Not to mention the size of games on your harddrive or SSD has absolutely exploded. Example: Star Wars Battlefront 1: $10, 2GB install Star Wars Battlefront 2: $10, 9GB install Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection: $40, 60GB install. That's absolutely insane for a twenty year old game. $20 more, 50gb more of hard drive space eaten up. Nope, I'm out. The originals are still available and they're still fantastic.
damn man. it isn't a coincidence that the incompetence, complacency, and bad practices came more into prevalence as soon as publishers started pitching the 70$ price tag that they still fail to justify. totally agree that this state in gaming just made players invest more in indie and AA since they've been releasing fresh takes in the market, notably these recent months w/ mix-genres that reinvigorate the derivative genre (ie: palworld's monster-taming, enshrouded's voxel arpg, helldivers 2's hub-world extraction, and pacific drive's driving base-building sim).
really good video just want to make 2 points 1. AAA games have gone up in price in the last 15 years (at least in the UK) 2. companys make more money per game since they (mostly) sell direct to the consumer now due to digital sales verses retail stores
@@speedingoffence triple a day 1 game was £45 pounds vs i think £55 now could be a bit higher, cant remember the last game i bought for that sort of price
Its cool that games can look so amazing they easily compete with movies and I'm glad they can be so vast and complex that they easily provide more than 30 hours of unique content. Even at 60 dollars it just seems unrealistic to expect that every single time. I don't want developers to feel like they have to work nearly a decade to provide somethign that might not even land well. I just want a fun game from these big developers even if its just a small project i forget about in few months. Missing the mark on those games won't completely ruin a fanchise's entire strategy like now but it really is hard to predict the future of these huge franchises if they suddenly stopped spending almost 10 years to make amazing looking games with over 30 hours of content... I really don't want the best of the best of the best every single time. I want to play a kinda fun game and not feel like i paid for an overly long movie with horrible gameplay sections and too many ads.
I think the publishers, often people who don't even play games, only understand graphics, because its really the only objectively tangible thing to rate a game on. How would you explain Factorio to your Grandma?
1:54 *SpeedingOffence:* _"....But I suppose us old guys, who were around before all this was normal - and we know that none of this was necessary for good games to happen. I don't think I'll get a lot of contention saying that 2007 to 2015 were the _*_Golden Age_*_ for videogames."_ 😆 You sir must not actually be a 'old guy', because if you where - you would know that the overall video-game community would argue heavily against your statement. In my experience, if you spend anytime around the video-game community... on forums.... watching videos... talking to people - you will pretty quickly realize how 'passionate' (tm) people are about how things went down hill in that time period. I mean 2007 - 2015 is the period where the games industry slowly became a monopoly, B games died, micro-transactions became a common thing, always online DRM, EA online Passes, Battle passes, Season Passes, micro-transactions, live-service game, massive shuttering of beloved studios that had been around for decades ...etc-etc-etc. I mean between 2007 and 2015.... Horse Armor, EA killed Dead Space, Games For Windows Live, Store exclusive pre-order codes, $10 game price hike, and Anthem..... need I say more? lol. I'm not saying you are wrong to have your opinion, or love their period of gaming. Just that anyone whose interacted (even tangentially) with the Retro Gaming Community.... or really anyone born before 1994 - will tell you that the *Golden Age for video-games* was before that. It's no secret that almost all us "old guys" have issues with gaming since, really, it went fully-online. There are thousands of huge creators on this platform, conventions all over the country year round, and indie games made every hour to tailored to the bulk of the older audience who hasn't felt served in almost 20 years. I can tell you as someone whose been apart of this community since the later 90s, and been playing video-games myself since 1988 - the ONE THING you can always count on with gamers, is that they *WILL FIND* 'contention' with other peoples opinions. lol. 🤷♂ However.... to be fair. There does seem to be a general consensus that the golden age of videogaming was somewhere between 1995 - 2004. I can without a doubt tell you safely that MOST gamers peg that era as the highlight of our hobby.... and if you were a young adult during any of that time, your even more likely to feel this way. So now, what part of that era was the best? That is up for debate. In that short time, ALOT of change happened in the industry, in the games, the technology, and the community. Some people swear the end of the 16-Bit era was the peak because of simplicity and polish... others swear the the first 3D 32-bitconsoles (especially the PS1 and Saturn) were unmatched in software variety. While many others (I feel the majority), look back on the sixth generation (PS2/XB/GC/DC/GBA/PSP) as the culmination of gaming as a hobby and a subculture. I personally feel that way too, as the franchises were got at that time were stellar. Game pricing and variety was fantastic. There were more developers and small creators in the professional (none indie) market that any time before of after. That generation birth many huge franchises that transitioned into future generations - like Ratchet and Clank, God of War, Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry, Halo, Call of Duty, Shadow of the Colossus, (modern) 3D Persona titles, and endless more. Games where cheap, and did not require online connections. That was the generation where online multiplayer and LAN became popular for those who wanted it. And we had a robust competition between many different manufacturers at a time when they were aggressive. 