4 ms·

Notice the number of games considered the best per year. Late 1990s and early 2000s have a bunch. Are people making lesser games nowadays? Or the stakes have in

by z3phyr 8y ago

Notice the number of games considered the best per year. Late 1990s and early 2000s have a bunch. Are people making lesser games nowadays? Or the stakes have increased?

qplex 8y ago
The big AAA titles have grown to insanely complex multi 100$ million projects, so at least in that way the stakes are higher. Some good games that would deserve awards just don't get the media attention also.
Wohlf 8y ago
My guess is editor bias, the people who edit Wikipedia are in their 20s and 30s so they put the games they grew up with. As younger people begin to edit the page, they'll do the same.
dfxm12 8y ago
Look at the sources. Only 2 are from earlier than 2003. This list is driven primarily by nostalgia (and perhaps, cynically, secondarily by marketing budgets). It's rare that something will be declared "best ever" while it is still contemporary. It usually takes a little time to figure that out.
- noxToken 8y ago
  It's a lot harder to stand out from the crowd these days. You can have a mechanic that does something perfect that makes your game the best among a sea of 20 clones, but rarely in this era are you going to find a game on an island alone that makes it shine like a Mario 64 or Grand Theft Auto III. Studios are (and to no fault of their one) making incremental improvements to previous titles.
crysin 8y ago
Games have become increasingly more expensive and take much more time to develop. Especially with the new trend of having games be open-world or near open-world there's a lot more time that needs to be spent making sure the player can't break the game. That's at least in the AAA environment, and there's also been a pretty large decline in single-player based games with the rise of battle-royale and moba style games, there's a lot less churn going on. There's been a large spike in indie development though and with Steam no longer curating their store there may be even more lower price point games entering the market which could be good and bad as finding the true gems that can stand the test of time will become more difficult.
chc 8y ago
I think this is more a matter of measuring. Most classics lists have a similar bias. It's hard to confidently say something is a classic except with the benefit of hindsight. In 10 years, it will probably be the 2020s that have anomalously few classics.

by z3phyr 8y ago

Notice the number of games considered the best per year. Late 1990s and early 2000s have a bunch. Are people making lesser games nowadays? Or the stakes have increased?

qplex 8y ago

The big AAA titles have grown to insanely complex multi 100$ million projects, so at least in that way the stakes are higher. Some good games that would deserve awards just don't get the media attention also.

Wohlf 8y ago

My guess is editor bias, the people who edit Wikipedia are in their 20s and 30s so they put the games they grew up with. As younger people begin to edit the page, they'll do the same.

dfxm12 8y ago

Look at the sources. Only 2 are from earlier than 2003. This list is driven primarily by nostalgia (and perhaps, cynically, secondarily by marketing budgets). It's rare that something will be declared "best ever" while it is still contemporary. It usually takes a little time to figure that out.

noxToken 8y ago
It's a lot harder to stand out from the crowd these days. You can have a mechanic that does something perfect that makes your game the best among a sea of 20 clones, but rarely in this era are you going to find a game on an island alone that makes it shine like a Mario 64 or Grand Theft Auto III. Studios are (and to no fault of their one) making incremental improvements to previous titles.

crysin 8y ago

Games have become increasingly more expensive and take much more time to develop. Especially with the new trend of having games be open-world or near open-world there's a lot more time that needs to be spent making sure the player can't break the game. That's at least in the AAA environment, and there's also been a pretty large decline in single-player based games with the rise of battle-royale and moba style games, there's a lot less churn going on. There's been a large spike in indie development though and with Steam no longer curating their store there may be even more lower price point games entering the market which could be good and bad as finding the true gems that can stand the test of time will become more difficult.

chc 8y ago

I think this is more a matter of measuring. Most classics lists have a similar bias. It's hard to confidently say something is a classic except with the benefit of hindsight. In 10 years, it will probably be the 2020s that have anomalously few classics.