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[RetroGamingUK]

So the below video popped up on my YouTube feed today and it got me thinking about all the gaming trends that have been and gone.

While we’re, hopefully, living through the end of the live service era (I don’t think it’ll end entirely, but the gold rush is over) I thought it’d be interesting to look at the history of trends like this.

Who started them? Who became successful off the back of them? Who stressed themselves?

These trends don’t die out entirely, they become part of the long term gaming fabric, but there’s been eras where there’s been a lot of bandwagon jumping

I’ll get us started in with a few

FMV games (1992 - 1994)
Started by: Night Trap
Successes: 7th Guest
Failures: Sewer Shark, Tomcat Alley, Critical Path

Fighting games (1992 - 2000)
Started by: Street Fighter II
Successes: Mortal Kombat, Virtua Fighter, Tekken, King of Fighters
Failures: Way of the Warrior, Kasumi Ninja, Clayfighter

MMORPGs (2004 - 2010)
Started by: World of Warcraft
Successes: EverQuest, Eve Online
Failures: Warhammer Online, Star Wars Galaxies

Motion controls (2006 - 2013)
Started by: Wii
Successes: Kinect, Move
Failures: Kinect (Xbox One)

Live service (? -)
Started by: World of Warcraft (?)
Successes: Fortnite, Destiny 2, Apex Legends
Failures: Concord, Redfall, Suicide Squad, Halo Infinite, Anthem

Cloud streaming (2011-)
Started by: On Live
Successes:lol
Not dead yet: PlayStation Plus, XCloud, GeForce Now, Luna
Dead: Stadia, On Live, Gaikai, GameFly, Vortex

 

[Paasei]

Tough choice between gaas and cloud.

 

[Schmendrick]

I think GAAS takes the crown for me. That has literally ruined the generational output of a lot of formerly very high profile studios.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

I think I’d go with GAAS over Cloud gaming

GAAS has done severe damage to this generation.

Game development was already struggling due to COVID and work from home delays. And pretty much every single western publisher jumped on board.

I believe Jim Ryan, who’s initially done a decent job at PlayStation, lost his job over it.

I feel like I’m back to the PS2 days where I’m relying on Japanese developers for good games (thank god they were smart enough just to jump on board).


In comparison cloud gaming was just hype from people who thought the future of games was streaming games on smart TVs and phones. There’s still a future for that (albeit limited). Apart from laughing at Google falling flat on their face with Stadia not much damage was done.

 

[SweetTooth]

Motion control has to be the worst, other ones you can easily find an excellent use or application. Motion control.. fuk noo, never works

 

[The Pleasure]

Everquest and ultima online came out five years before wow

 

[kevboard]

it would be cinematic games. but that's not an option.
so Cloud gaming. as it sucks as anything that isn't a side function to locally available games

 

[tommib]

Cloud streaming is pretty terrible.

 

[LegendOfKage]

Early 2000s brown and grey games. Everything from the land to the buildings to the sky shades of brown and grey.

 

[R6Rider]

Least favorite: GAAS/Live Service
Favorite: VR

 

[March Climber]

I commend you for not adding the easiest option to the poll, but expect people to come into the thread to talk about it as an easy go-to answer.

 

[kevboard]

Motion control has to be the worst, other ones You can easily find an excellent use or application. Motion control.. fuk noo, never works

 

[JimboJones]

Where is the "make every game a souls clone" at?

That's bizarre looking, it's looks like he's trying to read imaginary braille or something

 

[Kadve]

Arena shooters in the late 90s/Early 2000s. They were everywhere...

(edit) actually i'm gonna go against the crowd and say Pong clones. None of the others almost took down the industry with the and im talking about the original 1977 crash here. Not the later one.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Full Motion Video games I don't even want to look at much less put money into.
How many freemium full motion games were made?

 

[Bloobs]

Motion/gyro controls easily. Still hate them.

 

[kevboard]

Motion/gyro controls easily. Still hate them.

skill issue

 

[GnomeChimpsky]

You forgot a few:

• The piss filter
• Sassy female character who takes no crap from nobody
• The main character who won't shut up (Uncharted-style)
• The Epic Gamestore trend
• The hair trends: everyone has an afro, shaved sides, blue hair, or whatever

 

[March Climber]

Motion control has to be the worst, other ones you can easily find an excellent use or application. Motion control.. fuk noo, never works

Motion/gyro controls easily. Still hate them.

Counterpoint: It sucks that controllers have ceased to innovate beyond the right joystick for aiming purposes.

