"This game only voices the main story sections" is a paraphrasing of a hack request thread the other day, the game in question was a mid size developer effort for a lower powered console. Back when I were a lad then a piece of digitised voice outside of silly money audio workstations was practically unheard of, and skipping forward some years the famous blast of "Sega" when you fired up Sonic the Hedgehog was no small feat.
Today even small independent titles, handheld titles and more commonly feature extensive voice acting. Indeed most will only note it on the latest handheld release if it is bad, not that it is there at all, and back of the box features will tend not to gush about their voice acting, or the extent thereof, and only maybe note they have a particular actor involved. In the future text to voice synthesis (already available today with what amounts to minimal training data) will likely mean no voices in a game with characters is a stylistic or throwback choice like making a silent film is in cinema today, and if AI generation of text even vaguely matches pace then it will get even more fun and open world might actually mean something a bit different.

To go another then while many among us have had to explain that you can't pause an online game then fewer will have left a game on while going for dinner, school or overnight and hope power held, busy others in the house didn't mess it up or some other fate would not see your progress lost. Saves are then an expected feature. Some might limit them, only be available in certain locations, or have side effects for saving but still saves are readily available.

Let us not even pause too long considering how the "save icon" is probably just that to a lot of kids and they may never have even seen a floppy disc; around me USB (or SD+SD reader as it was far cheaper) became dominant about 17 years ago, though legacy things saw floppies stick around a few years after that for some.

As we don't want to be too depressing we will not ponder the fate of local co-op (or indeed local multiplayer) beyond this line. Direct neural induction will happen before "traditional" smellovision though.

A framing question for this thread for those that want one then is what features are either expected or ubiquitous today that were not back when, and what do you imagine is high end today that will be common as dirt in the future? What concepts do you expect to vanish? Or if we need to match the style of the title then "You kids don't you are born, back in the day...." and "If this keeps up then we will be seeing ... in every game".

This is part of a series on GBAtemp where we discuss gaming concepts, industry trends and gaming culture. Previously we discussed what would $20 get you in your preferred gaming genre.

Spoiler: earlier editions

games you play by your own rules., the state of VR and 3D and whether they had once more failed to take hold, the last game skill you unlearned, The game you invested the most money in, times where people said gameplay styles would not work for a platform, the value of online play, emulation vs hardware, a favoured game style that might have become less common in recent times, skills one might have learned or honed because of a game, games on the PS4 and Xbone that will stand the test of time, games that got better after launch, cancelled games and shuttered devs, and story canon in games.

 

[RedoLane]

Back in my days, there were some people like me who slowly appreciated a little of every video game genre.
Nowadays that amount of people is slowly, but dramatically decreasing. the pattern repeats itself in other media.
I don't wanna be rude to anyone with different taste, but i was educated to try something, rather than judge it from a distance.
Yes, i tried a few horror games(despite being quite mentally weak with those), I even tried strategy games, despite reeeeeally disliking the genre, but that's better than looking for excuses to run away.
It's hard nowadays, when my nephew sticks to Third-Person Battle Royale games like Fortnite, after i tried to bring him interest over so many interesting games over the years.

Also in my opinion, video game motion experiences will be seen as common as dirt in the future. we got the foundation, and game companies keep improving it to no end.
even controllers got motion(gyro controls, but still counts), so without even thinking about it, a lot of video games will have some sort of motion gimmick that would be universally accessible.
The most hard part about it is acceptance. I want to believe it's gonna happen, but considering there are people who are against motion controls, it's gonna be pretty hard to achieve.

 

[Kubas_inko]

Back in my days, the only game I knew was world of goo and I played throught it like 50 times.

 

[NoNAND]

@FAST6191 tell me, was this inspired by the EOF thread?

 

[anhminh]

Back in my day there is nothing called "backlog" because we only have few game to play for very long long time because that shit ain't cheap. We don't luxury to choose which game we got either, just put whatever chinese bootleg nes cartrige we got on and play. It was fun go in completely blind without knowing what the heck because no one know English either. Chinese seller seem to know this so the bootleg game rarely have any dialog at all. Cheat like Konami code or how to use Shoryuken seem to be knew by everyone but no one know where they learn it from. Either way, game was so hard and no save point so we rarely finish anything anyway.

Nowadays game are way too easy to access that people don't even bother to play what they had buy. The selection are massive so we keep picking and can't decided which to play. And even after pick which seem to be perfect game, you play it for 5 minutes while keep thinking maybe there is better one to play and drop it, never to return. My 10 years old me would keep playing it though because I know there isn't anything better than that. I know a lots of English now but dialog is still a bother to read so unless the story is good, I would prefer to skip it now too. It seem it didn't bother me that much to manual skip dialog when I don't understand it, now I understand it and it bother me that if I had missing something. It weird that I don't mind cheat code back then but modding game now seem ruin the experience for me, maybe because game today are too easy that cheat isn't needed anymore. But then game company come up with micro-transaction and now game are unreasonable hard without cheating with credit card. Even though game are easy now with auto save and everything, I still rarely finish any game either, weird.

