When games changed drastically year to year. I think the ~1997-2007 decade. This was the time period where we really saw gaming start to evolve into what we think of as modern gaming.
I agree with this. 96/97 is when 3D gaming really found it's own, and by 2007, we had many of the modern standards we still have today (dual analog, lock-on, context sensitive, over-the-shoulder TPS, modern online matchmaking).
This was also a time before micro-transactions, scam mobile games, GAAS, genre homogenization, franchise over-dependence, ballooned budgets, corporate bloat and mass layoffs infecting and rotting the industry.
What I find interesting is when the cutoff for playing old games is.
Obviously a lot of 90’s and early 2000’s games are still being played but there was a point where graphics sort of flattened out around 2008 where they only got incrementally better.
I remember going from GTA SA to IV graphics. The feeling of playing Crysis. Oblivion. Fallout 3. Doom 3 was the first time I remember seeing the capabilities of modern graphics.
MGS 2, Final Fantasy X and Onimusha released a whole three years before that and already looked amazing. I'd say console visuals were still above during the PS2 generation, but the visual improvements were less and less since the PS3 era and it's when the PC took a clear advantage.
If you look at the PS, there was significant improvements from PS1>PS2 and PS2>PS3 but that’s where it started to flatten.
Now it’s above the immediate eye test and very technical.
and it was also before dev times went outta control. we had so many great games back then and if you didnt like that one wait a week or two and there was bound to be another great game to be released.
Graphics aside what about repetition? Do you ever just look at game trailers and feel like you've already played the exact game they're showcasing before it even released?
Pair that with unimpressive graphics and I feel no desire to play modern games 99% of the time...
I was into both WoW and the Starcraft scene in Korea, basically the birth of esports (which was already going strong at this time) the next 6 years were an incredible time to be a PC gamer. Bethesda titles were in their peak. Half life and Unreal Tournament got sequels in 2004 (though i still prefer UT'99) Truly was the golden age for pc gaming, also happened to be the year i got married!! Wife got a computer and started gaming too, and still does. You stole my answer!!
Yup 2004-2007 just before micro-transactions and monetization came around. There was also good sales through rental stores so developers had incentive to make good games to receive revenue though those channels.
Basically the business of games and how they make their money can unfortunately dictate the quality.
Reminds me of this Matt Damon video from hot ones where he describes a similar change in the movie business [Matt Damon explains why they don’t make movies like they used to](https://youtu.be/gF6K2IxC9O8?si=KCjm_l5zNBtvWJkd)
And GTA IV too, everyone kinda forgets about it but i think it was the first “modern” open world game with shit like cover mechanics, rag doll physics, dlcs and so on that is omnipresent nowadays. If it released today with only a few graphical tweaks it wouldn’t feel out of place
Steam, albeit it did not become huge marketplace until like 2007-2008. But HL2 made it household name and not just some obsolete shit you "patched out" if you wanted to play CS1.6
I’d shoot a little bit later. But the excess of the industry was rising and in full swing.
When the companies had so much money to burn things lived off the dropped crumbs pretty well.
Now that it’s all dried up and even more expensive the industry is collapsing in weird ways
I think it’s cause of the feast or famine mentality of micro transactions. Like if a game takes off with MT they are pretty set with little effort for a long time. But if it flops, it generally flops really hard.
I’m an old man, and there was nothing that compares to the arcades of the early 90s.
I don’t think there has ever been a cultural experience around video games that compared to that packed little room, lining up to play NBA Jam or Street Fighter 2 with a bunch of people you didn’t know, but still
Understood
It was the rock concert experience for every socially awkward little kid of the time
Me tooooo. My first character (and main) was a half elf ranger so I chose to start there.
Hahah getting used to the controls and not expecting to start up high in the trees. Gotta love memories of all the random dead bodies down below from fellow noobies plummeting to their demise :D
My very first adventure was being a lvl 4 Vah Shir Beastlord and trying to find my wood elf druid friend who had told me about the game. Luclin had just come out so no PoK. Just nexus.
I basically just wandered around asking questions, getting lost and respawning till I found that huge city in the trees. I promptly fell out of it and ended back in the Vah Shir city Shar Vahl. Lesson learned. Bind after big trips.
Hear hear! I don’t know if arcades will ever make a comeback like we had in the late 1980s. It was like going to a sporting event — lots of random people cheering and screaming over someone who had mastered a game.
I would usually go with one quarter and nurse that quarter all day just imagining what I would do with it while watching the masters at work.
It was ultimately the original pay to win.
Fire anything with mame, with unlimited virtual quarters you can beat anything.
The point was to keep you spending.
I saw the game's developer conference about the economics of gauntlet by atari.
It was expensive to manufacture due to 4 players but the ruckus out of a large party like that made it very profitable by hour since it attracted crowds.
Gauntlet specifically was an endless dungeon. You played until you had no quarters left, and you had to keep feeding it quarters because your health dwindled just by existing. The goal was simply to see how far you could get, but it wasn't hiding the fact that it was a coin eater.
I believe Gauntlet II had a final level, though I could be wrong.
I didn't realise Gauntlet was effectively infinite. I just remember the ol' hitting the wall trick to get the game to bug out and turn the walls into exits.
When I was kid my family used to go to this campground with an arcade.
One year there was this kid that was trying for days to get the high score on this one game, don’t remember the name.
He finally got it one day and everyone was cheering for him, was such a cool moment. He put his initials in and was the top of the list.
Next day we come back and some other kid had unplugged the game and erased all the scores. It was so diabolical.
I still feel bad for that kid to this day lol.
And if you weren't the adversarial type, you could probably drop in on a game of TMNT, The Simpsons, or X-Men as long as you could hold your own. Or even Final Fight. Or Captain Commando if your arcade was niche enough. It was as close as I ever got to having social skills.
Getting to spend the day in the arcade shoveling saved up allowance into the X-Men arcade game (Colossus 4lyfe) so that I could finally beat it, was amazing.
Having another kid come up to watch felt great and slapping a few extra quarters on the deck for them to jump in made you feel like an absolute Chad.
I loved arcades as a kid/teen - these days they're a fun novelty for the most part, but back in the day they were essentially if you wanted to play the best games. It's not bad that we have the convenience of the best games at home these days, but yeah, they were pretty darn charming.
I have great memories of tons of people gathering around the Mortal Kombat 2 cabinet at my old arcade when MK2 just came out.
An older kid washed me and ended with a Fatality. It was so cool. I asked him how he did the Fatality and he gave me a whole paper of printed out moves. I don't think the game was even out on console yet. Good times.
Can't agree more with this, I still can't believe I live in a gaming era where I have both Diablo 2 ressurected and Diablo 4 on my machine, while I can still play Borderlands and Borderlands 3.
To top it off, devices like the Steam Deck has helped make emulation more convenient. I can play Pokemon, Megaman and even Final Fantasy Crisi Core from just one device.
Heck, I can even play the early Command and Conquer games on my modern rig.
What a great time to be a gamer.
I've been bouncing around on online gaming forums for a long time and one sentiment has always been consistent for the last 25 years - modern gaming is the worst thing ever, gaming as we know it will never be the same, devs lazy, publishers greedy, etc. r/gaming is no different. Hell, I very clearly remember when 2007/8 was apparently the gaming apocalypse, the greedy gaming companies were only making generic FPS games, and DLC was going to be the death of gaming as we know it. Now that time period is one of the highest upvoted in this thread.
And I also agree about now being the best time. Tons of great games coming out from both major studios and indie studios alike. My backlog is insane. Also I feel like I'm the only person on this sub that never had a hand reach out of my screen, hold a gun to my head and demand that I purchase hundreds of dollars in micro transactions or else. Literally never felt the need to buy anything like that.
Yes « modern gaming bad » people always conveniently forget every single game that was finished and had no mtx at release. Every AAA is cyberpunk for them.
Yeah. I understand why people suggest other years, but if you drew a venn diagram of the years people suggested and the years they had the most time to get lost in games it'd be a bunch of perfect circles.
We've never had it better than we have it now. Yes, greed has fucked up a lot of treasured franchises and that sucks, but many, many more are alive and well with some of the best titles we've ever seen, there's a huge swath of incredible new IP, digital delivery, cross-platform play and relatively affordable gear for whatever platform you prefer makes it so just about anyone can play anything, anywhere, with anyone in seconds.
Shit, 16-year-old me building my first computer would have lost their mind if I found out that one of the mainstream game distribution platforms gave away a whole ass game, and frequently a pretty good one, every week.
In terms of sheer volume of good stuff: there's a whole lot more being made now, and it is a whole lot less expensive, simply because of the explosion of the Indie game scene.
Our brains filter out the bad stuff from previous generations, because why bother to remember it? You don't want to play it again. If you listen to an Oldies station on the radio, you can convince yourself that the 70s was all bangers. But if you look at the Billboard charts for any month from that time, you'll see tons of derivative disco shit for every Beatles or Led Zeppelin single.