 

[SweetTooth]

With Motion controls, my mind immediately went to Wii, Move controllers and Kinect.. but yeah I guess when you include gyro aiming I can see some useful application for it

 

[kevboard]

With Motion controls, my mind immediately went to Wii, Move controllers and Kinect.. but yeah I guess when you include gyro aiming I can see some useful application for it

also VR... I'd say it's essential there

 

[StreetsofBeige]

RTS gaming probably late 90s/early 2000s

VR/motion controls gaming.... every decade something pops up. Seems to have now cemented itself as something not essential to the gaming market, but now known and stabilized. But in the past you had NES Powerglove, Sega VR goggles, Sega Activator, Virtual Boy, Wii, etc...

 

[Bloobs]

skill issue

Take that back

 

[ap_puff]

where's "sub services/paid online" at?

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Motion control has to be the worst, other ones you can easily find an excellent use or application. Motion control.. fuk noo, never works

God I hated it at the time.

Wii was too early and used crap low-tech, Ninty basically lost me for a generation.

Kinect seemed to cool but again, too soon and mainly dumb party games

Move was good tech but had little to no support.

And oh Christ the E3 conferences for these things! My least nostalgic generation of gaming.

The only good thing to come from it was that Move kinda evolved into the rather impressive VR controls we have today.

Maybe we’ll see a late 2020s nostalgia bump and they’ll get it right next time? The technology is there now.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

where's "sub services/paid online" at?

Thanks for the suggestion, keep em coming.

My OP wasn’t meant to be comprehensive.

 

[MiguelItUp]

Definitely think Live Service/GaaS. I was gonna say Cloud Streaming, but it's not bothering anyone and there ARE people out there that use it because they don't have the system/hardware for it. Live Service/GaaS tropes are just.... so exhausting at this point. Battle passes too.

 

[Bloobs]

God I hated it at the time.

Wii was too early and used crap low-tech, Ninty basically lost me for a generation.

Kinect seemed to cool but again, too soon and mainly dumb party games

Move was good tech but had little to no support.

And oh Christ the E3 conferences for these things! My least nostalgic generation of gaming.

The only good thing to come from it was that Move kinda evolved into the rather impressive VR controls we have today.

Maybe we’ll see a late 2020s nostalgia bump and they’ll get it right next time? The technology is there now.

Ding ding ding

 

[kevboard]

Take that back

with that crappy IR sensor you'll never hit me!

 

[Husky]

I remember there was a period where people were complaining about every game being open world. Some franchises that started out linear even branched out into open world design, sometimes delivering a worse experience as a result.
Metal Gear Solid V had fantastic controls, but I hated that open world, and I thought it weakened the delivery of the story. The Evil Within 2 was at its best during linear story levels. I didn't play Mirror's Edge Catalyst, so I'm not sure if the open world is part of why people didn't enjoy that game. There aren't any other negative examples coming to mind.

I think the worst trend is the overmonetization of games. Microtransactions, including cheap item packs that aren't sold through an in-game store (like Saints Row, most western Square Enix games, or pretty much any Capcom game). The only monetization that I find acceptable are the sale of the full game, and any sizable expansions developed afterward (not throwaway one/two-hour mission packs). Games like The Witcher 3 and Outer Wilds did it right, or games like Days Gone which doesn't have any secondary purchases, just like most games before this terrible trend caught on.

Live services fall under this umbrella. Just hyper-monetized trash.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Ding ding ding

00:23

 

[Raven117]

GaaS. I've been around for every one of those trends, and its GaaS.

Not since the early 80's has a trend been so industry wide and industry threatening.

You know what pulled it out of the gutter? Mario. A game solely focused on great gameplay (for the time). It will be the same again.

We just need to get the development reigns back in the hands of the creatives and the developers. Not focused test. Not corporately mandated quotas. Just nerdy kids making games that they think kick ass.

We do that, we will all be playing great games again.

 

[Dafegamer]

VR didn't take on at all, but GA(A)S was causing some environmental problems in the gaming industry, literally

 

[Hookshot]

GaaS, it makes people constantly feed money in for content that used to be free.

 

[Parazels]

Where is a royal battle?
I can't stand this stupid mode in shooters!

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

I went with Cloud, but only because I feel GAAS has been there for quite a while with games like WoW. The issue is that everyone is trying to make their own GAAS, some succeed, and most fail. But the same can be said of every single game genre. I think for publishers, the upside of developing a game that you can monetize with small iterations over the next 5-10 years is just too much a cash cow for them to ignore.

With Cloud gaming, though, I feel this is just that thing that has been taking off for almost two decades but never has and never really will. It's a fundamentally flawed technology/initiative whose relevance only exists in boardrooms. At least with everything else in that poll we have some success stories. No such thing exists with cloud gaming.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Full Motion Video games I don't even want to look at much less put money into.
How many freemium full motion games were made?

FMV games kinda sucked. But it’s not like you had half the damn gaming industry throwing all their money and talent + years of development time into making what they hoped would be the next big FMV game.