 

[FAST6191]

Back in my days, there were some people like me who slowly appreciated a little of every video game genre.
Nowadays that amount of people is slowly, but dramatically decreasing. the pattern repeats itself in other media.
I don't wanna be rude to anyone with different taste, but i was educated to try something, rather than judge it from a distance.
Yes, i tried a few horror games(despite being quite mentally weak with those), I even tried strategy games, despite reeeeeally disliking the genre, but that's better than looking for excuses to run away.
It's hard nowadays, when my nephew sticks to Third-Person Battle Royale games like Fortnite, after i tried to bring him interest over so many interesting games over the years.

Also in my opinion, video game motion experiences will be seen as common as dirt in the future. we got the foundation, and game companies keep improving it to no end.
even controllers got motion(gyro controls, but still counts), so without even thinking about it, a lot of video games will have some sort of motion gimmick that would be universally accessible.
The most hard part about it is acceptance. I want to believe it's gonna happen, but considering there are people who are against motion controls, it's gonna be pretty hard to achieve.

Were there really genres back when? Today what some write off as arcade I would not categorise together -- space invaders, missle command, root beer tapper, toobin', donkey kong, 1942 and pac man are all rather different games.

RTS games... I can't really compare the likes of Dune, Cannon Fodder, Populous and Syndicate to each other, never mind what is the present successor to the likes of Homeworld.

But I will skip the genre is weak concept thing (if nothing else we did it before) as I take your meaning. You see similar discussions with music and sports (though I have seen less attachment to the word sportsfan, indeed I don't know if it has ever been seriously uttered outside of a sitcom). Don't know if I have any particular observations here as far as how rare or common it is -- if I just follow the fads then minecraft begat five nights at freddies begat those survive in a forest games begat undertale begat... and they are all quite different. I am probably supposed to ponder limited play choices (if the average person has 7 friends they might go round another's house to see, each with 10 games for a given system and likely some considerable overlap in those then that is probably fewer games than I have rotting away on a USB thumb drive that I wanted to transfer between machines one day), lack of internet (though magazines were fairly all encompassing) and the general state of gaming at those points in time in this. I suppose I have experienced a bit of pushback on my fondness for puzzle games, which is made doubly amusing when a minigame within a bigger game is a weak implementation of a puzzle game (think hacking minigame or straight up "card game" within a fantasy themed game) and some of the same people note their liking such things.


As for motion controls then something I would like to see. If we are all likely to end up with 7.1 headphones or something in the future then combine that with head tracking. Right now steps behind me I can spin my head a bit for and attribute it to headphones but if it is tracked and mapped accordingly... could be good there.
As for the against motion controls set then I tend to see that more as a function of precision, or the lack of thereof. Stick someone's hand in a glove that can mimic textures, possibly do weight, do resistance and still track motions smaller than those for mice, joypads and controllers today and you are left with people that enjoy the abstraction or don't want simulation all the time (though if you can "generate" a controller then all bets are off). Stick to having to do imprecise waggle motions for minigames and that will not go away any time soon.

@FAST6191 tell me, was this inspired by the EOF thread?

It really was a request in a hacking section that saw a "how times have changed" moment for me. I wrote it down then and decided to spin it up into a thread today.

Back in my days, the only game I knew was world of goo and I played throught it like 50 times.

How high was your tower in free play mode?


Edit

Back in my day there is nothing called "backlog" because we only have few game to play for very long long time because that shit ain't cheap. We don't luxury to choose which game we got either, just put whatever chinese bootleg nes cartrige we got on and play. It was fun go in completely blind without knowing what the heck because no one know English either. Chinese seller seem to know this so the bootleg game rarely have any dialog at all. Cheat like Konami code or how to use Shoryuken seem to be knew by everyone but no one know where they learn it from. Either way, game was so hard and no save point so we rarely finish anything anyway.

Nowadays game are way too easy to access that people don't even bother to play what they had buy. The selection are massive so we keep picking and can't decided which to play. And even after pick which seem to be perfect game, you play it for 5 minutes while keep thinking maybe there is better one to play and drop it, never to return. My 10 years old me would keep playing it though because I know there isn't anything better than that. I know a lots of English now but dialog is still a bother to read so unless the story is good, I would prefer to skip it now too. It seem it didn't bother me that much to manual skip dialog when I don't understand it, now I understand it and it bother me that if I had missing something. It weird that I don't mind cheat code back then but modding game now seem ruin the experience for me, maybe because game today are too easy that cheat isn't needed anymore. But then game company come up with micro-transaction and now game are unreasonable hard without cheating with credit card. Even though game are easy now with auto save and everything, I still rarely finish any game either, weird.

