The end-of-the-generation retrospective megathread.

[Sno]

The 360 is eight years old, the PS3 and Wii are both 7 years old. Steam is technically ten years old, but really only became a thing in earnest with the release of HL2 9 years ago.

Flip the page, the PS4 is in stores, the XBO is ready to launch, two new handhelds are out in the wild and mostly established, and Valve's making some pretty wild promises about the future of Steam. (There's also that Ouya thing, that's the most important one.)

We're clearly in the midst of another generational shift in gaming.

So what about the generation we're exiting from?

In this last decade we've seen the rise of digital distribution and the indie scene, the rise of the smart phone, exploration of new ways of interfacing with games, the rise of new business models and internet integration. We've also seen old publishers struggle to remain viable and relevant, and there are also many questions left up in the air about the ethics of some of these new business models, and the permanence of these new digital libraries.

 

How do you feel about all of it? What's on your mind about what we've come from and where things are going?

Can you even remember what PC gaming was like without Steam? When was the last time you had to personally seek out a patch? Do you still remember the original blades OS on the 360 and how much easier it was to navigate the XBL marketplace? (Goddammit Microsoft, why did you remove sorting options?)

[Tanukitsune]

This is the generation where the whole "cheevo" thing started, which we kinda loved before and now we kinda hate them...

 

I feel this is the generation where the whole "hate out of then" thing started, the generation where a majority of gamers are convinced a longer game is a better game and this was the first generation I started to quit games not because I didn't like the game or was terrible at it, but because the game overstayed it's welcome and I just get bored with it.

 

This was the FPS generation, sure the shooter has been the gamer's favorite since the days of Doom, but this is the generation where the market was saturated with shooters. Come to think of it, this is the generation where half the game genres are saturating the market and some are really on the brink of extinction, like the "metroidvania" or the true arcade style game. 

 

It's the first generation of games that were epic, but I never want to play again... Super Meat Boy? It was great, but I'll never play it again because I don't want to put myself through such a game again. Borderlands 2? It was epic, but it's was infinity hours long, I don't even want to think about playing this again.

 

I still remember playing games without Steam, I really miss the installers, but you still get them with indie games, so I still play games without Steam every once in a while?

 

This is the generation where the crazy Steam sales started, where the super indie bundles started, the generation where we all started to have backlogs thanks to the market saturation, crazy sales and insanely long games...

 

Looking back, it's hard to tell if this was the best generation or the worst, it seems that for every good thing we had, there was two terrible things?

 

To me the best part of this generation was Steam and in some ways PSN+ and my PSP, call me crazy but I owe so much to my PSP, my love for JRPGs and so much more was reborn thanks to it.

 

 

 

As for the new generation, I feel it will the one where so little will change, but it's too soon to even think about it, looking back at how much Steam, the 360 and the PS3 have changed it's impossible to tell.

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah I hope people calm down on ridiculous achievements and trophies this time, but it seems like that's already been happening. I can't stand near impossible things that fuel my OCD rage.

[JonCole]

I feel like one of the big arcs of the latter half of this generation (that's still ongoing) is how to monetize "regular" games in the face of behemoth franchises like League of Legends, mobile games and (less so) World of Warcraft. You see companies like Square Enix pour tons of cash into Deus Ex, Hitman, and Tomb Raider and supposedly not have much to show for it despite selling through around 5 million copies of each. You have Call of Duty sinking in relevance from its peak at the beginning of this generation with COD: MW and MW2, trying out microtransactions and hitching their fortunes ever more on season passes and eSports. Look at PvZ2, compromising its vision by launching exclusively for iOS purportedly due to payment from Apple (I doubt this, but it's still a weird concept) and aggressively pushing microtransactions through every step of gameplay (some may dispute this, though it's hard to dispute that there's a big difference between the vision of the original and the sequel).

