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[Scatty]

Originally Posted by Tracker

you'll be literally forced to pay monthly subscription fees to some repititive and uninteresting team-oriented games where you need to pay for every small feature.

Why? There are old games. There are so many of them. And they are lots of fun. There are Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate II, Total Annihilation - Kingdoms, Gothic 1 etc. There are even more, great older Ms-Dos games.
Who needs those new games? I don't.

[Eagle of Fire]

God. Arete's link is the best fucking gaming article I've read in about 15 years.

What can you say after reading that? It really sums everything up very nicely.

Much to my despair.

Edit:

Who needs those new games? I don't.

Except that almost all those games you just mentioned end up being "new games" for me?

[Dave]

I'm disappointed by many new games, however there are still interesting titles around which I enjoy to play, there are also some Indie developers that have my full respect, I really admire them.

why are we here?

Well, my reason is because I wanted to play some old games I loved (and still love) again, but this doesn't necessarily means that I have to cut off all the new ones.

Of course, I think the "Massive Industrial" side and the run for the sales are ruining the gaming world, at least the creative part of it.

[Retronator]

That article is fantastic. The first image about sums it up for me. Actually, 4 years ago I've already seen the same image somewhere else.

At the time I was working as a game reviewer and I was browsing through the latest issue of our magazine (Joker, Slovenian gaming mag). It was in 2007 after the Games Convention and we had a big report of upcoming games shown in Leipzig that year.

I was disappointed. Gun, gun, army, battle, gun. It was the same as the image from the article - I was staring down a gun sight in every fucking screenshot. I was getting tired of the industry year after year. So I went ahead and showed what's happening to games. I grouped all the upcoming games from that report by theme - focusing on whether gameplay is on the destructive (FPS, RTS) or the creative side (think SimCity).

Firearms   Other weapons (FRP, fighting)
Sport      Racing
Arcade     Puzzle (thinking, adventures, etc)
Creative

And now I'll show you exactly why we're here. Because 4 years ago, I went to Abandonia to use it as an example, of what old-school gamers like us desire today. I took the top 100 games (by popularity) and again counted how many fall in which category.



I think the results speak for themselves. We're here, because what the industry is offering is way off of what we (perhaps a tiny, dieing segment of gamers) actually want.

I loved me a good shooter back in the days, but what I hate about today is that we're forcefed a shooter after shooter after shooter (with a new year of EA Sports games and Need for Speeds as a side dish). Fuck that.

[Eagle of Fire]

I like how you didn't take the generalized genres into account but went with other descriptions like "creative" or "sport" instead.

Because, let's face it, the big gun companies did destroy the meaning of a lot of those genres and generalized it into what they wanted them to.

Branding Diablo II as a RPG or Red Alert as a strategy game rings to mind...

[Scatty]

Originally Posted by Eagle of Fire

Edit:
Except that almost all those games you just mentioned end up being "new games" for me?

Let's see...
Neverwinter Nights - around 2002
Baldur's Gate II - 1999
Total Annihilation - Kingdoms - 1999
Gothic 1 - 2001
Unreal (the very first) - 1998

By today that would be old games
Also in my personal opinion Baldur's Gate II is better than Neverwinter Nights in terms of game fun, while Neverwinter Nights already goes on the trend of better graphics.
I still remember those and many others appearing in gaming magazines back then. It should be said that there are also still good games made today even, like The Witcher, Assassin's Creed and Fallout 3. But those are few among the many unimaginative ones in the style of EA games or the (recently going bankrupt) Jowood.

[Pex]

When I saw the topic title I thought it was one of those deep discussions about existance and meaning of life. Well, I was close enough

Lot's of fine arguments already mentioned and good old 'to each his own' can be applied again. So, I'll answer the question:

I'm here because I loved playing video games since my first C=64 back in early eighties and I found so many great games on this site that I loved at some stage but lost due to different circumstances, plus many more that I never got a chance to play (even while groving up in the country where pirate games were advertised in newspapers ). I post in this forum because there are so many members that share the same passion for the old games and I had many great discussions regarding different games.

Saying that, I still like so many new games, too. For example, once I finish checking this site and a few others I regurally do once I come home from work and have a dinner, I'm going to play Disciples III till bed time.

[marko river]

Originally Posted by Pex

even while groving up in the country where pirate games were advertised in newspapers .

Wow, what country is that? Does it still exist?

I hate old games, I'm here strictly for reviews and PoEs so I can satisfy my animal need of dominance which I can't do in real life because I suck big time
Aaaand old games are in general more creative and fun than the most of new ones. But there are still visionaries out there that need our interest to survive... That's hope. And I was thrilled to see game like Portal. They actually created new kind of logical game thanks to new technologies. Like it couldn't be done before. Like they didn't use new technology for another improved copy of something. Yeah, it's one among million, but that just means we should tell others about those rare new games that are actually good.

Originally Posted by Scatty

Let's see...
Neverwinter Nights - around 2002
Baldur's Gate II - 1999
Total Annihilation - Kingdoms - 1999
Gothic 1 - 2001
Unreal (the very first) - 1998

By today that would be old games

Well, you might wanna check the newest Call of Duty... in 10 years, I mean, it will be old then :P
I agree that games after 1995 can be considered "new", but still you named a good titles.
And Unreal 1998 is NOT the very first. It is the first in FPS series. Hail to the VERY FIRST.

[dosraider]

Originally Posted by Wicky

why are we here?

Good question.
Let me put it this way:
If I had a harem filled with warm tender willingly gorgeous woman, I certainly wouldn't be here posting this.

And I'm pretty sure a lot of so called 'regulars' think the same.

[arete]

Originally Posted by Eagle of Fire

Arete's link is the best fucking gaming article I've read in about 15 years.

What can I say?

Also, I started singing "Always look on the bright side of life", Lulu, and the whistling will not lightly leave my head. Grawr!