I had a backlog back when. Late 8 bit/early 16 bit era (possibly to the dawn of the PS1) I was buying gym bags full of C64 and whatnot tapes from people that considered them worthless. While I made it through most there are probably still those in my box of things (assuming they still work) which I have not played. My friends with pirated* Amiga games also found themselves somewhat spoiled for choice, not entirely sure whether we saw early versions of pirate syndrome/choice paralysis as there was always Cannon Fodder, Zool, Lemmings, Simulcra or [insert rest of the list of hit Amiga games].

*not a trick statement as I did see a real game or two a few times.

 

[DANTENDO]

Back in my days, the only game I knew was world of goo and I played throught it like 50 times.

Most bizarre comment I've ever read only knowing one game

 

[RedoLane]

Were there really genres back when? Today what some write off as arcade I would not categorise together -- space invaders, missle command, root beer tapper, toobin', donkey kong, 1942 and pac man are all rather different games.

RTS games... I can't really compare the likes of Dune, Cannon Fodder, Populous and Syndicate to each other, never mind what is the present successor to the likes of Homeworld.

But I will skip the genre is weak concept thing (if nothing else we did it before) as I take your meaning. You see similar discussions with music and sports (though I have seen less attachment to the word sportsfan, indeed I don't know if it has ever been seriously uttered outside of a sitcom). Don't know if I have any particular observations here as far as how rare or common it is -- if I just follow the fads then minecraft begat five nights at freddies begat those survive in a forest games begat undertale begat... and they are all quite different. I am probably supposed to ponder limited play choices (if the average person has 7 friends they might go round another's house to see, each with 10 games for a given system and likely some considerable overlap in those then that is probably fewer games than I have rotting away on a USB thumb drive that I wanted to transfer between machines one day), lack of internet (though magazines were fairly all encompassing) and the general state of gaming at those points in time in this. I suppose I have experienced a bit of pushback on my fondness for puzzle games, which is made doubly amusing when a minigame within a bigger game is a weak implementation of a puzzle game (think hacking minigame or straight up "card game" within a fantasy themed game) and some of the same people note their liking such things.

I did not imply anything regarding that "genre is weak concept". I only spoke about the amount of interest people have for them.
And yes, surprise surprise, video game genres were a thing back in my days! (for the record, i was born in the 90s. i'm not that old lol)
Not liking a genre doesn't make it weak, but it's a loss of opportunity. the only exception is if i know that certain person is weak against elements in certain genres(like unrealistic gore), i wouldn't suggest that person to try games that have those.
My problem is that people have no interest on game genres they didn't even try. they focus on the burger, rather than the bun and sauce which covers it.
That's why when game franchises try their dip on other genres, it's making me curious if people would try them just because it has character X or character Y in it, or maybe because it's a multi-genre which doesn't neglect the classic foundation.
Basically what i'm saying is that i see a lot of people who lock themselves on one or two genres, and when a series shifts into another genre, they complain without even giving it a try.
Just recently, the Yakuza series did just that...but that's not a good example, since people who complained, actually played at least a few RPGs in their life.

 

[The Catboy]

Back in my day game devs had finish games before releasing them!

 

[DANTENDO]

Back in my day game devs had finish games before releasing them!

Back in those days games were only few hours long

 

[Silent_Gunner]

Things that used to be standard back in the day that will stay:

*Having some form of progression to reach the end of the game.

Things from back in the day that are disappearing or have disappeared:

*Games being guaranteed to be functional without Day 1 patches at launch unless you get the newly packaged Not-GOTY edition after all of the DLC has been released.

*Local multiplayer support on the same TV. While I understand this isn't always easy, it's disheartening to buy a game that says it's two players, come home, and find out it meant that you need a LAN cable, two of the same system, two copies of said game, or that said multiplayer is online only.

*"Arcade-style" OSTs. Think Castlevania, Contra, Streets of Rage, Sonic, Super Mario, etc.. Nowadays, it seems like every big AAA game has mostly atmospheric music. While this is fine (and even preferable in some cases like with survival-horror games), it also makes me wish I could have music playing in the game that makes me bop my head and look forward to coming to a new area. Bloodstained, being a Not-Castlevania game, did this for me, even if the music itself just didn't quite reach the highs of Castlevania at its best IMO. The Yakuza games also have mostly this high energy OST style as well.

