren\'t that kind of supportive when it came to videogames. So that may explain why I got that Sega Console quite late. Anyway,
the core reason why I got it was becuz I remembered the incredible good times I had whenever we went over to my nephew\'s. He had this handheld version of Space Invaders with Red and Green colors. It really put a spell on me and I could play for hours.
But that\'s where imo alot of \'old\' gamers make an error on their \'theory\' on videogames \'back then, vs right now\'. You have to keep in mind that the ppl who grew up with videogames are at most one generation old. Say.... eh somewhere mid 30\'s or 40.
In one generation of ppl alot of games generations passed by. So imo there\'s really no objective way to judge it all. Those ppl were kids or teens themselves back then and there was no generation of adults back then which would judge videogames like we do now, thus our perception of those \'good ol\' days videogames\' is really subjective. ( alot of the time it\'s idealized, face it ) Compare it to now go retro on other media stuff like music, movies etc. For example, you really feel that urge to hear that 80\'s song again or see that 80\'s movie again becuz , in your memories it was so great > then you actually hear it, see it and you gotta admit you have to dim down your enthusiasm a bit. Becuz, all things have not only changed in style - in videogames we can make the analogy with better graphics - , but things have EVOLVED structurally too. Thanks to those technical improvements lotsa gameplay evolutions occured. A month or two back I picked up the original Tomb Raider (PSX) from the budget bin. Started playing and got bored more quickly than I had hoped. Nostalgia tricked me here. The point is, not only the games have changed, but we, the gamers as well, so the way we expierenced our beloved Space Invaders, Moon Patrol etc. will never be the same anymore. That\'s why it\'s best to judge each generation of games in their own time. If a person really thinks the old games were that much better than they are now.....then he should stop buying current and future games right now. But somehow I think that\'s not gonna happen.