There are occasionally still good games made [heck Minecraft came out in the last 5 years and that was fantastic] but I do believe the overall quality of the industry and games has dropped dramatically.
You know, I didn't like Minecraft at all, any of the times I've tried it. Just didn't find it fun. *shrugs*
Good to know I'm not the only one.
It was an exciting time to be a gamer. Everything was always constantly improving, game design, technology and game developers seemed to respect gamers.
You missed The Videogame Crash of 1983, triggered because of shit games, market oversaturation, too many consoles, etc. The wikipedia article goes into a lot of detail.
Oh god, ColecoVision, that brings back some bad memories.
If graphics are advancing at the cost of every other single part of the game then there is a problem... A serious problem. I think that the focus on graphics became a problem when we hit the 'bloom' generation of graphics... Let me state this right now... Bloom is not making anything look better... What it is doing is making my eyes bleed.
Let's sidestep bloom for the moment and go back to the issue of whether graphics are advancing at the cost of every other part of the game. I'd like to compare two games.
First, Commando for the C64. Here's a video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_789845&feature=iv&src_vid=hDAhixO2t5w&v=ymBBQN45shA
Second, compare that to whichever you may have played of the last few Call of Duty games, or the Battlefield series. Doesn't really matter which one!
Can you say that the only thing that has advanced there is graphics?
I agree with your point, but you're comparing a gap of 30 years. (holy shit, the 80's were 30 years ago.) Your arguments are completely valid when comparing the 80's to now, but when you look at the time in-between, trends start to emerge.
The thing that gets me is that the advancement in games has seemed to slow down in recent years. Personally, I grew up in the nineties, and started playing games then. For me, the advances in video games from 1994-2004 were far greater than the advances from 2004-2014. You went from 2D pixelated games playing on cartridges on a Super Nintendo, to the Original Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube, all CD based, and for the most part, 3D. (And the Xbox 360 a year later). Look at the differences between the Super Nintendo and the PS2. Now look at the differences between the PS2 and PS3. Or the Xbox 360 and the PS4. Or the Gamecube and the Wii U. Not a whole lot has changed over the last ten years in terms of consoles, and I think that is where this perception of stagnation is coming from.
Indeed, there HAS been a sort of stagnation over the last ten years when it comes to consoles, but I think that led to a rediscovery of the PC as an optimal gaming platform. Think about it. Five or ten years ago, how many people did you know who played video games on PC regularly as opposed to consoles. Now how many today? It's like it was when I was growing up. Everyone had Rollercoaster Tycoon, everyone had Sims 1, those whose parents were cool had Doom and later Quake. Hell, I remember when decent games like Rollercoaster Tycoon came in cereal boxes, and everyone would go out and get them, and brag about their parks. In the early and mid 2000's, it seemed like everyone had a console, and nobody seemed to play computer games outside of those who loved strategy games. Even then though, nobody seemed to be talking about them, everyone was focused on the newest GTA and the newest FPS.
Nowadays, it's somewhere in-between the two. There's an abundance of good, cheap, and not overly demanding on hardware games for PC out there. While consoles still have huge followings, and make huge sales, I think that there is a trend towards PC gaming again, and I think that arguing there is a stagnation in the
PC world is unfounded, even though arguments can easily be made for stagnation in the console world.
Anyways, that's just my 2 cents. Who knows, in ten years it may swing back and people will stop caring about PC's and indie games again, but on the other hand, there will be massive advancement in how games are made.