Opinion: The 10 biggest changes in gaming in the last 10 years

[Julio Franco]

Thanks to the rapid rate of change in video games, both my job and the industry I cover are practically unrecognisable. This is largely what keeps me interested in video games, this pace of transformation: there is always something new to cover, and we’re always trying to find new ways to talk about it.

When I started writing about video games professionally in 2005, the Japanese games industry was still near the top of its game. People were genuinely talking about whether PC gaming might be dead. The Xbox 360 had yet to launch and the Wii was still under wraps. Independent game development wasn’t really a thing; or, well, it was a thing, but only on PC, or if it was funded by a big publisher. Games (and gamers) were still desperately struggling for cultural legitimacy. Smartphones did not exist. YouTube was not a thing (seriously, it launched properly in November 2005).

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[noel24]

I could think of few downsides to the industry developement. Games became victims of corporate greed that's supposed to monetarise on advertisement rather than detailed crafting. PC games often become victims of poor console porting. Name big 2005 franchise and You'll probably find its today installment a bug rigged cash cow that offers little if no improvement over its predecessor, but it's filled with quick events for manually challenged couch potatoes, paid DLC content and poor single player writing, more concerned with repetitive multiplayer gameplay aimed at making money on microtransactions . GTA, NFS, COD, Splinter Cell to only name a few of my favorite classics.

 

[Burty117]

I miss games like TimeSplitters, RedFaction, Burnout etc...
They were all so good back then, TimeSplitters is a franchise that should have never been forgotten about...

 

[EClyde]

They are games, lets never forget that.

 

[Hexic]

I could think of few downsides to the industry developement. Games became victims of corporate greed that's supposed to monetarise on advertisement rather than detailed crafting. PC games often become victims of poor console porting. Name big 2005 franchise and You'll probably find its today installment a bug rigged cash cow that offers little if no improvement over its predecessor, but it's filled with quick events for manually challenged couch potatoes, paid DLC content and poor single player writing, more concerned with repetitive multiplayer gameplay aimed at making money on microtransactions . GTA, NFS, COD, Splinter Cell to only name a few of my favorite classics.

Gotta say, all in all, the only 2005 franchise that comes close to not being that ^, that I can think of, is Blizzard. You don't need to put out 10 games a year to be successful - fewer, higher quality games is what keeps you on top for years to come. The results speak for themselves.

 

[Geforcepat]

I enjoyed Beyond two souls thank you very much.

 

[Littleczr]

There is still room for improvement, I am an indie iOS developer and the biggest problem I have right now is self advertising. It is true, we are just left with the crumbs from the big boys, but at least we have a shot and these titles help your resume. In fact I have been to interviews where they don't even look at my resume, they just download the game and see from there what kind of skills I have.

I still think there will be a search change from the mobiles stores to help indie developers out. there is a ton of indie developers and good indie games out there.

 

[treetops]

Steam also took away our ability to resell games.

 

[OcelotRex]

Steam also took away our ability to resell games.

You're acting like this is a negative.

 

[Squid Surprise]

I could think of few downsides to the industry developement. Games became victims of corporate greed that's supposed to monetarise on advertisement rather than detailed crafting. PC games often become victims of poor console porting. Name big 2005 franchise and You'll probably find its today installment a bug rigged cash cow that offers little if no improvement over its predecessor, but it's filled with quick events for manually challenged couch potatoes, paid DLC content and poor single player writing, more concerned with repetitive multiplayer gameplay aimed at making money on microtransactions . GTA, NFS, COD, Splinter Cell to only name a few of my favorite classics.

Hate to break it to you, but that happened LONG before 2005... pretty much EVERYTHING has been affected by corporate greed...

But it's not really a bad thing... much like the movie industry, big games (and big movies) cost a LOT of money to make - so risk isn't something you really want... You take something tried and true and make something like that... hence tons of sequels, remakes, etc...

Like the movie industry, where you see uniqueness will be the "indie" designer / producer... if it succeeds, you'll see the "big boys" pick up on it... until what was once unique, becomes "tried and true"... Remember when the RTS was unique and cool (Westwood's Dune II - which became C & C and Blizzard's Warcraft)... now there are hundreds of RTS titles...

This happens with all genres... here's hoping the next "awesome" genres get picked up sooner rather than later...

 

[CobraA1]

In 2005, it was MMOs that were attracting all the investor attention, thanks to the enormous success of World of Warcraft. That burned out pretty quickly, as did Facebook gaming, which was going to be the next big thing for all of about 18 months.

Facebook gaming may have died quickly, but World of Warcraft peaked in 2010, five years after launch. You're kinda implying they both burned out quickly, when that is certainly not the case, as World of Warcraft enjoyed a much longer period of success than any Facebook game.

Its image, once infallible, is beginning to slip;

You have got to be joking. You obviously weren't there for the launch of Steam. There was so much vitriol over this new service that was required for people to play Valve's new games.

I'd actually say that Steam's reputation has improved greatly since then.

you only need to look at the reaction to the introduction of paid mods earlier this year for proof of that.

The reaction is a reaction to the new business model Valve tried to introduce into Steam - it's not an indication of an image problem with Steam.

The gap between players, developers and publishers has narrowed

To some extent. I'm actually happy that we now have online services such as Steam and GoG, and I'm glad that we now have a thriving indie scene. I'd say that the gap between players and developers (especially in indie games) has narrowed.

Although - publishers still need to work on narrowing the gap. They are still frustratingly clueless sometimes .

 

[CobraA1]

There is still room for improvement, I am an indie iOS developer and the biggest problem I have right now is self advertising. It is true, we are just left with the crumbs from the big boys, but at least we have a shot and these titles help your resume. In fact I have been to interviews where they don't even look at my resume, they just download the game and see from there what kind of skills I have.

I still think there will be a search change from the mobiles stores to help indie developers out. there is a ton of indie developers and good indie games out there.

I'd definitely like to see an improvement in how I search for games on iOS and other mobile devices. It's difficult to find new games that I'd like to play. (Especially since I actively avoid games that don't respect my time or money.) Your best bet is probably not to rely on the search engine for the platform and advertise outside of the platform.

 

[amstech]

Many of these aren't true at all, especially the one about story telling but I do agree about Steam changing everything.

 

[Suepue1]

Many of these aren't true at all, especially the one about story telling but I do agree about Steam changing everything.

The story telling in most games have changed. I would know because I played and watched others play them. So yeah the story between games have changed.

 

[Suepue1]

I agree with this.