I guess, What i'm trying to say is, How are you guys handling the fact such masterpieces aren't being made as they were years ago? What will you do when the video games industry crashes? Also, how does it feel to know younger generations are going to grow up and associate games with just grindy wacky crazy paywalls with micro-transactions everywhere?
I find this a very difficult subject to respond on as it is one of the reasons why I am so down: the feeling that gaming barely any longer entices me and has sort of passed me by.
I used to be a passionate gamer, or at least I think I was. Other than gameplay I enjoyed of various titles, I also deeply got into the worlds that some of these games depicted. (my passion for Fallout's world for example: which made me want to make a worthy addition to it)
So many games that influenced my imagination, wanting me to make new stories in the worlds depicted in them and become a game designer myself. (I do realize now that one should strive to create new things instead of just repeating the old over and over again as that has led to some of the mess we are in, plus it is very unlikely that even if someone manages to get into the game industry that he or she gets to work on titles like Mario, Sonic, Wolfenstein, and so on on a commercial basis. Only a rare few get that opportunity.)
When I was young(er) the gaming world seemed so exciting and full of undiscovered treasures. Of course I was also a lot easier to impress in an era in which the Commodore 64, Amiga, NES, and later on the Megadrive and the SNES were the biggest gaming platforms). Only later on I found out that a lot of games I though were very awesome were quite average and bad even for the time, and that I was unjustly ignoring other games that appealed to gamers who enjoy more fulfilling experiences.
I was already PC gaming in the time that the new genres such as FPS and RTS were establishing themselves, able to enjoy the innovation and new concepts these games brought. Games like the original Unreal and Half Life 1 were such a experience changing event compared to Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. Games could actually tell stories like in a movie or a comic book, or provide an almost continuous world that did not include levels.
(I sadly ignored System Shock 1 but did play System Shock 2 and liked that, but then ignored Deus Ex when it was first released, only to play it later on budget re release and discovering the mistake I made)
Starcraft and its expansion Brood Wars were cool but they were nothing compared to when I played Homeworld and Homeworld Cataclysm, awesome 3DS RTS space opera! (sadly Homeworld 2 suffered the same way other franchises would eventually do, I found the story average and the gameplay not fun)
But then titles like Halo appeared. At first I did not see the harm of it as there were still plenty of PC first games like Star Wars Jedi Knight Outcast, Star Trek Elite Force, and Star Trek Bridge Commander. (this was at a time that Star Wars was still good despite The Phantom Menace, and Star Trek was still popular and decent), but as time passed by more and more titles started to become cross platform. (I never understood why Deus Ex Invisible War was so loathed until I played it myself and discovered how much of the gameplay had been reduced to fit on the original Xbox)
And this continue on and on.
During all of this I did discover older games that I also enjoyed but at some point I just bought old games for the sake of collecting and no longer to play them, and when I did play some of them I discovered I was not enjoying them as much any more. (FPS and RTS games for example quickly age, adventures in general hold up better followed by some RPGs)
Also during this my budget in gaming was rather limited due to financial problems at home so I could not fully follow the gaming scene until a few years later. (highlights during these years were the awesome Metroid Prime 1 and 2, and Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission)
When I finally had a new PC again I played such games as Half Life 2 and Doom 3 (which I still rather like), and later on FEAR1 which I did not find that interesting).
But not long after almost all games had become completely cross platform and I started to notice this also in the FPS genre. A lot of them were suddenly WW2 or Modern War oriented, two weapons limit, auto health, and focus on multiplayer, the single player games were reduced in scale and gameplay.
One of the last few years IMO was 2007 during which Half Life 2 Episode 2 and Metroid Prime 3 Corruption were released. After that things start to become a forgettable blur.
I remember playing and enjoying Wolfenstein 2009 which I liked for its Indiana Jones style adventure story but which did suffer in gameplay, especially compared to Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
Fallout 3 which I despite all misgivings decided to play, because hey it is a new Fallout game even though I still mourned the cancellation of Van Buren and the disgusting aftertaste of FOBOS. (well I reviewed a lot of the DLC here so you people know what I think of Fallout 3)
When Fallout New Vegas was announced it filled me with excitement again even though I knew it would run on the same engine as Fallout 3. But Obsidian fixed so much of the Fallout 3 flaws and added such an exciting world for me to explore, characters to meet, quests to carry out.
