Infinity Blade Dev: "We're in the Golden Age of Gaming"

[The Wooster]

Infinity Blade Dev: "We're in the Golden Age of Gaming"

Chair's Donald Mustard reckons we've never had it better than we do now.

There's a lingering consensus in certain gaming circles that things "used to be better." Of course, there seems to be no agreement on exactly when said things used to be better. Some insist the PS2-era was gaming's highest point, others maintain it was the PC scene back in the 90's, a few are adamant that things started to go wrong when games switched to 3D, and presumably there's at least one person out there who's absolutely sure the industry doomed itself the second it abandoned the oscilloscope. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_for_Two] In contrast, Donald Mustard, creative director at Chair entertainment, reckons gaming has never been better.

"I honestly think we're in the golden age of gaming at the moment," he told Hookshot inc. "There are games for zero dollars that are really worth playing, and then there are these games for sixty dollars which are just incredible experiences. And there's everything in between. It's just an awesome time to be a gamer."

Formed by Advent Rising creators, Donald and Geremy Mustard, back in 2005, Chair Entertainment has thus far seemed to specialize in sprucing up classic gameplay models with modern visuals. Their second XBLA title, Shadow Complex, which was essentially an updated Super Metroid running on the Unreal 3 engine - broke XBLA sales records on release. Their next game, Infinity Blade, pretty much played like Punchout with swords, albeit quite a lot of swords. It went on to make publisher, Epic Games, some 30 million dollars and prove there was a market for more involved games on the iPhone.

"I'm naïve, perhaps, but I definitely believe in the "if you build it, they will come" mentality," continued Mustard. "Just look at the math behind it: we're approaching 400 million iOS devices that can play these sort of games. We'll soon be passing half a billion, and that's so much more than the number of Xboxes that are out there. There's just a huge number of people with these devices, with these powerful gaming machines in their pockets. The market is there, and good games, good apps will rise to the top."

Personally, I kind of hoped the "golden age of gaming" would have more buttons, but I'm kind of old-fashioned like that.

Source: Hookshot Inc [http://www.hookshotinc.com/forging-infinity-blade/]

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[Fasckira]

I love how the article after this post about us being in the golden age of gaming is about Konami offering a service to send you texts from a fake girlfriend from its latest dating simulator. Golden age indeed...

 

[Antari]

Golden age? ... This guy literally was born yesturday wasn't he. With the lack of creativity and constant copying, games have been in the dark ages for over a decade. And with the rule of EA and Activision it doesn't look like its going to be ending anytime soon. Its unfortunate his comments are right inline with a salesman. And not someone speaking about something they have passion for. He just wants you to fill his wallet. Nothing more.

 

[kurokenshi]

So the golden age of gaming is Draconian DRM, Spyware Services and blatant lack of respect for legit customers? Awesome!

 

[Zhukov]

Eh, I'd say we're still in the Stone Age of gaming. A few developers are currently in the process of discovering bronze.

EDIT: Whoo, I managed to post without my server throwing up two duplicates!

 

[Domehammer]

Golden age you say? DRM is so bad currently that besides cracking some popular pc games one is forced to use service that auto-updates and removes control user has over game. Console gaming has devolved multiplayer wise with most games focusing on multiplayer of only people or just online. The days of sitting down with friends to face against bots at hardest settings are gone. Steams popularity has ensured buying physical for games such as skyrim an dues ex that they still need steam to play the game. What ever happened to JUST putting in a long code to install a pc game? If anything gaming is on a downhill trend overall but handful of games sometimes go upward.

 

[kyoodle]

I'm not sure I'd call it the Golden Age yet but it's a lot better than most of the whiners on gaming forums say it is.

Yeah DRM is a pain in the arse but the people who keep insisting on putting it their games will die soon. [Clicks heels three times]

 

[Richard Allen]

Correction, it's a golden age for publishers.

 

[Irridium]

I wouldn't say so. For mobile/indie games? Yes, it is a bit of a golden-age. But for gaming in general? Not so much.

To develop a decently large game these days you need millions, and there's a chance you're whole company could go broke if it doesn't sell amazingly. Console gamers have to put up with constant bullshit from Sony and Microsoft, PC gamers have to put up with bullshit like DRM, crappy ports, and making sure games work on their type of setup (easier said than done). "Core" games are pretty much just sequels without bringing anything new or interesting to the table. Publishers are treating everyone with a blatant lack of respect and are constantly trying to erode what little rights we still have left as consumers (pretty much just used sales at this point. And they've done a fine job at convincing people to hate that as well).

