[qersist3nce]

>No, I don't buy either.

Nothing of value is lost. Nowadays games are manufactured dopamine-gamifying cashgrabs and movies are propaganda outlets for whatever care-free non-STEM academics have brewed up as "current thing".

2000s was the golden era of gaming. Just compare remakes of RE2 and RE3 with the original PS1 ones. Or the new Wolfenstein series with Castle Wolfenstein.

[ohgodplsno]

I'm sorry but _holy shit what a bad take_.

>whatever care-free non-STEM academics have brewed up as "current thing".

Ah nevermind you're one of these people that think that not being in STEM is a crime, my bad, I thought we could have a rational discussion.

>Or the new Wolfenstein series with Castle Wolfenstein.

So, better in every possible way, with more brutal and satisfying fighting than Castle Wolfenstein ever had, still killing nazis (something that everyone ought to be happy with) ? I sure hope you're not angry about the fact that your crew is made up of a polish man, a jew, a mentally ill man and other kinds of people the nazis called undesirables making it a fun clap back at them. Right ? That's definitely not what your problem is, _right_ ?

I'm sure that you have no problems with games now including deeper themes like death and being a father (God of War), vengeance (The Last of Us Part 2), atonement (The Last of Us), paranormal activities (Control), or just being straight up absolutely great games with good stories like Prey, RDR2, Divinity, Outer Wilds, Disco Elysium, Octopath Traveler being varied and relaxing like Stardew, Terraria, being better metroidvanias than anything that came out before like Hollow Knight, Ori, amazing roguelikes like Hades, Dead Cells, Returnal, or just an infinite variety if I just go even in the last ten years.

[MattRix]

Agreed completely, the parent comment is completely out of touch with the actual state of the game industry.

[MayeulC]

Most game studios from that time wouldn't qualify as AAA today.

There are new indie gems all the time. Tunic, Hades, Hollow knight, Risk of Rain, Overgrowth, Return of the Obra Dinn, Kerbal Space Program, Factorio, and the list goes on. Innovative gameplay, music, visuals are everywhere. Often indie games cater to niches. They don't appeal to everybody, which is part of their charm.

Just like blockbusters are usually average in most respects other than their budget. That makes for pretty good results on every single aspect, but given the budget, studios won't take risks by innovating too much in unknown areas.

[Jensson]

> Most game studios from that time wouldn't qualify as AAA today.

They were still far larger than todays indie studios, todays indies are making great games but the kind of budget novel ideas had back then rarely exist for novel games today.

[MayeulC]

That's probably true in both gaming and cinema, as the genre becomes better known, and the unexplored possibilities space becomes smaller.

Still, there are AA games studios, even if most have been swallowed due to market consolidation lately.

GSC Game world (300 employees, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.), Team 17 (200 employees, worms, overcooked, escapists), PopCap games, etc.

But I kind of prove your point as most I can fit in the above list mostly churn out sequels to their previously succesful titles.

On the other hand, making good and technically impressive games has become easier and cheaper over the past two decades, with indies often reaching or going above the bar placed by AAA studios back then.

Tunic was made by a single developer, for instance.

[lovehashbrowns]

How quick people forget what exactly happened in the 2000s lmao. Bethesda’s horse armor, Blizzard releasing the cash shop in what many people believe is the best World of Warcraft expansion, and Valve introducing purchasable hats in TF2. Golden era lmao

Horse armor in 2006. Oblivion was also commercially successful and showed a game would still be successful even if it was a buggy mess on release.

Blizzard introduced WoW’s cash shop in 2008 and sold its first pet, all as part of the incredibly successful Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Although really the first sign of things to come was with the trading card game and its in-game tie-ins. That was released in 2006. First pet in 2008 and the first mount available for cash at the battle.net shop was in 2010 with the Celestial Steed. Oh yes, people were upset and mad. But that mount was /everywhere/ in-game.

Worst offender by far was valve’s introduction of TF2 hats in 2009 and their continuation of cs:go loot boxes in the 2010s. This is not some outsider company btw, this is industry veteran and industry darling valve.

Golden age is such a joke.

[Sohcahtoa82]

I will never understand the rage about the horse armor or WoW's cash shop.

"It's a cash grab!"

...then don't buy them? Like, I literally don't get it at all. It had zero effect on the game.

[lovehashbrowns]

The biggest problem is being advertised to on a game I've already paid for and specifically in an MMO, being advertised to on a game I've already paid for and pay a subscription to. But y'see, it's not just being advertised to in the client UI or when I go to the website and there's an ad for a cosmetic item being 50% off for a limited time or whatever. It's going around in-game and seeing cash shop items everywhere acting as an advertisement that I can buy that item with real-world money.

Then there loot box drops like in CS:GO, or when a game adds in little inconveniences like limited inventory tabs, character limits, or games that add a grind and a way to avoid that grind via cash (XP buffs and the like).

It also sucks when the cash shop items take away from in-game content. Pretty sure this was an issue in WoW not too long ago when Blizzard added cash shop items that looked better and had better features than the in-game items you had to earn via raiding.

Then there are games like The Sims where you pay full price for the base game and then there are like a dozen different DLC packs of varying quality. I see they now made the game free to play (I paid full price when it was released) with a subscription option but I can also go to the DLC, add all of it to my cart, and pay $1,044.37 to get all the content. Awesome!