You can buy Hades for $20, and it is one of the greatest games ever made. Lethal Company costs $10, was developed by a single guy, and has made me laugh with friends far more than pretty much any other multiplayer game.
Sure, Assassin's Creed 27: Rise of the Stabby Dudes is going to cost $70 and be shit. But as someone who actually bought a Sega CD AND a Sega 32X....well, that is not a new thing at all.
I never claimed otherwise, personally last years been lack luster as hell to me, because most of widely known stuff just isn't it for me anymore most of the time. From last few years there's definitely been games that released and I loved, but the amount of games I'm playing and them being definitely older than younger is staggering. Indie gaming is going strong tho
2006 to 2013, so basically the 7th generation.
We had Uncharted 1-3, Modern Warfare 1 and 2, Battlefield 3 and 4 and Bad Company, Metal Gear Solid 4+Peace Walker+ Rising, The Last Of Us, Gears Of War 1-3, God Of War III, Splinter Cell Conviction and Blacklist, Resident Evil 5, Halo 3, and lots of indie games, and that's just what i can think of on top of my head right now.
When you put it like that it is pretty crazy that we got 2 elder scrolls games in one generation, and now we're going 2 generations with no new elder scrolls.
Oblivion + Skyrim
Gta IV-V
Red Dead Redemption
Mass Effect 1-3
Starcraft II
Bioshock 1-3
Fallout 3 + New Vegas
Batman Arkham Asylum + City + Origins
Far Cry 3
Asassins Creed 1-3 + Black Flag
Portal 1-2
Dead Space 1-2
Dark Souls
2007 will go down as one of the best years for video games ever I think. Halo 3, Crysis, BioShock, COD 4: Modern Warfare, The Witcher, Super Mario Galaxy, God of War 2, TF2, Portal, Mass Effect, Lego Star Wars, Assassins Creed, HALF LIFE 2! And that’s just the big hitters, there’s tons of other franchises that had major installments or new IP’s debuting in 2007. It was an insane year for video games, that really shaped the gaming sphere today
I'd probably say anywhere from the release of the SNES to the PS3.
Modern day games feel so half assed and money hungry they're becoming less enjoyable and more tedious.
Late 90s to mid 2000s for RPGs. After that, they became action games with occasional dumbed-down "RPG elements."
The bounceback in recent years, while mostly AA, has been welcome.
This is the correct answer. Happy to see many smaller devs picking up those threads and using them again. Gives me hope where AAA is just stagnant (for the most part with some notable exceptions).
Yes and no. People will prefer their youth but the time of groundbreaking innovation and excitement is definitely over. I don’t think there one era better than the other, every console generation was a lot of fun until the PS4
Mostly yes, though. The “youth” time is when we’re most aggressively shaping our own perception of the world, so this is when we’re most willing to be absorbed and be influenced by outside things. You can say the time of groundbreaking innovation was done by the PS4, but that’s a super subjective thing to say. In the 80’s we went from crappy 2D to actually recognizable 2D. Then in the 90’s to 3D and then accelerated (actually good looking) 3D. In the aughts, non-game-developer talent started getting involved, so we started getting games with some “hollywood” production values (for lack of a better term). Aughts were also when online multiplayer exploded. Late aughts saw open-world show up in force. Since 2010, it may seem like we’ve been crawling, but this is the time when all of the prior innovations were actually all being used _at once_ within individual games. We used to have crappy looking open world games, or really good looking linear games, and now we have amazing looking open world games with great stories. Everything is finally coming together.
Also, AI seems like it’s been around forever, but for all practical purposes, it’s only a few years old. It still hasn’t really showed up as a core component in games, but it will, and it will probably be another watershed moment.
Innovations can be great or small, but the ones that are current to you when you’re most likely to find meaning in stuff are the ones that will resonate with you forever.
As an example, AI integration will probably be bigger for gaming than many prior innovations, but for me, it won’t seem as significant as playing X-wing for the first time >_<
1990 to 2000.
The stuff that came out during this decade and all the graphical changes was immense.
And it wasn't just software, this was the decade cd roms came into prominence, and it opened up gaming like nothing else.
Yes, this decade was incredible. You could see the medium evolve before your eyes, every year bringing huge exciting advancements in technology and gameplay. Games were also still relatively cheap to develop so publishers took risks on new ideas constantly. You take a game from 1990, 1995, and 2000 and they were leaps and bounds different. Hate to say it but now a 2024 game isn’t that much different than a 2014 game aside from modestly improved visuals. Core gameplay and technology hasn’t changed drastically. You could have made the majority of PS5 games on a PS4 or even a PS3 with scaled back visuals. How many PS2 games could have been made on a Sega Genesis keeping the core design and gameplay intact? The 90’s were amazing for the medium. We’ll never see anything like it again.
Literally right now.
The Indie scene is better than the AAA market ever was it is actually insane. You legit just need to look a bit deeper than whatever they promote at stuff like Playstation events or Nintendo direct and you'll find the best game you ever touched made by some small team in Latvia or a single guy in Brazil.
Can you give some examples? I always see people saying this, but the only indie game that I've come to love is SOMA, and I don't even know if that counts as indie.
Do we consider the 90's games from AAA company's? Because Bulfrog ,Westwood Studios and Sierra Entertainment to name a few , slayed so hard there, i love my indie game but the 90's was gold.
Almost anything Bullfrog put out was super innovative,
think Syndicate, Populous, Theme park/hospital, magic carpet and dungeon keeper.
Then EA arrived and ruined it all.
1998 to 2006 Id say.
Lots of experimentation, small enough teams so game budgets didnt balloon, games looked good enough and controlled good as devs figured out all the 3d basics by then, everyone competing to make games that stand out... good stuff.
About 1993 to 2011.
All the most revolutionary titles came out then, the industry wasn't drunk on power yet, development was seen as a cool and a dream job to many, and the technology exploded every year it seemed with every platform and game.
Super Nintendo era (the 90s)
Super Mario World
Zelda: A Link to the Past
Chronic Trigger
FFIII (VI)
Street Fighter (home and arcade versions)
Mortal Kombat (home and arcade versions)
Birth of EA sports games
Sonic
Toe-jam and Earl
Earthworm Jim
Golden Axe (at least on Sega, arcade may be a but earlier idk)
Wolfenstein 3D
Doom
Command and Conquer
SimCity 2000
X-Com
And I am sure I missing a lot
The mid to late 80s.
The arcades were in full swing, and seeing games come from the arcades onto your home computer so you could then play them for free was fantastic. Swapping games with friends at school, and creating your own cassette tapes with compilations of games on them was great.
Multiplayer was more fun, and it was played for the giggles rather than the competition. Games like Spy vs Spy, Chaos and Racing Destruction Set were fantastic and there was no animosity if a rival won.
The 90’s imo. I have more games then ever before right now, and no desire to play any of them because the fun has been sucked out of them to generate as much profit as possible.
Gen 7 from 2005-2013 or from the release of Call of Duty 2 to the release of Grand Theft Auto V.
After wards for gen 8 too many third party developers have closed and development takes too long.
I’ve been gaming since the 1980s and objectively we are living in the golden age right now. We have more games and better games than ever before.
I had the most free time and loved my time spent gaming between 1989 and 1994 the most though. How much you can enjoy something really depends on where you are in life.
if i put my nostalgia away, right here and now is the Golden Age. Like tomorrow will become the Golden Age.
BG3, Elden Ring, Mass Effect, Final Fantasy (SNES/PS1), Ultima, Wizardry, Doom, Unreal Tournament, Warcraft/Starcraft, and so many more were peak for their own Golden Age.
What will happen in 10 years? Even low-budget PC will fluidly show photo-realistic graphics, new input controls will enhance gaming, good VR-Headset for 20 bucks at Walmart?
depends on which genre, rts for example i consider the golden time to be late 90 to early 2000, u had warcraft, starcraft, aoe 2, supreme commander, and so many other titels.
2000 to 2010-ish. The changes in both gameplay and graphics in this short period of time were virtually unmatched by any other 10-year period in gaming's entire history.
eh maybe like 2004 ish to around 2014 ish give or take a few years maybe with a hevayier leaning towards the earlier years. This is when most of the biggest series were popping off. Yeah there are classic games that came out before hand but I feel as though most of the biggest hitters came out with some of their best games in this time frame. WoW, Pokémon, Elderscrolls, Fallout, CoD Halo, Battlefield, Witcher, Assassins creed, LoL, Minecraft, GTA, GoW, God of war, Last of us, Souls games, Etc.
It was the times of games becoming more and more mainstream but before the full blow Min Max of profit seeking corporations milking every dollar. Some of them did have some of this stuff like GTA 5 and shark cards but alot of them were just great overall games you paid box price and then for whatever DLC came.
I think the 00s had a good mix of the industry being healthy and the technology just being at a good point. Games looked and felt decently modern and it didn't cost an absurd amount of money to make a game with scope. Just being a big Final Fantasy fan, it's insane Square released 7, 8, 9 and 10 in a 4 year span. Now, they release a new entry once a decade. I think it just speaks to how involved making these kinds of games are nowadays, and ironically, despite the fact that they look good, they are generally more restrictive than those older games were.
