Best time to be a gamer?

[Blackbird]

I'm not really keen on emulation. It has it's uses, but a lot of times it just boils down to an extremely convenient way to pirate games. Not saying everyone uses it that way, but it's pretty widespread. As I've gotten older and gotten expendable income, I've generally tried to purchase my games through legal means whenever possible. It's really easy to get used games for dirt cheap these days, especially if you like retro games. I guess it doesn't really mean anything, seeing as purchasing a used game doesn't benefit the original developer at all and in that regard is no better than piracy, but it's still the principle of the thing.

In an ideal world, we would be able to purchase physical copies of new and used games directly from their publisher/developer and cut out the middleman (Gamestop) entirely. But the world is still trying to get used to that idea/business model... it's hard enough getting people to wrap their heads around it for music.

Emulation is really good for those corner cases where a game simply isn't available or would be unreasonably expensive to obtain through normal means. Obscure titles that are too rare to find, or when they are available, are ludicrously expensive. Games that never got ported from the arcade PCB, games that you would have to purchase a console from a different region just for that one region-locked game, and so on. I know I'll never play Panzer Dragoon Saga unless I decide to emulate it (or there's a modern remake), haha.

Oh, one other good use: Emulation is extremely convenient for when you want to record video footage of a game, because it is far easier and less expensive to capture image directly from the computer rather than purchase capturing equipment for TV/console.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

As someone who likes abit of everything depending on how the mood takes me ild say that weve got too many games to play. I miss the good old days when I was just playing for enjoyment and not to clear my backlog, or the next must play game.

Personally I think we are on the cusp of gaming turning into shit as they become more service based rather than product. I can just about stomach most of the BS we have to put up with atm. With the onward march of mmo gamification and monetisation eroding game design both in casual story / narrative based games (which I can live with) and more traditional genres (which I really hate)

Theres also an growing oversaturation of games with too many online games and not enough gamers to populate them

With the morally corrupt businesses trying their hardest to censor the internet in an effort to stop us from bypassing their BS methods of control, Im glad of the games ive got on my shelf and on my HD.

Edit (about pirating, I only have an finite amount of time to play games so I might aswel play the ones ive payed for, that said I do like the alternative and saftey net that piracy provides)

[mrsmiley381]

I know I'll never play Panzer Dragoon Saga unless I decide to emulate it (or there's a modern remake), haha.

There's also the mod chip route, which lets you play a translated Shining Force III, as well. But after enough time the number of working Saturns and games might be dangerously low, which really does make the emulation gurus potential heroes in my eyes.

I'm also fairly certain the source code to Panzer Dragoon Saga has been lost. Reminds me that I need to get the game off of my backlog. I guess that's what happens when you win a 30+ game lot at an auction.

[KBZ]

Some great comments here. Props to the OP for making this thread.

I'm going to buck the trend a bit and say that the best time to be a gamer is during childhood and early teens. Sure the kids of today don't 'get' it like we do, but we were maybe the first generation of mainstream game enthusiasts and don't have an army of old farts telling us how it used to be.

You can all rest assured that many years from now, these kids will be telling the next generation how they don't understand how awesome COD and DLC were back in the day.


I suppose that isn't very comforting, but it's only more reason to move on from the rage and focus on enjoying the things we find so fruitful in gaming.

[Hagane]

The good thing about being a gamer now as mentioned is that you have a huge library of games to choose from. But I think that modern games (there are exceptions of course) are becoming worse and worse, ashamed of being games and trying to emulate movies as much as they can.

The death of arcades, besides destroying the social aspect of gaming, has lowered the quality of game design a lot.

[moozooh]

To be honest, I don't see the death of arcades being a deciding factor even remotely. The only genres they could possibly influence were the traditional arcade genres: vs. fighters (did not become worse in the last decade), brawlers, shmups, run'n'guns, racing sims (did not become noticeably worse as a whole either, as far as I'm aware), simple platformers (those were never good or popular in arcades anyway) and lightgun shooters (these gave way to the FPS which is better anyway). And these genres don't even cover a half of the gaming spectrum that also has exploration platformers and adventure games, all flavors of realtime and turn-based strategy games, FPS and TPS, artillery games, puzzles, RPGs of every possible style, and basically every other genre that doesn't rely on semi-fixed or time-limited play session length. The social aspect of gaming is bustling with activity as you have a plethora of casual party games AND the ability to play nearly everything over the net.

If anything, it's gamers becoming too lazy and hard to satisfy that kills the industry, leaving it with no other economically viable choice than upping the degree of pandering. The death of arcades wasn't the trigger of modern game design fuckups, it was a consequence of the above.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Speaking about oversaturation of the industry, just how many kids are studying Game making at uni nowadays? I remember reading an article about 5 years back which stated that the number of UK kids going from uni into the industry each year was more than half of the total ppl employed in the industry. This was before most of the UK dev studios were shut down and moved abroad.

