No.

In past generations, there were more creative and original games coming out more often. The spiralling costs and development times of major games have led them to become watered down and homogenous in order to appeal the broadest possible audience, and the wait times between big releases have grown longer and longer.

The cost of both games and hardware are also climbing, while insidious practises like microtransactions, season passes, and other forms of predatory monetization are rampant.

It's not all bad of course; Nintendo is in a new golden age, and there are still great games being made, but if I had to pick, I'd say the 90s, the 2000s, even the 2010s were all better times to be a gamer.

The best time was between 1990-2005. I've been gaming since 1986. Innovation. New ideas. Optimism. Rapid progress. It was exciting. Now the industry is creatively bankrupt and firing 10's of thousands of people per year. Nickle and diming people to death and taking away ownership. It's about as greedy and corporate as it gets right now and getting worse.

Now as for retro gaming accessibility to those games is easier than ever so there is that.

Since I can play all the games from back when the almost each new title was innovating as well as todays more polished versions of the same I think I like being a gamer more today.
However, I have a lot less time to spare for gaming so on a personal level it is a worse time.
I do not think the price of gaming have gone up either. There is a lot of high-end free to play games as well as a plethora of cheap indies and retro titles. And even if new games recently went up to 70-80 a piece the price of a new game was around 60 for 30 years. Granted the price of consoles followed inflation levels and went up but games have comparably stayed low. The legend of Zelda for nes in 1987 cost around 60 bucks. 25 years later Skyward sword cost around the same. Not many industries can keep the price steady for a quarter of a century.
Yes prices have increased noticeable recently, But if we take inflation into account that 60 bucks back in the 80s is worth over 160 in todays money value.

Not even close, as I see it. The entire entertainment-industry is in a massive slump, both in terms of creativity and stability. Writing is almost universally terrible across big-budget productions, people get canned left & right, and boardroom directing rules the day. The Indie scene is thriving, and retro-gaming is still a blast, but all that sort of takes away the point of having an expansive industry to begin with. If the mainstream remains creatively idle, and only niches thrive, this is not a good outlook for the future of the industry as a whole.

Goddamn, I really just dislike the gaming sphere right now. And we haven't even touched on the immense politicizing and polarization issues yet - along with the stigma of the hobby due to those issues. 

And, lastly; let's not forget the remakes and remasters seeping out of every developer and publisher pore like uninspired, beige porridge. Holy hell there's a lot of them.

I'd say it's all relative. So I can only speak for myself/from my perspective:

The age you are, the gamer society you enjoy, and the technology you want to use will be your favourite era.

For me, the most exciting time was 2006 to about 2010, that's when the Wii and DS were King. Everything seemed fresh and exciting for the first time since I got into gaming as a kid. It was nice to have that feeling again. PLUS, the virtual console finally brought in catalogue games like no other platform before it. I loved it.

The worst time for me was probably about 2001 to 2005, because I barely considered myself a gamer at the time. On the surface, Nintendo was in the depths of a dark age - creatively and commercially when compared to all other eras. Nintendo's most successful releases were more or less repeat games like Pokemon and Smash, and I didn't enjoy thew philosophies of Mario or Zelda at the time compared to their SNES counterparts. But again, that was probably mainly in the N64 era, as that's when Nintendo was developing Gamecube. Also, most of my favourite devs left Nintendo platforms during the N64 and Gamecube era, only to be replaced with the likes of EA, Ubisoft, and Activision - who I don't really like. But again, that's forward facing. Beneath the surface, as the Gamecube era skulked on, Nintendo (directed by Iwata) were developing Wii. On the PS2 front, I couldn't really get myself to care about much aside from GTA and Xenosaga (which I actually played out of order, 2-1-3, because XS1 wasn't released where I lived at the time.

The PSX was the console I consider to be the last of the era of my childhood gaming, although, I was a teenager in that era. I didn't really like N64 much beyond Wrestling games, GE007, Mario Kart, and other Rare games.

Technology-wise and availability, I don't think I've ever had anything quite as expansive as the Nintendo Switch. Also, PC gaming is great right now too. The indie side of things has expanded substantially, pushing out the AAA industry that I got tired of well over a decade ago (and was never really a fan of, and I'm talking about the Assassin's Creed/EA Sports type games that just Trunk > Branch the same game again and again with different content/assets, and not much artistic expansion over the previous branch. With the trunk/branch AAA industry, each release felt less inspired than the last, although sometimes the second or third game is the best, the first is like a prototype (Assassin's Creed 2 is a great example).

But back to the Wii stuff: Catalogues of ports, remasters, and remakes of many of my past favourite games are available in ways that they never have been before - legally, at least, and coming from a family of creatives whose relationships are largely with other creatives (music industry, film, plays, etc...), I've never been one for copyright violations/piracy. So, it might be different for those with less ethical scruples than me - but, as I said, all relative.