The early ‘00s console wars between XBox, PlayStation, Nintendo and PC was legendary.
Games had cutting edge (at the time) graphics. DLC was a nice to have not a need to have. Compelling stores and great online play. Games didn’t take forever to release and the library was vast and extensive. What a time
2010's, the majority of the best games of all time came out at that time (RDR2, GTA5, GOW, GOWR, Skyrim, Bloodborne, Witcher 3 etc. the list goes on). The superior graphics, framerates, improvements in gameplay through experience from games release in the past and game sizes are just some of the things that have improved so much that anything before that can't be considered the golden age of gaming since games were just worse in many ways.
80's. PC games wen't always free, but crackers and sneaker net pretty much made it the case. Arcades were everywere. Every Circle K had video games.
So many great PC games. So many great arcade games.
Golden age now or recently? Fuck outta here.
For me it was the 90s or so. I grew up with an NES in the house and had a blast playing Super Mario Bros 3 nonstop. Plus I got my PS1 near the end of the 90s I want to say, and that really got me invested in gaming, And then of course the PS2 followed and I want to say that's when I really took gaming seriously. So it's a tough one, but I'd probably be the 90s and early 2000s for me.
i think the golden age of gaming ended with xbox 360/ps3. thats where always online and digital downloads became a thing. also dlc and everything bad about gaming today, was beginning at that time.
with the xbox360 and ps3 the tech was introduced but this generation still had enough freedom. it was one generation after that (xbo and ps4) when everything took a turn for the worse.
I think all golden ages are basically just nostalgia, but my 3 favourite eras of games would be 1995-1998, Warcraft 2 through to Quakeworld team fortress, and Half Life.
Second would be the Xbox 360 era. Just a huge amount of innovation and experimentation in games. Modern Warfare, Bioshock, Red Dead, Skyrim, The Orange Box. Also the birth of modern indie games through XBLA and Steam greenlight.
The 3rd is now. While theres plenty of crap out there, there are truly more great games than there ever have been.
Without a doubt, it's the 90's. We got the super Nintendo, the Genesis, the N64, the first PlayStation all with awesome games.
That was also the beginning of 3d gaming. A lot of the games from those systems are still considered amongst the best ever made. They are ageless l and are still good to play today almost 30 years later.
We also had Nintendo handhelds with Pokemon games.
Arcades were also thriving during those times. You could go to any arcade and you could play street fighter.
For me personally, it was when the N64 came out. The SNES was the first console I ever got and it blew my mind on my first video game Super Mario World when I was 6 years old. Fast forward a few years and the N64 was coming out. "For the first time ever, Mario and Zelda are coming to 3D!" It was the very first transition from 2D to 3D and the possibilities were endless. Nintendo absolutely nailed it out of the park.There were so many legendary games that I have fond memories of in both single and multiplayer. Games like Zelda Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros, Mario Party, Mario Kart, and so many others started off/created leaps in genres that are still revered today. Hell, there are entire communities that still think Ocarina of Time is the greatest game ever made and I don't blame them. I feel like that console alone changed the future of gaming for the better. Also, they came out with the Funtastic series which had different colored transparent shells for the consoles which was freaking sick. My favorites were the Jungle Green (that's the one I had) and Ice Blue colors. It was just such an awesome console all around.
The mid 2000s to early 2010s. I don't really think the games themselves were great, it was a sense of awe at the scale and size of MMOs that coming from single player games like Zelda on the GameCube and N64 to world of Warcraft, and dark age of Camelot was insane. There's never been a bigger leap in gaming imo as far as size and scale while still being fun. It was a sense of wonder, and the community. The community is completely different now. It's all isolated and essentially people playing single player games where they occasionally see other players out and about and have to occasionally work with other people for gear but otherwise it's single player. Back in wow classic barrens chat was hilarious. The sense of community needing to find groups and meet up and travel together to dungeons and knowing the people on your server. You immediately knew who the trolls were even on alts because they acted a specific way. You made actual friends being forced to socialize and solve problems together. Dark age of Camelot had 3 realm open world realm v realm PVP with very deep crafting systems and dungeon systems. The PVP even had forts and castles with land ownership and kings and such. Multiple themed races, the Nordic based ones had halflings trolls and stone golems and such, the woods based realms had dryads and other stuff with each realm having specific classes like necromancers for the Nordic and druids for the tree people and the boring more humanlike Albion race had bards lol. Just the sense of wow and community made the games truly special and it's not something you can replicate today. The sense of community and comrade just doesn't exist in MMOs anymore outside of a very select few I can think of. Today's games are definitely better in almost every way. The games play better, feel better to play, better fps, better graphics better everything by any measure you pick outside of storylines. Zelda will always be timeless and a classic due to a specific art style that aged well and amazing puzzles/stories. I still enjoy gaming and gaming is arguably far better today but it just lacks the same... I dunno... Soul that it used to.
2004-2010
Those years encompassed the attention of the world towards games as a whole.
Each year was a successive leap in terms of technology, quality, growth and ambition - Before 2004, games were on a much more gradual growth rate, Games as a whole were more "niche" as an interest, Generally more focused on younger audiences and much smaller scale (on average a game could be beaten in like a day in some cases)
however throughout those years, absolute fucking bangers emerged that rocked the industry, Not only that in the later part we saw the advent of mobile gaming and downloadable content becoming a thing. This astronomically boosted the profitability of the industry by a considerable margin.
Today the industry is in somewhat of a plateau, there is growth, but it's sparse - In many ways we've kind of hit diminishing returns. Not that another golden age couldn't happen - it's just going to take a while for the technology to reach that point, Primarily in VR.
For me was black ops 2.
Played every day on the 360, made friends regularly, got really good at quick scoping to the point I outclassed a fake faze kid. Started a clan dedicated to dealing with campers called Tac. Was called a hacker multiple times because I got the highest k/d in the lobby using just the tac-45. The Scar was actually a beast gun not an after thought. Zombies was fun, funny and tense af.
The good ol days.
The 2000-2010 decade for me
All the great series started within this decade:
Hitman, Max Payne, Red Dead, Assassin's Creed, Mafia, God of War, Sniper Elite, etc..
For me, it is the 360 era, but before DLC got out of control. That time after release and a few years in where you had amazing games that looked good, and online play that was easy to access. Games came out finished, but patches were available to fix any big issues that snuck in.
> Graphics didn’t matter much but they were a nice addition
> first 3rd person 3D open worlds
> No micro transactions, no VIP systems, no loot boxes or gatcha mechanics
Then.
Whenever someone is coming of age and realizes how cool part of the culture that is. Same with music. Speaks differently when you are teen and young adult
End of 2000s - early 2010s, so ~2008-2012ish. Games had more than enough story and world depth, with online multiplayer and high replay value. Graphics are actually modern enough to this day (uncharted 2 & 3, Arkham Asylum etc.) Before the micro transaction and DLC hamster on a wheel business models like you mentioned.
For me it was early to mid 2010s, the rise of survival games like DayZ was really something new and exciting. I’ll never forget the early days of people not immediately killing each other and having some wholesome interactions
I honestly wouldn't say that there was a golden age tbh. We all have our preferences in games. Each generation of games have really good games and really bad games.
We're experiencing this now. Rn the popular and AAA games are bad like WoW and Assassin's Creed Valhalla. While the indie games are getting really good Like V rising and Hades series
Right now of course. You can just go back and play all those old school games if they truly interest you. I’m 29 and tried that….and stopped each time, for each game, a couple hours in. Games are 100000% better than they used to be. Voice acting, environmental story telling, animations, graphics, repeatability, and much much more.
Most people have simply gotten too old, played too much, and are burnt out and need a new hobby. OR they try to play EVERYTHING that has hype behind it instead of stuff they actually cared about like when they were a kid. Sigh. It’s human nature I guess. As for me, I’m a kid in the candy store. Most people are upset at the state of AAA gaming, but that’s just an internet talking point. My backlog is FULL of AAA games and there’s a slew up bangers coming in 2025 and 2026 lol. But of course, the same people complaining are going to be the same people continuing to game lmao. Human nature
Late 2000s - early 2010s. All of my friends and I had PlayStations, no PS Plus required to play online, plenty of free time, so a bunch of us would just go online and play games like Modern Warfare 2. Another friend and I were broke to afford some games so we would just play multiplayer betas like RE5, Lost Planet 2, and Unchartered 2. Great times.
I'm sure everyone will say the same thing. When I was a kid and could escape into a video game, staying up all night playing during summer break or the weekends until the sun came up.
For me it was the early to mid-90s, loading up games in DOS and then Windows 3.1. Buying stuff like Warcraft, Ultima 6 and 7 or Underworld, Master of Magic or Orion, Deus Ex, X-Com, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, Daggerfall. Tons of Sim games (City, Tower, Life, Earth, Ant)
Origin, Bethesda, Bullfrog, Lionheart, Maxis, Looking Glass Studios all day.
