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OTOH, has there really been any actually culturally significant video games released in recent years? I enjoyed for example the Uncharted games a lot. But I do

OTOH, has there really been any actually culturally significant video games released in recent years? I enjoyed for example the Uncharted games a lot. But I don’t think anything significant will have been lost if future generations of people don’t get to play the Uncharted games, no matter how much I enjoyed them myself. Whereas, things like Pong, and Pac-Man and the first Super Mario games and the Pokémon Red and Blue and Yellow games feel much more important for me, and of course the original Doom, all of these are important on a whole other level. And thankfully they are all sure to be able to be preserved at least in some form.

softfalcon 3y ago
Based on the massively positive response both inside and out of the gaming community… I’m gonna say Baldur’s Gate 3 Seriously, it’s converting people I never in 100 years would have expected to become gamers.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  Funny because it is the first time I hear there has been 3rd opus of the Baldur's Gate series
badsectoracula 3y ago
> OTOH, has there really been any actually culturally significant video games released in recent years? Yes, like -random example here- Uncharted :-P. TBH i do not think what is "culturally significant" is something that we can answer right now, but something that will be up to future people to decide. Though i do think that Uncharted is culturally significant in how it was part of a series of influences from the original Indiana Jones, to Tomb Raider, to Uncharted and back to Tomb Raider (in that each one of those influenced the next) - with some Prince of Persia thrown in for good measure. But for people to be able to tell, judge and discover these things, the games must be available to them - preferably in their original condition (remasters, rereleases, remakes, etc often tend to change things - though those should also be available so these changes can also be seen and perhaps talked about in the future). Also not only "good games" or "influential games" are worthy of preservation - even bad or just mediocre game are worthy of that, for a variety of reasons. Games are often a snapshot of the times they were made at and multiple "snapshots" are always better than a single one. Even from a design perspective, a bad game can be interesting: for example the original Prince of Persia 3D seems to have been largely lost in the sands of time and yet it is an interesting game in its own right despite its flaws, in how its interpretation of (classic) Tomb Raider's controls combined with ideas from the original 2D games around realistic/captured animation ended up creating something inferior to its clear inspirations (but that is clear only really if you know about/have played the games that inspired it and know about/have played the game itself). Of course if you just want to have fun, whatever is available on Steam will more than suffice.
- happymellon 3y ago
  Completely agree with this take. What is culturally significant? Things that impact culture more than "is it a good game". Advanced Lawnmower Simulator probably has more cultural significance than "Another Call Of Duty 7", since I remember it from my childhood and an article gets posted that mentions it at least once a year. Does that make it a good game? Definitely not.
p1necone 3y ago
There's been plenty of amazing and culturally relevant games recently, you just have rose tinted glasses for the time you grew up in (or you haven't been gaming much). I'll just list a handful of really well known ones. * Basically everything FromSoft has put out (With Dark Souls 1 and Elden Ring probably being the most important - Dark Souls effectively kicked off an entire genre because of it's popularity (technically Demon's Souls came first, but Dark Souls was the first one to blow up).) * Breath of the Wild * Escape from Tarkov also kicked off a new genre in the extraction shooter, although noone else has quite nailed it yet imo. * The Witcher 3 (heavily influentual towards the design of Breath of the Wild, and a number of other open world rpgs recently) * As someone else pointed out, Baldurs Gate 3 * Skyrim * Minecraft * Dwarf Fortress (not exactly recent, but the Steam release propelled it into being much more well known) * Path of Exile arguably revolutionized the diablo-style ARPG genre - any ARPG that comes out now is influenced by it - see Last Epoch for probably the biggest example. Whether a game is "culturally relevant" or not really just hinges off of whether a significantly large portion of the population plays and talks about it for long enough though. These days we get so many more quality game releases than we ever did in the 90s/2000s so it's much harder for a single game to grab everybody's attention in the same way that the stuff you mentioned did.
- xnorswap 3y ago
  How are we defining recent? ( you're right they're all recent compared to Pong and the OP's point. ) Except BG3, most of what you've listed are around 10 years old. BoTW: 7 Tarkov: 8 ( Technically, but was slow burning so hard to place exactly when it took off. ) Witcher3: 9 Skyrim: 13 Minecraft: 14? ( 13 if we're counting retail, but it was massively popular before then ) DF: 18? Path of Exile: 11.
  - cthalupa 3y ago
    The PoE of 11 years ago isn't the PoE that people rave about today, though. That's more of the past 6-7 years through today. You skipped over mentioning Elden Ring, with it being from 2022. Some others from the 2020s: Hades, 2020 Animal Crossing, 2020 Among Us, 2020 Vampire Survivors, 2022 Half Life Alyx, 2020 (Still probably the only real example of a "true" AAA VR game) I think it's tough to say what games will be long-term culturally significant when they've only been out a year or two, though. I think it's easier to look back in that 5-15 year range and see what stood up.
ShamelessC 3y ago
How recent are we talking about? Did you miss Breath of the Wild? Super Mario Odyssey? The Last of Us 2? Red Dead Redemption 2? Hollow Knight? Elden Ring? Half Life Alyx? Hell, Pokemon Go qualifies for cultural recognition.
- kaashif 3y ago
  > Hell, Pokemon Go I think Pokémon Go was a much more visible and impactful phenomenon (in certain places) than anything else on your list. This might be different to "cultural importance" depending on your definition. I mean did random churches and libraries have "Playing Red Dead Redemption 2 is not allowed here" signs up? Were there flash mobs in NYC playing Half Life Alyx?
Lammy 3y ago
The problem is that the lockout and anti-privacy tech developed for consoles tends to metastasize over to general-purpose computers, like with signed executables, gatekeeper, secure boot, etc. People would oppose development of it otherwise, like they did for the Clipper Chip and the original Palladium proposal. Having an appliance where software """needs""" to be """protected""" from the machine's owner allows that stuff to fly under the radar until it's already bulletproof.
yellowapple 3y ago
> OTOH, has there really been any actually culturally significant video games released in recent years? Fortnite certainly seems to be, for better or worse.