 

Of course, this all sounds bad but there were also good parts to this whole revolution in how to monetize games more creatively. While season passes in general may not be the most consumer-friendly idea, promising future support for a game through notable expansion content is something we couldn't really hope for very often early in this generation (remember how Oblivion's expansions seemed kinda wild on Xbox 360?). You also have Telltale's Walking Dead series and now the Wolf Among Us, showing that episodic games may actually have a place not only on PC, but also on consoles and mobile devices, and the episodic nature of them can actually develop a TV-like zeitgeist. Crazy.

 

And Steam... wow. Steam has opened up a whole new range of product scope and price, with games regularly releasing in the $20-30 range and gaining a ton of traction. Indie developers actually had a chance to make an impact, so much so that they became a big talking point for next-gen. Steam was really the big x-factor in terms of monetization this generation, because it allowed both indie devs and big publishers a lot of wiggle room on price, schedule and post-release support where they didn't have it before.

[feelthedarkness]

Mobile Gaming: The revolution that wasn't. This is probably just an expression of my own confirmation bias, but there was a lot of late cycle hand wringing over phones/tablets gutting the console market. It didn't seem to happen? I think it's mostly because basically nobody figured out how to make a good game, or those that did couldn't get past the people who were satisfied with distractions. 

[JonCole]

Mobile Gaming: The revolution that wasn't. This is probably just an expression of my own confirmation bias, but there was a lot of late cycle hand wringing over phones/tablets gutting the console market. It didn't seem to happen? I think it's mostly because basically nobody figured out how to make a good game, or those that did couldn't get past the people who were satisfied with distractions. 

 

I think there are enough mega-successes on mobile that while it's not a "revolution", it's certainly still a thing. I mean, Puzzle & Dragons is the biggest game in Japan by leaps and bounds. Candy Crush Saga has been downloaded 500 million times or some dumb crap like that. PvZ2 hit 16 million on iOS alone. Squeenix has said that their focus will be on online and mobile going forward. 

[feelthedarkness]

Oh, there are totally some huge success! The install base of mobile users is basically most humans. There was a real fear that the iPhone was going to put Nintendo out of business. (The big N still might put themselves out of business but it won't be their handheld's fault)

 

It seems like "revolution" is in the business model of mobile being translated over to traditional space. 

[Zeusthecat]

I know this probably isn't a popular opinion but I think one of the greatest concepts to come out of this generation was achievements. I tend to be a completionist so the introduction of a system that tracks some level of your progress and gaming prowess across all games was awesome. It also added another dimension to single player games since others could see your progress and the crazy shit you pulled off to obtain a hard-to-get achievement.

 

Of course the reality of achievements isn't quite as great as the concept was. There were/are a lot of really shitty ones. 

[Reyturner]

Mobile Gaming: The revolution that wasn't. This is probably just an expression of my own confirmation bias, but there was a lot of late cycle hand wringing over phones/tablets gutting the console market. It didn't seem to happen? I think it's mostly because basically nobody figured out how to make a good game, or those that did couldn't get past the people who were satisfied with distractions.

I think mobile is having a huge impact on how the current young generation, as well as non-core gamers, expect to interface with the games they play.

For the core audience, mobile gaming, along with Steam sales and expanded access to places like Brazil and SEA, has had one major impact: games are (or at least they are expected to be) MUCH cheaper, at least at initial purchase. 

 

Games cost $20 now, max. Period. Ron Gilbert would be proud. There is literally no reason to pay more these days unless you are a slave to release dates or are you want to support the people who make them. 

 

With that shift, tons of new business models are appearing to manipulate people into paying what those games should ACTUALLY cost (or far more); pay what you want, early access, "free to play" (even in games that aren't free), DLC, Kickstarter, etc. Even Playstation+ and now Xbox Live offer free games (with strings) to keep you rooted in their store fronts. Shades of Blockbuster video there; entice people in by taking a loss on the thing you, in theory, exist to sell in the hopes of making your money back on candy (like themes, streaming movies, DLC, etc). I'm interested to know whether the studios, especially the indies, who's games are featured in these deals are actually seeing any positive impact on their own bottom lines. 

