The quality of video games has declined over the past 10 years. - Games

If you look at the golden age of gaming back in the late 1990s, and partially in the early 2000s, you'll see that companies released games that would last forever, or atleast, a very long time. For instance look at the original StarCraft, which is over 12 years old and still has millions of people who play it online. Or just about all other pre-WoW Blizzard games, Diablo, Diablo 2, Warcraft 2, and Warcraft 3. It's not just Blizzard games though, look at Counter-Strike, Total Annihilation, Half-Life, Descent, Team Fortress Classic, Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Medal of Honor, Age of Empires, Civilization, Command & Conquer (during the Westwood days), and other games that are very high quality and still have active communities to this day. Now it seems like all of the companies release a bunch of low-quality games that they intentionally kill off the following year or so. A prime example of this would be the Call of Duty series, which I admit, I have fallen victim too. I do realize that everything after Call of Duty 2 is supposedly garbage, and I know for certain that MW2 is garbage, and yet, I've bought these games myself. Not because I approve of Activision, but because I want to play online with my real life friends and family. Sadly it would seem that it is impossible for a game to be be successful unless it has 'Call of Duty', 'Halo', or more tentatively, 'Medal of Honor' in it's name. And even those "successful" games are replaced every year by a sequel, with the exception of Medal of Honor, but there will probably be a sequel to that in 2011 or 2012 anyway. Is it really too much to ask that video game developers and publishers make their games stand the test of time? Do you really think 5 or 10 years from now people will still play Modern Warfare 2 online? Most likely not, atleast not in large numbers. Hell, Modern Warfare 2 most likely won't last 3 years. What's even worse is that almost everyone already sees that the gaming industry is being ruined, just like the movie industry is being ruined. The only games that may stand the test of time are the massive RPG and single-player FPS games. I love multiplayer as much as the next guy, but multiplayer only (for all intents and purposes) games like Halo (excluding Halo CE, which actually had a story) and Call of Duty die within a year or two. Whether you want to admit it or not, Microsoft started the downfall of gaming when they developed the Xbox. I admit, I purchased an Xbox 360, because I wanted to play with a hot girl I had a crush on at the time, and she plays Halo 3 and other games for Xbox 360. Then Electronic Arts and Activision started their long-term low-quality game release programs. Look at StarCraft II, Blizzard let down the majority of it's original fans by releasing that product that lacked in what StarCraft is known for, the multiplayer. StarCraft II used the terrible Battle.net 2.0 system, when their Battle.net (original) system was and still is praised as "the closest thing multiplayer can get to perfection, assuming this isn't perfection in it's own right,". They also killed off the map making community by using the flawed "map popularity" system, censoring maps, and it's professional scene never really got off it's feet. Everyone always complains about low-quality games, but those same people are the ones who pre-ordered Call of Duty: Black Ops. Yes, I pre-ordered it too. Society "requires" we buy the latest Halo/Call of Duty game, since that's what everyone in society is playing.

[QUOTE=Violetta;25559775]A prime example of this would be the Call of Duty series, which I admit, I have fallen victim too. I do realize that everything after Call of Duty 2 is supposedly garbage, and I know for certain that MW2 is garbage[/QUOTE] Had to stop you there. Call of Duty 4 was great.

I agree. But i love starcraft 2, however.

Companies make more by releasing shitty, overpriced games very frequently, than they do by spending time and effort developing it. Shitty games are also easy to market to "bro" gamers

Portal isn't trash.

You're about to be told you have your nostalgia goggles on, although I agree with you 100%.

Quality hasn't declined really, just corporate bullshit has increased

[QUOTE=minilandstan;25559845]Portal isn't trash.[/QUOTE] I've found that nearly everything Valve makes is fairly good. Or rather, everything since DOTA 2 and the Mann-Conomy has been good

[QUOTE=Jund;25559881]Quality hasn't declined really, just corporate bullshit has increased[/QUOTE] Bingo. More greed, more sales. That's why there's more sequels than there used to be, although there's probably a better reason for that.

DOTA 2 hasn't even come out yet you can't say it wont be good!

