Are We Living In A New Golden Age of Gaming?

[Azuren]

The_Liquid_Laser said:
Are we in a new "golden age"?
Short Answer:

Movies - No
TV - Yes
Games - Maybe
Books - Don't Know

Longer Answer: To know if we are in a "golden age", it helps a lot to know what the previous golden ages were like. Does this era have the same kind of impact that the greatest eras of the past did?

Movies - Disney is doing great overall (ignoring Solo). Generally the other studios are nowhere close to Disney on the big budget stuff. There have been some decent smaller budget films coming out, so maybe movies are headed for a golden age in the long term if they keep improving, but they just are no where close yet. The late 70s/80s were just an incredible era for films. I kind of think Lucas and Spielberg raised the bar for film making in that era and then the other filmmakers rose to the occasion. That is the sort of thing that film really needs again.

TV - Netflix and the internet in general have shaken things up in a good way. Now you've got internet platforms: Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, etc... putting out original content. At the same time traditional TV has had to step up their game in response. TV is extremely good right now, all the way around.


Games - Let me be clear. Generation 8 has been a huge LOW point in gaming. XB1, Wii U, 3DS, and Vita have all been huge disappointments. The PS4 is isn't really that great either. It just happens to be unoffensive while all of the other platforms are offensive and disappointing. The best selling game of Generation 8 was also released in Generation 7. That is just how terrible Generation 8 is.

Also, the emphasis on rereleases, remasters, NES classics and the like DO NOT mean that we are in a golden era. They signal that modern gaming sucks and that people prefer the games of the past. A good sign that you are in a golden era is that people stop caring about the past. When the NES came out, no one gave a damn about the Atari 2600 anymore. That was a huge sign that the NES was a golden era for console gaming. I haven't observed this sort of thing since, although I will admit that Generation 6 & 7 were also fairly high points and Gen. 8 was a huge decline from that.

So, now that I've crapped all over gaming why did I say "maybe" we are in a golden era? Because the Switch is a new hope. So far, I've been happy with what I've seen with the Switch and its only been on the market for 15 months. I also think the Switch has a huge potential to shake things up because it is a home/handheld hyrbrid and these markets are going to get redefined. The video game industry really needs to be shaken up. That is where golden eras come from.

See the TV industry was just shaken up by internet streaming. Now TV is really good. Even traditional TV has upped it's game because it has to compete with Netflix now. The movie industry is mostly stagnant (except for Disney). They can make money following the same old formula, so they have no motivation to improve. The video game industry needs to be shaken up the most. Not only do we have remakes, but the industry relies far too much on sequels. There are too many Yakuza 16's, Final Fantasy 71's and Call of Duty: Postmodern Renfairs out there. In a healthy industry, new IP should come in and equal or outdo the old IP every year. Or at the very least small IP should explode and become huge like GTA 3. That is not really happening anymore.

I do have hope for the Switch to shake up things on the game side, but we'll just have to wait and see. I do think the Switch is an improvement from anything in Generation 8 though and that alone is pretty good.

I agree on your first two points, though I would lump TLJ's 50%+ drop from TFA in with Solo's outright bomb. Not fair to only include the bottom of the down hill slope.

 

But Gen 8 is definitely not a low. It's home to two of the three fastest selling consoles in history, as well as the first Hybrid Console (Switch) and first significant console refreshes (Pro and X). The indie scene is flourishing, PC gaming is relevant, and AAA titles aren't limited to bland shooters. The only lows are the underperforming Vita and Wii U, with the Vita signaling Sony's exit from handheld (due largely to phones and tablets) and the Wii U showing Nintendo's second generational Mulligan (the first being VirtualBoy). The XB1, while now doing worse than the 360 did, is still on track to maintain as least a decent marketshare in the US.

 

Remasters are also not a very large emphasis, and doesn't get much fanfare. Even Dark Souls Remastered, one of the most requested remasters, is only doing alright. You'll notice that a pretty big section of the highest rated games aren't remasters but are new entries in old franchises or new IPs. We've had more high quality titles in the past few years than SNES got altogether.