Support NeoGAF

[simpatico]

The year is 2005

Half Life Episode 1 just released. Doom 3 is still blowing minds and working over GPUs. We got F.E.A.R. release hype. Final Fantasy XII releases next year and the PlayStation 3 is packed to the gills with exotic silicon you can't get anywhere else and a cutting edge optical disc format 10x-ing its predecessor. Far Cry just gave us a glimpse of what the future of FPS games could look like and Crysis trailers are being called out as CGI "there's no way it's possible". KOTOR was making us all wish for an addition to the Star Wars trilogy. Imaging how great that would be.

It seemed the talent dispenser was bursting at the seams in every tech company's HR office. You could point to a dozen studios with visionary men at the helm and the money to make it happen. The hardware side of things was also in a state of rambunctious growth. DirectX 9 was in full stride and 10 was on the horizon with golden bloom spilling all over. PC gaming was about to undergo a period of great simplification and price reduction with cards like the HD4750 and the 260 GTX and Intel and AMD were trading blows with the Core 2 and Phenom II showdown. Nintendo was crafting the GameBoy Advance and the avalanche of content and childhoods behind it was immense.

Today I look around and there are plenty of things you can point at, but I think the one that chills me the most is the people. Where are the people? We're dusting off the semi-retired veterans from the era I mentioned above and trying to wring more classics out of them, but where is the next generation? In that snapshot we had iD, Valve, Crytek, UbiPrime, BioWare, Epic, Remedy, Capcom, good EA and dozens more. Sadly this creator drought doesn't seem limited to video games, the movie and TV industry is in a very similar quality desert of disappointing sequels, painful reboots and C-tier super hero moonshots. Even cars are going down a very uncertain path as all these huge companies seem to be crumbling at the same time, and not for lack of customers. The exciting products and value propositions just aren't there.

What is happening to society that is preventing these savants from getting their ideas to the masses? Are they out there but unable us? Or has something happened to prevent them from developing?

 

[Danny Dudekisser]

It's complicated, man.

But you're right. It was a better time.

 

[jshackles]

What is happening to society that is preventing these savants from getting their ideas to the masses? Are they out there but unable us? Or has something happened to prevent them from developing?

Not "society", per se, but corporations have become seemingly extremely risk-averse. Nobody wants to put together a team in the AAA space that makes a game that may or may not have a good return on their investment. For every Expedition 33, there are probably 10+ Concords that will never see the light of day because they've been scrapped after failing market testing or failed focus groups.

As for young talent (even in the TV / Movies / Car spaces), companies again want to put well known and well established creators in charge because there is far less risk involved. Would people still buy a game called Death Stranding where you deliver packages if Kojima didn't have is name all over the box? (hint: probably not). These companies want as close to a guarantee of success as they're able to get, and putting the "up and coming" talent front and center won't do that.

Twenty years ago, like you described, it wasn't like this.

 

[Durin]

1995-2005 was a special time, and I don't want to diminish the people that were at the helm (political shit didn't matter to cause noise/distraction)...but it was also a time when there was so much fundamental innovation inevitably happening because 3d graphics started with big hardware improvements each gen.

Anyone with some vision and persistence, could do something new because no conventions existed yet. New genres could form, older genres could be reinterpreted using 3d space to blow your mind again, and graphics had a goal in the distance of what to be. Nowadays, hardware has hit bottlenecks where we're seeing smaller improvements, physical limits are hitting transistor counts on the same boards with heat dissipation as an issue, AI is still in its infancy as tech that could maybe help, and graphics last gen at the AAA level already looked pretty damn realistic.

Older talent had BASIC things they could think up or interpret from other media to just throw in a game. Many of those basic ideas have been done to death, so it gets harder to impress people. People also put up with shittier controls, worse camera systems, worse voice acting, etc back then....while newer games people expect all of that to be better + innovate something. New talent does have its own unique challenges, in addition to limitations that come with higher budgets + political bs.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Plus Cars and phones looked better

 

[Player Respawn]

I miss it

 

[Danjin44]

 

[Werewolf Jones]

KoToR II came out in October 2004 and wipes the floor with KotoR but otherwise yeah.