*Here's where it could get...controversial. Being able to go into a game without having wonder if the game has been tampered with. It kind of crosses over with my first point in this category, but this has more to do with trends in developers trying to throw politics into your face when the game in question doesn't really revolve around it. For example, if the RE2Make had some BS about making the police chief a gun-loving monster who says that he's gonna Make Raccoon City Great Again as some sort of subtle jab at conservatives, it would be dumb considering that it's a game who's story is set in 1998 and here you have a police chief that references a slogan that was made 16 years after the fact and would ruin the period piece that the remake was. Outside of some twists and turns, the RE series' plot revolves around characters trying to survive situations caused by corrupt corporations that have had parts in various events in the series. It's never been anything dumb like, "This is why we need to overthrow the burgeouise and let the government do this or that." If anything, if the masterpiece of a game that is Resident Evil 6 is anything to go by, corporations are often in bed with government officials and really, corruption is to blame. In comparison, that's a theme that's more universal and transcends all of the identity political BS that goes around these days. Like, I get that people feel like they're disadvantaged about this or that because they're X and/or Y thing, but just because we get a hypothetical game where we get to play as Marvin Branagh (RIP his role in RE 1.5) surviving the events of RE2 just because "muh diversity" doesn't speak to anybody on any level deeper than the surface. The game came out the way it did in 1998 due to a lot of issues in development and Marvin Branagh being subject to dying first in Leon's scenario (which might not even be technically accurate if you consider LeonB as opposed to Leon [2nd] and that Mike Haggar-look-a-like) had more to do with writing decisions that came about when the devs at Capcom decided to bring a more professional writer to help salvage the mess that, to sum up what Kamiya and Mikami said about RE 1.5, wasn't worth following through to a finished project (laboratory aside, because if you've played the MZD build, it's essentially the same area as in the final game, but with some different layouts, designs, and a couple of extra rooms pertaining to how some people theorize RE1.5 would have played out based on what they pieced together). It's not some conspiracy by some evil white supremacists that they decided to off Marvin the way he did just so you can accuse some game of being whatever -ist/-ism you can try to form something masquerading as an argument.

The fact that I have to do a write-up about the above just goes to show how bad it's got with some games and the content being brought over here. Many have said the player deaths (as in, when you get your face smashed in by Mr. X) looked like they were censored the way they were handled, and hey, it wouldn't surprise me. Some of the deaths in the original Resident Evil 2 may not look like much on the PS1, but can you imagine some of that shit in RE2Make had they not wussed out because Japan, ironically enough, is more sensitive about violence and more steamy content being shown in games not the equivalent of AO nowadays compared to the 80's and 90's? And it's not just Resident Evil. Catherine, with the Full Body remake, from what I understand (this is where I would need some context as I never played the original and traded in my PS4 Slim the other day and some other stuff so I could get the Switch with the drastically longer battery life), a new romantic path was added where a woman who transitions to a man is convinced out of it, some time travel occurs (or something?), and they're still a woman sexually and...genderly. (hey, it's a word on Urban Dictionary, at least!) If the story had ended there, and the game's original vision was left intact for the US localization, that would have been fine with me. After all, if you are against censorship of violence, profanity, and everything else that's already going down a slippery slope to 1984's Ingsoc in America, then you should be all for someone across from the world saying whatever they want, right? (you know, as long as it doesn't incite violence, which I'm pretty confident this game wasn't doing) But then, REEEEEEEEsetERA had to stick their nose into business involving a game they were never gonna buy in the first place. Ultimately, just the wording of some conversations was changed from what I've read that mean the same thing.

I guess I could just ignore all of this and not type out the two paragraphs above. After all, ignorance is bliss, right? Unfortunately, my time is limited these days, and playing video games isn't as high on my priority list as paying off my student loans and then moving out after that so I can finally be truly free in my personal life when I'm not working. Maybe, when I can do that, when I achieve more goals in real life, I might sit down and start playing some more games as opposed to right now. If I can find a reason to not have to buy a game and either save that money here or there, or to do this or that, you better damn well believe I will do that, especially considering how much time I spend at my job every week feeling like I am doing the same thing over and over again.

But, anyways, as for things that will stay from the modern gaming industry, well...

*Microtransactions. Call them surprise mechanics, call it horse armor, call it scamming, at this point, this is something that's here to stay, government legislation by the EU notwithstanding. This and its sibling DLC are going to be around as long as people keep buying season passes that make games cost twice or triple the amount when you bring multiple season passes into the picture. You can complain all you want, but it's not going away anytime soon based on the people I see at retail!

*Services becoming a bigger part of gaming whether we like it or not. If anything, I'm surprised that it took Street Fighter 5 as long as it did to become FTP given how much of both of the above it has. I can just see, in a future where streaming somehow becomes practical where you have multiple fighting game services competing with each other. You have the Street Fighter service, the Guilty Gear service, the Mortal Kombat service, the Tekken service, all being monthly payments you opt into or you don't get to play the newest, constantly updated version of all of these games that have sequel numbers that Halloween and Friday the 13th wishes they had!