But really, the worst offender is CS:GO. You get FREE boxes in-game, pay for keys to open the free boxes you got, and you get those addicting animations and sounds. Literal slot machines being advertised to adults and children every day. How this hasn't been banned everywhere yet is beyond me. Egregious and greedy trash

[reidjs]

TF2 hats were a dumb cash grab, but at least they were purely cosmetic. The orange box (TF2 + HL2 + Portal) was such a fantastic deal at the time, 3 AAA games for the price of one.

[Arkhaine_kupo]

> 2000s was the golden era of gaming.

Things weren't better, you were just younger.

I was a teen in the 2000s and I had free time and every game felt new and exciting. There is 0 chance the landscape for media isn't a trillion times better now though.

[Ygg2]

> Things weren't better, you were just younger.

Games weren't made to be cash grabs that will be edited in post.

Say what you want about games in 2000 but people draining all their savings on a game was THE news, not just another mobile/gacha game.

And if game didn't ship fully done it got panned. Today they get score based on number of dinners writer was on

[Arkhaine_kupo]

> Games weren't made to be cash grabs that will be edited in post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsiman_(video_game)

> And if game didn't ship fully done it got panned.

Bethesda is literally one of the most revered game companies and their bugs are as iconoic as their questlines

[Ygg2]

You're not addressing my point, sure Pepsiman was shit, but it didn't bankrot you or cause addictive behaviors. There were some Korean MMOs and stuff, but it wasn't omnipresent.

> Bethesda is literally one of the most revered game companies and their bugs are as iconoic as their questlines

*Despite their bugs. And even Morrowind caused uproar when it corrupted your saves and what not.

[Arkhaine_kupo]

> it didn't bankrot you or cause addictive behaviors.

Considering the guy above was talking about RE remakes and Lord of the rings, I don't think he cares about gacha games as they are not triple A.

And sure those are bad, awful but they are hardly videogames. They are rebranded fruit machines. King the dumb company behind candy crush etc has more psychologists than programmers in their office to help people get addicted.

I do not think that is a problem of the gaming industry as entertainment, because it is not a videogame, its a Skinner Machine with a couple mini games to get the conditioning going.

> And even Morrowind caused uproar when it corrupted your saves and what not.

But it did not affect their scores, reputation or sales. Same as cyberpunk 2077 or probably Starfield later this year.

[Ygg2]

> I do not think that is a problem of the gaming industry as entertainment, because it is not a videogame, its a Skinner Machine with a couple mini games to get the conditioning going.

Gacha mechanics and its ilk are everywhere, from Battlefield to Diablo to Overwatch, etc. Most egregious example probably being Genshin Impact.

> But it did not affect their scores, reputation or sales. Same as cyberpunk 2077

Sure because rest of the game was amazing, but not even CP2077 escaped reviewers wrath. It got panned for poor perf and its user score on metacritic is justifiably low.

[GrinningFool]

> Games weren't made to be cash grabs that will be edited in post.

Arcade games were literal cash grabs, dating back to the 70s. Insert coin to continue.

[Ygg2]

Sure, but even those weren't this badly made at professional level and were satisfied with pennies vs 320000 USD to complete.

[Jensson]

> There is 0 chance the landscape for media isn't a trillion times better now though.

When was the last time a movie like the lord of the rings was released? 20 years, when it was released. Since then movies went more into soulless 3d rendering and so on. Big budget games took a similar path, back then investors hadn't figured out that they could churn out the same game over and over with new graphics so they funded a lot of novel game ideas, but that stopped and now most big budget games are very much the same.

The landscape might be better today in theory, but in practice the culture that made those days happen is no longer there and it wont come back since what made it happen was bridging old tech skills with new tech skills, the old skills are no longer there.

[Arkhaine_kupo]

> the culture that made those days happen

Literally one movie, that was an unexpected hit is your contender for better culture?

In 2001 the highest grossing movie was Harry potter, and right below lord of the rings was monsters inc and jurasic park.

In 2002 Lord of the rings, Harry potter, Spiderman

in 2003 lord of the rings, matrix,nemo and pirates of the caribean.

Like how is that any different to now when you have pirates, spiderman, some children disney movie and fantastic beats which is just more harry potter?

> the old skills are no longer there.

Dune had more practical effects than lord of the rings. In 2001 the TV golden age had not started. Shows like the sopranos and the wire where struggling to find an audience. Friends and CSI reigned. Nowadays House of the Dragon and Last of US two high quality shows, with good use of practical effects are doing better than comparable mediocre daytime tv.

Even blockbusters are in many ways better. Andor is a million times better than anything from the 2000s prequels.

[bakugo]

Things were better.

[MattRix]

Gaming now is much better than the early 2000s. There were some great games back then, but these days there is more quality and variety in every dimension and in nearly every genre (except RTS games which got split into MOBAs and factory games).

Just think about modern games like Elden Ring, BoTW, Overwatch, TLOU2, Immortality, Celeste and Hades, just to name some of the more popular yet interesting titles that came to mind.

[50]

> 2000s was the golden era of gaming

I recently discovered L.O.L: Lack of Love (Dreamcast, 2000)[1][2] due to stumbling upon the soundtrack by Ryuichi Sakamoto[3], and I've been meaning to try to find a way to play it.

1: https://lparchive.org/Lack-of-Love/ 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.O.L.:_Lack_of_Love 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZjeC4BiUuM

[AnIdiotOnTheNet]

L.O.L is listed as playable on the Redream emulator compatibility list.

https://redream.io/compatibility/

[JohnFen]

> 2000s was the golden era of gaming.

Interesting. In my view, the 2000s is when computer games started their downhill slide.

Something tells me a lot of this incredibly subjective and depends on when you first cut your teeth on video games.