And we have no idea how much hard cache is spent (n*10E9?) for it to stay so
;-)
My cellular is always far from my body ;-)

What turns me on these days, is that people have to allow the game developers to install a rootkit that they paid for with the game, but of which they often did not know while purchasing, and possibly later because how many people read the lengthy EULA every time in details? Who are the games usually targetted to? Adults who read the fine print? I don't think so.

I have to agree that today’s games are better-looking but less involving than before, but I think it’s because of how much money you can earn releasing games more often, and not carrying about gamers’ attachment to one game. Now people buy new equipment to be able to play newer games, which means that gaming companies receive money for promoting hardware manufacturers (compare Half Life 2 vs. Doom 3 -> ATI vs. Nvidia).

Someone mentioned Heretic. I played Heretic back in the days, and you could select either DirectX or OpenGL in this game’s options!
I wonder what happened later that caused DirectX-only games flooding the market. Did Microsoft have anything to do with that?

Yes, Microsoft had a lot to do with it. DirectX became technically far superior to OpenGL, starting with major revision DX9 in WinXP. End of story.

As for what's happening to gaming industry question. Well, gaming is moving to consoles while PC's are going to become media hubs and primary gateways into internet. PC market is constantly gearing towards smaller & lighter machines which just do the job given as is evident in success of the original iMac and now Asus Eee. Pro-line of PC's is now shifting towards superclusters and later mainframes are making return thanks to ever-increasing electricity costs.
In midst of all that, PC-gaming will become niché market and consoles reign supreme.

Wow, how did I miss this thread. Just the type of thing I like to discuss =). Well, I prefer older games myself. I am a big fan of the Snes-era games.

Although, I am not completely sure I will agree that the older games were necessarily better than today games. I mean, if we take, for example, NES games, such as Mega Man 1 and play it today, they are extremelly annoying. Mega Man 1 has so many "cheap-shots" from enemies, cleverly placed near the edge of a screen ready to make you fall and die in an endless pit. I just can't play Mega Man 1 today (and if you look at my nickname, that is saying a lot, because I love Mega Man). Now, try to think how games were back in the days. A lot of games were just like that, trial and error till you got bubbles on your fingers. Now try playing Mega Man 3, 4 or X series. They are far easier and much more fun to play at the end.

Arcade games were equally annoying and some games had such a cheap AI that felt like all the developers (apparently) wanted, was to steal your quarters. PC games were far behind consoles at the time and the price of a PC was not as easy to swallow as it is today (especially when comparing what you could do with computers 15 years ago, with what you can do now). That and the fact we didn't have any viable API to develop games with (anybody remember the "good old days" when you had to type "SET" on a DOS prompt to figure out what the IRQ of your sound card were before installing the game? More often than not, we played without sound... I sure did).

I think this generation of games will be just like the previous, but with better graphics. There are already some interesting twists though: Nintendo is not going for the graphics and look how well Wii is doing. Some game developers out there, are also not going for graphics. I can't remember which developer actually said something along the lines: "Hardcore gamers, who usually have the latest and greatest hardware, usually don't pay for games, they pirate it. So why would we let them decide how games should look like if they are not the target").

I believe when we go back in time and remember how "great" the games were back then, we see the old games as part of our lives, as a child, and it will always be remembered with emotion, feelings like the first time you rid a bike, hold a girl's hand, first kiss, etc.

I personally think that a lot of old games were bad (not graphically. I mean by design). The new games are not much better either and I still find myself fighting more with the camera than with whatever I need to shoot/jump/kick/ at.

However, it looks like we are now in the process of switching from graphics to something more interesting, more interactive. Not sure into/where to, but Nintendo certainly is going on the right direction. PS3 and Xbox360 are just what they are meant to be: sequels of their previous versions. Better hardware, better graphics, sequels of games with better graphics :S.

I wouldn't say so. (You probably didn't use OpenGL or Didn't experience all that fine bugs DirectX have)

Besides, I don't think that high technologies do much good for gameplay. A good example of this is be Gothic 3 - nice graphical picture, but complete crap when it comes to gameplay.

The remake of Tomb Raider Classic was great fun (though very frustrating at the end - I never finished because some programmers got lazy at the end and designed the levels so you needed to choreograph all your actions to within 0.05s for over 2 minutes play time).

Tomb Raider Legends was also great fun but not anywhere near as challenging as Classic.

Aside from that the only game I really enjoyed for a while was The Longest Journey - hilarious, challenging, good graphics, great story - although towards the end it obviously suffered manager-induced release-itis. I can't say the same for the sequel though (Dreamfall) - fantastic graphics, good voicing, crappy story, no humor, no interesting puzzles.

And of course when I'm bored I just spend 30 minutes hacking and slashing with the latest particle effects and shaders. I must admit though that the older RPGs are far more interesting and challenging than the new ones. WoW bored me stiff after 3 months - aside from the cheats, spammers, scamsters, I got the impression that you have to be a pretty sad sac to hang around and actually try to collect uber-gut items.

Some of my other favorites from the past:
Doom
Full Throttle
Glider (Mac)
Dark Castle (Mac)
Neverwinter Nights (second version SUCKS)
Final Fantasy (at least the earlier half of the set)
Ultima (the earlier ones in the series, even though they didn't have super-cool graphics)
Dragon Sword (Mac)


As for this quote:
"DirectX became technically far superior to OpenGL, starting with major revision DX9 in WinXP."