🤩 The amount of games that released world wide at that time too, was staggering. Truly no developer or publisher was afraid to make even the most experimental off-the-wall game, because development was cheap - and we did not have a publisher monopoly that required endless profits (so no risks). Games were also still 'games'.... walking simulators hadn't been a thing yet. Thanks to cheap CRT televisions and consoles that ran many of their titles at 60fps - the gaming experience was often very attainable even for poor people and kids, and felt responsive and great. Move over into the next generation and the consoles were unreliable for the first several years, prohibitively expensive, required pricey new HDTVs, subscriptions for online play, and your game (which cost $10 more) often ran at sub 30fps and suffered wireless controller lag and lag from earlier LCD TVs. The seventh generation ended up being the longest generation at that point, and so naturally things did improve and we got tons of great games (love the Fallout NV, Dark Demon Souls, the Arkham titles and BioShock are on my GOAT list).... but it took years before the manufacturers could get prices down, address massive hardware failure rates, build online infrastructure that wasn't a pain, and get titles out (especially ones that didn't run like crap). I really liked that generation for its titles - but the business practices and changes to the industry at that time was the malignant cancer that we are now consumed by today. 😥 It is STILL why when you poll gamers asking what was the Greatest year in gaming you get common answers like: 1993... *1998...* 2001.... and ofcourse 2004. And it's not just console gamers either - it's PC gamers, handheld-gamers, people that where in High School at that time, in university, working a full-time job , or older kids. For a lot of us who were there since the days of the Atari - we had already been gaming 20+ years before PS3/360/wii even released. We could see the change unfolding each year: the excitement at the start of the High Definition era of gaming...slowly turned into a bit of a sorr note by the start of it's second generation in 2014/2015. Things had changed, and for all the great titles we got - the actual mainstream videogame industry had shrunk down to a AAA space, where experiences where expensive, safe, and devoid of variety. And worse of all, you could see where things were going for both the employees at these companies, and the massive new consumer base of mostly casuals. You could see the direction the big three publishers were wanting to take the hobby - gambling, games-as-a-service, streaming, micro-transactions, incomplete/unfinished early access titles, piecemeal experiences, fomo, etc. Now, here we are a decade later, and that is all coming to pass before our very eyes - which is why I think a lot more people of a certain age (and their kids who are now the Alpha generation buying games) are interested in indie and free games. 🤔 Based on publically availible data, the majority of gamers are playing 'older games' (titles ATLEAST older than a decade) - over 80% of them - with many of those same people also emulating retro games regularly (especially on phones). Per capita, there will be more people around the world emulating Super Nintendo this year, than every player who spent a cent on Stellar Blade or Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. BOTH those titles by the way are, either a remake of a PS1 game.... or inspired directly by PS2 era games. Alot of these sequels to PS3 and PS4 era games are just not pushing the numbers they used to a few years back.... people are burnt out on the same formulas, and feeling the price and anti-conumser practices in a way they did not before. Especially when younger Generation Z people rather play old stuff, or focus on cheap games (like Palworld or Roblox) and Free-2-play titles like Fortnite or Warzone. You are certainly entitled to love that generation or think 2007-15 is the GOAT for gaming... but statistically, most gamers disagree. I personally love a great deal of the library that generation, and have nostalgia for atleast the first few years of it (2007-2010). 🙂
I have another Video essay by the name of 'Andromeda - The End of the Fixed Game', where I make that case in a bit more robust fashion. I did enjoy the read of your essay, though, gunna drop a mark on it so others will hopefully see it!
I was having this same thought the other day when I was thinkin about most of the games I’ve been buying recently are old games being rereleased/remastered at lower prices or indie games like HD2. When I bought a ps5 I was expecting to play games with ray tracing and 120fps, instead we get skull and bones🥲
Not to mention the size of games on your harddrive or SSD has absolutely exploded.
Example: Star Wars Battlefront 1: $10, 2GB install
Star Wars Battlefront 2: $10, 9GB install
Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection: $40, 60GB install.
That's absolutely insane for a twenty year old game. $20 more, 50gb more of hard drive space eaten up. Nope, I'm out. The originals are still available and they're still fantastic.
