Whichever angle you take, there is no denying that present time is a great time to be a fan of video games. There have never been more great games to try, and there is no shortage of high-end gaming hardware necessary to run them. Along with improved offers, the expectations of the player base have also gone through the roof and things that used to be acceptable decades ago are now red flags.
It’s interesting to take a look back and try to understand how this process unfolded and how we arrived at this golden age of gaming. Here are some thoughts on that subject.
70s and 80s: We Are Just Happy to Play
When video games first appeared, they were nothing short of a revelation. Titles like Pong, Space Invaders, Pacman, or Donkey Kong took the world by the storm and became overnight sensations. The whole concept was so new that few people bothered to complain about graphics or gameplay, as every newly released game was anticipated eagerly and people were excited to experience it. The nascent industry was small and the games were simple, but it felt like the beginning of something great.
These games required specialised consoles that were too bulky and expensive to use at home, giving rise to the phenomenon of a gaming arcade. Spending a day behind the controls while continually inserting coins became a way to make new friends and hang out. PC games soon became a reality, but it would be some time before they could be taken seriously. Many studios entered the fray and competed for the place at the table, but most of the games were released without sufficient time and resources being invested so the products remained relatively crude with a few exceptions.
90s and 00s: We Want More Realistic Graphics
As the competition stiffened and gamers started having wider choices, the quality of gaming hardware and software started to improve. The prices of PC computers dropped significantly and they found their way into almost every home. In this era, there was a more pronounced differentiation of genres with first-person shooters, point-and-click adventures, real-time strategies, sports simulations, and many other types of games flooding the stores.
A common complaint in this period was that the games looked too pixelated and the characters moved around too robotically. A big breakthrough was achieved near the turn of the century when several competing gaming systems including Sega, Nintendo, and Xbox were developed allowing for technically more ambitious endeavors. At the same time, personal computers gained more RAM memory and advanced graphic cards, allowing them to run more demanding games. It could be argued this was the moment in time when gamers realised their true power and began to exercise this influence.
2010s: We Want More Interaction
It didn’t take long for high-res 3D graphics to become the standard and for body mechanics to become smooth and seamless. That posed an interesting dilemma – how to attract players to try a new game when you can’t offer a visible jump in quality from the previous generation. It wasn’t enough for a game just to look pretty anymore, and game developers had to dig deeper for solutions and create more immersive environments where players could interact with their surroundings and develop their characters in different ways.
The games also started moving to the cloud, so it wasn’t necessary to install them locally. Games like World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto Online, or Fortnite introduced a new level of convenience and changed the way gamers approached their craft. Some of the most popular online games allowed players to earn real money, as playing on PowerPlay and other casino game platforms reached mainstream status in Canada and elsewhere. This decade could be accurately described as the age of overabundance, but gamers were still trying to get back that feeling of belonging to a tribe like in the days of the arcades.
2020s: We Are Looking for Something We Never Saw Before
Right now, the gaming industry is a big global business and top gaming studios are run like real corporations. New games are based on extensive market research and are so complex and expensive to develop that individual creators have a hard time realising their ideas. Practically every genre is saturated with hundreds of entries arriving every year, catering to gamers of every taste. Yet many of these games look quite similar to each other, and originality is in short supply.
Make no mistake, gamers still expect great visuals, smart backstories, online access, and shared experiences. But even if all of these elements are in place, something may still be missing. We’ve seen it all, we’ve tried all kinds of games, and we are constantly searching for something that will surprise us. There are still fresh ideas out there, but it is extremely hard to discover them in the deluge of content being advertised everywhere we look. In other words, stumbling into a cool and unique game remains a quest worth pursuing and that’s all real gamers want anyway.
