I think video games show us a lot about culture and creativity. From late 90s to 2010 we had amazing single player games like Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, KOTOR, Mass Effect and Dragon Age Origins. I grew up with SimCity 2000, SimFarm, SimTower and SimAnt. For multiplayer we had great Battlefield and Call of Duty games that started on PC. These franchises changed a lot from their original PC versions. CoD releases every year now for almost 20 years. Battlefield became something totally different from the 1942, Vietnam, BF2 and 2142 days. After 2010 everything changed. Maybe games became too mainstream or the financial crisis affected everything. The period from 2000-2010 was the best time for gaming. Fallout New Vegas in 2010 was probably the last masterpiece. Skyrim in 2011 started the decline with simplified gameplay. Most big studios stopped being creative and started making basic games for everyone instead of quality products. Here are franchises that got worse or disappeared: Fable series, Maxis SimCity games, Battlefield, Call of Duty, BioWare games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, Dead Space, and Bethesda titles. Does anyone else see this pattern?
Mobile gaming has definitely changed the landscape. Once studios noticed how much money games like Candy Crush made, the focus shifted to microtransactions and live services. Plus, as console gaming became more mainstream, we saw a lot of good mechanics get simplified for controller use. There are still good games out there, but they’re harder to find, especially with some of the big names not delivering like they used to.
I get what you mean, but there’s been solid stuff since then. The Witcher 3 was incredible, and games like Hollow Knight or Hades show indies are filling the gaps where big studios dropped the ball.
Dark Souls dropped in 2011 and completely changed how we think about difficulty and game design.