It's probably a 50GB launcher or something.
Good video. I like 👍
damn man. it isn't a coincidence that the incompetence, complacency, and bad practices came more into prevalence as soon as publishers started pitching the 70$ price tag that they still fail to justify.
totally agree that this state in gaming just made players invest more in indie and AA since they've been releasing fresh takes in the market, notably these recent months w/ mix-genres that reinvigorate the derivative genre (ie: palworld's monster-taming, enshrouded's voxel arpg, helldivers 2's hub-world extraction, and pacific drive's driving base-building sim).
I hope it isn't just wishful thinking.
Well said.
really good video just want to make 2 points
1. AAA games have gone up in price in the last 15 years (at least in the UK)
2. companys make more money per game since they (mostly) sell direct to the consumer now due to digital sales verses retail stores
That's quite interesting. How much were they 15 years ago?
@@speedingoffence triple a day 1 game was £45 pounds vs i think £55 now
could be a bit higher, cant remember the last game i bought for that sort of price
@@RebelinGames That is pretty unique to the UK, ya. Wonder what the difference is? Have they gone to 65 now?
Its cool that games can look so amazing they easily compete with movies and I'm glad they can be so vast and complex that they easily provide more than 30 hours of unique content. Even at 60 dollars it just seems unrealistic to expect that every single time. I don't want developers to feel like they have to work nearly a decade to provide somethign that might not even land well. I just want a fun game from these big developers even if its just a small project i forget about in few months. Missing the mark on those games won't completely ruin a fanchise's entire strategy like now but it really is hard to predict the future of these huge franchises if they suddenly stopped spending almost 10 years to make amazing looking games with over 30 hours of content... I really don't want the best of the best of the best every single time. I want to play a kinda fun game and not feel like i paid for an overly long movie with horrible gameplay sections and too many ads.
I think the publishers, often people who don't even play games, only understand graphics, because its really the only objectively tangible thing to rate a game on. How would you explain Factorio to your Grandma?
Awesome video as always.
Thanks again!
Some of the best games are free community projects. Like all the STALKER fan games such as Anomaly.
lol, this just made my day, knowing people pay 60-70$ for games :D
learn to pirate, children
I paid 70€ for like 14 good games on steam while on sale. That was the most ive ever payed for games.
1:54 *SpeedingOffence:* _"....But I suppose us old guys, who were around before all this was normal - and we know that none of this was necessary for good games to happen. I don't think I'll get a lot of contention saying that 2007 to 2015 were the _*_Golden Age_*_ for videogames."_ 😆
You sir must not actually be a 'old guy', because if you where - you would know that the overall video-game community would argue heavily against your statement. In my experience, if you spend anytime around the video-game community... on forums.... watching videos... talking to people - you will pretty quickly realize how 'passionate' (tm) people are about how things went down hill in that time period.
I mean 2007 - 2015 is the period where the games industry slowly became a monopoly, B games died, micro-transactions became a common thing, always online DRM, EA online Passes, Battle passes, Season Passes, micro-transactions, live-service game, massive shuttering of beloved studios that had been around for decades ...etc-etc-etc. I mean between 2007 and 2015.... Horse Armor, EA killed Dead Space, Games For Windows Live, Store exclusive pre-order codes, $10 game price hike, and Anthem..... need I say more?
lol. I'm not saying you are wrong to have your opinion, or love their period of gaming. Just that anyone whose interacted (even tangentially) with the Retro Gaming Community.... or really anyone born before 1994 - will tell you that the *Golden Age for video-games* was before that. It's no secret that almost all us "old guys" have issues with gaming since, really, it went fully-online. There are thousands of huge creators on this platform, conventions all over the country year round, and indie games made every hour to tailored to the bulk of the older audience who hasn't felt served in almost 20 years. I can tell you as someone whose been apart of this community since the later 90s, and been playing video-games myself since 1988 - the ONE THING you can always count on with gamers, is that they *WILL FIND* 'contention' with other peoples opinions. lol. 🤷♂
However.... to be fair. There does seem to be a general consensus that the golden age of videogaming was somewhere between 1995 - 2004. I can without a doubt tell you safely that MOST gamers peg that era as the highlight of our hobby.... and if you were a young adult during any of that time, your even more likely to feel this way. So now, what part of that era was the best? That is up for debate. In that short time, ALOT of change happened in the industry, in the games, the technology, and the community. Some people swear the end of the 16-Bit era was the peak because of simplicity and polish... others swear the the first 3D 32-bitconsoles (especially the PS1 and Saturn) were unmatched in software variety.
