The Golden Age Of Gaming Simply Can't Be Compared To Today

[Valkyrie-Favor]

This article at PSXExtreme has got me thinking. Ben Dutka says retro games are so different from modern games that they can't even be compared to each other. He also says that there's a reason why mostly kids played games then, which is interesting coming from an older gamer who's seen it all.

I disagree. Even though I wasn't around until the mid-90s, it's plain to me that play is the same as it's always been. Modern game design stands on the shoulders of giants, and the influence of old games is so evident in new works it seems foolish to separate them. Besides all that, I don't think about whether I want to play a game that is old or a game that is new. I think about the way I want to feel when I play it. An intense game, a relaxing game? A game for fighting, for exploring, for thinking?

Just how different are modern games from retro ones, when you get right down to it?

[Retronomy]

Well... very, to be honest.
Even the way we play games is fairly different.
There was once a time where context sensitive controls just simply didn't exist, for example. You either had a very simple 2-3 button game, or you had menus up the wazoo.

I suppose one example I could bring forth are roguelikes.
Back then, pretty much each and every command you can do was mapped to it's own key on the keyboard. (examples rogue/nethack)

Now they're being condensed to 4-6 button control schemes (examples: pokemon mystery dungeon/Izuna)

Games are becoming ever more accessible, ever more smart. They anticipate how you would play a part, and play it for you (autojump, traversing ledges/climbing.) The game doesn't have dedicated buttons for communication, they have an action button that does everything save win the game.

Conker's Bad Fur Day ala N64 joked about context sensitivity, but now it's no joke.

Is this bad? I don't think so. Anything that aids in making a game more accessible (read: intuitive) is sure to be a good thing in most cases. Gameplay mechanics overall have gotten better, not worse.
Game Design however.... eh...
Not touching that right now.

[Erik_Twice]

That there has been changes over time or that different areas are different doesn't preclude comparisons.

Not that there's much argumentation. He claims that videogames were toys, and hence the dominion of male kids, something he doesn't back in that very reduced article. It also opens to question what definition of "toy" he uses or why he ignores the wild success with both sexes of games like Q*Bert or Pac Man.


This is not to say there isn't a different frame of mind today than in 1984. There's a huge difference in expectations and thinking. You won't see Xevious or The Tower of Druaga made today and the designers and audience don't understand those games anymore.

For example arcades were understood as challenges, to be mastered and beaten while after 2004 we got a blokcbuster mentality based around big names and huge marketing budgets. That's pretty key.

It applies to everything. Films from the studio era of Hollywood have a very different zeitgeist than those made during the seventies. The composition, mood and ideas are not the same and the result too isn't.

[Menegrothx]

Boy does this misconception annoy heck out of me. Moronic casual gamers who have never taken the effort of getting into retro gaming and game history boldly claiming that gaming was for kids back in the days. Just because you as an ignorant kid only played colorful platformers at the time, and just because you as an ignorant adult only play military shooters now does not mean that gaming was only for kids at the time and vice versa.
A local gaming magazine listed Playstation as one of the 3 most groundbreaking innovations in gaming history. And why is that? Because before it the mainstream image of console gaming was very kid friendly and PC gaming was something completely incomprehensible to your average casual gamer, and thus many people didn't think you could make "mature" games and tell stories with video games before the super popular PS1 introduced them to games like Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Final Fantasy 7 and Silent Hill. But that does not mean that there weren't any mature games before that, casual gamers just didn't know about them. They were mostly PC RPGs and adventure games, but atleast during the 16-bit era there was a fair amount of games like that on (CD-based) consoles too, and many console RPGs dealth with some heavy themes and issues, they just looked very colorful and kiddy-like (and were often censored to some extent in the West thanks to Nintendo).

[AppleQueso]

That's a pretty slim article for such a bold claim. I honestly expected something a lot more substantial.

The article also kinda feels like someone yelling at clouds now that I think about it, as he doesn't really bother to explain what he means when he talks about comparing modern games to classic ones.

[Hatta]

The reason mostly kids played games back in the day is that they were complex and difficult, and adults didn't care to spend the time. Now that games are dumbed down and pretty, you don't really have to invest anything in them, and that makes them more accessible to busy adults.

[TEKTORO]

I think the damper on todays games are the concepts and deliverence. Cool concepts that rarely deliver, most games today are up against "something" which may take away from the developers intentions. I feel standards are what makes games today, to play it safe in the market (Trying to copy previous successful sales trends). And turns out to be a terrible model to follow, I understand time constraints and spending is the industries leading issue perhaps. But all that comes from this is the same run of the mill stale experience, Sqeezing in elements that made so many games great into almost everyone game being made today. This could also cause disintrest since theres no primary focus on what seperates "this" game from any other, you kinda start to think you seen it all.