The ending felt a little disappointing on the vanilla game (especially compared to what I read in the Van Buren documentation), but the DLCs that later came out; Dead Money, Honest Hearts, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road (which I still think should have been the true ending of FNV, taking place after Fallout New Vegas and altering the outcome of your decisions in the Mojave). I could not wait all those months after all those DLCs were announced, it felt good to be a gamer again.
And then... well there were some real life matter that required my attention but I do remember that I was largely disappointed in general.
Deus Ex Human Revolution was a rare gem during that time but it did not feel completely like the Deus Ex I experienced in the first game, especially story wise.
I don't recall when but at some point I bought an Xbox 360 in order to play the Halo games (Hallo Anniversary Edition, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo ODST, Halo Reach, Halo Wars, and Halo 4). They were okay I guess but I never really became a Halo lore fan, and after how ridiculous the universe was made in the books and the comics, and the fandom that considered the Halo series the epitome of quality gaming I was pretty sick of it)
I also got a PS3 in order to play the Resistance games, these were okay but the series was never that spectacular. The first game probably got a lot of praise because it was the first FPS on the PS3 when it came out but it wasn't that good despite the nice alternative history theme. R2 was in many ways a Halo clone. And whole R3 restored some of the better elements of R1 that were removed in R2, I found it a rather pointless title as it did not give any answer on the bigger questions that had been set up during the series, feeling more like a filler than the conclusion to the series that it was revealed to be. Heck the enemy apparently got defeated during the epilogue title screen and humanity despite the billions of dead and transformed people manage to recuperate and rebuild the United States again.
The best game of that series is still Resistance Retribution.
Sorry I probably go way of track with this but I just wanted to clarify why gaming has meant so much to me. It was one of the few sources of solace I had during some very dark and depressing times. Now I feel intensely sad again but find it does not give me a feeling of happiness again.
Many of the franchises I enjoyed have either ended or have so declined in quality that I have absolutely no interest in them any more as they are now designed for a whole different orientation group.
And there have barely been any new titles that really caught my attention for the same reason, a lot of them are not designed for a gamer such as me. I am not a Multiplayer fan nor do I care about MMOs.
I know there are still decent games being developed and released but as I have a limited budget at the moment and sometimes find it very difficult these days to focus on a single subject I have not been able to get into games that I would otherwise probably have enjoyed for hours or even days. (I really need to play Dust: An Elysian Tale more)
I tend to go back to the tried and comfortable games when I am not wasting my time pointlessly behind the internet but eventually even my favorite games tend to become boring because I play them so often over again.
What would I do if there was another video game crash like in the 1980s? Probably rejoice as I would not mind seeing a lot of the publishers that have made it so that gaming must focus on the mainstream audience, and have butchered so many classic IPs because they are so god damn scared that a new franchise or game that appeals to specific gamers doesn't sell enough to finance the next floor on their diamond and gold towers, or pays the mortgage on their private island, go broke. And that all the Hollywood studios style managers who don't give a shit about gaming, let alone understand gaming, are forced to find themselves a new tit to suck from.
And then follow the complaints and whining about a lot of mainstream gamers who post online and make videos on how suddenly no longer lots of titles are made for their finicky tastes any more. (where is my next triple A title? As a specific demographic gamer I need to be catered to by the studios. I need my next MP shooter and rebooted/reinvented classic franchise title)
But probably more realistically I would continue to seek something that gives me fulfillment and joy. When this damn depression is over I really would like to accomplish creative results of my own.
Current day gamers who have never experienced titles that did not come with paywalls and micro-transactions? A shame really that they will probably never know a time in which most of the releases were full and complete experiences on their own that did require additional purchases and expansion packs that offered much more than most DLCs do these days.