 

[FAST6191]

I did not imply anything regarding that "genre is weak concept". I only spoke about the amount of interest people have for them.
And yes, surprise surprise, video game genres were a thing back in my days! (for the record, i was born in the 90s. i'm not that old lol)
Not liking a genre doesn't make it weak, but it's a loss of opportunity. the only exception is if i know that certain person is weak against elements in certain genres(like unrealistic gore), i wouldn't suggest that person to try games that have those.
My problem is that people have no interest on game genres they didn't even try. they focus on the burger, rather than the bun and sauce which covers it.
That's why when game franchises try their dip on other genres, it's making me curious if people would try them just because it has character X or character Y in it, or maybe because it's a multi-genre which doesn't neglect the classic foundation.
Basically what i'm saying is that i see a lot of people who lock themselves on one or two genres, and when a series shifts into another genre, they complain without even giving it a try.

It was more that genre as a concept/word is fairly pointless from where I sit as it pertains to games, which then makes discussions surrounding it tricky. What is Deus Ex? FPS. What is Call of Duty? FPS. What is Portal 2? Probably still FPS as I am still using a gun in a 3d space, having to have good timing and precise movement. What is Vanquish? Actually that might be a third person shooter but really what is the difference between that and some of the more modern COD titles with their fancy movement (other than Vanquish being a solid game that I would play again)? This does not even get into the Japanese and Western (which I would argue breaks down again as the Americans all seem to want to remake Dungeons and Dragons but Europe seems to opt for old school storytelling) RPG thing. Speaking of action games then what on earth is "action-adventure"?
But above that if I must use the word genre and hope it means something then I would happily +1 a statement of "there are no weak genres, only weak games".


Slightly off topic have you met a person that is troubled by unrealistic gore but not by more realistic stuff? Nothing bothers me these days (got over my dislike of skin grafts) but I have met a few that will watch the fountains of blood stuff but skew into more grounded crime or war dramas and they are nowhere to be seen.

As far as genre changes then I see less people bothered by a franchise going into it. The main exception being if the mainline story (that might be expanded upon in a sequel in the established gameplay style) is continued by a radical shift that then leaves people in the lurch. Granted I am not aware of any that did that in recent times -- all those Telltale games tending to be side stories, back stories and retellings of existing stories. Most people didn't care about the Halo RTS other than it being a bad example of the gameplay style (though doing real time strategy with lots of units is hard on a controller), and as its events did not matter for future mainline Halo games then yeah.
I am sure there are some that make a jump for a bit more world building, back story or the like, and I am sure the devs pick it not only for that but to have some worldbuilding already done (I know you are supposed to make games people can play coming in cold but yeah).

All that said I have not particularly seen an epidemic of the kids of today stagnating in one gameplay style. I probably don't move in your circles though, and it is a thing seen in other forms of entertainment.

Edit. Seems I am going to be playing catch up here with comments.

Back in my day game devs had finish games before releasing them!

PC games have been doing the release and patch approach for quite a while, and plenty of them got far between initial release and the eventual gold bundle with all the expansion packs (DLC for our younger viewers). Also the bug fixes, restoration and retranslation sections of any given ROM hacking site will probably be having a good giggle at that one.
That said devs have definitely be abusing the early access or whatever they are calling alpha releases these days, and possibly putting a bit less work into Q&A than they should (coding complexity means I can be slightly more forgiving than a straight 8 levels and few mechanics that radically upset anything NES game, but probably not by as much as seem to go in for).

Things from back in the day that are disappearing or have disappeared:

*"Arcade-style" OSTs. Think Castlevania, Contra, Streets of Rage, Sonic, Super Mario, etc.. Nowadays, it seems like every big AAA game has mostly atmospheric music. While this is fine (and even preferable in some cases like with survival-horror games), it also makes me wish I could have music playing in the game that makes me bop my head and look forward to coming to a new area. Bloodstained, being a Not-Castlevania game, did this for me, even if the music itself just didn't quite reach the highs of Castlevania at its best IMO. The Yakuza games also have mostly this high energy OST style as well.

