The explosion of mobile and indies combined with the unwillingness of big studios to take any risks has put the standard of quality for video games into downward slide.

New IPs were way better back then too. We had amazing stuff like Bioshock, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Wii Sports, Uncharted.

Now we have gormless rubbish like Destiny, Titanfall, Knack, Watch Dogs.

Just my humble opinion, of course.

Early 7th gen (and D&D) nearly broke ne entirely of my video gaming habit...er, hobby. So many FPS, so little JRPG...Nintendo's system was underwhelming, Sony's system had few games of interest, and MS....well, they hit that FPS trough hard.

The last few years were pretty good, and 8th gen so far has been good to me. FF15 looks to be better than any other JRPG from last gen. So I'm gonna say better.

Mostly right although most of those IPs did something very different. Super paper Mario's unique use of 3D as well as Mario Galaxy, Dead space plays very different from RE4, I would call it closer to Doom 3. Oblivion and Fallout made there first appearance on consoles and Motorstorm's use of terrain and mixed vehicle type races with their own optiomal routes was to my knowledge unique.

Talking to NPC's has a lot to do with gameplay. Instead of being restricted by what each NPC is limited to say (usually a standard line), ask where everything is or who to talk to. Gameplay would be more engaging if you did not follow an arrow or trail on a minimap all the time. You would be more involved in exploration and the journey instead of checking off quests as efficiently as possible. You would also get to know the land better.

Maybe the average gamer is only interested in clicking through the dialog asap, follow a marker and kill some stuff to loot. Yet I can't be the only one that feels gameplay has stagnated and there should be more options than being a kleptomaniac serial killer for hire. All effort is put on more realistic looking characters and more detailed graphics, none on improving the GM part of RPGs. Left 4 dead experimented with an AI director (2008 as well!) why don't we see that in RPGs or FPS.

There are technical hurdles ofcourse. Natural sounding speech generation seems to have stalled, constructing appropiately matching dialogue is a lot harder than rendering your current armor in cutscenes. People don't want to type sentences, constructing them from lots of options Lucasarts style is better yet still tedious and speech recognition is not always reliable. But games used to be on the fore front of new technologies like these, starship Titanic (17 years ago!) had great interactivity with NPCs.

Mass appeal is for what people know, sequels always sell better. That doesn't mean new ideas can't become hugely popular.

For me, it has been becoming worse ever since the PS3 and 360 released. It seems to have stopped but I still have no love for the industry in general.

I felt Mario 64's use of 3D was more unique considering the era. Mario Galaxy just felt like another 3D Mario to me, I don't get the hype.
When it comes to gameplay Dead Space is obviously inspired be RE4.
Elder Scrolls first appearance on console was Morrowind on OG Xbox. There was also a Fallout game on OG Xbox and PS2. :-p
Sorry, Motorstorm is just inspired by past arcade racing games. It didn't really do anything ground breaking but you can still enjoy it.

Personally, my issue isn't what you're limited to saying to an NPC. I'd like to see more branching in story based on what you say.

Avid players with lots of time to kill can spend time exploring the land. People with limited time prefer guidance to the next destintation.

I think what you're suggesting isn't really what the masses want and maybe should be left to niche PC games.

Bottomline, I think the industry is worse if you aren't getting what you want. Those of us who do enjoy newer games aren't complaining so much. Frankly, there are recent games I would have loved in '06-'08.

Almost all of these complains were given last generation referring to how much better PS2 gen was.

the beginning of the 7th gen had a lot of hit new IP's like Littlebigplanet, Assassins Creed, , Bioshock...It's kinda obvious that somewhere down the road it got stale. As some have mentioned, Nintendo was founded on quality control in the ashes of the '83 game crash, so they never really decline.

For more branching in the story you will need an AI controlled GM with the ability to create dialog on the fly. It would be too much work to record ervery possible permutation ahead of time, much less to set out guidelines and let the AI director control how the game responds to you.
People with limited time are screwed either way, currently games are stuffed with repetive tasks and other filler so you'll still need 50 to 100 hours while following the markers. Imo it would be more rewarding to spend most of the time with the main quest instead of busy work to level your character and equipment.

Apart from enjoying 1080p visuals now on console, I can't think of a lot of games I would have rather wanted to play in '06-'08 than the ones I was playing back then. Gaming is still good, I'm enjoying newer games as well. Gaming still gets the most attention from me when it comes to entertainment. Yet it's not better, I'm struggling to call it equal, therefore it is worse.

Nintendo: Much better
MS and Sony: Worse :/

Nothing will ever match the era between NES through PS2. Gaming is too mainstream and commercialized now

The decline was painfully evident in the second half of 6th gen with PS2 and when XBox joined and starting bringing the worse of PC gaming to consoles (shooters, focus on vs mode only, graphics graphics graphics, DLC, etc).

7th gen finally made consoles like PCs and made the conversion complete.

NES was cool but just a touch too primitive even though I love it dearly. SNES through PS1 was amazing, the golden age of gaming, finally enough memory to hold some incredible stories and not just loop a couple tile sets for 8 levels but not so advanced that all anybody cared about was photo realistic guns and explosions. Gaming was still relatively considered niche, nerdy, and a kids toy. PS2 continued this but the cat was out of the bag. Some gems but the decline started, beloved franchises died off, and the yo dawg gotz me dat PS2 woof woof crowd started to jump in gaming became 100% fully socially acceptable and hip and it's never been the same since.

It's all about mass market appeal and big money now.

Square is all but dead, Capcom and Konami killed themselves butt raping all their main franchises trying to sneak them into the call of duty pie, etc.

We just have Nintendo, Namco, Atlus, Monolith, XSeed, etc now holding on by a thread.

Sony is trying, or at least claiming to be all about the gamers, but without enough quality first party titles they are just going to be buried in EA/Activision crapware again.  Sony was huge on software in the PS1 day, as in sooooo many titles produced or published by SCEA/J now they just seem to produce hardware for EA and Activision to infect with their 15+ platform cross platform cookie cutter crap.  They have a huge advantage right now but aren't doing enough on the software front.  Not being involved and leaving the Playstation brand in the hands of 3rd party developers to pump out their rehashed garbage in 3 month cycles is going to be their downfall.

And Microsoft is still being Microsoft.  Halo, Gears, and Call of Duty... and repeatedly trying to lock down your console and own your living room until they can charge you for making popcorn in your own microwave if Netflix is open at the same time... per person... is about all we can ever expect from them for now and forever.   Gaming is the last thing in their grand vision and is only a necessary evil to promote the platform.

Sigh.  

Can it be 1991 again please?