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When I think about that period in gaming I just trip out. We are as far away from that period now as that period was from the birth of video games. Tennis for Two, Space Wars, Pong, Super Mario, DOOM, Quake, Half-Life. Compare that 20-year evolution to the evolution of gaming in the last 20 years. You can see areas where games have gotten vastly better, not just graphically or cinematically, but with level design, mission design, characterization, contextual integration, procedural elements. But still nowhere near the explosion of the first 20 years as innovation poured in, and all of the main players were scrappy young companies, ready to innovate in an atmosphere where it still meant something to create entirely novel experiences that challenged the player. You can also very easily see an industry-wide shift in game design after both GTA and Minecraft, which seemed so far apart at the time but really were about a decade apart. What comes next? |