When was the last time a movie like the lord of the rings was released? 20 years, when it was released. Since then movies went more into soulless 3d rendering and so on. Big budget games took a similar path, back then investors hadn't figured out that they could churn out the same game over and over with new graphics so they funded a lot of novel game ideas, but that stopped and now most big budget games are very much the same.
The landscape might be better today in theory, but in practice the culture that made those days happen is no longer there and it wont come back since what made it happen was bridging old tech skills with new tech skills, the old skills are no longer there.
Literally one movie, that was an unexpected hit is your contender for better culture?
In 2001 the highest grossing movie was Harry potter, and right below lord of the rings was monsters inc and jurasic park.
In 2002 Lord of the rings, Harry potter, Spiderman
in 2003 lord of the rings, matrix,nemo and pirates of the caribean.
Like how is that any different to now when you have pirates, spiderman, some children disney movie and fantastic beats which is just more harry potter?
> the old skills are no longer there.
Dune had more practical effects than lord of the rings. In 2001 the TV golden age had not started. Shows like the sopranos and the wire where struggling to find an audience. Friends and CSI reigned. Nowadays House of the Dragon and Last of US two high quality shows, with good use of practical effects are doing better than comparable mediocre daytime tv.
Even blockbusters are in many ways better. Andor is a million times better than anything from the 2000s prequels.
Games weren't made to be cash grabs that will be edited in post.
Say what you want about games in 2000 but people draining all their savings on a game was THE news, not just another mobile/gacha game.
And if game didn't ship fully done it got panned. Today they get score based on number of dinners writer was on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsiman_(video_game)
> And if game didn't ship fully done it got panned.
Bethesda is literally one of the most revered game companies and their bugs are as iconoic as their questlines
> Bethesda is literally one of the most revered game companies and their bugs are as iconoic as their questlines
*Despite their bugs. And even Morrowind caused uproar when it corrupted your saves and what not.
Considering the guy above was talking about RE remakes and Lord of the rings, I don't think he cares about gacha games as they are not triple A.
And sure those are bad, awful but they are hardly videogames. They are rebranded fruit machines. King the dumb company behind candy crush etc has more psychologists than programmers in their office to help people get addicted.
I do not think that is a problem of the gaming industry as entertainment, because it is not a videogame, its a Skinner Machine with a couple mini games to get the conditioning going.
> And even Morrowind caused uproar when it corrupted your saves and what not.
But it did not affect their scores, reputation or sales. Same as cyberpunk 2077 or probably Starfield later this year.
Gacha mechanics and its ilk are everywhere, from Battlefield to Diablo to Overwatch, etc. Most egregious example probably being Genshin Impact.
> But it did not affect their scores, reputation or sales. Same as cyberpunk 2077
Sure because rest of the game was amazing, but not even CP2077 escaped reviewers wrath. It got panned for poor perf and its user score on metacritic is justifiably low.
Genshing is LITERALLY a gacha, is not that it has mechanics, its the main loop of engagement. The gameplay loop is just a breath of the wild lite
> but not even CP2077 escaped reviewers wrath.
You are kinda proving the opposite to your previous point. You said back in the day reviewers would not excuse poor performance, and now they do. Instead you admitted CP2077 got its reviews affected by performance but Morrowind didn't
It's not from what I understand. Main loop is the Explore -> Fight -> Unlock. Only unlock part is Gacha.
> You are kinda proving the opposite to your previous point.
You didn't read what I wrote.
> And if game didn't ship fully done it got panned. Today they get score based on number of dinners writer was on
CP didn't invest in enough dinners, people were shitting on lack of true trans inclusion before it released.
And now those reviews matter very little because CP2077 got patched into a usable state.
What saved CD Project Red was huge preorder catalog. They were profitable before CP 2077 was released.
Arcade games were literal cash grabs, dating back to the 70s. Insert coin to continue.
Things weren't better, you were just younger.
I was a teen in the 2000s and I had free time and every game felt new and exciting. There is 0 chance the landscape for media isn't a trillion times better now though.