As a gamer, I just don’t see my hobby evolving like it was back in the day. Shit’s gotten stagnant. Very few new ideas. Everything is mostly a copy of a copy. A lot of it actually regressed from the late 90s/early 2000s. The only thing getting more advanced are the graphics, and even those advancements have started to stall.
But more and more I am also seeing this happen with TV, movies and even books.
Thats just because well, since the 90s, its all been done. Society creatively peaked and theres really nothing left. Even bands out there being weird for the sake of weird are doing the same thing bands did in the 70s.
There is nothing original in existence anymore. Thats OK though. Enjoy what you like and support art you like, kill slop, and youll be happy.
One word: Indie.
I agree with you that AAA games absolutely have stagnated and regressed. But smaller productions are far more frequent today and very creative and innovative. Arguably even more so than back in the day, if you really cherry pick.
Personally, the main thing I feel is really missing from that time is mid-budget, AA games.
I think this is the big issue of the next few years. Large AAA studios have budgets so high that they are completely risk adverse. The low end of the indie scene is flooded with vibe coded Unity junk. And the gooey middle goodness with the awesome stuff is being squeezed by those two.
I suspect we will correct back to some form of sanity but it is a few years away and the interim period will be rough.
UFO 50, A Hat in Time, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Silksong, Outer Wilds, Balatro, A Short Hike, Smushi Come Home, What Remains of Edith Finch, Undertale, Deltarune, Hylics, Hylics 2, Peglin, Void Collector, Nubby’s Number Factory, Superliminal, Pizza Tower, Anton Blast, Rift of the Necrodancer, Night in the Woods, Uktrakill, Fallen Aces, Dusk, Scratchin’ Melodii
Those at the top need to start looking smaller scale. If I was at Microsoft, Halo/COD can have its big budgets, whatever. But also loosen the chains on smaller teams to try new things. Games that have similar budget and finish turn around times of the Ps2/Xbox/GC era only now you have modern engine tech at your hands.
Budgets decent enough to have the chance to do it well but not so big that it comes up in the next share holders call as the reason for 500 laid off.
Sony used to do this in the Ps1 era, games would be given a change on the market and even if it wasn’t a huge hit, they would give them another chance. Silly ideas like Katamari Damacy came out of this thinking at Namco and that paid of big time.
I’ve noticed dialogue is getting dumbed down across the board. The vocabulary is shrinking and plot is being explained more extensitvely (using basic vocabulary) so audiences don’t get confused regarding the plot. Basically, making it so the audience doesn’t have to think as much to fill in blanks. And as far as I’m concerned, filling in the blanks a little bit is part of what makes a good movie or book better. It makes it more personal to the viewer/reader.
One example I just experienced this weekend, and I’ll probably be crucified for this because apparently everyone loved this movie, was The Odyssey. Personally, I thought the dialogue was awful. I don’t mind that they went with the American accents, although I always think movies like that are better with British accents. It was the writers behind the dialogue. It just sounded like I was hearing dialogue written by junior high kids. I’m assuming it was a decision made on purpose, maybe to connect more with modern English speakers, but it just sounded bad and kind of ruined the movie for me. I ended up just having kind of a meh opinion of the film largely because of it.
Netflix apparently has a rule that movies they produce must explicitly state the goal out loud three times. Because they expect viewers to only half pay attention while browsing on their phones.
But yeah, the dumbed-down-ness really sucks. I only got 3 episodes into the Avatar live action TV show, and a big part of it was the quality of writing. It constantly felt like they were just telling me stuff instead of just letting the story happen. When the opening episode did a variation of the cartoon’s famous opening monologue three times I knew we were in trouble. And it just got worse from there.
There has always been a element of this in places but it has grown significantly in the last few decades.
Funnily enough my example is the film Grease. The dialog is astoundingly plain but presented well enough. Maybe this is why it is seen as a mainstream classic because of this simple language.
But then I see the works of some like Charlie Kaufman that was just wonderful but has rarely broken into the main stream.
I second this watched the first probably 90min and turned it off, I was bored out of my mind. Idk what people saw in it, the writing acting cinematography were all shit.
As a gamer, I just don’t see my hobby evolving like it was back in the day. Shit’s gotten stagnant. Very few new ideas. Everything is mostly a copy of a copy. A lot of it actually regressed from the late 90s/early 2000s. The only thing getting more advanced are the graphics, and even those advancements have started to stall.