While many others (I feel the majority), look back on the sixth generation (PS2/XB/GC/DC/GBA/PSP) as the culmination of gaming as a hobby and a subculture. I personally feel that way too, as the franchises were got at that time were stellar. Game pricing and variety was fantastic. There were more developers and small creators in the professional (none indie) market that any time before of after. That generation birth many huge franchises that transitioned into future generations - like Ratchet and Clank, God of War, Kingdom Hearts, Devil May Cry, Halo, Call of Duty, Shadow of the Colossus, (modern) 3D Persona titles, and endless more. Games where cheap, and did not require online connections. That was the generation where online multiplayer and LAN became popular for those who wanted it. And we had a robust competition between many different manufacturers at a time when they were aggressive. 🤩
The amount of games that released world wide at that time too, was staggering. Truly no developer or publisher was afraid to make even the most experimental off-the-wall game, because development was cheap - and we did not have a publisher monopoly that required endless profits (so no risks). Games were also still 'games'.... walking simulators hadn't been a thing yet. Thanks to cheap CRT televisions and consoles that ran many of their titles at 60fps - the gaming experience was often very attainable even for poor people and kids, and felt responsive and great. Move over into the next generation and the consoles were unreliable for the first several years, prohibitively expensive, required pricey new HDTVs, subscriptions for online play, and your game (which cost $10 more) often ran at sub 30fps and suffered wireless controller lag and lag from earlier LCD TVs.
The seventh generation ended up being the longest generation at that point, and so naturally things did improve and we got tons of great games (love the Fallout NV, Dark Demon Souls, the Arkham titles and BioShock are on my GOAT list).... but it took years before the manufacturers could get prices down, address massive hardware failure rates, build online infrastructure that wasn't a pain, and get titles out (especially ones that didn't run like crap). I really liked that generation for its titles - but the business practices and changes to the industry at that time was the malignant cancer that we are now consumed by today. 😥
It is STILL why when you poll gamers asking what was the Greatest year in gaming you get common answers like: 1993... *1998...* 2001.... and ofcourse 2004. And it's not just console gamers either - it's PC gamers, handheld-gamers, people that where in High School at that time, in university, working a full-time job , or older kids. For a lot of us who were there since the days of the Atari - we had already been gaming 20+ years before PS3/360/wii even released. We could see the change unfolding each year: the excitement at the start of the High Definition era of gaming...slowly turned into a bit of a sorr note by the start of it's second generation in 2014/2015.
Things had changed, and for all the great titles we got - the actual mainstream videogame industry had shrunk down to a AAA space, where experiences where expensive, safe, and devoid of variety. And worse of all, you could see where things were going for both the employees at these companies, and the massive new consumer base of mostly casuals. You could see the direction the big three publishers were wanting to take the hobby - gambling, games-as-a-service, streaming, micro-transactions, incomplete/unfinished early access titles, piecemeal experiences, fomo, etc. Now, here we are a decade later, and that is all coming to pass before our very eyes - which is why I think a lot more people of a certain age (and their kids who are now the Alpha generation buying games) are interested in indie and free games. 🤔
Based on publically availible data, the majority of gamers are playing 'older games' (titles ATLEAST older than a decade) - over 80% of them - with many of those same people also emulating retro games regularly (especially on phones). Per capita, there will be more people around the world emulating Super Nintendo this year, than every player who spent a cent on Stellar Blade or Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. BOTH those titles by the way are, either a remake of a PS1 game.... or inspired directly by PS2 era games. Alot of these sequels to PS3 and PS4 era games are just not pushing the numbers they used to a few years back.... people are burnt out on the same formulas, and feeling the price and anti-conumser practices in a way they did not before. Especially when younger Generation Z people rather play old stuff, or focus on cheap games (like Palworld or Roblox) and Free-2-play titles like Fortnite or Warzone.
You are certainly entitled to love that generation or think 2007-15 is the GOAT for gaming... but statistically, most gamers disagree. I personally love a great deal of the library that generation, and have nostalgia for atleast the first few years of it (2007-2010). 🙂
I have another Video essay by the name of 'Andromeda - The End of the Fixed Game', where I make that case in a bit more robust fashion.
I did enjoy the read of your essay, though, gunna drop a mark on it so others will hopefully see it!
You are not even old enough to claim to be old
That's nice of you to say.
I was having this same thought the other day when I was thinkin about most of the games I’ve been buying recently are old games being rereleased/remastered at lower prices or indie games like HD2. When I bought a ps5 I was expecting to play games with ray tracing and 120fps, instead we get skull and bones🥲