[Hagane]

Moozooh:

I mean that Arcade games were made hard and to the point due to its business model, whereas the console business model demands the developers to cater to as much people as they can, basically making easy simple games everyone can play, and adding a lot of clutter content to artificially boost play time to compensate for the fact that you can clear them very easily.

The current social aspect is virtual. Online. Most of the time you don't even meet the people you play with. That is not really social, and is no replacement of playing with someone by your side. Being a huge fighting game fan (btw, save exceptions such as Accent Core they did become worse in the last decade; Capcom's games in particular are shadows of their former versions - and let's not even talk about console exclusive fighters such as MK9), that aspect is very evident to me. Of course being able to play Ganelon or Afrolegends online is great but it would be better if the arcade community still survived.

[xbl0x180]

I wouldn't consider playing on-line against other gamers I've never met in person as "social"

[TrevHead (TVR)]

I do see your point Hagane, there just isnt the same culture that breeds skilled players like there was in the past, even if there are the tools on the internet that allow ppl to improve. Take the PC style autosave, why play well if can just spam F5 to get passed the difficult bits.

Anyone interested in the "state of gaming" might like to check out Totalbiscuit's Mailbag YT vids, he might be too PC centric for some of your guys but he does know what he's talking about. I listen to him while I do the ironing

[mesh control]

2000-2004

Nothing will ever be more fun than playing Timesplitters with friends all night long.

Now I have responsibilities and shit.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The death of arcades, besides destroying the social aspect of gaming, has lowered the quality of game design a lot.

I assume you have never had a really good time playing online.
Handhelds are the arcades of today in that there are certain things handheld games can't get away with and tend to be all the better for it.

[evil_ash_xero]

One downside to this time in gaming...even though you can get access to so many games, the televisions aren't really made for them. So, you have to use lots of filters and whatnot, to make them look passable. It's a shame.

Another thing...when I play all these old classics, it makes me look at my current stack of modern games, and kind of go "is that all you got"? The amount of great games, in the last few gens, compared to now...well, it's not even close.

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm not really keen on emulation. It has it's uses, but a lot of times it just boils down to an extremely convenient way to pirate games.

OK, "best time to be an ethical gamer," just for you. I wasn't aware that it was unethical to check out ancient games in MAME that are no longer being serviced or generating revenue, though...and I do think about these things.

So if you knock out emulation, we still have a large variety of games that are just as playable today as they were. Sure, the Galaxian^3 theater arcades aren't around, some stuff is lost (as I said), it's hard to get many DOS games working right even in DOSbox (and it doesn't look right without that screen). But lag and looks aside, it's probably better for my eyes to have an LCD monitor and being able to switch to other tasks quickly is very nice.

Really, things could be far more cocked up than they are. Windows, baleful as its influence might be seen, has been a unifying thread throughout the years (and DirectX, how else would I rail about the shoddiness of most first person shootan games?), and even most handhelds are still working great (and some can even be fixed up to play as well or better than they ever did in the past).

Then there is the case of the distribution of information. I never would have figured out much of Raiden Fighters without Ghegs' RF Emporium, no doubt.

But what it comes to, for me, is that I wasted a hell of a lot of time on the PC and the N64. Not exactly well spent, actually.

What I guess it comes down to is that the past only happened one way. Recently I have found myself thinking "boy, it sure is odd that people didn't think about X or, if they did, X still didn't have an impact on the present time," although I know that people thought about all kinds of things, and wanted to communicate them at least, but media was primitive and slow enough that few enough people got their ideas through. So forget all that many worlds nonsense; it seems to have no empirical ramifications for us. In any case, my point here is that the past was fine, also terrible. It also seems naiive for people to assume that the present and the future should or could have been merely a kind of constant refinement of the old models. In our case, that would be all games being like refined versions of arcade shooters, or fighting games, or 2D platformers. These are cherished genres for sure, but it was a unique moment in time that made it most probable they would be developed as they were.

[Vyxx]

The 90's.

Donkey Kong Country 2
Yoshi's Island
Super metroid

Life was grand.

[DEL]

As mentioned, the best time for accessing the full library of old and new games is now.

From my own experience, the best time (by far) for me was the whole of the 80s to '92, because I was lucky enough to live near large and constantly updated arcades and hang out with my arcade-going friends in those arcades.

blackoak wrote;

Its funny seeing people talk about the availability of information on the internet as a good thing. I enjoy communities like this for sure, but the gamefaqs phenomenon and constant news on upcoming releases has actually taken a lot of the thrill and excitement away from me. I liked the pacing of monthly game magazines for information... I realize it comes down to self-discipline to some degree, but there's a magical quality in not-knowing imo.

