Decline When did decline start to you?

[agris]

Once I joined the codex and got opened up

https://www.childwelfare.gov/organi...ion=rols:main.dspList&rolType=Custom&RS_ID=57

 

[anvi]

Hidden & Dangerous 2 was one of the first times I was really disappointed by a game.

 

[DalekFlay]

I would love to blame decline on consoles, but I can't. To me the decline started with games like Neverwinter Nights, Heroes 4, Fallout Tactics, Myth 3. Games released in early 00's made by well-established companies, often sequels (direct or indirect) to great titles, that had nothing to do with consoles. Games that I would back then, coming off the back of 90's, simply deem impossible to disappoint before release. And yet they did disappoint and more than disappoint in many aspects. It might seems like a hyperbole now, in current year, when tactics genre = nuxcom and its clones, something like FT would feel p amazing, but to me it was period when I really felt things are going to shit and seemingly there's no stopping it. I never really analyzed what happened exactly and I don't know to this day. PC and consoles becoming one lowest common denominator based market is undeniably a thing, but it happened when my favorite genres were already in deep trouble.

Some of the Codex's most beloved classics were released in the early 00s. Neverwinter Nights was disappointing for design and graphics reasons that I don't think had anything to do with "decline" as an overall concept, IMO. No one's saying there weren't disappointing PC games before the Xbox, just that it wasn't an across the board issue.

 

[Saerain]

WoW, LoL, Overwatch, and PUBG were the Four Horsemen.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

RPGs:
The bankruptcy of TSR in 1997

CRPGs:

Computer games generally:
The demise of the Commodore Amiga in 1994

 

[octavius]

Decline was always there. ZX Spectrum had a lot of uninspired movie tie-ins that sold really well.

I remember hating Ocean.

 

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Street Fighter - I DON'T GIVE A FUCK WHAT Y'ALL NIGGAZ SAY, SF3 FUCKING KILLED THIS SHIT FOR 8 YEARS.

Those SF3 games failed initially not because they brought a decline but because of:

1. Death of arcades (which was decline itself)
2. Lack of port for relevant platform during theire release date (Dreamcast died too fast)

SF didn't got killed, Capcom focused entire effor into spin-offs (crossovers mostly).

Ii reminded me another reason why I dropped playing new games around '01... PC lost its arcade roots so genres like fighting games ceased to exists on that platform. Between MK4 (1998) and Street Fighter 4 (2009) there is a big fucking void, out of all relevant released there were some Gulity Gear gaems but that's all. Consoles had new Mortal Kombat, Tekken and Vitua Fighter interations - I envied these games then but hardware was too expensive back then and all my money went on metal CD's/MC's/zines anyway. All I could do was to squeeze that awful GBA Deadlly Alliance port on emulator.

Did op said that GTA 1&2 were not edgy?
The games with the dedicated fart/burp button?

They're still 'gamey games', it is mechanics that is the core of the fun. With modern GTA casuals focused their attention on edgy plot, virtual hookers sex scenes and so on.

 

[DalekFlay]

1. Death of arcades (which was decline itself)

Arcades were the original cell phone style micro-transaction bullshit, and it's ridiculous that people treat them with reverence.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Arcades were the original cell phone style micro-transaction bullshit, and it's ridiculous that people treat them with reverence.

This is a bad hot take.

Arcades were the best places when growing up because of the social atmosphere and being able to test yourself against local competition which was an addiction the better you became at fighting games. You'd have people from all over the city, different neighborhoods, visiting and form friendly rivalries and make new friendships. Sometimes things would get heated and massive shit talking commenced but it was always an in the moment thing. Nothing felt better than having a crowd of others watching you kick the shit out of people and putting their quarters up on the screen to try and dethrone you. Online play doesn't come anywhere close to that atmosphere and never will. If you were really serious you'd practice in hidden locations. I had a convenience store a few blocks over that had SNK cabinets (SNK cabinets were the cheapest for stores to afford since they were basically big consoles you only had to switch cartridges out of instead of keeping up to date on new boards like CPS-2/CPS-3, etc.) and it was there I became really good at King of Fighters 96/97/98 and another pizza shop usually had pristine conditioned Capcom games you would get a friend to go with and practice shit until the owners told you to buy something or fuck off.

Then there was the time I stumbled on a Soul Calibur machine in some random bowling alley, tucked in the back corner. Oh man, oh man, I became a godly Voldo/Taki player thanks to that.

God, I miss those days.

 

[Lilura]

CRPGs:

Iggy bi-- WAIT.

The demise of the Commodore Amiga in 1994

Iggy-bin averted.