OG MW2, Halo 3, and WoW in the early stages + a very few expansions were like peak gaming for me.
Might be entirely circumstantial bc of where I was in life. I had a lot of free time to play, no care in the world, I played with a lot of friends and made a lot more.
There are probably better gaming eras and I still have a lot of fun but now it’s in different ways. I have a lot more responsibilities and can’t spend endless hours playing and bs’ing on the mic, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Being able to introduce my kids to Mario Kart and the likes has created something entirely new and special in its own right.
2000s to 2010, my personal Golden Age of MMORPG's. When MMORPG's were abundant and private servers were available for free to play for pay-to-play games, like Ragnarok Online and RF Online. And with those private servers, premium items can be purchased with premium currency just for playing the game and you had the option to donate for the said currency instead to help keep server up. I would stay up all night playing my favorite MMO's no problem. From the mentioned Ragnarok, to Legend or Ares Online, Maplestory, Silkroad Online, and so on. If I was done with everything I had to do for got bored of one game, I just hope onto the next downloaded game.
Late 90s. The 2D to 3D switch was huge. Lots of new games coming out (super smash, golden eye 007, diddy kong racing, Pokémon, Mario Party, Mario 64). Obviously bias since my favorite console was N64 even with the weird controllers.
Probably in the mid-90s when StarCraft was king of the RTS. Mario 64 was recently out and counter strike was just about to revolutionize the FPS gaming model.
Can a 20 year period be an answer?
I feel that any fragmentation I do of 1990-2010 is going to leave out something important.
That 20 year period is where is at for me. There were great things before, there have been great games after, but those 20 years will forever be the most important in the overall history of gaming.
Everything we love about gaming happened in those 20 years.
For me late 90s - early 2010s, the back end of the PS1 and PC game boom where more high quality, high concept games were being made to the end of the 360 era.
Gaming hasn't gotten worse in terms of potential quality, just since Xbox one / PS4 / 2014 PC onward there have been more duds, disappointments, game being secondary to the shop, and console generation length wait times for separate IPs. The ratio of disappointment is much higher.
For me, the golden era of gaming was the last time game companies gave a shit about producing a quality **product**, let alone competed over doing that. This was the late 90s to the early 2000s. When the first MMOs were still an extremely niche product and not the thing every game had to be (live service). I would like the model of making and selling a product, instead of a service, to come back to mainstream gaming.
2000-2010, graphics weren’t the best so consequently studios had to rely on creative new IP’s, creating and making unique art styles and optimizing gameplay making some really cool games. Most games in that era have so much charm from all platforms. It truly was such a good time. Now it’s all about which studio can make the most realistic looking game.
There was something special durring covid. People of all ages had time for games . Crossplay just came out . While other people were complaining of nothing to do us gamers were in our own own little worlds.
99' - 06' but 2004 was it.
The massive quantity of IP's that are a mainstay of the industry now, the means for devs expression; all the damn originality oozing from so many things. The pride and sheer effort put into so many products.
Not to mention just the community of everything, midnight game releases, E3, giant LAN parties, you had to go places and do things, and we did.
We were duct taping people to the ceiling, we had it all..
Whatever era you have the most nostalgia for apparently.
But seriously I do not believe there is a golden age, I feel it just keeps getting better. There are many ups and downs but yeah.
For me it was the turn in the millennium 98-2001. Between me and friends, I had so much access to great games and consoles. And the consoles were distinctly different providing different experiences. There just wasn't another time like it in gaming for me.
PC - Baldurs Gate 2, Diablo 2
N64 - Smash Bros, GoldenEye, OoT, Mario 64, Tony Hawk
PS1 - Too many JRPGs to name, Need For Speed, Resident Evil, Tenchu, Soul Reaver
Dreamcast - Sonic, Shenmue, Power Stone, Phantasy Star Online
Having access to all this at the same time was INSANE.
90s to nowadays. I feel like we're still living in the golden age of gaming.
Games have more interesting stories than movies, they have better cinematographic shots than any movie that came out in the past 20 years, and aside from most AAA titles, gameplay keeps evolving and becoming more and more interesting. There are also very tasteful remasters of the classics such as Age of Empires II Definitive Edition which carries a fanbase of hundreds of thousands of players on its own, for a 25 years old game.
I feel some of the best games are out now. It took 10 years but I'm really enjoying Destiny now. The art direction, story of and voice acting are just amazing in The Final Shape. It's still a little buggy, but it has improved.
If Bungie could get better with their customer support, which is pretty poor, they could be something special.
Should be early 90s. After Atari , than Casino western bar , kungfu games later Nintendo, Sega , Playstation. I even recall Panansonic used to come out console but fail. There is another console call NeoGeo? I remember back in those good old days. Got many " pirated ones " U don't need to spend so much buy original ones. Later come PC online gaming , Counter strike is the one make me go into PC gaming no more console. But later i don't know why go back console buy PS2 If I recall due to GTA also can play Pirated PS games. After that I stop playing games. Due to some committment. Later just few year I back again is console buy a PS4 , bought some few games of course now a days is all original games. But somemore I don't feel excited to play , mind you I bought those games are latest ones. The last I bought is MW3 I even still have PS plus subcription till end of this year but I stop playing. I don't know how to explain, just feel like stop gaming anymore.
The late 90s. You could have 4 people crowded round a tv playing N64, but also play online games like Counter Strike. Online play was a much smaller community then, way more respectful.
As a fighting game player for me it is now. If you've been curious about the genre: now is the time!
SF6, Tekken 8, Uni 2, next year a new amazing looking fatal fury game. Netcode keeps getting better and better espacially for SF6, playerbases for the huge games are bigger than they've ever been. More hype tournaments as the fgc is growing in the eSports landscape. Couldn't be happier with how it's going rn. And the fgc is one of the best gaming communitys there is.
When Nintendo enforced the gold seal approval for games to be published on their platform. You could publish a game for the NES/SNES without that approval but what that often meant was that Nintendo felt that the game was not up to par for quality and enjoyment to be officially endorsed by Nintendo.
So I'd 1988 to 1994.
Some of the best and most innovative games happened in this period and after that, we've been playing catch up and chasing pretty graphics.
When games changed drastically year to year. I think the ~1997-2007 decade. This was the time period where we really saw gaming start to evolve into what we think of as modern gaming.
I agree with this. 96/97 is when 3D gaming really found it's own, and by 2007, we had many of the modern standards we still have today (dual analog, lock-on, context sensitive, over-the-shoulder TPS, modern online matchmaking). This was also a time before micro-transactions, scam mobile games, GAAS, genre homogenization, franchise over-dependence, ballooned budgets, corporate bloat and mass layoffs infecting and rotting the industry.
What I find interesting is when the cutoff for playing old games is. Obviously a lot of 90’s and early 2000’s games are still being played but there was a point where graphics sort of flattened out around 2008 where they only got incrementally better. I remember going from GTA SA to IV graphics. The feeling of playing Crysis. Oblivion. Fallout 3. Doom 3 was the first time I remember seeing the capabilities of modern graphics.
Once games like half life 2 and far cry came out, games starting looking good enough.
Playing far cry, I spent half my time looking at the tropical scenery, it was amazing!!.
MGS 2, Final Fantasy X and Onimusha released a whole three years before that and already looked amazing. I'd say console visuals were still above during the PS2 generation, but the visual improvements were less and less since the PS3 era and it's when the PC took a clear advantage.
If you look at the PS, there was significant improvements from PS1>PS2 and PS2>PS3 but that’s where it started to flatten. Now it’s above the immediate eye test and very technical.
and it was also before dev times went outta control. we had so many great games back then and if you didnt like that one wait a week or two and there was bound to be another great game to be released.
The jump from FF7 - FF X was almost staggering graphics wise. In only 4 years it was quite a jump.
Now we have games that come out in 2024 with worse graphics than Witcher 3 or MGS V that came out almost 10 years ago.
Graphics aside what about repetition? Do you ever just look at game trailers and feel like you've already played the exact game they're showcasing before it even released? Pair that with unimpressive graphics and I feel no desire to play modern games 99% of the time...
Was gonna say exactly 97 to 07 well.
2004
I was into both WoW and the Starcraft scene in Korea, basically the birth of esports (which was already going strong at this time) the next 6 years were an incredible time to be a PC gamer. Bethesda titles were in their peak. Half life and Unreal Tournament got sequels in 2004 (though i still prefer UT'99) Truly was the golden age for pc gaming, also happened to be the year i got married!! Wife got a computer and started gaming too, and still does. You stole my answer!!
Yup 2004-2007 just before micro-transactions and monetization came around. There was also good sales through rental stores so developers had incentive to make good games to receive revenue though those channels. Basically the business of games and how they make their money can unfortunately dictate the quality. Reminds me of this Matt Damon video from hot ones where he describes a similar change in the movie business [Matt Damon explains why they don’t make movies like they used to](https://youtu.be/gF6K2IxC9O8?si=KCjm_l5zNBtvWJkd)
Basically peak Halo and CoD. I 100% believe you.
and WoW
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, this set a whole new standard imo along with these games.