What seperates the golden age was its pioneers, the art and vision, the limitations of power in hardware, but impressions left like none other.

[Damm64]

Now i don't want to bash a article before reading it so, this is thw WHOLE article?

Before everyone over the age of 30 loses their minds, let me clarify the title. I don't want anyone to misinterpret.

I don't mean that today's video games offer superior experiences in every possible way when compared to the old classics. Obviously, everything today is technically superior but it's always arguable to say that every aspect of this hobby is better now. What I mean is that the two vastly different eras of gaming simply aren't comparable in any way.

There's just nothing to talk about. I realized today that in truth, playing video games in the 70s and 80s was a completely different experience than playing video games today. Sure, one can say we're still sitting there holding a gamepad and controlling something we see on a screen, but that's about where the similarities end. There was a reason it was predominantly a boy's hobby back in the day; there was a reason very few females participated, and a reason why few over the age of 13 played. Video games were toys. The only exception to the rule may have been those adults who loved electronics and gadgets and all that, and found the Atari to be relatively cool. My father was like that.

But it really doesn't make any sense to compare a game of today to Super Mario Bros., for example. I mean, why? No, better yet, how? Interacting with virtual worlds is such a different thing nowadays. The simplicity is gone. People can whine about that all they wish and many can attempt to prove things were better way back when, but it really is a pointless endeavor. There are no comparisons to be made because the very nature of this hobby has changed. It has changed at its center, at its core. It just feels different. So when we pay homage to the products of yesteryear, let's keep them separate from modern games, shall we?

or did i miss something?

[AppleQueso]

Now i don't want to bash a article before reading it so, this is thw WHOLE article?

Before everyone over the age of 30 loses their minds, let me clarify the title. I don't want anyone to misinterpret.

I don't mean that today's video games offer superior experiences in every possible way when compared to the old classics. Obviously, everything today is technically superior but it's always arguable to say that every aspect of this hobby is better now. What I mean is that the two vastly different eras of gaming simply aren't comparable in any way.

There's just nothing to talk about. I realized today that in truth, playing video games in the 70s and 80s was a completely different experience than playing video games today. Sure, one can say we're still sitting there holding a gamepad and controlling something we see on a screen, but that's about where the similarities end. There was a reason it was predominantly a boy's hobby back in the day; there was a reason very few females participated, and a reason why few over the age of 13 played. Video games were toys. The only exception to the rule may have been those adults who loved electronics and gadgets and all that, and found the Atari to be relatively cool. My father was like that.

But it really doesn't make any sense to compare a game of today to Super Mario Bros., for example. I mean, why? No, better yet, how? Interacting with virtual worlds is such a different thing nowadays. The simplicity is gone. People can whine about that all they wish and many can attempt to prove things were better way back when, but it really is a pointless endeavor. There are no comparisons to be made because the very nature of this hobby has changed. It has changed at its center, at its core. It just feels different. So when we pay homage to the products of yesteryear, let's keep them separate from modern games, shall we?

or did i miss something?

Seems to be for me. Like I said, pretty small considering the sort of claim he's making.

[saturnfan]

While the article is thin and unconvincing, I do agree with the basic premise that retro console gaming (pre-NES) is far different than classic/modern gaming which in my opinion follows a similar theory of entertainment, one that is divergent from the understanding of what retro systems were attempting to accomplish.

Pre-NES systems had one basic goal, to emulate the arcade experience in the home. Whether that was accomplished is debatable, but console games back then reflect that basic premise. Most games on these systems lack any type of story, were usually ports of popular arcade titles and relied on repetitive score based game play. There are exceptions, yes, but this is basically the type of game you would have played on an Atari 2600.

The Nintendo Entertainment System took a different approach. While arcade style games were still popular on the NES, you now had games that also had rudimentary stories, goals that weren't based on high scores and game worlds that tried to immerse you into them. For example, compare the types of games found on an NES to an Atari 7800. Both consoles are relatively equal in their graphical output, but the style of the games is radically different. The Atari 7800 is based on the old assumption that gamers wanted to emulate an arcade experience, while the NES tried to show that console gaming could be it's own separate entity. There are things you can do on a home console that can't really be done in the arcade, like having an RPG with the ability to save progress.

This is the format that video games now try to accomplish, to elevate the level of immersion that you can obtain in the comfort of your own home. The last true home console to attempt the older method, arcade emulation, was the Neo Geo AES. Technically, the Neo Geo accomplishes this with its near perfect ports of arcade titles. But the times were already shifting away from that mindset, and the Neo Geo's price point didn't help either.