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Lawlight on 15 January 2016
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Hiku said:
Shadow1980 said:

Nothing new under the sun, really. For example, platformers and, to a lesser extent, fighting games ruled the 16-bit era. Going by Wikipedia's list of best-selling games, the top 10 games of that generation (individuals SKUs only) were:

1. Super Mario World
2. Sonic the Hedgehog
3. Donkey Kong Country
4. Super Mario Kart
5. Street Fighter II (SNES)
6. Sonic 2
7. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
8. DKC2: Diddy's Kong Quest
9. Street Fighter II Turbo (SNES)
10. Three-way tie: Star Fox; Aladdin (Genesis); Yoshi's Island

Or to put it another way:

1. [Running & jumping]
2. [Running & jumping]
3. [Running & jumping]
4. [Racing]
5. [Fighting]
6. [Running & jumping]
7. Zelda
8. [Running & jumping]
9. [Fighting]
10. Three-way tie: [Shoot 'em up]; [Running & jumping]; [Running & jumping]

A dozen games selling over 4 million copies, and seven of them were platformers, two were Street Fighter II, one was Mario Kart, one was Zelda, and one was Star Fox.

The most popular games have always tended to be limited to a narrow range of genres.

Yes, but the difference back then was that the market wasn't as dominated by "casual gamers/dudebro's" as it is today.
As such, it was easier for core gamers to relate to the top 10 lists. And get more of those games, since them charting the highest encouraged developers to keep making them.

Not saying I never enjoy the occasional shooter or sports game, but gat damn...

 

So, you're fine with the market being dominated by "kiddie" games but not games with guns or sports games?