If your past self could arrive and see the present gaming world, what would they think of it?

How does modern gaming live up to your expectations?


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Anyone saying they wouldn't be absolutely gobsmacked is either quite young or just absolutely lying to themselves. Kid you wouldn't be able to contain their amazement long enough to even consider trivial nonsense like "woke" or corporate greed or modern game design.
 
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In reality we already have fantastic looking games like Ratchet or The last of us.
All we need is to have this level of quality in more games.
 
Worse than expected is so wrong. I remember picking a game based on box art at the video store. Buying one game and playing it to death because of how rare it was to get a great addicting game and because I couldn't afford more than one game every half a year. Gaming is better than ever. Maybe the worse than expected people are console only lol
 
Worse than expected is so wrong. I remember picking a game based on box art at the video store. Buying one game and playing it to death because of how rare it was to get a great addicting game and because I couldn't afford more than one game every half a year. Gaming is better than ever. Maybe the worse than expected people are console only lol

How is it better?

I would gladly go back to the 360 era if I could.
 
How is it better?

I would gladly go back to the 360 era if I could.

I have so many games to play, great games, in my back log. Graphics are amazing. We have a huge amount of addictive survivor games for 3-10 bucks. VR, for the people who like it, has never been better. I have a portable gaming PC(Steam Deck) where I can play anything I want. Even at work, if I didn't bring my Steam Deck or PC, I can stream games via GE Force Now or Xbox. Bonus, I can play most of my favorite old classics on GOG or with backwards compatibility anytime I want too. We are about to get remasters of Suikoden 1 and 2, and classic games like Marvel Vs.Capcom, SNK vs. Street Fighter, etc.
 
personally, I miss game chat. Nobody talks anymore and hasn't for many years now.
I used to love FPS games before that, and I wish they had a game mode that was only for people with mics in.
The same people from the past that this forum seems to champion (The 360 gen gamers, old PC shooter elitists, and WoW-heads) are the same ones that started this whole ordeal and ruined game chat. Most casual gamers don't want to deal with vulgarity, trolling, harassment, screaming, and generally angry randoms in your team who usually no-life the games they're playing.

Then when the casual crowd says this, they're told they're being babies about it. At that point, the best way to win is not to play. So everyone loses.

At least in today's world you can sometimes find a discord group to chat with if you really want to talk to someone random while playing a game together.
 
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Why is every main character a woman now, and why do most of them look like men
How did we get where we are? I don't recall nonsense like the whole trans agenda and other garbage like that even existing as late as 2018 or 2019. It kind of seems like it just happened all at once to me, or at least maybe I am unaware of any significant events that led us to where we are.
 
I think i will be mad, because many bad games popular or sold big, while good games sold poor or unnecessery hated by lot of people.

Also surprised and also mad some of bad belief destroying video games.

But since kid, i often like or love something that is not widely popular.

I like japanese game more than everything else since kid. although sometimes playing western games as well in my older times. I find 2000 - 2012 are best era. There is some exception of course. Wildland, last batman, doom, yes there are exception.

If You ask the new games in this era, its still fine if I only look for jappanese games...nowdays i only play japanese single player games. Or sharescreen, split screen MP only.

I find it hard to see mobile games thriving too much and f2p mobile gacha games are more popular than true console or pc games. I also dont like online

I return to japanese only release as well once i know western games are fallen few years ago.

I'm sad to see farcry is worsen, mass effect trilogy sequel such as andromeda is awful, star wars is dead, good batman games are gone, no more good not short military shooter, etc...
 
I don't recall nonsense like the whole trans agenda and other garbage like that even existing as late as 2018 or 2019. It kind of seems like it just happened all at once to me
That's because it did happen all at once. All this bullshit became a thing only in within the last 10 years. It was a thing in 2018/2019 but less obvious, common and in-your-face as it is now - and nowhere near what it's become over the last 5 years.
I am unaware of any significant events that led us to where we are.
• Rise of radical feminism (and thus hatred towards most things "masculine")
• Rapid feminization of men over the last decade, likely a result of the above bullet point
• Rise of social media, smartphones and widespread access to both of them, amplifying bullshit in a way that it never was before
• DEI hiring at the majority of western game studios
• Idiots like Anita Sarkeesian and Gamergate happening 10 years ago, creating a massive "awakening" and shift in the games industry towards woke idealistic bullshit

Those were a few of the contributing factors.
 
