The state of gaming.

Gaming was new thats why we were getting more new ideas and genres.Simple ideas were also enough and our expectations less demanding.
 Lets take as example one of of the sub games in Jak2.
Each button represented a hole.You had to press the right buttons according to which hole a metalhead\'s head  would jump out.

 This simple idea could have been a whole genre and no one would have complained for being repetitive or having no variety 15 years ago.
We cared about high scores back in the days of the Atari, Commodore etc anyways.
But thats just a sub game in Jak2.
 We dont care only about reaching the best high scores these days.Because our demands changed.You cant find a game like pong as entertaining as you used to.

 And the developer at this present day has to find new ideas in a gaming industry that is nearing 30 years old of innovations and ideas of older developers.The fresher an industry is, the more new ideas we get.New ideas simply run out as the industry gets older.We also demand more and development is more expensive than in the past to risk at creating new ideas that might not be accepted.

 We simply cant blame developers or the consumer for that.The most common thing we can get is redeveloping, reconstructing, bettering genres or adding new small ideas (that could have been a whole game 20 years ago) in present genres.
Atleast compared to the old days I play games that represent better their genre than they used to

[Bobs_Hardware]

I don\'t know, I had a demo disc with the Pong remake on it, and that was insanely fun..

A game like Fantavision has the same simple concept and it\'s insanely fun.

There are many many simple games today that are just plain fun, and I still find them incredibly enjoyable despite those "raised expectations" which dictate that I should NOT be enjoying Game X because it\'s not complicated and revolutionary enough.

Speaking of which, did anyone pick up Katamari Damacy yet?

Yeah but how many actually bought Fantavision and are still praising it as much as other popular genres?No sequel either.It didnt have any staggering sales either.It was just an interesting experience
And you got a free demo of a pong remake.Would you have invested $40 for a pong remake without any major imporvements in the genre?For the money we pay today we expect more.

[Bobs_Hardware]

I\'m not sure if I get your point, Uni. Or even if you\'re making a point. And if you are, if you\'re making the same point you originally tried to make... .

..

Originally posted by Unicron!
Yeah but how many actually bought Fantavision and are still praising it as much as other popular genres?No sequel either.It didnt have any staggering sales either.It was just an interesting experience

Look at you. You\'re starting to sound like mm. Yes, great games often don\'t sell anything, and crap games often sell lots. What\'s your point?

And you got a free demo of a pong remake.Would you have invested $40 for a pong remake without any major imporvements in the genre?For the money we pay today we expect more.

Point is, with my \'jaded\' views clouding my vision of what made my youth playing games so wonderful, why am I still enjoying the type of games that I loved as a child? It\'s not like I\'m plugging in Sonic 2 again and enjoying it for nostalgias sake, I\'m playing games with a very similar concept (i.e. it\'s simple) and enjoying it just as much as I enjoyed games as a kid. Something which your theory suggests I should NOT be doing as I am expecting things to constantly be reinventing the wheel, etc etc.

Originally posted by Bobs_Hardware
Look at you. You\'re starting to sound like mm. Yes, great games often don\'t sell anything, and crap games often sell lots. What\'s your point?

No you misunderstood.Unlike mm I am not judging its quality judging from sales.I am comparing preferences.

Point is, with my \'jaded\' views clouding my vision of what made my youth playing games so wonderful, why am I still enjoying the type of games that I loved as a child? It\'s not like I\'m plugging in Sonic 2 again and enjoying it for nostalgias sake, I\'m playing games with a very similar concept (i.e. it\'s simple) and enjoying it just as much as I enjoyed games as a kid. Something which your theory suggests I should NOT be doing as I am expecting things to constantly be reinventing the wheel, etc etc. [/B]

No no no you got me wrong again.I probably put it wrong in my previous post.The nostalgia arguement was directed mostly to people like mm who are never satisfied with todays gaming no matter what will be offered to them today.
But since you mentioned it we like these old games as much as new ones because we grew with these simple game and because we also realise their greatness they had back then.If you take a younger gamer who has recently started playing videogames he wont feel the same enjoyment we felt and feel.If he enjoys it or not though is a different matter.
Also I wasnt trying to say you shouldnt enjoy these simple games or that its absurd to like them.When it comes to preferences you are willing to try many things.But when it comes to investing your money unless you dont care how much you spend you arent willing to spend the same amount of money on a 20 year old game as much as you pay for a new one.
For example I enjoy the old Sonic games, Street Fighters, Super Mario Bros etc  but if someone tries to sell me a DVD with Super Mario Bros or Pong on it for $40 I wont decide to spend that amount of money right away just to own it on the same console that can do so much more(although the Sonic collection seems a very attractive purchase for me ).
If someone offered me the original Ninja Gaiden cheaply or free I would have took it right away.But if someone tries to sell me the original Ninja Gaiden on XBOX as a separate game for $40 while I can get the new Ninja Gaiden for the same amount of money I will hesitate.Today someone with few knowldege in programming can create simple games.Would you have invested $40 for his games as much as you pay for a game that took more time,needed more labor force, more knwoledge and costed more to create?I wouldnt mind playing them though.
People dont just think "I will enjoy this game" and get the game right away.People see what technology offers today, what they expect from a game today and the price of that game.

you\'re still wrong

sales -> market trends, numbskulls

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

Games haven\'t changed much apart from sound, visuals, adding story lines ingame etc. The only thing that has changed is as we\'ve grown. We\'ve experience more things and played it all before. That doesn\'t mean games are going backwards, it just means they\'ve leveled out.  
To a 6 year old, it’s all new.  Most of you are probably looking at games as you did when u were much more younger and haven\'t played certain genres before...