 

For the most part, modern games should probably cost twice what they do if not more to make up their costs, like Deus Ex: Human Revolution mentioned above, not to mention the disappearance of just about any studio and even publisher that makes anything other than the most successful titles.

[JonCole]

I know this probably isn't a popular opinion but I think one of the greatest concepts to come out of this generation was achievements. I tend to be a completionist so the introduction of a system that tracks some level of your progress and gaming prowess across all games was awesome. It also added another dimension to single player games since others could see your progress and the crazy shit you pulled off to obtain a hard-to-get achievement.

 

Of course the reality of achievements isn't quite as great as the concept was. There were/are a lot of really shitty ones. 

 

Yeah, I think achievements are fine and even helpful on a per-game basis, but hindsight tells me that gamerscore was a garbage idea. I mean, it was nice to reach milestones as far as score was concerned but it doesn't scale very well - case in point, I don't know at this point what is considered a "good" or "impressive" total gamerscore.

 

The Steam approach of just a total number of achievements per game or the Sony approach of trophies of a limited number of gradients of difficulty or skill better translate what individual achievements per game (which you are praising, for the sake of completion or progress tracking) represent cumulatively. When I see that someone has a high number of gold trophies, I have a good idea that person has a lot of skill or dedication to get those as opposed to a hard achievement being worth 50 GS, which looks the same as ten 5 GS achievements when lumped together.

 

I don't know if there's really a lot of value to be had here, but I wish there was a little more creativity this generation to make meaningful metrics for achievements. As it is, Microsoft is giving 1000 points to all games now regardless of size or scope, which further muddies what that total score is actually worth or represents. Regardless, I do appreciate achievements in general - hitting 50k gamerscore felt really good, and getting all of the achievements for Oblivion and Fallout 3 felt like a great representation of my love for those games.

[sclpls]

Mobile Gaming: The revolution that wasn't. This is probably just an expression of my own confirmation bias, but there was a lot of late cycle hand wringing over phones/tablets gutting the console market. It didn't seem to happen? I think it's mostly because basically nobody figured out how to make a good game, or those that did couldn't get past the people who were satisfied with distractions. 

 

I would say the real problem with mobile gaming is not that no one figured out how to make a good game (I've played quite a few!), but that no one figured out how making mobile games as a business plan made any more sense than buying lottery tickets.

[SecretAsianMan]

The last generation was marked by several things for me.

 

The Open World

I mean this in 2 ways.  The first is open world games (or sandbox or free roaming or whatever you want to call it).  I know that the idea has been around for a while, but I feel like it was much more significant in this last gen.  At this point it's almost an expectation that you'll be able to go anywhere and everywhere.

 

The other way I mean is the real world and the ways of interaction we now have.  I remember when multiplayer gaming consisted of LANs or going to someone's house to play splitscreen on a console.  Even though Xbox Live existed before the 360, it was much more limited than it is now.  Throw in PSN and Steam and the world is connected like never before.  And clearly this is moving forward with things like Twitch and Twitter integration.

 

What's Old is New

Remakes aren't new.  They've been around for a long time and they're not going away, probably ever.  But with the emergence of Kickstarter, old games are coming to a new generation that's never seen them before.  It's still a little weird to me that I've played games older than the average age of an Xbox Live user.  The increase in the indie scene has also brought back "retro" graphics.  Once upon a time an NES-era game looked like shit, but now there are millions of people using blocky fists to punch blocky trees and craft blocky tools to slay blocky dragons.

 

The Emperor's New Clothes

Remember Oblivion's horse armor DLC?  Remember how ridiculous it seemed at the time to pay $2 for fake clothing for your fake horse?  If only we knew at the time how far it would go.

 

I'll probably think of some more later but that's enough for now.