Agreed.

[GaijinPunch]

blackoak wrote;

Its funny seeing people talk about the availability of information on the internet as a good thing. I enjoy communities like this for sure, but the gamefaqs phenomenon and constant news on upcoming releases has actually taken a lot of the thrill and excitement away from me. I liked the pacing of monthly game magazines for information... I realize it comes down to self-discipline to some degree, but there's a magical quality in not-knowing imo.

Agreed.

I guess those hypnosis lessons on ignoring my posts worked.

[AAA]

for me, the 90's - no question

MD and SNES thru PC Engine, Neo Geo, then finally PS1 & Saturn and topped off with Dreamcast - with an exciting arcade scene throughout.

[sven666]

imo shmups are the best ever at the moment.. arcade that is..

but personally videogaming can never top the SNES-era, the best games that i was actually excited to play.
I guess early PS1-era comes close second.

dont think ive been excited about a single release for the PS2 and onwards.. not that there arent good games out there its just.. not exciting.. originality is dead i guess.
nowdays every game has a "revolutionary next level gameplay" addition in the form of a weapon with an unusual secondary fire or something equally lame.

[Eaglet]

Games were at their prime through all of the 90s up until something like 2003-2004ish.
I think those fuckin' Guitar Hero/Singstar games marked the end of an awesome era.
The absolute best 4 years were 1996 - 2000.
Starting with Garegga - ending with BG2/Deus Ex.

[Drachenherz]

The best time to be a gamer? Well, for me, personally... It was the time when I actually HAD the time to play...

[brentsg]

I assume you have never had a really good time playing online.

I'm of the notion that peak gaming died off once the packed arcades in the US were gone. Back then everything was exciting and information was something special to obtain. Playing head to head in the arcade was the best as well. To me online gaming has brought out the absolute worst in people, and therefore the experience.

Online gaming is just infested with mouthy kids and cheating/griefing. There's something negative that always results from the perceived anonymity.

[SunJammer]

this picture from a 1983 issue of Life magazine sums up my opinion nicely:



...sure the games were mostly crap, but at least being the best meant something

[GaijinPunch]

Sweet picture. What the hell is Tutankham doing in there?

[neorichieb1971]

This era of gaming has been kind to my wallet. My PS3 has become my multimedia machine of choice and apart from my arcade cabinets I hardly play games at all.

Gaming is about the game inviting you to its world and telling you "its freakin hell in this place, but its fun". I just don't hear games screaming that to me anymore.

My recent shopping list includes Silent hill Pouring rain or whatever its called, and Twisted Metal.

I haven't bought a PS3 game since God of War HD 2 came out. That was Christmas time.

[xbl0x180]

Dudes, I just bought Dream Club for the PSP and Gal*Gun for the PS3. These things are pathetically dirty with no redeeming value at all, which makes them the more totally awersome

[Ed Oscuro]

I agree, Night Shift is the comedy sleeper of the year. (The fact that it takes place, in part, in a morgue seems to have some relevance for the "good old days" view of gaming.)

blackoak wrote;

Its funny seeing people talk about the availability of information on the internet as a good thing. I enjoy communities like this for sure, but the gamefaqs phenomenon and constant news on upcoming releases has actually taken a lot of the thrill and excitement away from me. I liked the pacing of monthly game magazines for information... I realize it comes down to self-discipline to some degree, but there's a magical quality in not-knowing imo.

Agreed.

I guess those hypnosis lessons on ignoring my posts worked.

I'm an atheist, your Neo Jesusian Stare has no effect on me!

However I cannot say the same for arcade flyers.

[njiska]

Dudes, I just bought Dream Club for the PSP and Gal*Gun for the PS3. These things are pathetically dirty with no redeeming value at all, which makes them the more totally awersome

Actually Gal*Gun is a pretty competent shooter, all things considered. The story is kind of amusing too.

[stryc9]

Right now.

Between playing the latest fighters thru PSN and all the import shooters on J360, I have never played more games than now, and that includes the Megadrive and Saturn/DC eras.

There was a time in the early 2000s where my gaming dropped off a bit and I started drinking but don't like to talk about it

[xbl0x180]

Dudes, I just bought Dream Club for the PSP and Gal*Gun for the PS3. These things are pathetically dirty with no redeeming value at all, which makes them the more totally awersome

Actually Gal*Gun is a pretty competent shooter, all things considered. The story is kind of amusing too.

I know. I already have Gal*Gun and both Dream Club games for the 360. Now I have them for the PS3 and PSP