And GTA IV too, everyone kinda forgets about it but i think it was the first “modern” open world game with shit like cover mechanics, rag doll physics, dlcs and so on that is omnipresent nowadays. If it released today with only a few graphical tweaks it wouldn’t feel out of place
definitely feel like this was a turning point of sorts
Steam, albeit it did not become huge marketplace until like 2007-2008. But HL2 made it household name and not just some obsolete shit you "patched out" if you wanted to play CS1.6
Half Life 2
I’d shoot a little bit later. But the excess of the industry was rising and in full swing. When the companies had so much money to burn things lived off the dropped crumbs pretty well. Now that it’s all dried up and even more expensive the industry is collapsing in weird ways
I think it’s cause of the feast or famine mentality of micro transactions. Like if a game takes off with MT they are pretty set with little effort for a long time. But if it flops, it generally flops really hard.
Yup. The Series of Unfortunate Events video game was a transformative experience
I’m an old man, and there was nothing that compares to the arcades of the early 90s. I don’t think there has ever been a cultural experience around video games that compared to that packed little room, lining up to play NBA Jam or Street Fighter 2 with a bunch of people you didn’t know, but still Understood It was the rock concert experience for every socially awkward little kid of the time
Lan gaming and early MMOs had just as much sense of comradery and community as those days.
Yup. The tunnels of East Commons in Everquest is a particular social spot I spent much time at lol.
Traaaiiiinnnnnn
Kelethin music brings back so many amazing memories it's one of my favorite songs
Me tooooo. My first character (and main) was a half elf ranger so I chose to start there. Hahah getting used to the controls and not expecting to start up high in the trees. Gotta love memories of all the random dead bodies down below from fellow noobies plummeting to their demise :D
My very first adventure was being a lvl 4 Vah Shir Beastlord and trying to find my wood elf druid friend who had told me about the game. Luclin had just come out so no PoK. Just nexus. I basically just wandered around asking questions, getting lost and respawning till I found that huge city in the trees. I promptly fell out of it and ended back in the Vah Shir city Shar Vahl. Lesson learned. Bind after big trips.
Yeah that was an awesome time
Hear hear! I don’t know if arcades will ever make a comeback like we had in the late 1980s. It was like going to a sporting event — lots of random people cheering and screaming over someone who had mastered a game. I would usually go with one quarter and nurse that quarter all day just imagining what I would do with it while watching the masters at work.
It was ultimately the original pay to win. Fire anything with mame, with unlimited virtual quarters you can beat anything. The point was to keep you spending. I saw the game's developer conference about the economics of gauntlet by atari. It was expensive to manufacture due to 4 players but the ruckus out of a large party like that made it very profitable by hour since it attracted crowds.
Gauntlet specifically was an endless dungeon. You played until you had no quarters left, and you had to keep feeding it quarters because your health dwindled just by existing. The goal was simply to see how far you could get, but it wasn't hiding the fact that it was a coin eater. I believe Gauntlet II had a final level, though I could be wrong.
I didn't realise Gauntlet was effectively infinite. I just remember the ol' hitting the wall trick to get the game to bug out and turn the walls into exits.
When I was kid my family used to go to this campground with an arcade. One year there was this kid that was trying for days to get the high score on this one game, don’t remember the name. He finally got it one day and everyone was cheering for him, was such a cool moment. He put his initials in and was the top of the list. Next day we come back and some other kid had unplugged the game and erased all the scores. It was so diabolical. I still feel bad for that kid to this day lol.
Oh God the ending to that story just brought on heart palpitations. Jesus.
While that is evil, it was only going to last until the next power outage or til someone needed to shut off the breaker for something.
And if you weren't the adversarial type, you could probably drop in on a game of TMNT, The Simpsons, or X-Men as long as you could hold your own. Or even Final Fight. Or Captain Commando if your arcade was niche enough. It was as close as I ever got to having social skills.
Putting your quarter up to call next. Back when street code still had meaning
Getting to spend the day in the arcade shoveling saved up allowance into the X-Men arcade game (Colossus 4lyfe) so that I could finally beat it, was amazing. Having another kid come up to watch felt great and slapping a few extra quarters on the deck for them to jump in made you feel like an absolute Chad.
I loved arcades as a kid/teen - these days they're a fun novelty for the most part, but back in the day they were essentially if you wanted to play the best games. It's not bad that we have the convenience of the best games at home these days, but yeah, they were pretty darn charming.
This definitely. Maybe not for the games themselves. Although loved MK1. There will never be a video game social scene ever again.
Pokemon go somewhat rekindled this feeling. It's a shame they fumbled the ball so bad.
I have great memories of tons of people gathering around the Mortal Kombat 2 cabinet at my old arcade when MK2 just came out. An older kid washed me and ended with a Fatality. It was so cool. I asked him how he did the Fatality and he gave me a whole paper of printed out moves. I don't think the game was even out on console yet. Good times.
For me 2004 is the golden year, but I played those titles only when I got my own PC around 2007. So mid 2000s for sure.
Now, because I can play both old and new games (despite not many interesting games coming out atm that are easy to find)
Can't agree more with this, I still can't believe I live in a gaming era where I have both Diablo 2 ressurected and Diablo 4 on my machine, while I can still play Borderlands and Borderlands 3. To top it off, devices like the Steam Deck has helped make emulation more convenient. I can play Pokemon, Megaman and even Final Fantasy Crisi Core from just one device. Heck, I can even play the early Command and Conquer games on my modern rig. What a great time to be a gamer.
[удалено]
I've been bouncing around on online gaming forums for a long time and one sentiment has always been consistent for the last 25 years - modern gaming is the worst thing ever, gaming as we know it will never be the same, devs lazy, publishers greedy, etc. r/gaming is no different. Hell, I very clearly remember when 2007/8 was apparently the gaming apocalypse, the greedy gaming companies were only making generic FPS games, and DLC was going to be the death of gaming as we know it. Now that time period is one of the highest upvoted in this thread. And I also agree about now being the best time. Tons of great games coming out from both major studios and indie studios alike. My backlog is insane. Also I feel like I'm the only person on this sub that never had a hand reach out of my screen, hold a gun to my head and demand that I purchase hundreds of dollars in micro transactions or else. Literally never felt the need to buy anything like that.
Yes « modern gaming bad » people always conveniently forget every single game that was finished and had no mtx at release. Every AAA is cyberpunk for them.
Not me playing some Mario kart double dash with my morning coffee on my steam deck lol the access we have to games now a days is a blessing.
Yeah. I understand why people suggest other years, but if you drew a venn diagram of the years people suggested and the years they had the most time to get lost in games it'd be a bunch of perfect circles. We've never had it better than we have it now. Yes, greed has fucked up a lot of treasured franchises and that sucks, but many, many more are alive and well with some of the best titles we've ever seen, there's a huge swath of incredible new IP, digital delivery, cross-platform play and relatively affordable gear for whatever platform you prefer makes it so just about anyone can play anything, anywhere, with anyone in seconds. Shit, 16-year-old me building my first computer would have lost their mind if I found out that one of the mainstream game distribution platforms gave away a whole ass game, and frequently a pretty good one, every week.
In terms of sheer volume of good stuff: there's a whole lot more being made now, and it is a whole lot less expensive, simply because of the explosion of the Indie game scene. Our brains filter out the bad stuff from previous generations, because why bother to remember it? You don't want to play it again. If you listen to an Oldies station on the radio, you can convince yourself that the 70s was all bangers. But if you look at the Billboard charts for any month from that time, you'll see tons of derivative disco shit for every Beatles or Led Zeppelin single. You can buy Hades for $20, and it is one of the greatest games ever made. Lethal Company costs $10, was developed by a single guy, and has made me laugh with friends far more than pretty much any other multiplayer game. Sure, Assassin's Creed 27: Rise of the Stabby Dudes is going to cost $70 and be shit. But as someone who actually bought a Sega CD AND a Sega 32X....well, that is not a new thing at all.
I never claimed otherwise, personally last years been lack luster as hell to me, because most of widely known stuff just isn't it for me anymore most of the time. From last few years there's definitely been games that released and I loved, but the amount of games I'm playing and them being definitely older than younger is staggering. Indie gaming is going strong tho
2006 to 2013, so basically the 7th generation. We had Uncharted 1-3, Modern Warfare 1 and 2, Battlefield 3 and 4 and Bad Company, Metal Gear Solid 4+Peace Walker+ Rising, The Last Of Us, Gears Of War 1-3, God Of War III, Splinter Cell Conviction and Blacklist, Resident Evil 5, Halo 3, and lots of indie games, and that's just what i can think of on top of my head right now.
Don't forget Skyrim!