"Waaah I hate all games that have come out in the past 10 years, yo man stick to the 90's [b]Because every game from the past decade sucks.[/b]"

[QUOTE=Slacker101;25559932]DOTA 2 hasn't even come out yet you can't say it wont be good![/QUOTE] Do you have any idea how much bullshit the lead dev for DOTA 2 but on his resume, and how much he didn't say? Even worse, Gabe Newell didn't fire him

I'm not so sure this is true. It's not that games have gotten worse, it's that certain games have found incredibly mainstream appeal, and have developed to further this "one-size-fits-all" approach. [I]Everyone[/I] at this point plays, or has played a Call of Duty game. The game is further and further streamlined and concentrated so even someone who's never played a game before can pick it up and derive at least some level of enjoyment from it. I'd argue this is an extremely recent development. Back in, for example, the 90s, gaming was a bit more of a niche hobby. Not everyone had a Super Nintendo or a Genesis, because at that point games were still in their earlier stages and had a notably higher barrier of entry. As games have progressed, this barrier has shrunken and shrunken further, to the point at which we're at now: games are (nearly) as widespread as movies and music. Games haven't gotten worse, per se; they've simply become more approachable. In some cases this leads to an extremely marketable game designed to sell like hotcakes and then fizzle out after a year. (See: Rock Band, Call of Duty, etc.) This isn't the case across the industry, however. Certain franchises, though aided by extensive tutorials to help lower aforementioned barrier of entry, still maintain a universal appeal. (See: Mario games, Dragon Quest series, etc.) Games haven't gotten worse, they've just become easier to get in to. (In fact, quality is more on the rise than on the decline: whereas in the SNES days games were generally cheap as shit to develop if all you wanted was a quick cash-grab, current-generation consoles demand a huge budget just to look half-decent next to the likes of the big games. If you go to your local Best Buy and look at the Xbox 360 catalog, very few games will scream "shovelware," for example.)

[QUOTE=Violetta;25559775]I love multiplayer as much as the next guy, but multiplayer only (for all intents and purposes) games like Halo (excluding Halo CE, which actually had a story) and Call of Duty die within a year or two.[/QUOTE]Halo 2 was still going strong until Microsoft pulled the plug.

METAL GEARRRRRRRrrr

eh, they're still undoubtedly fun to play, and in the end that's all that games are about, fun.

[QUOTE=acidcj;25559837]Companies make more by releasing shitty, overpriced games very frequently, than they do by spending time and effort developing it. Shitty games are also easy to market to "bro" gamers[/QUOTE] The only game that's currently like this, is Guitar Hero.

The main thing is video games went from being a joke to "HOLY SHIT GUYS LOOK HOW MUCH MONEY WE CAN MAKE FROM SELLING VIDEO GAMES!"

When you put a game on a cartridge, you can't add "patches" or anything, you have to make sure the game works the way it should, same with early disc gaming like PS2 and the like. You couldn't patch original xbox games or anything, you just had to make sure it worked. Nowadays, they pump games out without any real substance or quality control, and then have the community find the bugs and complain about it.

Not really... I've been gaming for 15 years and the best game I ever played was Fallout 3.

someone is wearing their rose tinted glasses...

[QUOTE=stealth_camo;25560373]someone is wearing their rose tinted glasses...[/QUOTE] Or he has a legitimate point and you're too blind to see it/too lazy to present an actual argument instead of a cheap cop out.

You sir, are wrong.

I wouldn't worry about it. Eventually even dunderheaded mainstream gamers will get sick of flashy games with no substance, and begin to demand games with more effort put into things core gamers care about. Eventually people will play Call of Halo 27, realize that that it feels a whole lot like Call of Halo 26, and no that they think about it, Call of Halo 1-25 as well, and start to demand better games. The success of Minecraft, whether you like it or not, has shown that appealing to gamers' true needs and putting fewer resources into presentation is a very lucrative practice. The biggest problem is that games are more expensive to make now, what with motion capture and fully voiced characters being all but standard these days. As gamers we can help by not putting so much pressure on devs to put these expensive, but not necessarily beneficial features in their games. Finally, if you want to encourage new ideas in games: buy indie, boycott safe. You get more of what you reward and less of what you punish. TL;DR: read it if you care so goddamn much about the game industry, you lazy shit

Too many people obsessed with old games on Facepunch. It sort of gets irritating seeing a thread pop up about how ___ game is terrible and nothing like the classic _____. Times are changing, the developers make the games for the majority. I think if you really need to play a classic game that bad, go play one. Mainstream gaming is what makes the money, and people like money.

The quality isn't going down, people are just getting greedy.

[QUOTE=DeandreT;25560500]Too many people obsessed with old games on Facepunch. It sort of gets irritating seeing a thread pop up about how ___ game is terrible and nothing like the classic _____. Times are changing, the developers make the games for the majority. I think if you really need to play a classic game that bad, go play one.[/QUOTE] So game industries making inferior versions for the majority is accepted now?

[quote]I admit, I purchased an Xbox 360, because I wanted to play with a hot girl I had a crush on at the time, and she plays Halo 3 and other games for Xbox 360.[/quote] Haha, wow.

Games are the same. Quit making these threads.

[QUOTE=Take_Opal;25560725]Games are the same. Quit making these threads.[/QUOTE] You are mistaken.