But more and more I am also seeing this happen with TV, movies and even books.
Thats just because well, since the 90s, its all been done. Society creatively peaked and theres really nothing left. Even bands out there being weird for the sake of weird are doing the same thing bands did in the 70s.
There is nothing original in existence anymore. Thats OK though. Enjoy what you like and support art you like, kill slop, and youll be happy.
There never was anything original. All of culture, invention, science, and art is iterative and would not exist without copying in the first place.
One word: Indie. I agree with you that AAA games absolutely have stagnated and regressed. But smaller productions are far more frequent today and very creative and innovative. Arguably even more so than back in the day, if you really cherry pick. Personally, the main thing I feel is really missing from that time is mid-budget, AA games.
I think this is the big issue of the next few years. Large AAA studios have budgets so high that they are completely risk adverse. The low end of the indie scene is flooded with vibe coded Unity junk. And the gooey middle goodness with the awesome stuff is being squeezed by those two.
I suspect we will correct back to some form of sanity but it is a few years away and the interim period will be rough.
What are some good indies from the past few years? Most of my most placed indie games are over a decade old by now.
UFO 50, A Hat in Time, Celeste, Hollow Knight, Silksong, Outer Wilds, Balatro, A Short Hike, Smushi Come Home, What Remains of Edith Finch, Undertale, Deltarune, Hylics, Hylics 2, Peglin, Void Collector, Nubby’s Number Factory, Superliminal, Pizza Tower, Anton Blast, Rift of the Necrodancer, Night in the Woods, Uktrakill, Fallen Aces, Dusk, Scratchin’ Melodii
Lethal Company
As the other guy said, look indie.
There’s so much fun there at the moment. Even double A stuff like Galactic Racer is really damn good this year.
Triple A is a mess rn, gonna take some time to recover and it’ll be different I think.
Those at the top need to start looking smaller scale. If I was at Microsoft, Halo/COD can have its big budgets, whatever. But also loosen the chains on smaller teams to try new things. Games that have similar budget and finish turn around times of the Ps2/Xbox/GC era only now you have modern engine tech at your hands.
Budgets decent enough to have the chance to do it well but not so big that it comes up in the next share holders call as the reason for 500 laid off.
Sony used to do this in the Ps1 era, games would be given a change on the market and even if it wasn’t a huge hit, they would give them another chance. Silly ideas like Katamari Damacy came out of this thinking at Namco and that paid of big time.
Just a quick note on movies.
I’ve noticed dialogue is getting dumbed down across the board. The vocabulary is shrinking and plot is being explained more extensitvely (using basic vocabulary) so audiences don’t get confused regarding the plot. Basically, making it so the audience doesn’t have to think as much to fill in blanks. And as far as I’m concerned, filling in the blanks a little bit is part of what makes a good movie or book better. It makes it more personal to the viewer/reader.
One example I just experienced this weekend, and I’ll probably be crucified for this because apparently everyone loved this movie, was The Odyssey. Personally, I thought the dialogue was awful. I don’t mind that they went with the American accents, although I always think movies like that are better with British accents. It was the writers behind the dialogue. It just sounded like I was hearing dialogue written by junior high kids. I’m assuming it was a decision made on purpose, maybe to connect more with modern English speakers, but it just sounded bad and kind of ruined the movie for me. I ended up just having kind of a meh opinion of the film largely because of it.
Netflix apparently has a rule that movies they produce must explicitly state the goal out loud three times. Because they expect viewers to only half pay attention while browsing on their phones.
But yeah, the dumbed-down-ness really sucks. I only got 3 episodes into the Avatar live action TV show, and a big part of it was the quality of writing. It constantly felt like they were just telling me stuff instead of just letting the story happen. When the opening episode did a variation of the cartoon’s famous opening monologue three times I knew we were in trouble. And it just got worse from there.
There has always been a element of this in places but it has grown significantly in the last few decades.
Funnily enough my example is the film Grease. The dialog is astoundingly plain but presented well enough. Maybe this is why it is seen as a mainstream classic because of this simple language.
But then I see the works of some like Charlie Kaufman that was just wonderful but has rarely broken into the main stream.
I second this watched the first probably 90min and turned it off, I was bored out of my mind. Idk what people saw in it, the writing acting cinematography were all shit.