Could right now be the best time? I think there's a great argument for it. I wouldn't want to go back to an earlier time. I'd take Switch over any previous video game system I've ever owned. There are more catalogue games on Switch than any previous console, more creative indie games, and many of my favourite new games of all time (Witcher 3 and Breath of the Wild). And if Switch 2 contains all the features that Switch has + improvements + a larger library of games (including Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, or Terranigma), then it will be the next generation. I've always liked playing older games, and so one of my most exciting releases this generation was FF7 on Nintendo Switch - a Nintendo release of FF7, something I've wanted since the 1990s.

I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to this. Example: My dark age is a PS2/Gamecube fan's golden age.

Been gaming since the 1980s. I considered myself a major fan of gaming from that decade.

It's a yes vote for me.

True because of PC. Steam and emulation means I can play pretty much any game ever made.

I just don't understand it. If you want creativity go Indie, that's where the creativity went. It's like people aren't diving into the indie scene. I made a thread on the best Indie games at around 5 euro that are widely reviewed above 90 and the list is growing massively. Then there's the expensive Indie that is basically AA games these days. You can spend 15 euro and have a month of access to hundreds of games on a few different services. You can so easily never be fooled about wheter a game is good or not because of the internet. You can spend all your time on one game if you choose on a MP or a GOOD GaaS game or MMO and many people do and not have to spend a dime. We have MP games that work across time and space with anyone anywhere in the world. We have dev support for games post release so if you buy a shit game (No man's sky and the like) perhaps it's best to check in later and you might regain your value for money even though you shouldn't fall for a shit game with the internet. We have sales that are absolutely insane, ones you'd never find in a brick and mortor store and to that matter we are no longer at gamestops whim for better or worse, I say better. We have VR which is some of the coolest gaming tech ever made and so many great games if you choose or can buy in.... you can spend all your time there for that matter there's so much content. We have Hanheld PC's now, which alone you can pretty much play any game from the past or buy a cheap laptop and emulate anything you want. We have more games than there ever has been in the history of gaming to choose from. I'm only taking part in a small section of this content at the moment on PS4 and sometimes Switch for the most part and sometimes VR on Quest 2 and PSVR1 and I'm so well fed I can't even see the reason for upgrading to ps5 and probably wouldn't if my pro wasn't overheating but soon, in less than a month I'll have the ps5 catalogue to browse and choose what to play on good sales as I make my way through everything that I've missed out on with the odd full release here and there like GTA6.

I can't understand why now is not the best time apart from life circumstances that only give you so much time or energy to play games and take advantage of the tech you own. Like I get working a 10 hour shift, you aren't going to want to put on the VR headset or continue a long RPG or maybe even play a mindless game like Vampire survivors and this could skew your view of gaming bit aside from that you just have to look for the games, they may be floating around in massive amounts of sewage but they are there, they do exist and that's coming from someone who really tries to stay away from steam as much as I can.

PC gamers, Mobile gamers and maybe Nintendo fans will agree

Playstation and Xbox only will disagree

Multiplat gamers will be in the fance


Overall yes, for me it is. Plenty of good games, prices are lower than in the 90s, good hardware options in the market, internet make release or games easy thanks to digital. The amount of games thst didn't come to Brazil was big. Many japanese gems never played because things like localization never happened

And with emulation and backwards compatibility you can replay older games just fine

May I suggest trying VR. Console quality VR I mean. That'll give you the excitement again for sure although you may have missed the mark on some stuff that was topical like games on PSVR1 that may be dead now but had the whole community converge on them at release. To be part of the day The Wipeout Collection got its VR patch a few years back was one of the most exciting times in games ever, and that happened a LOT in the VR space. I can't speak to it now but I am sure it'll fill you with excitement and you'll find where the creativity is, by far the most creative teams are working I  that space. 

I see that argument made a lot in this thread. Yet that's bypassing the question.

Otherwise the best time to be a reader is now, best time to be a movie watcher is now, best time to be an art lover is now, best time to be a music lover is now, best time to be a collector is now. Every creative industry you have access to all older created stuff. That doesn't make now the golden age for any of those creative industries.

So that argument just renders the question moot.


As far as excitement for gaming, late 90's early 2000s had the biggest dreams come true. Rapid advancements, new genres and IPs springing up monthly. Exciting new hardware coming out and new ways to play. Real competition driving creativity and keeping prices stable.

Today that excitement is mostly gone. Lot of talk about diminishing returns, price of HW, price of games, invasive practices, people getting fired all over the place, studios closing, games taking many years to develop, UE5 woes, and so on.