I watched the series of the early 2000s and 2010s and compared them with the series closer to the 2020s and directly felt the difference, as if the authors really tried something before, I really cried when watching or was happy for the characters. The same with games, I played several games from the 2000s, and one sank into my heart, even after playing it a few years later, its plot still evokes vivid and pleasant memories, which has not yet happened with any game from the 2010s and even more so from the 2020s.
I’m not the only one, am I?
Man there’s obviously some exceptions of really good shows and games but there was a ton of garbage shovelware type crap in the early 2000s in both mediums. Video games had tons of movie to game entries that were terrible, plenty of no-name games that were incredibly generic with bad mechanics or ripping off other more successful games, way too many sports and racing games, I could go on.
Older games really had more of a “spray and pray” approach where they developed so many more games and hoped to get people’s attention in stores rather than everyone knowing every detail about everything right as it launched like today. This had pros and cons for sure. The developers of GTA:San Andreas said that they had 2 years to make the game and they already had the engine from Vice City. They finished it and had so much more time they just started brainstorming new ideas and things they could put in, which does stand out looking back at it now.
This point could be said doubly so of the previous generations of games in the late 80s and 90s. Take a look at a list of SNES or Genesis games. There are hundreds if not thousands of just absolutely terrible sidescrolling platformers that are not worth anyone’s time. You walk, jump, and shoot or punch and they all play the same way.
TV I feel like was pretty bad in the 2000s as well. Cable TV was still the default method of watching shows, and that meant crappy sitcoms with laugh tracks, cop dramas like CSI, reality TV, and so on. I didn’t see the sopranos, which is arguably one of the best TV shows to ever exist and came from this era, until 2020 when I was 28 years old. Even if I wasn’t a kid back then, I didn’t know any other family who had HBO. Now everything is at everyone’s finger tips, going back decades if you do want to watch something old like the office or whatever. Back then I just had to sit through whatever was on TV, with commercials, or censored movies, or I’d have to watch something on DVD that I had already probably seen too many times.
Anyway this is getting kinda rambly, but all I’m getting at is nostalgia can be a helluva drug. There’s so much crappy media, games, tv, music, movies, whatever made all the time since art has ever been a thing. A lot of it sucked back then, and sucks now. And that’s fine. One day someone will be reminiscing about 2020’s games like Clair Obscur and saying stuff in the late 30’a suck lol. And there’s plenty of good games and shows coming out now, it all depends on your taste. I love a ton of indie games and anime for example. There’s so many good examples from all eras, and everything is more accessible than ever before in history.