3Decades of Gaming — article
30 years ago, we were dazzled by the colourful Columns for the Sega Master System, or adventuring alongside Scrooge in Duck Tales for the Gameboy. Now, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, have delivered us from the dismal year of 2020 into a new era of video gaming. What brought us here? What helped the industry progress to where it is today?
Innovation. The minds behind the tech, and the developers of games to enable it, need to be credited. PS5’s DualSense controller is widely revered as a game-changing feature offering “a brand-new layer of immersion” and the Xbox Series X holds higher, more consistent, frame rates than its predecessor. This generation is sparking a frenzy of excitement for those who have managed to get their trigger fingers on new hardware.
Astro’s Playroom is a joyous barrage of colours and sensations leaving every PS5 owner wanting more from their new gear. Feel the muddy sludge or the crunch of snow as you experience the textures of different terrain at your very fingertips. Players even have the fun of zipping and unzipping their pants as they please! Not something we necessarily asked for, but a first, for sure!
However, it is not just the consoles, the PC, nor the games, that have changed how we experience gaming today; our culture is at the epicentre of a technological age. Can you remember the first touch screen phone? Or perhaps before the phrase ‘Google it’?
Causes and drivers for our technological breakthrough
The Foundation of Economic Education posted an article listing some of the great feats in technology in our recent decades. With many of these changes comes convenience, something users yearn for more and more. But arguably the most important on that list is the platform of the smartphone. Creative minds are now able to dance on a stage that sits in most person’s pocket. With this, accessibility and distribution have become easier than it ever has been in the history of gaming. 2019 also marks mobile gaming as a staggering 45% of the gaming market income — globally. Evidently, the increase of smartphone users translated to the multiplying of gaming platforms all over the world, some users who might not necessarily go out of their way to purchase a console or PC. Video gaming is not represented by a niche community anymore and it is wonderful.
What now? Expectations
Today, a top-rated game can be compared to a blockbuster film, be it through cinematic sequences of Kratos bare knuckling with The Stranger, or simple snaps of Geralt wondering aimlessly through the wilds with views of Kaer Morhen, subconsciously doing everything possible to forget the main quest. Both games are top benchmarks of last gen — the best of the best. They delivered marvellous stories, beautiful settings, and memorable characters; key ingredients in the recipe of A Cracking Game.
With titles like these, expectations have shifted now. Cinematic masterpieces that utilize production and hard work similar to that of modern day filming, players have had their eyes open to what technology and developers are really capable of. Not to mention gaming is now spread across a far wider audience. Broken or unfinished games at launch will not cut it when a full price game ranges between $49.99 to the new price mark of $69.99. This does not mean the players are inconsolable to a small bug here and there, especially a good one.
What this means, however, is that the price of a high-end game, coming from an established developer, sets a level of expectation that needs to be met.
Street Fighter V (SFV), while a technically sound fighting game today, is a good example of a game with a disappointing launch. The launch in 2016 experienced many server issues disrupting the online competitive play — a core element for the genre’s audience, obviously. Missed expectations such as “lack of day one content”, no arcade, no story, no challenges. Staple marks of past SF iterations and many of these preferable for the casual player. Even so, if the game’s release was geared for the competitive audience, don’t the server issues imply that it was simply too early? Developers work hard and sometimes no level of preparation can prevent technical issues. But when the consumer pays in full for a game, they will be disappointed if the content doesn’t reflect that price tag and not including base content at launch is far from a technical issue.
What happens now the expectations are at their highest? Well, developers are now facing more pressure than ever before. Our journey since the 90’s, while seemingly an age ago, has been a Flash-dash into technology and capabilities we once only dreamed of. The DualSense controller is but one of the innovative masterpieces see today — Cloud based gaming services and Virtual Reality are accessible already and will only establish more footing given time. When watching the time line since the early 90s, we have the closest thing to hindsight as we could to what could be. I for one am more than excited at the prospect of gaming another 10 years down the pipeline.
Article by James Hayward
Credit and links to research materials:
https://www.ign.com/articles/playstation-5-review — DualSense review (PS5 review), IGN
https://fee.org/articles/the-20-biggest-advances-in-tech-over-the-last-20-years/ FEE (Foundation of Economic Education)
https://www.ign.com/articles/the-games-industry-on-the-biggest-changes-in-the-last-decade Changes in decade article — IGN
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/22/mobile-gaming-mints-money/ (Techcrunch — mobile gaming revenue)
https://www.gameinformer.com/2020/11/27/astros-playroom-is-a-true-next-gen-experience — Astro’s playroom review, Blake Hester, Game Informer
https://mashable.com/2016/02/16/street-fighter-5-server-problems/ — Street Fighter V (SFV) disappointing release, Adam Rosenberg, mashable.com.
https://www.pcgamesn.com/street-fighter-v/street-fighter-5s-release-plagued-with-issues-from-dodgy-servers-to-incompatible-fight-sticks — Street Fighter V (SFV) issues at release, PCgamesn.com, Ben Barret, Feb 2016.