Pure nonsense. DirectX is the buggiest load of crap I have ever seen, and I haven't seen anything that could be called an improvement. Even somewhat immature free and open source graphics engines are less buggy than any version of DirectX. The only graphics-intensive games I've played that don't crash and hang/crawl all the time are those that use OpenGL rather than DirectX. So WoW works fine for me, but Hellgate and numerous others totally suck. Funny thing is, games written for XP using OpenGL have a good chance of running in VisDuh, while 100% of DirectX games for XP allegedly will not run in VisDuh.

That's hardly a good benchmark. How can you know what makes those games crash?
Anyway... I guess the programmers have a reason to choose directx or opengl, and lately directx seems to be the engine choice for whatever reason. They sure don't choose it just to piss people off.
And judgeing from other open source projects, I have a feeling that documentation could be an issue

Truth. Atari 2600 Pitfall ... awesome game. 80's graphics, but action packed.

I admit, I do like my Half Life 2 and FarCry. I've played them through a few times. I'm concerned, however, that Steam will eventually stop supporting Half Life 2 due to its age, and deactivate it due to lack of general interest. In early days, you bought a game, and it was yours to play. No need to subscribe to some online service, which will one day stop working due to lack of user interest.

Truth, too. I haven't bought a PC game in some years now. These days it's console all the way. That's partly due to my lack of interest and money in building a gaming machine, and partly because of my kids. It's just easier to play on the console.

The industry makes more money by breaking machines into their respective tasks, yet leaves everything modular. I suppose this is a benefit to us, as if we pay $600 for a PS3 (including all the extra parts, and a couple games), and $500 on a computer, then if the console dies, we still have the computer, and will only have to pay the $400 (not needing to buy extras) to replace the console. The computer on the other hand, will last longer because it doesn't have to be the newest hardware to handle the latest games.

The real downside, as far as I'm concerned, for consoles is the control interface. I really prefer a good keyboard/mouse for my FPS's.

I think it comes to down what is needed to play the game. Console games you just use your controller and as the wii gets more mature you'll see newer types of ways to interact with console games, just look at what you can already do with the wii. PC games are more involved, you "talk" to other characters more, you interact with them in a more personable way. You have more control over what your character looks like and acts like.

But I grew up in the 2600/5200/SNES era and if I'm going to spend hours a day playing a game I would rather do it on a console than stuck at a PC. I spend enough time on my PC at work as well as tinkering with my home linux PCs. But that's just me. I have many friends who either have both the console game and play the online PC games or play the PC games as their primary gaming entertainment.

I agree. The development in games today is not good. No new games that are brilliant.
I'm not saying there is no change but it seems like since the new game consoles (PS3, XBOX360)came every game is being rebuilt and remade. I'm a bit tired from all these games that have numbers on them like 4 and 5 in the series. MAKE A NEW ONE PLEASE.
I'm a big fan of the GTA but all they do is make better features or grafiks. I want a change.
Still i can say there are games that will be brilliant forever. The old ones. Like the ATARI games. Simple yet brilliant. I would really like to see someone try to do the same thing to donkey kong as they do to GTA. Same game but better grafiks. That would be kind of cool yet sad to take one of the classics and ruin them. You can see the same thing going on with movies.

How many genres can you think of to write about? Looks like we've run out of ideas. There's only so much we've managed to conjure up in our minds. We've told the same stories in many different ways. Yes. The same stories. Each story is changed up a bit to distinquish it, such as when in time, location, people, outcome, etc. And they are sometimes intermixed with each other. But they are essentially the same.

Romantic: Boy meets girl. They get married. They get mad and divorce. They lose contact. Years later, they meet again. They fall back in love and get married again. They live happily ever after. Sequel, next generation.

Western: Yeehaw! Bang Bang! Get along little dawgie! Don't you steal my horses! Dern Indians! Gonna move to Nebraska and build me up a log house in the mountains. Gonna tend my herd, and chew me some wheat straw.

Space: Starship in deep space. Encounter aliens. Aliens attack. Many are killed. Main characters fight back. Ship blows up. Aliens are defeated. Main characters escape in life pod. Sequel.

Future: Humans create machines with AI. AIs takes over world. Apocalypse. Human race fights back. AIs defeated with electromagnetic pulse. Sequel.

Adventure: Hey, did you know that there's a 3000 year old gem hidden in a cave in Nepal? Yep. Going to fight me some natives, snakes, spiders and other whatever's who might be protecting that gem, and find me a female guide, who I'll eventually fall in love with. You want to know why? Because I like history! I don't want it for the glory! No! I just want to donate it to my museum for all to see! Sequel.

I loved SlowCoder's post #26 =). Brilliant =)

Well, in all the years after the Snes generation, there is one game that I never get tired of mentioning: Shadow of the Colossus / PS2. The battles were so epic that I loved every minute of it (except for the last battle. That one kinda sucked, but still).

check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oj6SZgbBuSQ

it's like something from a sci-fi horror flick

- perry

i too have lost much interest in gaming. something i never thought would happen...

but the games of these past ten years are all rehashes over the same themes

for shame, for shame

- perry

Nah ... I'd have to see something like that in 1st person to believe it.

They *possibly* cause cancer, which is caused by random changing of DNA through radiation or chemicals. Not "how would you like your Leg of Slowcoder? Rare, medium, or well done?" Mmmm! (smack of lips in anticipation)