softfalcon 3y ago

Based on the massively positive response both inside and out of the gaming community… I’m gonna say Baldur’s Gate 3 Seriously, it’s converting people I never in 100 years would have expected to become gamers.

prmoustache 3y ago
Funny because it is the first time I hear there has been 3rd opus of the Baldur's Gate series

badsectoracula 3y ago

> OTOH, has there really been any actually culturally significant video games released in recent years? Yes, like -random example here- Uncharted :-P. TBH i do not think what is "culturally significant" is something that we can answer right now, but something that will be up to future people to decide. Though i do think that Uncharted is culturally significant in how it was part of a series of influences from the original Indiana Jones, to Tomb Raider, to Uncharted and back to Tomb Raider (in that each one of those influenced the next) - with some Prince of Persia thrown in for good measure. But for people to be able to tell, judge and discover these things, the games must be available to them - preferably in their original condition (remasters, rereleases, remakes, etc often tend to change things - though those should also be available so these changes can also be seen and perhaps talked about in the future). Also not only "good games" or "influential games" are worthy of preservation - even bad or just mediocre game are worthy of that, for a variety of reasons. Games are often a snapshot of the times they were made at and multiple "snapshots" are always better than a single one. Even from a design perspective, a bad game can be interesting: for example the original Prince of Persia 3D seems to have been largely lost in the sands of time and yet it is an interesting game in its own right despite its flaws, in how its interpretation of (classic) Tomb Raider's controls combined with ideas from the original 2D games around realistic/captured animation ended up creating something inferior to its clear inspirations (but that is clear only really if you know about/have played the games that inspired it and know about/have played the game itself). Of course if you just want to have fun, whatever is available on Steam will more than suffice.

happymellon 3y ago
Completely agree with this take. What is culturally significant? Things that impact culture more than "is it a good game". Advanced Lawnmower Simulator probably has more cultural significance than "Another Call Of Duty 7", since I remember it from my childhood and an article gets posted that mentions it at least once a year. Does that make it a good game? Definitely not.

p1necone 3y ago

There's been plenty of amazing and culturally relevant games recently, you just have rose tinted glasses for the time you grew up in (or you haven't been gaming much). I'll just list a handful of really well known ones. * Basically everything FromSoft has put out (With Dark Souls 1 and Elden Ring probably being the most important - Dark Souls effectively kicked off an entire genre because of it's popularity (technically Demon's Souls came first, but Dark Souls was the first one to blow up).) * Breath of the Wild * Escape from Tarkov also kicked off a new genre in the extraction shooter, although noone else has quite nailed it yet imo. * The Witcher 3 (heavily influentual towards the design of Breath of the Wild, and a number of other open world rpgs recently) * As someone else pointed out, Baldurs Gate 3 * Skyrim * Minecraft * Dwarf Fortress (not exactly recent, but the Steam release propelled it into being much more well known) * Path of Exile arguably revolutionized the diablo-style ARPG genre - any ARPG that comes out now is influenced by it - see Last Epoch for probably the biggest example. Whether a game is "culturally relevant" or not really just hinges off of whether a significantly large portion of the population plays and talks about it for long enough though. These days we get so many more quality game releases than we ever did in the 90s/2000s so it's much harder for a single game to grab everybody's attention in the same way that the stuff you mentioned did.

xnorswap 3y ago
How are we defining recent? ( you're right they're all recent compared to Pong and the OP's point. ) Except BG3, most of what you've listed are around 10 years old. BoTW: 7 Tarkov: 8 ( Technically, but was slow burning so hard to place exactly when it took off. ) Witcher3: 9 Skyrim: 13 Minecraft: 14? ( 13 if we're counting retail, but it was massively popular before then ) DF: 18? Path of Exile: 11.
- cthalupa 3y ago
  The PoE of 11 years ago isn't the PoE that people rave about today, though. That's more of the past 6-7 years through today. You skipped over mentioning Elden Ring, with it being from 2022. Some others from the 2020s: Hades, 2020 Animal Crossing, 2020 Among Us, 2020 Vampire Survivors, 2022 Half Life Alyx, 2020 (Still probably the only real example of a "true" AAA VR game) I think it's tough to say what games will be long-term culturally significant when they've only been out a year or two, though. I think it's easier to look back in that 5-15 year range and see what stood up.

ShamelessC 3y ago

How recent are we talking about? Did you miss Breath of the Wild? Super Mario Odyssey? The Last of Us 2? Red Dead Redemption 2? Hollow Knight? Elden Ring? Half Life Alyx? Hell, Pokemon Go qualifies for cultural recognition.

kaashif 3y ago
> Hell, Pokemon Go I think Pokémon Go was a much more visible and impactful phenomenon (in certain places) than anything else on your list. This might be different to "cultural importance" depending on your definition. I mean did random churches and libraries have "Playing Red Dead Redemption 2 is not allowed here" signs up? Were there flash mobs in NYC playing Half Life Alyx?

Lammy 3y ago

The problem is that the lockout and anti-privacy tech developed for consoles tends to metastasize over to general-purpose computers, like with signed executables, gatekeeper, secure boot, etc. People would oppose development of it otherwise, like they did for the Clipper Chip and the original Palladium proposal. Having an appliance where software """needs""" to be """protected""" from the machine's owner allows that stuff to fly under the radar until it's already bulletproof.

yellowapple 3y ago

> OTOH, has there really been any actually culturally significant video games released in recent years? Fortnite certainly seems to be, for better or worse.