 

[nial]

I miss when we all agreed that 2005 sucked.

 

[adamsapple]

OP makes a thread about 2005 and doesn't mention Resident Evil 4.

 

[I collect VHS tapes]

Everything pre 2009 shits on post 2009

 

[Grildon Tundy]

Those savant, pioneering, entrepreneurs are still out there. Many of them are making indie games.

Others have their influence being snuffed out by corporate committee decision making.

Some still sneak through. Like whatever was in the water at the offices of Clair Obscur's devs.

And Warhorse Studios made a (mostly) uncompromised vision of their AAA Western RPG with Kingdom Come Deliverance 2.

 

[Radical_3d]

The year is 2005

Half Life Episode 1 just released. Doom 3 is still blowing minds and working over GPUs. We got F.E.A.R. release hype. Final Fantasy XII releases next year and the PlayStation 3 is packed to the gills with exotic silicon you can't get anywhere else and a cutting edge optical disc format 10x-ing its predecessor. Far Cry just gave us a glimpse of what the future of FPS games could look like and Crysis trailers are being called out as CGI "there's no way it's possible". KOTOR was making us all wish for an addition to the Star Wars trilogy. Imaging how great that would be.

It seemed the talent dispenser was bursting at the seams in every tech company's HR office. You could point to a dozen studios with visionary men at the helm and the money to make it happen. The hardware side of things was also in a state of rambunctious growth. DirectX 9 was in full stride and 10 was on the horizon with golden bloom spilling all over. PC gaming was about to undergo a period of great simplification and price reduction with cards like the HD4750 and the 260 GTX and Intel and AMD were trading blows with the Core 2 and Phenom II showdown. Nintendo was crafting the GameBoy Advance and the avalanche of content and childhoods behind it was immense.

And the 360 hype. The UE3 demos. Omg.

 

[Judge Magister]

Final Fantasy XII releases next year

I Can't Wait

 

[Crayon]

If there was a time where things were better in any way, it was specifically computer games on the 90's and 2000's. There were a lot more complex games that at the same time were less turorialized.

Otherwise, things have changed and there are now games designed to sell tens of millions. That level of production did not exist back in the day. In 2005 it was already starting to change. The AAA games of today are not for hardcore enthusiasts and they need to stop feeling so entitled to think those games should be catered to them.

Your games are still coming out and they are successful selling 1-5 million. Sorry, they don't have the best graphics like they used to. Your 1200 dollar computer will go to waste. Big cry. Suck it up and go play some real games. There's just as many coming out and they're cheaper, even.

I just built a reasonable deal on a PC on the better side and I'm not thrilled with results only because I play so few games that even benefit much over my PS5. I've played a fuckton of games in my life and you can miss me with the vast majority of AAA games that ran any meaningfully better that my previous, 800 dollar machine. A first world problem who's impact depends on your means.

If you have a problem with the AAA's and mtx, just... find something else. There's plenty.

 

[ResilientBanana]

Publishers want high returns. Fans want better graphics and bigger games.

 

[simpatico]

1995-2005 was a special time, and I don't want to diminish the people that were at the helm (political shit didn't matter to cause noise/distraction)...but it was also a time when there was so much fundamental innovation inevitably happening because 3d graphics started with big hardware improvements each gen.

Anyone with some vision and persistence, could do something new because no conventions existed yet. New genres could form, older genres could be reinterpreted using 3d space to blow your mind again, and graphics had a goal in the distance of what to be. Nowadays, hardware has hit bottlenecks where we're seeing smaller improvements, physical limits are hitting transistor counts on the same boards with heat dissipation as an issue, AI is still in its infancy as tech that could maybe help, and graphics last gen at the AAA level already looked pretty damn realistic.