I'd be shocked at how generic and templated the industry has become and dumbfounded at the amount of corporate apologists going around saying everything's fine, and to just take it on the chin like good chap.

I'd also be shocked at how gay everything is.
 
Then when the casual crowd says this, they're told they're being babies about it. At that point, the best way to win is not to play. So everyone loses..
I liked being abused/abusing people while playing the games. That's solid banter for Aussies. I think other nationalities take things to heart too much and get sad.
I don't care if some 12-year-old fucked my mum, it was part of the charm of the old school game chat.

As for Discord that's part of the problem as to the lack of game chat and I'm not a fan of it.
 
I have so many games to play, great games, in my back log. Graphics are amazing. We have a huge amount of addictive survivor games for 3-10 bucks. VR, for the people who like it, has never been better. I have a portable gaming PC(Steam Deck) where I can play anything I want. Even at work, if I didn't bring my Steam Deck or PC, I can stream games via GE Force Now or Xbox. Bonus, I can play most of my favorite old classics on GOG or with backwards compatibility anytime I want too. We are about to get remasters of Suikoden 1 and 2, and classic games like Marvel Vs.Capcom, SNK vs. Street Fighter, etc.

The fact that half your post is about remasters and backwards compatibility is very telling.
 
I liked being abused/abusing people while playing the games. That's solid banter for Aussies. I think other nationalities take things to heart too much and get sad.
I don't care if some 12-year-old fucked my mum, it was part of the charm of the old school game chat.

As for Discord that's part of the problem as to the lack of game chat and I'm not a fan of it.
The enjoyment of vulgar, offensive and immature voice chat was not exclusive to AussieVille back in the day, mate.

Us burger-eating American fuckfaces were the originators of that stuff back in the day and we loved every minute of it - and we all look back on those days just as fondly as you do.

It has nothing to do with geographics and everything to do with the world simply turning to shit over the last decade and all the fun being sucked out of things.
 
I would definitely be disappointed. the prolonged development times, the focus on cinematic bullshit, the total destruction of Halo, still no new Soul Reaver or Blood Omen...

only Nintendo wouldn't really disappoint me I think. outside of maybe no new F-Zero
 
Isn't this basically just asking if you think gaming has gotten better or worse?

At a glance, yeah, everything is much flashier and more impressive. But the focus on mechanics is gone, and developers/publishers care more about scale and marketing bullet points than they used to. The existence of an indie scene would be interesting, though.
 
That's because it did happen all at once. All this bullshit became a thing only in within the last 10 years. It was a thing in 2018/2019 but less obvious, common and in-your-face as it is now - and nowhere near what it's become over the last 5 years.

• Rise of radical feminism (and thus hatred towards most things "masculine")
• Rapid feminization of men over the last decade, likely a result of the above bullet point
• Rise of social media, smartphones and widespread access to both of them, amplifying bullshit in a way that it never was before
• DEI hiring at the majority of western game studios
• Idiots like Anita Sarkeesian and Gamergate happening 10 years ago, creating a massive "awakening" and shift in the games industry towards woke idealistic bullshit

Those were a few of the contributing factors.
It has only been in the past year or so that I have gone into my local Target and encountered men parading around dressed as women. I live in the DEEP SOUTH (Huntsville, Alabama), so it is still quite unusual to see men in skirts and halter tops shopping at target (at least in my part of town and the places I go). However, over the past year it has become normal to see such but ONLY at Target for some reason. I am an attorney by trade, so perhaps the places I tend to go do not normally attract the LGBTQ/trans crowd (or whatever the hell they call themselves). Your explanation helps though. If it has arisen suddenly, there was not really a single event that caused it, but I just want all the shit to end. .
 
Gaming going mainstream and being used as a slacktivist medium wasn't on my bingo card. Wish it was still a niche hobby.
 
I liked being abused/abusing people while playing the games. That's solid banter for Aussies. I think other nationalities take things to heart too much and get sad.
I don't care if some 12-year-old fucked my mum, it was part of the charm of the old school game chat.
You are you. I can never be you. The next poster can't be you either. Only you can completely be you. The main thing we share is posting here and playing games, but that's a small similarity and it could easily end there.

