Livingstone: 'We are in the second Golden Age of games'

MCVUK:

Ian Livingstone is one of the UK game industry’s greatest success stories.

Starting up Games Workshop alongside fellow Brit Steve Jackson in their flat in 1975, Livingstone moved from board games and role-playing novels into video games during the mid-‘90s, joining Eidos Interactive and securing major franchises including Tomb Raider.

[user7402931]

yup

[Roccetarius]

Maybe i just can't see it, then? It seems to be more like a dark age to me, both in terms of politics behind the scene and games.

Sure, we get the occasional developer going above and beyond, but most of it just isn't worth it. This year is a good example.

[rainslacker]

I don't see it either. I see a surge in popularity so people are buying games, but don't see the kind of explosion of creativity that we saw in the PS2 days....the last golden age of gaming.

Games really have been pretty much all the same since the middle of last gen, when everything really started to become so homogenized it didn't really matter which IP you brought most of the time, because they were all the same.

[Hoffmann]

A 2nd golden age of gaming?

Thats why one developer studio after another has to close its doors and companies like Konami are developing 3-5 games per year now instead of 20-30.

[Roccetarius]

I would much rather see less games with more quality content and polish, instead of going the quantity route like Ubisoft is doing.

Well, that also ties into me disliking that publishers / developers reveal games that are far off. Maybe a year to a year and a half, if you're really sure the release date is correct.

@Hoffmann, i do agree that companies tend to stick a little close to some IP's more than others, neglecting other gems they may be in possession of. There are certainly forgotten games that i would like to see revived, and i'm sure other people have theirs as well.

[Hoffmann]

I was more thinking about the variation of game series which is missing from companies like Konami. As someone who started gaming in around 1987 I remember their games like Gradius, Contra, Pop N Twinbee, the many TMNT games, experiments like their Broken Helix on PS1 and later all the Bemani stuff.

Today its just Metal gear Solid, PES and Silent Hill..and that with much bigger time differences as before while they were able to develope one great game after another ..many years ago.

With other companies like Capcom or Namco its similar, others like Midway Games and THQ are completely gone.

[SilentNegotiator]

That's because the traditional business model of game publishing wasn't right for half of those companies.

And with games like Minecraft showing that you don't need a 100 person graphics and animations team to make a popular game, businesses that have reduced their releases to "3-5 games per year now instead of 20-30" are doing so because they're working harder, not smarter. I mean, beautiful, realistic-looking games are great, but a company like Konami could afford to have some additional smaller teams for more releases, too.

Ultimately, I'd say this is more of a transition period than a golden age.

[Xavior_Reigns]

2nd golden age?! So the era of video games we're in right now compares to the golden age of the 90s to 05? Yeah you couldn't any more wrong. So many games are released in broken states, publishers are taking massive advantages of ill informed customers, not to mention so many developers are closing their doors (regardless of talent.)

No this is not a "golden age."

[Roccetarius]

Like someone else said, this is most likely aimed at things like distribution and mobile games, instead of what we relate gaming to.

I will always disagree with a fully digital age, until companies take the approach of GOG and let you save the games, without any sort of DRM to install any time you want.

Then there's the matter of price, but that also depends on a lot of other things.

[Jonny5isalive]

95-2000 was my favorite, but that was when I was little and had a ps1, n64, DC, and PC. This era cant even come close with this garbage.

[vasco17]

Is this dude on Crack. Games were pathetic this year. Boring, repetitive,broken.

[rainslacker]

Not across the board, but the golden age saw a huge explosio of games of all tiers. Lots of hidden gems monthly, not several months between big releases. Golden age isn't here, and it's usually something that's coined after the generation is over and people remember how good it actually was once you take away the fan boy bickering.

[Talgrath]

So, a lot of people didn't read the article, obviously. Livingstone is specifically talking about how the barriers to entry into the marketplace are lower than before, and how easy it is to distribute now. Livingstone is also talking about how ubiquitous games are in every day life now, which is true. You can play games on laptops, desktops, consoles, mobile consoles or your mobile phone. From the perspective of the last few years compared to the old days, this is an amazing time for the distribution and spread of video games.

I think a lot of people are looking at the past with a bit too much nostalgia too, we remember a lot of great games from our favorite era, which was usually when we were children or young teenagers; I remember fondly playing a lot of the old games that people have mentioned in this thread too, but I'm also having a lot of fun with games put out right now. Have you ever tried going back and playing a game that others were nostalgic for but you weren't and going "Huh? This isn't really that great." I fondly remember playing Realms of Arkania trilogy, for example, but my buddy tried it sans nostalgia and just didn't understand the appeal.

For anyone saying this year was so terrible, I'd say you're only remembering the last month or so. This year has seen some great AAA games to start with, Wolfenstein, Bayonetta 2, Infamous: Second Son, Sunset Overdrive, Dragon Age: Inquisition. There were lots of great indie and small team releases too, Braid, Divinity: Original Sin, Wasteland 2, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter and Child of Light to name a few. Sure, there were some games that didn't live up to their promise or had bugs, like Assassin's Creed: Unity and Destiny (and honestly, there was no way Destiny would live up to the hype), but the good far outweighs the bad. This year was a very good year for games and next year looks even better, how can you be upset when there is so much fun to be had?

[donwel]

This is the second time I've seen this in the last few months and it isn't any more true now than it was then.
Even if they stopped releasing broken games, we'd still have to contend with the rampant political correctness and frankly average and forgettable games. The golden age has long since passed, we're in a particularly dark age and it's going to take some bloody hard work to get out of it.