Older talent had BASIC things they could think up or interpret from other media to just throw in a game. Many of those basic ideas have been done to death, so it gets harder to impress people. People also put up with shittier controls, worse camera systems, worse voice acting, etc back then....while newer games people expect all of that to be better + innovate something. New talent does have its own unique challenges, in addition to limitations that come with higher budgets + political bs.

Indie space is a definite outpost for creatives. I wonder if Dave Syzmanski or the Selaco guy would have been scooped up and been given eye watering budgets in another era. Road to Vostok is made by one guy and the v2 demo is in the running for most hours spent on a game this summer for me. If those guys can make a living doing what they do it's understandable they don't want to run the obstacle course of HR and office culture. As we've seen it has cost some more than their job. I'm just surprised a company hasn't been spry enough to shift gears and build a culture that will incubate the right kind of people. Now it's not an exaggeration to say most big game companies spend millions to incubate the culture that is costing them solvency.

 

[VAVA Mk2]

Plus Cars and phones looked better

The first iPhone didn't launch until June 2007.

 

[Durin]

Indie space is a definite outpost for creatives. I wonder if Dave Syzmanski or the Selaco guy would have been scooped up and been given eye watering budgets in another era. Road to Vostok is made by one guy and the v2 demo is in the running for most hours spent on a game this summer for me. If those guys can make a living doing what they do it's understandable they don't want to run the obstacle course of HR and office culture. As we've seen it has cost some more than their job. I'm just surprised a company hasn't been spry enough to shift gears and build a culture that will incubate the right kind of people. Now it's not an exaggeration to say most big game companies spend millions to incubate the culture that is costing them solvency.

Yeah, you kind brought up two other issues for me. The first is that while indies are definitely the outposts of creativity, they're often not attached to larger publishers that would give them attention the way other studios got back in the 90s and 2000s when less games were being made. They have to somehow market well on social media to build awareness, which not every great creative is going to be good at marketing too.

Then you have the issue of larger publishers that have increasingly not cared about fostering talent, much less retaining it as we see studios go through a churn cycle where at the end of production they let a good amount of people go, and then ramp up again when they enter full production for the next game. Throw in that larger budgets have publishers pressure devs to include more monetization strategies that have to be baked into the design, or waste their resources to build (networked cash shops suck up programmer time).

Some creators also don't scale well with big budgets. I don't think having a larger budget helped Glen Schofield (Dead Space creator) be more successful with The Callisto Protocol.

 

[ShirAhava]

2005 might be my least fav year gaming year of the 2000s never thought that year was good

I remember hating most of the popular games that year (which was a first)

F.E.A.R, Burnout Revenge and Battlefront II were the only exceptions

Matrix and 50 cent games were like real life memes they were fun to laugh at

My friend rushing to my place after buying Shadow the Hedgehog for $60 in tears was pretty fucking funny tho

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

I was getting so much pussy in 2005...

 

[A.Romero]

There are new creators out there but they are not making the kind of games we usually like.

We are not the most desirable market segment anymore.

 

[IAmRei]

Because, in 2006, HD era begins, which started graphic focuse cinematic era begins. In which started to push devs to chase broader market. The industry seen growth, but at what cost?

In 2006 up to 2014 we still got some of good games.

Anyway, thats on the mainstream games. As in the back stages, still filled with unique games. Some video still thrived, but people tends to overlooked them.

 

[Onironauta]

GB Advance came out years earlier, NDS and PSP were already a thing in 2005

 

[Windle Poons]

Nostalgia is a wonderful drug.

 

[JimmyRustler]

Today I look around and there are plenty of things you can point at, but I think the one that chills me the most is the people. Where are the people?

Many people don't want to hear it but...

The smartphone did irreparable damage in many regards. Boredom was... good. It forced people to gather and come up with shit. Many of the folks that created legendary entertainment would be basement dwellers post 2025.