Things are starting to remind me of the last time the games industry went down the pan (i am from home computer generation 1), after the boom of the bbc micro/spectrum/vic20/amiga came a lot of early console stuff and people soon got bored of the game play. All that seemed left were repetitive copies of sonic and mortal combat with a few rare highlight i will admit .
Bit of a gap till the early 386's became affordable and small developers, especially shareware titles started with some new ideas wolfenstein/doom/xwing for new 3d shooters and early decent flight/driving sims. Also a huge variety of adventure/platformers/strategy that drew in a larger audience. New technology evolved (486/pentium) and programmers built on this to establish early classics like quake, C&C, syndicate, monkey island, prince of persia etc.
Then we get PS1 owners wanting to play PC games and the shift to consoles from the PS2 onwards, money to be made and everyone leaps on the bandwagon. But we just do not seem to move forward anymore and seem to be back to dull repetitions of old game models. Small developers lack a real platform for their work, i know Steam and MS have tried so they must see the problem but nothing as independent as the old shareware model and im not sure this would work with today's 'everything for free' download attitude.
Maybe we will go full circle and a cooling market will let some innovation take hold again and we will see some new ideas and quality software emerge again.
I think its notable that the new Elite:Dangerous game had to find a way to avoid publishing houses in order to build the quality game they wanted, finished to a standard they found acceptable without being forced into shortcuts in development or premature game release as they had been previously. By all accounts it is the game players wanted but publishers just do not understand.
Rant over..
Bit of a gap till the early 386's became affordable and small developers, especially shareware titles started with some new ideas wolfenstein/doom/xwing for new 3d shooters and early decent flight/driving sims. Also a huge variety of adventure/platformers/strategy that drew in a larger audience. New technology evolved (486/pentium) and programmers built on this to establish early classics like quake, C&C, syndicate, monkey island, prince of persia etc.
Then we get PS1 owners wanting to play PC games and the shift to consoles from the PS2 onwards, money to be made and everyone leaps on the bandwagon. But we just do not seem to move forward anymore and seem to be back to dull repetitions of old game models. Small developers lack a real platform for their work, i know Steam and MS have tried so they must see the problem but nothing as independent as the old shareware model and im not sure this would work with today's 'everything for free' download attitude.
Maybe we will go full circle and a cooling market will let some innovation take hold again and we will see some new ideas and quality software emerge again.
I think its notable that the new Elite:Dangerous game had to find a way to avoid publishing houses in order to build the quality game they wanted, finished to a standard they found acceptable without being forced into shortcuts in development or premature game release as they had been previously. By all accounts it is the game players wanted but publishers just do not understand.
Rant over..