 

[agentorange]

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I would love to blame decline on consoles, but I can't. To me the decline started with games like Neverwinter Nights, Heroes 4, Fallout Tactics, Myth 3. Games released in early 00's made by well-established companies, often sequels (direct or indirect) to great titles, that had nothing to do with consoles. Games that I would back then, coming off the back of 90's, simply deem impossible to disappoint before release. And yet they did disappoint and more than disappoint in many aspects. It might seems like a hyperbole now, in current year, when tactics genre = nuxcom and its clones, something like FT would feel p amazing, but to me it was period when I really felt things are going to shit and seemingly there's no stopping it. I never really analyzed what happened exactly and I don't know to this day. PC and consoles becoming one lowest common denominator based market is undeniably a thing, but it happened when my favorite genres were already in deep trouble.

Some of the Codex's most beloved classics were released in the early 00s. Neverwinter Nights was disappointing for design and graphics reasons that I don't think had anything to do with "decline" as an overall concept, IMO. No one's saying there weren't disappointing PC games before the Xbox, just that it wasn't an across the board issue.

That's cool and all and yes, there were some top games released in early 00's (Wiz8, AoW SM), but the key words here are "some" and "early". There's just absolutely no comparison with the nineties, which means steep decline that consoles had nothing to do with. And blaming Bioware for decline of crpgs makes much more sense than blaming Oblivion, as shite as I'm sure it was. There was nothing to decline when Oblivion released, classic PC crpgs were already dead and gone.

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Team Silent died the same time as Troika, so yeah, 2005 was the year.

 

[Alphard]

It started with pong.






































for real tough, i 'd set the line in 2005 onwards.
luckily last years sone japaneses and indies managed to create pretty incline games

 

[typical user]

I guess it's 2008. The age of decline, year of sequels which all copy Gears of War boring cover-based system and cover entire screen with blur, vignette and godrays in 720p.

Thankfully from 2013 things picked up, devs research and try to add gameplay mechanics so me a normal-fag can't get bored during initial 10-15 hours.

Good thing PC can emulate most of the stuff, so I can play whatever I want.

 

[Excommunicator]

Oblivion was the pivotal moment on several fronts. Not just the 2006 release, but also the 3 or so years between announcement and release:

• RPGs had entered a terrible spiral of decline, meanwhile
  
• Devs were promising outrageous things and not delivering on any of it, and to top it off
  
• Journalists and mainstream gamers absolutely loved it, and didn't care at all about missing features or simplification

It was over.

 

[Baron Dupek]

It was always there.
They always did it for money.
But there was point where gaming become too much money+time+resources consuming to create weird stuff and get some dosh from that. Also - doesn't help that these days we live in the world of (mis)information and finding reliable source that give any info about better than average game is harder with passing year,.
Just different proportion of good:garbage games since Pong, less or more choices to pick from every year since then.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

The first time I felt true revulsion about modern gaming was when microtransactions and P2W traps became common. Otherwise, there's still a huge log of classic stuff available that I haven't played and interesting newer games (some of them even AAA, but mostly from smaller developers or indies) to keep me from falling into despair or depression.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I became really good at King of Fighters

Eduardo-Sanchez

You don't say

 

[Beggar]

With my 560ti in 2013. I haven't played a single game since 2006 PS2. I was so happy, thought how many masterpieces I have missed. It took me half a year to discover Dark Souls, Europa Universalis and then Warhammer.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

You don't say

IORI #1 JAJAJAJA

(Yamazaki is best tho)

 

[AdamReith]

Neverwinter Shites.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

And here we're back at two examples I cited in my first post in this thread: Thief 3 and Deus Ex 2, both sequels to amazing PC games that were crippled by the hardware limitations of the XBox, leading to shoebox-sized levels that had loading screen transitions in them despite being not even half the size of the levels of the original games. When I played both games I noticed touches of level design greatness, but they never developed into anything full and proper because of how tiny the levels were.

Reducing the graphical quality for the console version would've helped. That's how they ported DX1 to the PS2, which was clearly the most underpowered of the 3 consoles. And it's not like it was uncommon back in the day for the PC version to be the one that actually looked good, even today that's the case.

And then there's console-focused interfaces like Oblivion's horrendous interface compared to Morrowind's customizeable mouse-driven one.

Betheseda are simply lazy pieces of shit, they could've simply made an UI for controller and one for kb+m

Death of arcades (which was decline itself)

The thing is arcades had no hope of survivng outside Japan.
Japanese cities have very walkable layout's, which means that what would be dirty alleys and neglegected streets in any other part of the world are mixed use streets with a mostly pedestrian influx. Then you have cash based economy with really high value coins.
The result is thousands of small business everywhere in the streets of any sizeable japanese city, catering to all that foot traffic with expendable change.
Also the traditional quiet and small japanese home doesn't seem like a good fit for gaming as a social occasion.

Really, there's just simply no other country in the world where pretty much all high school kids walk to school and along the way pass by 50 stores with cheap food and arcades to relax with friends at the end of the day.
Finally with rising popularity of home consoles, making a trip to your local arcade shop just became pointless for most westerners.

 

[RayF]

When digital distribution started and suddenly gamers didn't truly own their games anymore and studios cut testing way down because they knew they could deliver unfinished games early and distribute patches later.

 

[Peachcurl]

The decline started when I had to take a "real" job after university.