[quote name='Wolfpup']Hasn't evolved? Degenerated? When? What?
Look at current JRPG's for instance. Better & more complex stories have existed in the past as well as better battle systems and gameplay. Or survival horror. It used to have a great immersion and actually created a tense and scary atmosphere. Now they've become games with cheap thrills and mindless action. Racing games have become incredibly stagnant with barely any new ideas, retreading the same things over and over, concentrating on the amount of cars or particle effects instead. These are but a few examples.
There are some select genres (like what I mentioned) that have unfortunately fallen out of favor, but beyond that I don't know what you could be talking about.
The following games were better and more fun for their time than the majority of current releases, and thus were more fun relative to how fun games are today. In direct comparison a new game could be more fun, but these games were more fun for their time and thus were a better experience. Just because they are not anymore, doesn't take away how fun they were back then.
Sports: Tecmo Super Bowl, NFL Blitz, 1080 Snowboarding, SSX, Tony Hawk 1-3, NBA Jam, Punch Out, Super Punch Out, etc.
FPS: Doom, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Halo, Half Life 2, Quake series, etc
RPG: Chrono Trigger, FF6-10, Xenogears, Xenosaga, FFT, etc.
SHMUP: Anything last gen and older
Adventure: Zelda series pre GC
Racing: Daytona USA 1&2, Mario Kart series pre GC, F-Zero series, Wipeout series pre PSP, GT 1-3, etc
Survival Horror: RE 0-4, Silent Hill 1-3, Eternal Darkness, etc
Fighting: SFII, SF Alpha series, MK 2-3, Killer Instinct, VF 1-4, Tekken 1-3, etc
Platformer: Mario 1,2,3,World,64, etc
Puzzle: Tetris, Puzzle Fighter 2, Dr Mario, etc
Beat em up: Double Dragon, TMNT Arcade game & TiTime, Streets of Rage, etc
Side Shooter: Contra 1,3, Gunstar Heroes, Metal Slug series, etc
RTS: Starcraft, Warcraft 2-3, earlier Command & Conquer, Civilization series (although IV may be an exception).
Sandbox: GTA:VC, GTA:SA.
These to me were more fun for their time and better games for their time relative to how fun and good games are today for their time. The experiences I've had with these types of games were better than the experiences games of today have given me. And it's not merely age difference in myself because there are still games today that have been more fun for their time relative to these games in the past. And this is my opinion, just as you have yours.
According to you? What evidence do you have for that, or that developers care less about the experience than they used to? What evidence do you have that there's an increased focus on the technical side?
It's all you 
ing hear about when they talk about their games. It's clear in the design of the games. It's what the average person wants (they buy games with the best graphics not the best gameplay, CAGs might not, but most of the public does). They cater to the lowest commond denominator. It's obvious when you look at what they've created. Gabe Newell was 100% correct when he said that whole thing about game creators are not taking into account the psychology of reward and reinforcement enough. What evidence do you have that it's not an increased focus...
I've heard this before...did you follow IDEs in the 80's? The 90's? If so, how can you claim that? There was always talk about new programming techniques, new hardware, etc. I really think that's DECREASED now, not increased, but it certainly hasn't gotten more of a focus.
IDEs? Do you mean ID software? Not following you. Of course there was talk of new hardware and such, that will always happen, but it has increased in the game industry of today in comparison to the past. Not by a huge amount, but enough that it has made its mark. Technology is becoming more and more part of our society and consciousness, and leading people to pay more attention to it. New game experiences require technological advances and it's become harder to create new experiences without trying to push the technological envelope in some form.
My assumption with people making claims like this is either:
- They like some genres that have gone out of favor far more than current genres, and so think things have gotten worse
- They didn't play things in the past, and don't actually know how things have changed (or not)
- They like (or think they like) things from a particular point better, because it took place during a particular point in their life (just as you hear people claiming films or music have gotten worse...almost always since the supposed "golden age" of their adolescence
I like every genre that exists, back then and now, except modern fighting games. I've been playing games since Atari, and have never stopped since then. I realize there is an age factor, but I still feel that it is not simply that. I still like some modern games more than those in the past, but there are not many of these.
And how is trying to do that new? If they really, really just cared about the tech, they'd all be rewriting their own engines, etc. for that matter, not reusing stuff so they can focus on the rest of the experience.
I'm sure there are more, but off hand, the only creator I can think of that always has seemed to focus on technology over the actual experience-Factor 5-just went under. Only they've ALWAYS been like that, or at least since the mid 90's. (Honestly I've never played Turrican, so I don't know if it was similar.)
You used to find far MORE talk about technology, about how some piece of tech outdoes someone else's piece of tech in the past than you EVER do now.
Costs are so high now that developers are pretty much forced to use middleware. Even if they want to push the technological envelope, it doesn't mean they have the resources and time to be able to do what they want. I'll do the same thing to you... Devil's Advocate: If they cared more about the experience than the tech they would create an engine that fitted the type of game experience they wanted to create and not be limited by the middleware. You see... it's about costs and what concessions they need to make...
What about Epic, id, Crytek, SE FF series, High Voltage, Polyphony Digital, among others. Then there's those that try to go for both technical and creative/fun like Kojima (which is actually the best of both worlds). This is why he and those rare few like Blizzard and Valve stand out in this industry...
Disagree. Also now it's more of about touting your tech and what you're doing than comparing to others. There's less fighting against competitors in that aspect and more of a personal focus on what someone is doing themselves. This is probably to a large degree the result of developers trying to be more professional as the industry becomes larger and mainstream.
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[quote name='eastx']I don't think there's any point in arguing with Wolfpup...
But I agree that when people say that games aren't as good as they used to be, it's one of these things:
-They're tying their memories of older gamers with a happier/nostalgic time in their lives.
-Games have evolved but the gamer has not. He doesn't want a good story, or he doesn't enjoy the myriad other advances that games have made, especially multiplayer games.
-The gamer only likes certain genres which are underrepresented these days. However the same gamer is probably oblivious to the many indie and downloadable games that fit in those genres.[/QUOTE]
I agree age/time in life is aspect, but there's still games today that I think are better than those in the past. But there were more in the past that were better for their time. I've evolved, I don't like the same genres as much as I did when I was younger. I appreciate a good story, I love the stories that a few of the games out there they can provide. I'm aware of many of the indie games out there and have played many of them.
