Since I was about twelve years old--in 2001--gaming has visibly been in a state of decline. In the years before then, things were stellar: the 3D revolution, in the mid-nineties, forced developers to rapidly adjust to a new design environment. This change, combined with the strength of the economy, which encouraged publishers to take risks, and production values that had improved but nevertheless weren't so exorbitant that they prohibited corporate risk-taking, all conspired to lead to a string of brilliant releases. Just consider 1998 alone: that year, StarCraft, Pokemon Red/Blue, Fallout 2, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Grim Fandango, Half-Life, Thief, and Baldur's Gate were released--all some of the finest games ever made.
This generation has seen a few titles that live up to these lofty standards (Valve's games spring to mind, as well as Super Mario Galaxy), but not many--if the sixth generation was less impressive than the fifth, it was still fueled creatively by the sandbox revolution launched by Grand Theft Auto III. But this generation's chief revolution--digital content delivery--has had little to no impact upon the actual gameplay of AA titles. Where it has affected the industry, it has done so by ennobling indie designers to produce budget-priced titles, which--while often amusing--are rarely as ambitious as the great games of yesteryear (many of which had equally crude graphics). So with the mainstream game industry in a ruinous creative state, and indie designers failing to fill the void, the new question becomes: whereto from here?
The problem, of course, is that things may have to get worse before they get better--a strange thought, since for the past five years I've repeatedly assumed each year that things have bottomed out; that they couldn't possibly get worse. Bad news abounds: Nintendo, one of the greatest of all design firms, looks like it's on the verge of crisis. Yet another historically great studio--LucasArts--auctioned off its most valuable IP to EA. The releases scheduled this year are largely unexciting, and so far almost all of the projected next-gen releases are blatant rehashes.
The point, here, is that the 'mainstream' game industry may be shooting itself in the foot: developer costs that have continued to spiral upward even in a recession have created unassailable barriers to entry that result in only the most creatively asinine games being greenlit for production on mainstream consoles. The net effect of this is that other, less costly platforms--phones or computers--are increasingly gaining a larger share of the gaming public's attention. In this sense, the inert public response to the Wii U may foreshadow how people are going respond to the PS4 and next Xbox--with Ouya and Steambox being the possible beneficiaries.
If things come crashing downward, we may see a dearth of good corporate-produced titles for a few years--a kind of modern-day version of the E.T.-caused Atari crash of '83. Maybe this will be good: it will force indie designers to pick up the slack. In any case, playing games like L.A. Noire or Portal 2 these days, I'm aware I could be experiencing the end of a phenom: one in which it was possible for games with artistic aspirations to compete, in terms of budget, with market-tested commercial drivel.
We may be at the beginning of a new cycle; one that challenges our assumptions--that graphics will always improve overtime; that proprietary consoles will inevitably dominate the marketplace; that games with creative aspirations can coexist on the same economic footing as ones that are created for purely economic reasons. Right now, there is great chaos under heaven. Hopefully the situation will be excellent.
And--of course--what do you guys think?