*Here's where it could get...controversial. Being able to go into a game without having wonder if the game has been tampered with. It kind of crosses over with my first point in this category, but this has more to do with trends in developers trying to throw politics into your face when the game in question doesn't really revolve around it. For example, if the RE2Make had some BS about making the police chief a gun-loving monster who says that he's gonna Make Raccoon City Great Again as some sort of subtle jab at conservatives, it would be dumb considering that it's a game who's story is set in 1998 and here you have a police chief that references a slogan that was made 16 years after the fact and would ruin the period piece that the remake was. Outside of some twists and turns, the RE series' plot revolves around characters trying to survive situations caused by corrupt corporations that have had parts in various events in the series. It's never been anything dumb like, "This is why we need to overthrow the burgeouise and let the government do this or that." If anything, if the masterpiece of a game that is Resident Evil 6 is anything to go by, corporations are often in bed with government officials and really, corruption is to blame. In comparison, that's a theme that's more universal and transcends all of the identity political BS that goes around these days. Like, I get that people feel like they're disadvantaged about this or that because they're X and/or Y thing, but just because we get a hypothetical game where we get to play as Marvin Branagh (RIP his role in RE 1.5) surviving the events of RE2 just because "muh diversity" doesn't speak to anybody on any level deeper than the surface. The game came out the way it did in 1998 due to a lot of issues in development and Marvin Branagh being subject to dying first in Leon's scenario (which might not even be technically accurate if you consider LeonB as opposed to Leon [2nd] and that Mike Haggar-look-a-like) had more to do with writing decisions that came about when the devs at Capcom decided to bring a more professional writer to help salvage the mess that, to sum up what Kamiya and Mikami said about RE 1.5, wasn't worth following through to a finished project (laboratory aside, because if you've played the MZD build, it's essentially the same area as in the final game, but with some different layouts, designs, and a couple of extra rooms pertaining to how some people theorize RE1.5 would have played out based on what they pieced together). It's not some conspiracy by some evil white supremacists that they decided to off Marvin the way he did just so you can accuse some game of being whatever -ist/-ism you can try to form something masquerading as an argument.

The fact that I have to do a write-up about the above just goes to show how bad it's got with some games and the content being brought over here. Many have said the player deaths (as in, when you get your face smashed in by Mr. X) looked like they were censored the way they were handled, and hey, it wouldn't surprise me. Some of the deaths in the original Resident Evil 2 may not look like much on the PS1, but can you imagine some of that shit in RE2Make had they not wussed out because Japan, ironically enough, is more sensitive about violence and more steamy content being shown in games not the equivalent of AO nowadays compared to the 80's and 90's? And it's not just Resident Evil. Catherine, with the Full Body remake, from what I understand (this is where I would need some context as I never played the original and traded in my PS4 Slim the other day and some other stuff so I could get the Switch with the drastically longer battery life), a new romantic path was added where a woman who transitions to a man is convinced out of it, some time travel occurs (or something?), and they're still a woman sexually and...genderly. (hey, it's a word on Urban Dictionary, at least!) If the story had ended there, and the game's original vision was left intact for the US localization, that would have been fine with me. After all, if you are against censorship of violence, profanity, and everything else that's already going down a slippery slope to 1984's Ingsoc in America, then you should be all for someone across from the world saying whatever they want, right? (you know, as long as it doesn't incite violence, which I'm pretty confident this game wasn't doing) But then, REEEEEEEEsetERA had to stick their nose into business involving a game they were never gonna buy in the first place. Ultimately, just the wording of some conversations was changed from what I've read that mean the same thing.

I guess I could just ignore all of this and not type out the two paragraphs above. After all, ignorance is bliss, right? Unfortunately, my time is limited these days, and playing video games isn't as high on my priority list as paying off my student loans and then moving out after that so I can finally be truly free in my personal life when I'm not working. Maybe, when I can do that, when I achieve more goals in real life, I might sit down and start playing some more games as opposed to right now. If I can find a reason to not have to buy a game and either save that money here or there, or to do this or that, you better damn well believe I will do that, especially considering how much time I spend at my job every week feeling like I am doing the same thing over and over again.

But, anyways, as for things that will stay from the modern gaming industry, well...

*Microtransactions. Call them surprise mechanics, call it horse armor, call it scamming, at this point, this is something that's here to stay, government legislation by the EU notwithstanding. This and its sibling DLC are going to be around as long as people keep buying season passes that make games cost twice or triple the amount when you bring multiple season passes into the picture. You can complain all you want, but it's not going away anytime soon based on the people I see at retail!

*Services becoming a bigger part of gaming whether we like it or not. If anything, I'm surprised that it took Street Fighter 5 as long as it did to become FTP given how much of both of the above it has. I can just see, in a future where streaming somehow becomes practical where you have multiple fighting game services competing with each other. You have the Street Fighter service, the Guilty Gear service, the Mortal Kombat service, the Tekken service, all being monthly payments you opt into or you don't get to play the newest, constantly updated version of all of these games that have sequel numbers that Halloween and Friday the 13th wishes they had!

On soundtracks. Personally I am thankful the placeholder music that seems to be troubling films these days has not reared its head. As far as orchestral tracks vs nice easily whistled tunes from days of old then as nice as the orchestral stuff is I don't necessarily disagree and could stand to hear more.

