157: A Three-Year History of Gaming

[Russ Pitts]

A Three-Year History of Gaming

"After three years, you're still one year shy of a college degree, two years shy of being able to apply for U.S. citizenship, and 70 years from seeing that saguaro cactus you clipped while driving drunk in the desert fully re-grow its arm. Three years is nothing.

"Then again, three years can be an eternity. Three years is more than half a lifetime for a game console, and twice a lifetime for most games. For gaming celebrities, it could be a career. On the internet, it's an epoch."

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[hungSolo]

Anybody else getting "Error 403" on page 3 of this article?

 

[mintfresh]

Yes, on pages 2,3 and 4 in fact

 

[FavouredEnemy]

Just on page 4 for me. Ah well.

 

[Russ Pitts]

We had the tech folks check into it and we're not showing any problems, nor any logs of any problems with 403s. Which is odd.

You guys mind taking another look? If the problems persist, drop me a PM with your error codes and operating systems, etc so we can track it down.

 

[Russ Pitts]

... and fixed. Turns out to have been a random bit of code no one had ever used before causing a rare and unexpected bug. Vishnu bless the internets. Anyway, should be fixed now. Hope you enjoy page four. It's my favorite page.

 

[Task]

I get the error intermittently now. Meh. Good article, Mr.Russ. It's going to be an interesting three years. I'm expecting PCs dissappearing from gamestores (angst) and moving towards downloadable, potentially episodic content, Consoles getting all the large developers because they don't need to muck about with copy protection as much and get to play with weird interfaces (brainwave interfaces not withstanding), and Nintendo invading and conquering Europe.
I hope they do. Maybe we'll get some games in reasonable time for once.

 

[josh797]

congratulations mister pitts. im proud to call myself a member of this fine community you have fostered. you guys turn video game journalism into real stuff rather than the absolute tripe we get from sites like ign and gamespot. the fact is you guys take games and consider the big picture not just the here and now that other journalists focus on. congratulations on turning three and on keeping the quality up. as for the article, the comparisons you made between yourself and the industry were enlightening both about you and the industry. good stuff, my dear sir, good stuff.

 

[the_tralfalmadorian]

another great article, Mr. Pitts. Yes, the industry has indeed come quite far in its short life span. I'm excited to see where it will go from here. personally i hope this trend of dumbing games down doesn't continue. As of late i've been turning back to classic games to get my complexity fix. I can understand making games more appealing for the larger market, but i hope at least a few companies keep making games for the more in depth people like myself.

 

[karpiel]

A bit long-winded in places, but otherwise cleverly done and interesting to read. Coming from a considerably more pessimistic standpoint regarding modern games (the vast majority of my favorites are from the mid to late nineties), I look upon what is yet to come with trepidation and dismay, but to each his own.

 

[sharp_as_a_cork]

I'm envious. Can I have your job, please?

In any case, I think gaming is now as awesome as ever (even on the PC, Russ), especially when one has very little time so one plays only the best of the best the industry has to offer.

 

[Drong]

An interesting read however there are still a few bastions of strength on the PC, RTS, MMO's, Simulators and of course Civilisation, sorry but the latest incarnation has really not impressed me as it's another typical case of dumbing down for the console market, the pc will not be under real threat until developers stop underestimating the intelligence of console players.

 

[Rampancy]

I enjoyed this article very much. I'm pleased to see that Myst made it into this broad overview, since it is a particular obsession of mine (but no, I haven't bought the DS version, either.) I have a question, though: When you say that "It took almost a decade for anyone to follow [Myst's] lead," what are you referring to? From my point of view, no game (excluding Riven) has tried to do what Myst did since... But if so, I would be very interested to check it out.

Oh, and by the way, hi everyone. I'm Steven. I've been reading this fine publication for some time; it's an honor to finally become part of its community.

 

[sharp_as_a_cork]

Welcome.

 

[Russ Pitts]

When you say that "It took almost a decade for anyone to follow [Myst's] lead," what are you referring to? From my point of view, no game (excluding Riven) has tried to do what Myst did since...

I was referring to Half-Life, another game that, for me, completely captured the feeling of being placed into an alien world and forced to puzzle your way through it. Granted, the two games are vastly different in a number of ways, but I played a lot of games between playing Myst and playing Half-Life, and after only a few hours into the latter I thought to myself "Yes, here it is again."