[feelthedarkness]

I would say the real problem with mobile gaming is not that no one figured out how to make a good game (I've played quite a few!), but that no one figured out how making mobile games as a business plan made any more sense than buying lottery tickets.

 

That's probably a more fair expression than my flippancy! Hah.

 

I think the newly evolving business models can tie to another defining arc of this cycle:

 

The decline of the mid-sized studio/game, which is where I think my favorite work gets done. 

[sclpls]

Yeah, I am bummed by the shrinking of the mid-tier studios!

[sclpls]

To that point, there is some podcast episode in the 3MA archives from several years ago where there was a panel going on, and Tom Chick stated that he thought the mid-tier was doing fine, and I'm pretty sure every studio he named no longer exists in 2013. Very depressing!

[Ucantalas]

Mobile Gaming: The revolution that wasn't. This is probably just an expression of my own confirmation bias, but there was a lot of late cycle hand wringing over phones/tablets gutting the console market. It didn't seem to happen? I think it's mostly because basically nobody figured out how to make a good game, or those that did couldn't get past the people who were satisfied with distractions. 

I feel like the "mobile game revolution" is similar to the uprising of Twitter: plenty of people thought it would be Facebook's downfall (the way Facebook overthrew MySpace), but now they both exist in a kind of bizarre balance.

We still have mobile games, plenty are being released, and some do really well. But they aren't really slowing down consoles or even other handheld gaming devices like the 3DS (from what I've seen, anyways).

[tegan]

It's kind of weird/hilarious/terrifying how additional content for games progressed this gen. First we had horse armour and virtual rims as "microtransactions," which were belittled relentlessly. Then for some reason we started calling it "DLC" and it became a thing that people actually wanted.

 

The race for graphical fidelity took a sharp left turn this gen, which I'm pretty happy about. 2D pixel art made a huge resurgence, Minecraft became one of the most popular games of the generation despite looking like absolute crap, and two of my picks for "prettiest games ever" were rendered using "two Gamecubes duct taped together."

 

 

Achievements are still dumb though.

[Dewar]

I think one of the biggest evolutions we've seen in the last few years has been the huge availability of games. So many games on Steam, Mobile, and to a lesser extenet XBLIG have flooded the market. Now the problem on the development side isn't getting your game made, it's getting your game seen. On the consumer side it's not waiting for a game you like to be made, it's digging through the chaff to find the one you want.

[posh_somme]

I think one of the biggest evolutions we've seen in the last few years has been the huge availability of games. So many games on Steam, Mobile, and to a lesser extenet XBLIG have flooded the market. Now the problem on the development side isn't getting your game made, it's getting your game seen. On the consumer side it's not waiting for a game you like to be made, it's digging through the chaff to find the one you want.

 

totally agree. and i feel like this coming generation will have sony and MS try to curate indie games the way steam has been doing for a long time so it won't necessarily see a huge change as far as that's concerned. and the lines between indie and AAA will continue to blur until once again we just have "Video Games"

[Erkki]

Mobile has been disappointing for me personally. I think it's probably big with little kids, but for me all the app purchases started feeling really transient and after a year or two of owning an iPhone all the apps started to annoy me and I deleted most. There are still a few really good games, but I don't really see even an iPad as a real gaming platform for myself. But then I also ignore handheld consoles.

The rise of indie and the variety of games and availability of older games (incl. remakes, fan hacks to make them work etc.) has been most awesome! And at the end of the generation we are also finally seeing a big variety of non-FPS first person games.

Stream was awesome, but also Desura, GOG (I didn't use them much though because Steam has really become the preferred place where I have my games). I have even accidentally bought some games twice because they were not on Steam. Also this gen I completely stopped pirating games, mainly thanks to Steam.

What's also interesting to me is that serious exploration of 3D and VR started at the end of this gen. Also this gen included the transition from 4:3 to 16:9 I think.

This gen, but not the video game gen, also saw a rise of board games (for me, maybe trend started earlier). In the next I wonder if we'll also see some interesting video/board games, using VR, AR or whatnot.