I can't expect everyone to take your suggested level of banter, because they're not me or you. Eventually I reflected in life to realize this. Some here will grow old never coming to that level of self reflection, and will always want everything to operate on their own personal wants and needs at all times. It is unreasonable to expect this of society.
As for Discord that's part of the problem as to the lack of game chat and I'm not a fan of it.
It is a necessary bandaid due to the earlier problem I have brought up. The worse option is much stricter in-game moderation, which this site and others online are against.
 
I'd probably be:
- Flabbergasted at how mainstream my hobby is now, like where are the news stories saying gaming turns you into a murderer? And then realising I'd rather be associated with murderers than most of the popular gaming personalities and their imitators.
- Wondering how the hell Nintendo still hadn't made a Zelda game that looked like the 2000 Spaceworld tech demo.
- Amazed by the graphical quality but disappointed in the sameness of it all, while ironically being comforted that the Steam UI still looks exactly the same.
- Feeling strangely out of place and unwelcome for asking what happened to my hobby, by people with painted hair who hyper-aggressively demand tolerance and inclusivity.
- Realising I grew up in a golden era of creativity in game and hardware development and that sadly, like most things in modern society, it's all going over a cliff.
 
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Graphics and visual artistry would blow my mind. Game design and controls would mostly baffle me at how little they've evolved in comparison.
 
Mind would literally be blown to smithereens.

Born in 75, saw this thing from nearly the start. Modern games are a fucking marvel.
 
Who's they? social media? I don't need to answer, I think most of us got kicked just for having different opinions and not sharing common thoughts. Even if this isn't the case, my younger self will only see differences and argue about it.
 
I'll use child/teenage me as my past self. Young and naive me would be blown away because I'd be young, naive and lacking hindsight.
 
how far back we talking.

child me playing snes/megadrive seeing RDR2 would turn my jeans brown.

me from 10 years ago seeing the generic slop of time wasting "consume, consume, don't think, consume" games would be fairly disappointed (which i am most of the time today with modern titles)
 
Going from PS1, where I wished I could play in a world with thousands of other players in FF, to FFXIV as it is today, would've blown my mind and it would've been everything I wanted it to be.

But overall I'd probably be pleasently surprised. Especially since modern games got rid of most stuff I hated in old games, like random encounters and savepoints. Technological advances (in particular due to internet) would also be amazing.

And maybe my mind would be blown going from Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D to something like Horizon CotM, NMS VR and Pavlov.
 
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Micro-transactions everywhere, NFTs, dozens of PC launchers, Windows riddled with bloatware and spyware, GPU prices through the roof, games as political propaganda, devs and gaming journalists that despise videogames and gamers, stuttering issues with every other game, once great studios pushing out trash games, etc...

Donald Glover Pizza GIF
 
Being able to download games, play online with my friends, have such a sick PC storefront with Steam, incredible graphics, multiple genres, VR headsets, games like Dark Souls existing, emulation of older titles, more games available at such low prices providing me with enough games to last a lifetime...

Yeah I wouldn't have been able to comprehend this in the past.
Going from a brick gameboy to a Steam Deck would be wild.

I could see gaming being a disappointment these days if your childhood years was during the Xbox 360 era, but for me coming from Snes / PS1 it's been such a gigantic leap.
 
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I was born in the early 70's, I remember seeing Space Invaders for the first time and been amazed, So if that 7 year kid could time travel to the now and play red dead 2 and the like i guess my mind would be blown, It would be the biggest WTF moment of all time.
 
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Depends on how young the young self is in question. I'd say all of the above.

Some parts are better, some as expected, and others worse.
 
I once prayed to the moon god that kingdom hearts would get infinite sequels like final fantasy,

I realize now I was actually praying to the monkey paw and got my fuckin wish lol

Edit: besides that though child me is ecstatic with all this new tech!
 
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Early 1990s me - on a sugar high from Pepsi slurpee and Swedish berries, wiping his nose on his sleeve - could see that censorship marms have not only gained control but are shaping major releases before they hit the market. What would surprise me most is that these are people I never expected to take up this cause.

Also, I'd be in awe at the numerous of high-cost failures in the last decade but equally so with the quality and abundance of smaller titles that eschew ideological pandering.
 
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