The original Resident Evil 2 chief was implied as being none too nice a guy in the original version I played (the line I remember being whatever "happened" was dismissed as the only evidence was circumstantial*) way back when but I would have to see the change and any greater context that might be afforded before making a call there. That said I have seen plenty of examples of what you speak so you might just have picked a harder to sell example. Being a pedant I should also note that the slogan was actually the 1980 Reagan slogan too. Whether the example needed to be updated is a different matter. Someone will probably realise before long that the whiners don't buy the games, they just whine on easy to reach places of the internet. I am quite enjoying the fans vs "professional" review score fun and games of late though -- I thought the American vs European split was fun (Alpha Protocol is a good example of that concept) but this even better. I can only hope the sorts of things that gave us Rambo film reviews explode when the new COD finally hits (they seem to be laying the groundwork nicely) as that will be hilarious.

*I am not inclined to read too much into Resident Evil writing (see your post for a bit more there) but this was one of those optional text pickups. Context being a lower ranking officer was suspicious about the chief and I think it was umbrella (who possibly stocked the pond with their own fish -- nice to have a fall guy already in place and all that) who then sent back a dossier on the chief being involved/accused of something heinous as a younger guy but the case being dropped due to it all being circumstantial. While I expect that out of a long form crime drama it is possibly more credit than I care to give old school Resident Evil 2 though.

As far as microtransactions then I don't see them as all that different to coin operated arcades. I already mentioned DLC and expansion packs, though I would certainly agree things take the piss somewhat (I play a nice fully leaded copy of Battlefield 4, mainly as it was cheap to begin with and we got the DLC for free at later points, however the numbers of maps in that I would have expected to see in the base game -- compare to the PS1 through late PS2 era stuff and what you got there, sure some where not as tightly tuned but it is but one reason I still look to Perfect Dark for inspiration or reference as to what things can be).

On services then while such things paint a somewhat bleak future that will probably be wash pushes modding and open source to the fore. Or if you prefer then despite all the paid streaming services today they probably all still look at youtube and think "ooh" (and despite now being forced to use bookmarks basically all the time I still do very well there for myself).

 

[Jiehfeng]

I'm not sure what I was reading in the OP, like the voice acting part, are you saying people should be happy voice acting exists in the game if at all, never mind if it is good or not?

With all the improvements and features that have been brought to gaming, I think it should be expected that whatever is good will be either prevalent in games or improved upon. Whatever was better before should be brought back yes (like completing a game, which is mentioned here multiple times already), but what is better now should be expected to also be brought back again and again until improvement comes. Quality is everything.

 

[Alexander1970]

Back in my Days

- a Game had the size of ~32 KB
- a Game was played for months
- a Game game had no bugs (except the self-programmed ones.... )
- a Game did not need updates
- you were looking forward to a Loading Screen ... because you "knew" it was about to start
- a Game of four with a single joystick was entertaining and fun

Thank you.

 

[FAST6191]

I'm not sure what I was reading in the OP, like the voice acting part, are you saying people should be happy voice acting exists in the game if at all, never mind if it is good or not?

With all the improvements and features that have been brought to gaming, I think it should be expected that whatever is good will be either prevalent in games or improved upon. Whatever was better before should be brought back yes (like completing a game, which is mentioned here multiple times already), but what is better now should be expected to also be brought back again and again until improvement comes. Quality is everything.

Someone made a thread in a hacking section asking for voice acting to be expanded to rest of the game (only the main story was voiced it seems). I then thought back to when I was not an old man and digitised voice was only something you would expect to see in ridiculously expensive studio equipment, and even when it finally did start creeping into games it was rather minor and even then rather extravagant. To have arrived a point today where a lowly mid tier console game, or even a handheld, might be expected to have full voice acting like it is no big thing to my mind marked a massive shift in just how much has changed in a relatively short amount of time -- Sonic the Hedgehog was 1991 and Jurassic Park was 1993 (might as well be the same day for all it matters). A film today compares reasonably to the former (though nowadays someone could possibly recreate Jurassic Park with a indy film or even low budget film budget), music and books of the era even more so but games are quite radically different.
This difference and the casualness of the request, which from a technical perspective was not misplaced like many such requests (though if we can't generate voices then it is a bit of a bigger ask), made me pause. Or if you prefer we have seen ROM hacks bring people together to voice act a GBA game -- see Golden Sun Voice acting experiment) and what the line was trying to say is nobody particularly notes the existence of voice acting in a game unless it is a failure (classic successes are ignored, failures are not thing) or famous person doing it (or even better failing at it).

As far as completing games then I have pondered this before (most recently I imagine in discussions about scores and reviews). I usually consider most such endings rather arbitrary (even more so as by default I tweak games to be more to my liking) and as such unnecessary. My usual examples being I never finished Crysis' story as I kept falling through the level on the final boss, so didn't and watched a video instead (did I finish the game? I had done it all before then). For Skyrim I explored most of the map and had possibly 80 hours into it, but never did the story mission to make it to the point where I earn a single shout... what goes here? If I did the story in a GTA game and did not mess around did I have anything like a normal experience here?