Oh, for some reason I mostly ignored strategy games, but only now started playing them again (Civ V)

[Erkki]

Also, end of 3rd party controllers. PC gamers used to have various gamepads from different manufacturers, but somehow MS convinced everyone that the Xbox controller is the only one that works on PC. I even have to use an emulator to make the PS3 one work.

[JonCole]

Also, end of 3rd party controllers. PC gamers used to have various gamepads from different manufacturers, but somehow MS convinced everyone that the Xbox controller is the only one that works on PC. I even have to use an emulator to make the PS3 one work.

 

Microsoft didn't convince anyone, everyone was just waiting for a de facto standard and the XInput happened to be that. I'm not particularly sad about it, considering the 360 controller is actually okay and I'd hate for some API developed by MadCatz to be the PC industry standard.

[miffy495]

This generation was the end of piracy and my acceptance of Sony. The previous gen (probably because I was in junior high school and early regular high school) I bought the occasional console game and pirated a tonne of shit on my PC. Weirdly, I subscribed to PC gamer, but mostly so I could keep an eye on what looked promising to pirate. I kind of sucked. The summer before the 360 launched, I got my first job. Now having money, my conscience caught up with me and I started trying to go back and buy games that fell into the twin categories of ( a ) pirated by me and ( b ) completed by me. I actually did this and bought everything I had pirated and finished. That was a lot of games, to my shame. In the years since, things like Steam sales and cheaper indie games have meant that, even if I'd been a guy who wanted to continue pirating, there really wouldn't have been a point to it. I've been able to buy more than I've been able to play, and have also started to care less about finishing games and more about just being finished with games. Steam wasn't really the reason that I stopped pirating things, but it coincided with it and made it so that I was never tempted to go back, so props to Valve.

 

As for Sony, I used to hate them. Like, back in the N64/Playstation days, I was the hardcorest of Nintendo fanboys. I'm still a huge Nintendo fanboy, and camped out for my Wii back when it launched. That meant that, since Nintendo wasn't really competing with the 360 or PS3, I didn't have to care about the race beyond my petty remaining dislike of Sony. I bought a 360 and revelled in the early days of the PS3 being mocked. I loved that shit. Finally, critical mass happened and I bought a used PS3 to start playing some of the exclusives that I wanted to check out. I'd had a PS2 as well, as I got it free second-hand from my step-dad and played through a few notable games on it, so despite myself I was interested in a couple of sequels. Fast forward like 6 years and Sony has completely won me over and I'm pretty much just flabbergasted at how MS could have so quickly become irrelevant to my gaming. I honestly can't remember the last time I turned on my 360. It was at least 6 months ago. I used my PS3 last week, and my Vita two days ago. For my life, that's a lot. I'm a PS+ subscriber and love the service. I'm not sure how it happened, but over a long period of time, Sony got me. Good job, guys.

[Nachimir]

Mobile Gaming: The revolution that wasn't. This is probably just an expression of my own confirmation bias, but there was a lot of late cycle hand wringing over phones/tablets gutting the console market. It didn't seem to happen? I think it's mostly because basically nobody figured out how to make a good game, or those that did couldn't get past the people who were satisfied with distractions. 

 

In several waves, a bunch of people were terrified that mobile/casual/facebook/free to play* games would cannibalise traditional console and PC development. Acolytes of any of those things were gleefully prophesying it too. None of them seemed to realise that, as Ucantalas points out too, building a new audience doesn't make the old one go away or alter its preferences.

 

I think new consoles are giving us a break, but a section of industry news and gossip will be back to recycling sky is falling BS before long.

[SilentBtAmazing]

I felt like this was the generation where video games really started to resemble the future I dreamed of as a kid playing Atari. In particular, the first time I shot a slaver with Abraham Lincolns repeater at the Lincoln Memorial in Fallout 3 I thought to myself "fuck yes, I am living in the golden age of human existence."