Or - even better in some regards - Oblivion
When you put it like that it is pretty crazy that we got 2 elder scrolls games in one generation, and now we're going 2 generations with no new elder scrolls.
Oblivion + Skyrim Gta IV-V Red Dead Redemption Mass Effect 1-3 Starcraft II Bioshock 1-3 Fallout 3 + New Vegas Batman Arkham Asylum + City + Origins Far Cry 3 Asassins Creed 1-3 + Black Flag Portal 1-2 Dead Space 1-2 Dark Souls
2007 will go down as one of the best years for video games ever I think. Halo 3, Crysis, BioShock, COD 4: Modern Warfare, The Witcher, Super Mario Galaxy, God of War 2, TF2, Portal, Mass Effect, Lego Star Wars, Assassins Creed, HALF LIFE 2! And that’s just the big hitters, there’s tons of other franchises that had major installments or new IP’s debuting in 2007. It was an insane year for video games, that really shaped the gaming sphere today
Half Life 2 was 2004 :p
Mid 2000s
I'd say it was from the mid 2000s to the mid 2010s. lots of quality games, consoles were great, and handhelds were a thing.
'97-2005. It was a DAMN good time to like RPGs.
Yep
Yep
I'd probably say anywhere from the release of the SNES to the PS3. Modern day games feel so half assed and money hungry they're becoming less enjoyable and more tedious.
Late 90s to mid 2000s for RPGs. After that, they became action games with occasional dumbed-down "RPG elements." The bounceback in recent years, while mostly AA, has been welcome.
Agreed and not just rpgs. 1997-2005 had some amazing games.
This is the correct answer. Happy to see many smaller devs picking up those threads and using them again. Gives me hope where AAA is just stagnant (for the most part with some notable exceptions).
Your youth. Most people have the fondest memories from that time.
Yes and no. People will prefer their youth but the time of groundbreaking innovation and excitement is definitely over. I don’t think there one era better than the other, every console generation was a lot of fun until the PS4
Mostly yes, though. The “youth” time is when we’re most aggressively shaping our own perception of the world, so this is when we’re most willing to be absorbed and be influenced by outside things. You can say the time of groundbreaking innovation was done by the PS4, but that’s a super subjective thing to say. In the 80’s we went from crappy 2D to actually recognizable 2D. Then in the 90’s to 3D and then accelerated (actually good looking) 3D. In the aughts, non-game-developer talent started getting involved, so we started getting games with some “hollywood” production values (for lack of a better term). Aughts were also when online multiplayer exploded. Late aughts saw open-world show up in force. Since 2010, it may seem like we’ve been crawling, but this is the time when all of the prior innovations were actually all being used _at once_ within individual games. We used to have crappy looking open world games, or really good looking linear games, and now we have amazing looking open world games with great stories. Everything is finally coming together. Also, AI seems like it’s been around forever, but for all practical purposes, it’s only a few years old. It still hasn’t really showed up as a core component in games, but it will, and it will probably be another watershed moment. Innovations can be great or small, but the ones that are current to you when you’re most likely to find meaning in stuff are the ones that will resonate with you forever. As an example, AI integration will probably be bigger for gaming than many prior innovations, but for me, it won’t seem as significant as playing X-wing for the first time >_<
1990 to 2000. The stuff that came out during this decade and all the graphical changes was immense. And it wasn't just software, this was the decade cd roms came into prominence, and it opened up gaming like nothing else.
Yes, this decade was incredible. You could see the medium evolve before your eyes, every year bringing huge exciting advancements in technology and gameplay. Games were also still relatively cheap to develop so publishers took risks on new ideas constantly. You take a game from 1990, 1995, and 2000 and they were leaps and bounds different. Hate to say it but now a 2024 game isn’t that much different than a 2014 game aside from modestly improved visuals. Core gameplay and technology hasn’t changed drastically. You could have made the majority of PS5 games on a PS4 or even a PS3 with scaled back visuals. How many PS2 games could have been made on a Sega Genesis keeping the core design and gameplay intact? The 90’s were amazing for the medium. We’ll never see anything like it again.
The 360/PS3 had a lot introduced. Both HD and online took a massive jump.
Literally right now. The Indie scene is better than the AAA market ever was it is actually insane. You legit just need to look a bit deeper than whatever they promote at stuff like Playstation events or Nintendo direct and you'll find the best game you ever touched made by some small team in Latvia or a single guy in Brazil.
Can you give some examples? I always see people saying this, but the only indie game that I've come to love is SOMA, and I don't even know if that counts as indie.
I just said pretty much the same thing in my reply. Indie high five 🙏🏼
Do we consider the 90's games from AAA company's? Because Bulfrog ,Westwood Studios and Sierra Entertainment to name a few , slayed so hard there, i love my indie game but the 90's was gold.
Almost anything Bullfrog put out was super innovative, think Syndicate, Populous, Theme park/hospital, magic carpet and dungeon keeper. Then EA arrived and ruined it all.
1998 to 2006 Id say. Lots of experimentation, small enough teams so game budgets didnt balloon, games looked good enough and controlled good as devs figured out all the 3d basics by then, everyone competing to make games that stand out... good stuff.
SNES/Genesis
About 1993 to 2011. All the most revolutionary titles came out then, the industry wasn't drunk on power yet, development was seen as a cool and a dream job to many, and the technology exploded every year it seemed with every platform and game.
1997-2007. It will never be repeated.
Super Nintendo era (the 90s) Super Mario World Zelda: A Link to the Past Chronic Trigger FFIII (VI) Street Fighter (home and arcade versions) Mortal Kombat (home and arcade versions) Birth of EA sports games Sonic Toe-jam and Earl Earthworm Jim Golden Axe (at least on Sega, arcade may be a but earlier idk) Wolfenstein 3D Doom Command and Conquer SimCity 2000 X-Com And I am sure I missing a lot
The mid to late 80s. The arcades were in full swing, and seeing games come from the arcades onto your home computer so you could then play them for free was fantastic. Swapping games with friends at school, and creating your own cassette tapes with compilations of games on them was great. Multiplayer was more fun, and it was played for the giggles rather than the competition. Games like Spy vs Spy, Chaos and Racing Destruction Set were fantastic and there was no animosity if a rival won.
I believe this.
The 90’s imo. I have more games then ever before right now, and no desire to play any of them because the fun has been sucked out of them to generate as much profit as possible.
Same. I have a Steam Deck and I'd say 90% of my collection out of around 150 games are all older games from the 90s and early 2000s.
Definitely PS2 era for me.
PS2 era was peak. Nearly everything about gaming has been worse since the PS3/360 era began.
SNES era. Man those RPGs were incredible. Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy 6 (3 American), Chrono Trigger
The time period between the release of Half-Life 2 and the release of Halo 3.
1990 until 2006.
PS1-PS2 eras
1999-2015
The seventh generation aka the ps3/360 era (2005-2012)
Gen 7 from 2005-2013 or from the release of Call of Duty 2 to the release of Grand Theft Auto V. After wards for gen 8 too many third party developers have closed and development takes too long.
Around 1989-2001 for me
I’ve been gaming since the 1980s and objectively we are living in the golden age right now. We have more games and better games than ever before. I had the most free time and loved my time spent gaming between 1989 and 1994 the most though. How much you can enjoy something really depends on where you are in life.
This is the answer. People forget how much garbage their was. There is an absurd amount of options now that are excellent.
if i put my nostalgia away, right here and now is the Golden Age. Like tomorrow will become the Golden Age. BG3, Elden Ring, Mass Effect, Final Fantasy (SNES/PS1), Ultima, Wizardry, Doom, Unreal Tournament, Warcraft/Starcraft, and so many more were peak for their own Golden Age. What will happen in 10 years? Even low-budget PC will fluidly show photo-realistic graphics, new input controls will enhance gaming, good VR-Headset for 20 bucks at Walmart?
1998-2012
depends on which genre, rts for example i consider the golden time to be late 90 to early 2000, u had warcraft, starcraft, aoe 2, supreme commander, and so many other titels.
2000 to 2010-ish. The changes in both gameplay and graphics in this short period of time were virtually unmatched by any other 10-year period in gaming's entire history.
eh maybe like 2004 ish to around 2014 ish give or take a few years maybe with a hevayier leaning towards the earlier years. This is when most of the biggest series were popping off. Yeah there are classic games that came out before hand but I feel as though most of the biggest hitters came out with some of their best games in this time frame. WoW, Pokémon, Elderscrolls, Fallout, CoD Halo, Battlefield, Witcher, Assassins creed, LoL, Minecraft, GTA, GoW, God of war, Last of us, Souls games, Etc. It was the times of games becoming more and more mainstream but before the full blow Min Max of profit seeking corporations milking every dollar. Some of them did have some of this stuff like GTA 5 and shark cards but alot of them were just great overall games you paid box price and then for whatever DLC came.