 

[Jiehfeng]

Someone made a thread in a hacking section asking for voice acting to be expanded to rest of the game (only the main story was voiced it seems). I then thought back to when I was not an old man and digitised voice was only something you would expect to see in ridiculously expensive studio equipment, and even when it finally did start creeping into games it was rather minor and even then rather extravagant. To have arrived a point today where a lowly mid tier console game, or even a handheld, might be expected to have full voice acting like it is no big thing to my mind marked a massive shift in just how much has changed in a relatively short amount of time -- Sonic the Hedgehog was 1991 and Jurassic Park was 1993 (might as well be the same day for all it matters). A film today compares reasonably to the former (though nowadays someone could possibly recreate Jurassic Park with a indy film or even low budget film budget), music and books of the era even more so but games are quite radically different.
This difference and the casualness of the request, which from a technical perspective was not misplaced like many such requests (though if we can't generate voices then it is a bit of a bigger ask), made me pause. Or if you prefer we have seen ROM hacks bring people together to voice act a GBA game -- see Golden Sun Voice acting experiment) and what the line was trying to say is nobody particularly notes the existence of voice acting in a game unless it is a failure (classic successes are ignored, failures are not thing) or famous person doing it (or even better failing at it).

As far as completing games then I have pondered this before (most recently I imagine in discussions about scores and reviews). I usually consider most such endings rather arbitrary (even more so as by default I tweak games to be more to my liking) and as such unnecessary. My usual examples being I never finished Crysis' story as I kept falling through the level on the final boss, so didn't and watched a video instead (did I finish the game? I had done it all before then). For Skyrim I explored most of the map and had possibly 80 hours into it, but never did the story mission to make it to the point where I earn a single shout... what goes here? If I did the story in a GTA game and did not mess around did I have anything like a normal experience here?

Well when it comes to a handheld game, asking for complete voice acting's only two issues is the amount of voices to be recorded, and the filesize. It's definitely doable, and these days not a big thing to ask compared to what people complain about most of the time.

To say nobody at all notes the existence of voice acting in a game unless it is a failure is wrong though, you just haven't seen it yet I assume. When Ace Attorney 5 came out, it brought voice acting and cutscenes with it, and it was very much noted by almost everyone and was commended, same way with the Professor Layton games. These are just examples that quickly came to mind.

 

[gamesquest1]

back in my day we had mysteries and rumours spun out of the most obscure things in a game, such as the text on the star statue in mario 64, or a random badly translated bit of text calling something by the wrong name leading to rumours of that ever elusive secret level with stupid "complete the game 63 times within 2 hours 22 minutes to reach it" rumours that for some reason as a kid i would say most of us kinda fell for at one point or another, even if we said, that's BS, then sneakily tried to achieve just for the sake of it once we got home

now most games "mysteries" are either gleaned from engineered mysteries purposefully put into a game for the sole purpose of being a "mystery" or a troll to wind people up, or from people hacking the game contents and finding unused maps/textures, but as a result of the second scenario many "mysteries" are buried before you can even finish saying "hmmm what's through that door i cant reach"....plus with the internet even if you don't have the ability to hack your game for no clip mods or flying cheats you will almost certainly find a youtube video quickly putting your curiosity to bed virtually on the day of release for pretty much any game released

I guess i just think its kinda sad kids won't have those kinds of experiences of mystery outside of the purposefully crafted and engineered mysteries designed to be rolled out slowly in updates

so I guess I'm complaining that we now have answers to those stupid dumb questions/theories we would have back before the internet / reliable info was so easy to access

 

[dekuleon]

Back in my day, expasion packs released 1 year after the original game and they came with a new campaign that was totally worth buying.
I grew up playing PC Games, since I was little, 3 years old, in 1995.

 

[Subtle Demise]

Back in those days games were only few hours long

That's not an excuse. There were also far far less people involved with much more linited technology and turnaround times were a few months to a year max. Nowadays half the work is already done on the programming side of things and there are hundreds of people working on it for well over 5 years and they still never actually reach a "finished" state, even after release.

 

[Dr.Hacknik]

Back in my days, I grew up on PS1 and N64 games, then transitioned to my first console (for myself) which was a Wii. Which I played the shit out of, and even introduced me to my first online experience/s. I usually played story based games, or some Sonic game; as I was and still am a big Sonic fan at heart.

My best and most precious memories of my childhood pertain from the Wii. Both Wii and GameCube games alike.
If I were to put an hour amount of how much I have spent on my Wii over the course of 12yrs, I'd say roughly 6-8k hrs.
That includes two different Wii's, as my initial experience was on a family members for a while, then I had my own in 2010.