It has come to my attention that my love for the past often clouds my judgment of modern gaming. Often to such a degree that I will often blanket new games as something inferior. In some ways, it can be true since there was a lot less focus on identity politics and such, which is a real killer when it comes to entertainment. However, when listening to Tim Cain’s YouTube channel about his role when developing Fallout and Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, everything, and I mean almost everything came down to pure luck.
This was a big eye-opener for me. The developers of old didn’t always have a grand vision or anything like that. They were not some long-lost forgotten masters of their trade – games like Fallout were a pure happy accident. It wasn’t a game taken from a mind deep in thought and dream, it was just a random game, just like most games nowadays are just a hog-posh of ideas mashed together to form a coherent piece of entertainment. I will not go into specific details here, so I guess you just have to trust me on this (hehe). But this truly opened my eyes. It’s the same procedure as modern gaming, without the luck of hitting the mark in the same way.
Now, gaming, especially AAA gaming, is almost dead as a rock, and there are many ways of why – the money-grubbing, half-finished games, identity politics, poor payment and poor retention of developers that know their craft, and so on. However, the indie scene is different. There are so many titles coming out that are, or almost overtake the classics like Fallout and Baldur’s Gate, but are viewed as something less thanks to nostalgia. It’s just a rehash after all, most of us thinks.
However, if some of these titles came out back then, they would also be hanging up on the wall as legendary games, but as it is now, at least going by how my brain works, none of these games can and will be considered as such. It’s like I’m in a state of perpetual denial, and I think maybe it’s time to ease up on that. There were a ton of bad games from the olden days too, and considering the classics were just lucky chances that managed to pay out for the devs – what’s to say it can’t happen again?
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Tom's Gaming Vault 