Spoiler: And here's what was released in the short space of three years:

1998

StarCraft, Unreal, Fallout 2, Grim Fandango, Half-Life, Thief: The Dark Project

1999

System Shock 2, Quake III Arena, Unreal Tournament, Planescape: Torment, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, Sid Meier?s Alpha Centauri, Homeworld, Outcast, Kingpin: Life of Crime, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Freespace 2

2000

The Sims, Deus Ex, Diablo II, Escape from Monkey Island, The Operative: No One Lives Forever, The Longest Journey

And not too long after that, the PS2 would hit its stride, the xbox would be released, and consoles would be at their "sweet spot", where games look good enough, provide something interesting, but not be so expensive you'll tank if you make one that doesn't meet sales expectations.

Now, it's not all bad. There are certainly plenty of bright spots these days. But compared to 10 years ago? Yeah, I don't think so.

 

[GonzoGamer]

So the golden age of gaming is Draconian DRM, Spyware Services and blatant lack of respect for legit customers? Awesome!

That sounds about right. If we're in the "golden age" of gaming right now, I think that means the only way to go is down.
There's definitely a rising interest in free and cheap phone games and things like that and a diminishing interest in console gaming which has been getting more and more expensive.
After trying the onlive app on my phone, I have to say things are definitely changing for me.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Oh really? A golden age?
Is that why I could count on one hand the number of AAA titles I bought in the last three years, combined, based purely on a lack of interest?
(Borderlands, Left4Dead 1&2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution...jeez, I can't even reach 5! Everything else I can think of was either gifted to me for birthdays out of the blue as "guess presents", or I played as a rental on my friends consoles.)
No piracy either. I didn't give a enough of a fuck to begin with.

How about the wholesale slaughter of consumers' rights with unilateral, non-negotiable contracts (and no refunds for most of those)?
Maybe the new, unfair DRM practices that punish legitimate customers more than any pirate?
Price gouging DLC that's content that was just blatantly ripped from the players' hands or otherwise already sitting on the disk (contradicting the "DOWNLOADABLE" part of DLC)?

Or perhaps the Proprietary-Herding of user-bases?
Cripes, I've now seen a company get away with legally downgrading a system after it was purchased; stripping functionality, SOLELY so they can better control their customers.

May I could mention all those developers that have been getting the axe due to under-performance (you try to become derivative of something whose sole major selling point is that it's popular, and nobody wants to play your game because they're already married to the one everyone plays. What a shock!)? Or how the best selling piece of media EVER is nothing more than a derivative clone of its predecessors, which in themselves WERE DEVELOPED BY A DIFFERENT TEAM ENTIRELY?

Yeah, it's a real fucking golden age all right.
Most consumers are witless, spineless sheep, and the publishers butchers. I think we need some wolves to shake up this sadistic cycle, just a bit.

The one, major redeeming point is that independent developers are on the rise, and they seem to (mostly) be going back to the roots of gaming and developing concepts further, rather than just taking something, remaking/rebooting/cloning it verbatim and adding in some AAA "polish".

You can call me a hipster for thinking such, but there comes a point when an entire industry becomes too derivative and controlling of itself to be interesting or fair anymore.

We've had a few good "golden ages" in gaming, not just one but I'm absolutely certain that today is not one at all.

 

[Eternal_Lament]

Golden Age? Not exactly, but things seem to be getting better overall. For all the bad consequences we've had so far, I don't think anyone can argue we'd be better off by not advancing past a certain point. To me gaming and making games is simply a process rather than a goal, so we'll never really acheive the perfect zenith, but that's all right, since the changeing of what the process is means that we can really see who will adapt to the situation and who will try to push past the new rules.

 

[Rad Party God]

I agree with this guy, for availability of games at least. While I don't agree that the iDevices are "great gaming devices" (I want buttons, damn it!), I agree that there's a shitton of great free games available, that coupled with the super amazing Humble Indie Bundles that literally cost a dime (Anomaly is full of amazing, addictive stuff), the Steam sales, the crapload of amazing oldies in GOG and the huge amount of Flash and Facebook games, at least for a PC gamer, there's never been a better time to be a gamer.

Past that, we can't hide the sun under a finger, with all the crappy DRM stuff going on, the bloated prices of "premium" games, the overpriced DLC and much, much more, we're far from being in a "golden age" of gaming.

 

[wintercoat]

"Woo, it's the Golden Age of gaming because I made a game and it sold well!"

Yeah...not buying it. Maybe it's the Golden Age of indie development, but on a whole, gaming isn't.

 

[wooty]

If this is the golden age, then does that mean the futures going to be worse................?

Might be time to find a find a new hobby then