[barrkel]

I think you're missing the point - you've leapt to a trite conclusion that enables you to dismiss what the author is saying.

The economics of AAA games have changed. A lot of money is spent on creating a cinematic experience - creating content, voice acting, level design, etc. is way, way more expensive than it used to be, because our graphical fidelity, storage capacity, etc. has increased. That in turn means that if a player plays through the game and doesn't see much of the content, the money spent may have been wasted. So designers have responded to economic pressures by creating more linear paths that force players to experience more of the expensive content, and use more scripted sequences to ensure a consistent experience. But they stop being games, to my mind, because they remove player agency.

The lack of agency - the ability of players to make choices that matter, rather than being one-way ratchets for story advancement - is something that's killing way too many games for me.

[erikb]

What are you saying beside that games you see today don't fulfil your standards (which is what I summarized the article to)? There are and always have been games with a very straight story line. This doesn't mean the games are bad (I think Half Life 1 here, which was awesome despite being linear). And there are loads of games with many choices. In some regards some modern games even allow you more choice than any game ever before (think GTA5, Skyrim, Minecraft).

Are you complaining about AAA games specifically, maybe? I don't know AAA games very well, because I don't like them much myself. But AAA productions (movies, books, music, games) always have some specific attributes that are unpleasant to people. That didn't change much with computer games, did it?

So yeah, you mgiht be right, that I don't get the point. But if that's the case I still didn't get it!

[barrkel]

What are you saying beside that games you see today don't fulfil your standards (which is what I summarized the article to)

Any criticism of X can be reduced to saying that X doesn't meet one's standards. But without investigating the nature and value of those standards, you're not addressing the argument being made. And I don't think you investigated the OP's standards; in fact, I think you dismissed them as nostalgia. It was borderline ageist!

[erikb]

The author evaluated what made the games fun, that he enjoyed back in the day, and then goes on trying to evaluate modern games to the same standards. That is nostalgia pretty much per definition. What I suggest to do instead is evaluating new games the same we he evaluated the old games when they were new to the world and he was new to gaming. He will find that many games don't get great points according to his evaluation but still will be great games and he can enjoy them a lot. Just not the same way.

And what's bad about asking people to broaden their horizon? I don't really get that. If you accept that new games can be good in their own regards suddenly you don't have 100 good games you need to replay because no games like that are made anymore. Suddenly you have 100000 games which are fun in very different ways, and you are sure to get your share of new great games forever. Wouldn't it be great?

Btw. Just yesterday I started playing a new game from a very old genre: Text Adventures (the game is called Heroes Rise). Thanks to mobile platforms there are a lot of games nowadays that are as great as the games old people complained about when the author was the young guy playing all the games that are now awesome (-ly nostalgic) according to him.