That’s why I picked GaaS. There’s nothing else on that list that hogged so much of the gaming industry’s output for so long.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

With Cloud gaming, though, I feel this is just that thing that has been taking off for almost two decades but never has and never really will. It's a fundamentally flawed technology/initiative whose relevance only exists in boardrooms. At least with everything else in that poll we have some success stories. No such thing exists with cloud gaming.

I mean if you’re technologically illiterate or clueless about the spending habits of people who possess actual brains then it’s like some blue ocean where everyone in the world will switch to playing streaming games via smart TV and smartphones.

For the rest of us, it’s mainly a bit of a cash grab to exploit idiots.

 

[KimDongHwan]

One good thing that came out of all of this GaaS trend chasing for me, it that it moved me to purchase a PC and I have re-discovered my love for gaming through various indie titles plus other games with mods. Also because of my commute I can play Steam Deck for even more indies which also has being great (currently playing Shogun Showdown )

 

[Raven117]

I went with Cloud, but only because I feel GAAS has been there for quite a while with games like WoW.

There is a direct trend line from multiplayer arena shooters to the present day. (Before that, the gaming bust was simply too much trash output).

Make less content, keep people paying to play it. If you can keep them engaged, they will keep paying you money. There are only so many hours in a day man. So much engagement. Unless you are the first company (or at least the top three), that executes on the latest trend that keeps players coming back and paying money (even without alot of content), then you will not win that trend.

The industry feels so lost at the moment.

 

[Wolves hunt in packs]

Add 2011 Dark Souls that made so much games follow, I'm not sure tho it's DS that made the breakthrough, not so much a souls follower, also this might be said for other games like lets say Gears of Wars that many games also followed.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

FMV games kinda sucked. But it’s not like you had half the damn gaming industry throwing all their money and talent + years of development time into making what they hoped would be the next big FMV game.

That’s why I picked GaaS. There’s nothing else on that list that hogged so much of the gaming industry’s output for so long.

In truth, every trend has been like that. Something hits, then the whole industry literally tries their hand at it. Its always happened.

The issue with GAAS trend now, isn't really that it's hogged resources any more than any other trend, it's just a combination of seemingly unrelated circumstances.

First off, games take a stupid long time to make now, most studios are spending 4-6 years making a game now, up from what used to be 18-24 months.

Secondly, thanks to the time, and the quality of assets required in a modern game, in addition to voice actors and all that, game development costs have skyrocketed. I mean, take R&C for instance, on PS2 that game cost ~$3M to make. On PS5? $80M+.

So now, when a publisher or studio attempts to bankroll something, the stakes a significantly higher. And being that most studios can now only manage one game in like 8-10 years, it would seem as if everything has gone to shit.

As crazy as it may seem, the GAAS initiative, was a way to address all these issues.

I mean if you’re technologically illiterate or clueless about the spending habits of people who possess actual brains then it’s like some blue ocean where everyone in the world will switch to playing streaming games via smart TV and smartphones.

For the rest of us, it’s mainly a bit of a cash grab to exploit idiots.

Couldnt have said it better myself, that's why I said an idea that only exists in board rooms.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Who the fuck voted VR

 

[lmimmfn]

What about overused bloom, piss filter? Those were really annoying and make retro gaming annoying for that era.

 

[Holammer]

I'll say early 32-bit 3d graphics. It was a necessary evil so developers would learn and develop techniques for controlling the game, but it was handled in a bad way as Sony & Nintendo strongly discouraged 2d game development. We could have had many timeless classics, but instead we have games with origami graphics requiring medical grade nostalgia to enjoy.

Motion control is a big one, everyone thought Nintendo changed the game with the Wii's success. Plopped out their own motion controls systems before they noticed it was shite.
Now the technology is used for VR where it belongs, so it had a happy ending.

 

[Euler007]

Add "Once upon a killing moon" to FMV games. I think you missed graphical adventures as a genre (King's Quest, Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle).

 

[nkarafo]

Strong woman of color (2015-)

 

[Sub_Level]

The motion shit was the worst. You can pretty much pinpoint exactly when xbox 360 started sucking from when kinect released.

And Sony copied Nintendo with their move controllers lol who actually bought those?

 

[E-Cat]

You forgot a few:

• The piss filter
• Sassy female character who takes no crap from nobody
• The main character who won't shut up (Uncharted-style)
• The Epic Gamestore trend
• The hair trends: everyone has an afro, shaved sides, blue hair, or whatever

Before the piss filter there was the lens flare

 

[Raven117]

You forgot a few:

• The piss filter
• Sassy female character who takes no crap from nobody
• The main character who won't shut up (Uncharted-style)
• The Epic Gamestore trend
• The hair trends: everyone has an afro, shaved sides, blue hair, or whatever

These are just art design choices. Not systemic business practices.