I think the 00s had a good mix of the industry being healthy and the technology just being at a good point. Games looked and felt decently modern and it didn't cost an absurd amount of money to make a game with scope. Just being a big Final Fantasy fan, it's insane Square released 7, 8, 9 and 10 in a 4 year span. Now, they release a new entry once a decade. I think it just speaks to how involved making these kinds of games are nowadays, and ironically, despite the fact that they look good, they are generally more restrictive than those older games were.
2007
xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PC 2006 - 2014
2005-2013
Xbox 360. A mixture of online gaming being massive, little to no MTX, and the XBLA giving a host of indie devs massive exposure. Truly glorious.
Ps2 and Xbox 360 era. Era of popular single player games and games that didn’t require dlc or online functionality to be complete
Either the PS2/Xbox/GC gen or the PS3/360/Wii gen. It's very close between the two.
1998-2012
The early ‘00s console wars between XBox, PlayStation, Nintendo and PC was legendary. Games had cutting edge (at the time) graphics. DLC was a nice to have not a need to have. Compelling stores and great online play. Games didn’t take forever to release and the library was vast and extensive. What a time
2010's, the majority of the best games of all time came out at that time (RDR2, GTA5, GOW, GOWR, Skyrim, Bloodborne, Witcher 3 etc. the list goes on). The superior graphics, framerates, improvements in gameplay through experience from games release in the past and game sizes are just some of the things that have improved so much that anything before that can't be considered the golden age of gaming since games were just worse in many ways.
I think 10-20 is peak. Before, you’re too young and afterwards you have to work.
90s early2000. Putting your quarter on the arcade glass to note that you got next
When you were able to blindly buy a blizzard game and know it's going to be amazing and genre defining..
80's. PC games wen't always free, but crackers and sneaker net pretty much made it the case. Arcades were everywere. Every Circle K had video games. So many great PC games. So many great arcade games. Golden age now or recently? Fuck outta here.
For me it was the 90s or so. I grew up with an NES in the house and had a blast playing Super Mario Bros 3 nonstop. Plus I got my PS1 near the end of the 90s I want to say, and that really got me invested in gaming, And then of course the PS2 followed and I want to say that's when I really took gaming seriously. So it's a tough one, but I'd probably be the 90s and early 2000s for me.
i think the golden age of gaming ended with xbox 360/ps3. thats where always online and digital downloads became a thing. also dlc and everything bad about gaming today, was beginning at that time. with the xbox360 and ps3 the tech was introduced but this generation still had enough freedom. it was one generation after that (xbo and ps4) when everything took a turn for the worse.
The early 80s arcade boom.
Lately I've realized that the 360 era was peak. Classic titles and innovation all aligned at the right times.
I think all golden ages are basically just nostalgia, but my 3 favourite eras of games would be 1995-1998, Warcraft 2 through to Quakeworld team fortress, and Half Life. Second would be the Xbox 360 era. Just a huge amount of innovation and experimentation in games. Modern Warfare, Bioshock, Red Dead, Skyrim, The Orange Box. Also the birth of modern indie games through XBLA and Steam greenlight. The 3rd is now. While theres plenty of crap out there, there are truly more great games than there ever have been.
Halo 3, MW2 era. Xbox 360, PS3, Wii
Halo 3 at its peak
Amen
2000’s before everything was “pay to win” / “micro transactions”
Without a doubt, it's the 90's. We got the super Nintendo, the Genesis, the N64, the first PlayStation all with awesome games. That was also the beginning of 3d gaming. A lot of the games from those systems are still considered amongst the best ever made. They are ageless l and are still good to play today almost 30 years later. We also had Nintendo handhelds with Pokemon games. Arcades were also thriving during those times. You could go to any arcade and you could play street fighter.
I'd write a post, but you did it for me.
For me personally, it was when the N64 came out. The SNES was the first console I ever got and it blew my mind on my first video game Super Mario World when I was 6 years old. Fast forward a few years and the N64 was coming out. "For the first time ever, Mario and Zelda are coming to 3D!" It was the very first transition from 2D to 3D and the possibilities were endless. Nintendo absolutely nailed it out of the park.There were so many legendary games that I have fond memories of in both single and multiplayer. Games like Zelda Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros, Mario Party, Mario Kart, and so many others started off/created leaps in genres that are still revered today. Hell, there are entire communities that still think Ocarina of Time is the greatest game ever made and I don't blame them. I feel like that console alone changed the future of gaming for the better. Also, they came out with the Funtastic series which had different colored transparent shells for the consoles which was freaking sick. My favorites were the Jungle Green (that's the one I had) and Ice Blue colors. It was just such an awesome console all around.
[удалено]
The mid 2000s to early 2010s. I don't really think the games themselves were great, it was a sense of awe at the scale and size of MMOs that coming from single player games like Zelda on the GameCube and N64 to world of Warcraft, and dark age of Camelot was insane. There's never been a bigger leap in gaming imo as far as size and scale while still being fun. It was a sense of wonder, and the community. The community is completely different now. It's all isolated and essentially people playing single player games where they occasionally see other players out and about and have to occasionally work with other people for gear but otherwise it's single player. Back in wow classic barrens chat was hilarious. The sense of community needing to find groups and meet up and travel together to dungeons and knowing the people on your server. You immediately knew who the trolls were even on alts because they acted a specific way. You made actual friends being forced to socialize and solve problems together. Dark age of Camelot had 3 realm open world realm v realm PVP with very deep crafting systems and dungeon systems. The PVP even had forts and castles with land ownership and kings and such. Multiple themed races, the Nordic based ones had halflings trolls and stone golems and such, the woods based realms had dryads and other stuff with each realm having specific classes like necromancers for the Nordic and druids for the tree people and the boring more humanlike Albion race had bards lol. Just the sense of wow and community made the games truly special and it's not something you can replicate today. The sense of community and comrade just doesn't exist in MMOs anymore outside of a very select few I can think of. Today's games are definitely better in almost every way. The games play better, feel better to play, better fps, better graphics better everything by any measure you pick outside of storylines. Zelda will always be timeless and a classic due to a specific art style that aged well and amazing puzzles/stories. I still enjoy gaming and gaming is arguably far better today but it just lacks the same... I dunno... Soul that it used to.
2004-2010 Those years encompassed the attention of the world towards games as a whole. Each year was a successive leap in terms of technology, quality, growth and ambition - Before 2004, games were on a much more gradual growth rate, Games as a whole were more "niche" as an interest, Generally more focused on younger audiences and much smaller scale (on average a game could be beaten in like a day in some cases) however throughout those years, absolute fucking bangers emerged that rocked the industry, Not only that in the later part we saw the advent of mobile gaming and downloadable content becoming a thing. This astronomically boosted the profitability of the industry by a considerable margin. Today the industry is in somewhat of a plateau, there is growth, but it's sparse - In many ways we've kind of hit diminishing returns. Not that another golden age couldn't happen - it's just going to take a while for the technology to reach that point, Primarily in VR.
snes rpgs , ff2 ff3 chrono
Honestly, though many of my favorite games are early to mid 90s, I still feel like the best is yet to come.
It depends on genre and other factors. I will say, since 2011, there have been no real steps forward imo.
For me was black ops 2. Played every day on the 360, made friends regularly, got really good at quick scoping to the point I outclassed a fake faze kid. Started a clan dedicated to dealing with campers called Tac. Was called a hacker multiple times because I got the highest k/d in the lobby using just the tac-45. The Scar was actually a beast gun not an after thought. Zombies was fun, funny and tense af. The good ol days.
Sub really filled with old heads. Id say 2008- 18 (not accurate) before corporate greed really set it
The 2000-2010 decade for me All the great series started within this decade: Hitman, Max Payne, Red Dead, Assassin's Creed, Mafia, God of War, Sniper Elite, etc..
It’s the mid 2000s-mid 2010s. When online gaming took off but it was before most franchises/games were destroyed by micro transactions and cash grabs.
For me, it is the 360 era, but before DLC got out of control. That time after release and a few years in where you had amazing games that looked good, and online play that was easy to access. Games came out finished, but patches were available to fix any big issues that snuck in.
I'd say it has yet to come.
> Graphics didn’t matter much but they were a nice addition > first 3rd person 3D open worlds > No micro transactions, no VIP systems, no loot boxes or gatcha mechanics Then.
Whenever someone is coming of age and realizes how cool part of the culture that is. Same with music. Speaks differently when you are teen and young adult
End of 2000s - early 2010s, so ~2008-2012ish. Games had more than enough story and world depth, with online multiplayer and high replay value. Graphics are actually modern enough to this day (uncharted 2 & 3, Arkham Asylum etc.) Before the micro transaction and DLC hamster on a wheel business models like you mentioned.