[Bobs_Hardware]

You missed my points Soully..

Originally posted by Unicron!
Didnt we always have good and bad examples of the same thing?

\\

Let me explain myself...

This might just be me...aside from RPG\'s I couldn\'t tell you the story of any of the 8-bit/16-bit games because there really wasn\'t an emphasis on story telling.  That\'s why I said I remember the games of the 2d era based on their gameplay, I couldn\'t tell you much outside that.  When I tell a friend about a game today I find myself mentioning the story telling as well as gameplay and I just feel like it\'s a more complete experience.

[§ôµÏG®ïñD]

no booby, i just didn\'t read them.

Originally posted by mm
you\'re still wrong

sales -> market trends, numbskulls

I dont know if you have noticed but you called yourself a numbskull

Originally posted by Ginko
\\

Let me explain myself...

This might just be me...aside from RPG\'s I couldn\'t tell you the story of any of the 8-bit/16-bit games because there really wasn\'t an emphasis on story telling.  That\'s why I said I remember the games of the 2d era based on their gameplay, I couldn\'t tell you much outside that.  When I tell a friend about a game today I find myself mentioning the story telling as well as gameplay and I just feel like it\'s a more complete experience.

That post was directed to L-I-C buddy
I dont believe the opposite.I agree with you.Its just that L-I-C seems to take the bad examples as arguements that proove that gaming has declined but he avoids the good examples and how these new elements have also helped gaming.

unicron, you\'re wrong........kids these days are still able to enjoy simple games....
the reason games are what they are today is because you can only make so many versions of pong (or any other \'simple\' game), so the only way for developers to make something new/innovative is to expand the games....
gaming didn\'t get different because of graphics, 2d --> 3d etc. etc.......it\'s because the gameplay has become far more (sometimes even too) complicated.........

I didnt say anything different.
I didnt say they dont enjoy playing these games.Being less excited or finding them less enjoyable it doesnt necessarilly mean they dont enjoy them.I understand that you enjoy Pong.But as I said before.Are you willing to invest $40 on the original exact version of the old pong today??


And when I talk about technology I talk generally about changes in gaming.3D is just the first visible difference of that change in technology.3D usually just happens to be the choice to implement newer possibilities than previously feasable(DMC anyone?Retains the fast skillful action of 2D games, yet gameplay that cant be 100% realisable on 2D or atleast the on older technology).

I also mentioned in a previous post a rare occasion of complicated non-3D games that use similar gameplay mechanics to 3D games like Oddworld which is very different from other 2D games that some people seem to praise so much about but still remains a 2D quality title that has nothing to envy from 3D games.
That is a pure example that its not the shift from 2D to 3D that has to do with the decline of gaming or change/downgrading in gameplay.We have changes because of general evolution of gaming.
So... I dont believe or said the opposite of what you said.

I just cant accept all these comparissons between 2D and 3D.They both have their cons and pros.

:eek:  Whoa ! I finally took some time to read this massive thread.

Speaking for myself ; I\'m 26 now and I do not feel the current state of gaming to be depressing. It depends imo alot on what kind of a gamer you are in general. Each new generation of games will feature trends towards certain aspects of gaming.

Gamers who got hooked and \'stuck\' on one of these aspects which isn\'t dominant anymore in the succesive generation of games will hate the new change.

They forget however that it is a cumulative thing ; like the cinematic influence : it didn\'t destroy gaming, it only adds to the list of aspects of gaming. it doesn\'t destroy what was already there. it\'s an enrichment.

For example ; some ppl totally mix up the "cinematic influence in games" with "games based on movie franchises". Then they go say games got destroyed by cinematics in games...oh please...

These are 2 totally different things. The games which feature a deep visual storyline are an enrichment to gaming in general. It\'s movie franchised games which feature some superficial looks and characters from a movie all copy n pasted on some ripped off gameplay template ; it\'s THOSE games which harm gaming. It\'s exactly those franchise games which fail to feature any of the nice storyline of the movie it\'s tied into, IF at all it had a good one.

If ppl think simple games with zero complex storylines are the way it should be and Sony and MS are evil, then they must probably LOVE Eye Toy games then eh ? ; Cuz these feature nil story and have addictive skillbased easy to get into gameplay.

Really, gaming hasn\'t got worse. All what WAS good IS still in there ; it\'s just that the whole spectrum has broadened ALOT.
Don\'t let yourself fooled that some past era, with it\'s own dominant aspects of gaming which you like is THE best and that any deviation from that is something worse. That is imo getting yourself into a conservative modus which doesn\'t help you nor gaming in general.

If you absolutely think the new games suck and only the old generations are good ; then you should stop right here and vowe to NEVER play a new game anymore. Go and cement your mindset more and more into conservatism and fool yourself you have a great time playing those \'oldies\' over and over.

Right now, the current generation of console gaming is running on it\'s last legs ; that\'s why the sour ones are extra sour now. I\'ll bet they\'ll be up at the front when the new generation hype ensues.
I myself haven;t been gaming as much as i used to lately, however i CAN still have a good time with a current gen game. Also, pc gaming, especially from a hardware point of view are in a stadium of change. Very exciting times imho

That\'s a good post, Knotter.

Hopefully this thread will keep going...