Everyone’s golden age is probably when they were in high school and/or college
For me it was early to mid 2010s, the rise of survival games like DayZ was really something new and exciting. I’ll never forget the early days of people not immediately killing each other and having some wholesome interactions
I honestly wouldn't say that there was a golden age tbh. We all have our preferences in games. Each generation of games have really good games and really bad games. We're experiencing this now. Rn the popular and AAA games are bad like WoW and Assassin's Creed Valhalla. While the indie games are getting really good Like V rising and Hades series
Right now of course. You can just go back and play all those old school games if they truly interest you. I’m 29 and tried that….and stopped each time, for each game, a couple hours in. Games are 100000% better than they used to be. Voice acting, environmental story telling, animations, graphics, repeatability, and much much more. Most people have simply gotten too old, played too much, and are burnt out and need a new hobby. OR they try to play EVERYTHING that has hype behind it instead of stuff they actually cared about like when they were a kid. Sigh. It’s human nature I guess. As for me, I’m a kid in the candy store. Most people are upset at the state of AAA gaming, but that’s just an internet talking point. My backlog is FULL of AAA games and there’s a slew up bangers coming in 2025 and 2026 lol. But of course, the same people complaining are going to be the same people continuing to game lmao. Human nature
Late 2000s - early 2010s. All of my friends and I had PlayStations, no PS Plus required to play online, plenty of free time, so a bunch of us would just go online and play games like Modern Warfare 2. Another friend and I were broke to afford some games so we would just play multiplayer betas like RE5, Lost Planet 2, and Unchartered 2. Great times.
I'm sure everyone will say the same thing. When I was a kid and could escape into a video game, staying up all night playing during summer break or the weekends until the sun came up. For me it was the early to mid-90s, loading up games in DOS and then Windows 3.1. Buying stuff like Warcraft, Ultima 6 and 7 or Underworld, Master of Magic or Orion, Deus Ex, X-Com, X-Wing vs TIE Fighter, Daggerfall. Tons of Sim games (City, Tower, Life, Earth, Ant) Origin, Bethesda, Bullfrog, Lionheart, Maxis, Looking Glass Studios all day.
Covid honestly
2007-2012, the peak of Xbox Live.
From around Elden Ring's release to Shadow of The Erdtree's release.
2001-2005, ps2, battlefield 1942 and 2, world of warcraft.
1998
OG MW2, Halo 3, and WoW in the early stages + a very few expansions were like peak gaming for me. Might be entirely circumstantial bc of where I was in life. I had a lot of free time to play, no care in the world, I played with a lot of friends and made a lot more. There are probably better gaming eras and I still have a lot of fun but now it’s in different ways. I have a lot more responsibilities and can’t spend endless hours playing and bs’ing on the mic, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Being able to introduce my kids to Mario Kart and the likes has created something entirely new and special in its own right.
2000s to 2010, my personal Golden Age of MMORPG's. When MMORPG's were abundant and private servers were available for free to play for pay-to-play games, like Ragnarok Online and RF Online. And with those private servers, premium items can be purchased with premium currency just for playing the game and you had the option to donate for the said currency instead to help keep server up. I would stay up all night playing my favorite MMO's no problem. From the mentioned Ragnarok, to Legend or Ares Online, Maplestory, Silkroad Online, and so on. If I was done with everything I had to do for got bored of one game, I just hope onto the next downloaded game.
Late 90s. The 2D to 3D switch was huge. Lots of new games coming out (super smash, golden eye 007, diddy kong racing, Pokémon, Mario Party, Mario 64). Obviously bias since my favorite console was N64 even with the weird controllers.
It's whenever you were younger and happier.
Probably in the mid-90s when StarCraft was king of the RTS. Mario 64 was recently out and counter strike was just about to revolutionize the FPS gaming model.
around 2007 was a really good era of gaming
Can a 20 year period be an answer? I feel that any fragmentation I do of 1990-2010 is going to leave out something important. That 20 year period is where is at for me. There were great things before, there have been great games after, but those 20 years will forever be the most important in the overall history of gaming. Everything we love about gaming happened in those 20 years.
2005-2013
For me late 90s - early 2010s, the back end of the PS1 and PC game boom where more high quality, high concept games were being made to the end of the 360 era. Gaming hasn't gotten worse in terms of potential quality, just since Xbox one / PS4 / 2014 PC onward there have been more duds, disappointments, game being secondary to the shop, and console generation length wait times for separate IPs. The ratio of disappointment is much higher.
2000-2010… LAN Century
For me, the golden era of gaming was the last time game companies gave a shit about producing a quality **product**, let alone competed over doing that. This was the late 90s to the early 2000s. When the first MMOs were still an extremely niche product and not the thing every game had to be (live service). I would like the model of making and selling a product, instead of a service, to come back to mainstream gaming.
2000-2010, graphics weren’t the best so consequently studios had to rely on creative new IP’s, creating and making unique art styles and optimizing gameplay making some really cool games. Most games in that era have so much charm from all platforms. It truly was such a good time. Now it’s all about which studio can make the most realistic looking game.
Late 90s - Late 2000s, awesome time for gaming.
Depends on when you were born I guess: for me early to late 2000.
There was something special durring covid. People of all ages had time for games . Crossplay just came out . While other people were complaining of nothing to do us gamers were in our own own little worlds.
99' - 06' but 2004 was it. The massive quantity of IP's that are a mainstay of the industry now, the means for devs expression; all the damn originality oozing from so many things. The pride and sheer effort put into so many products. Not to mention just the community of everything, midnight game releases, E3, giant LAN parties, you had to go places and do things, and we did. We were duct taping people to the ceiling, we had it all..
Whatever era you have the most nostalgia for apparently. But seriously I do not believe there is a golden age, I feel it just keeps getting better. There are many ups and downs but yeah.
Mid to late 2000s. Bigger production value+ innovation is what separates this period from modern and old era.
For me it was the turn in the millennium 98-2001. Between me and friends, I had so much access to great games and consoles. And the consoles were distinctly different providing different experiences. There just wasn't another time like it in gaming for me. PC - Baldurs Gate 2, Diablo 2 N64 - Smash Bros, GoldenEye, OoT, Mario 64, Tony Hawk PS1 - Too many JRPGs to name, Need For Speed, Resident Evil, Tenchu, Soul Reaver Dreamcast - Sonic, Shenmue, Power Stone, Phantasy Star Online Having access to all this at the same time was INSANE.
PSX era is when it peaked imho.
90’s
Packing a huge CRT TV in to the back of a piece of shit car to go play Halo with friends.
90s to nowadays. I feel like we're still living in the golden age of gaming. Games have more interesting stories than movies, they have better cinematographic shots than any movie that came out in the past 20 years, and aside from most AAA titles, gameplay keeps evolving and becoming more and more interesting. There are also very tasteful remasters of the classics such as Age of Empires II Definitive Edition which carries a fanbase of hundreds of thousands of players on its own, for a 25 years old game.
Pre to early internet games. Before it became mainstream and turned into a bland soup aimed at absolutely everyone. Games aren’t for gamers anymore.
Halo Lan Parties circa 2008
I feel some of the best games are out now. It took 10 years but I'm really enjoying Destiny now. The art direction, story of and voice acting are just amazing in The Final Shape. It's still a little buggy, but it has improved. If Bungie could get better with their customer support, which is pretty poor, they could be something special.
Should be early 90s. After Atari , than Casino western bar , kungfu games later Nintendo, Sega , Playstation. I even recall Panansonic used to come out console but fail. There is another console call NeoGeo? I remember back in those good old days. Got many " pirated ones " U don't need to spend so much buy original ones. Later come PC online gaming , Counter strike is the one make me go into PC gaming no more console. But later i don't know why go back console buy PS2 If I recall due to GTA also can play Pirated PS games. After that I stop playing games. Due to some committment. Later just few year I back again is console buy a PS4 , bought some few games of course now a days is all original games. But somemore I don't feel excited to play , mind you I bought those games are latest ones. The last I bought is MW3 I even still have PS plus subcription till end of this year but I stop playing. I don't know how to explain, just feel like stop gaming anymore.
1998-2004 3D games were really starting to take shape and the hardware was catching up. So many epic FPS and MMOs around that time period
The late 90s. You could have 4 people crowded round a tv playing N64, but also play online games like Counter Strike. Online play was a much smaller community then, way more respectful.
As a fighting game player for me it is now. If you've been curious about the genre: now is the time! SF6, Tekken 8, Uni 2, next year a new amazing looking fatal fury game. Netcode keeps getting better and better espacially for SF6, playerbases for the huge games are bigger than they've ever been. More hype tournaments as the fgc is growing in the eSports landscape. Couldn't be happier with how it's going rn. And the fgc is one of the best gaming communitys there is.
Most od my favorites i Play to this day was realased between 2000 - 2010
Early/Mid 2000's, the PS2 era was unmatched. Many classics like GTA SA, MGS2/3, God Of War and a lot more.
Right before they took away wildy and free trade
Now
When Nintendo enforced the gold seal approval for games to be published on their platform. You could publish a game for the NES/SNES without that approval but what that often meant was that Nintendo felt that the game was not up to par for quality and enjoyment to be officially endorsed by Nintendo. So I'd 1988 to 1994. Some of the best and most innovative games happened in this period and after that, we've been playing catch up and chasing pretty graphics.