Video Games Enter Their Silver Age

In 1995 The video game world was going through its second real metamorphosis. If the Nintendo Entertainment system was the first revolution in gaming since Atari, the advent of 3-D graphics and the entrance of Sony and Microsoft into the industry were the second.

I was 11 years-old and in the thralls of video game culture. I loved everything about them, from the imaginative characters and worlds that were being created, to the ability to play digitized sports after my physical body was exhausted from the real thing.

The gaming culture in the mid 90’s was quite different than it is now.  Technology hadn’t advanced enough to the point where the most visually impressive games weren’t located inside a local Arcade. To go out and experience some of the best games, you would have to leave your house and go into the public sphere.

At the same time, the future of video games was clearly going to be in the home. While Nintendo and Sega had dominated the market for the past decade, big money titans Sony and Microsoft were about to enter the arena as well and push gaming to places it hadn’t seen before.

The resulting competition would give us some of the best games ever seen in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.

Games and styles were being pushed by the increased competition, and the benefactors were the players. Creative new imaginings of classics as well as genre bending originals were becoming the norm. There were several print publications devoted to the industry. Hollywood had begun creating movies based on games.

This was to me the Golden Age of Video Game culture.
 
That age is now over.

While I own a PS4, it seems unlikely that I will upgrade to another system anytime soon as the price and availability of a new XBOX or Playstation is prohibitive.  But the bigger issue is that I don’t see a game that truly inspires me to play.

Over the course of the pandemic, I had gotten loads of time to find the best current titles on the market for the PS4. The Hitman series, Red Dead Redemption 2, Grand Theft Auto, Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy etc. If there was a game with high acclaim and even a passing interest, I played it over the past 2 years.

But no matter how many times I leveled up a character, defeated an ‘epic’ boss or explored the imagined worlds of the games creators, I keep coming up with the same sensation.

“I’ve played this before.”

This is the Silver Age of video games.

To some degree, every game I have ever played has built upon previous games. The idea that a new game will not have at least some basis on a past game is a bit ridiculous. At this point the home gaming market has become saturated with titles that fall into four categories:  Sandbox games, First Person games, Strategy games, and Sports Simulator games.

Technology does seem poised to elevate gaming with VR headsets becoming more available and affordable. But it isn’t there yet. Right now, the VR games are limited to simple functions such as shooting in first person or moving and hitting something. The result so far has been a slightly better version for the Wii Fit or Xbox Kinect, which themselves were evolutions of the Nintendo Power Pad and Blaster. All these video-game gadgets would qualify as a bust in terms of catching on and becoming mainstream.

The next age of gaming may be less immersive than previous generations. The newest gaming crazes are happening on our phones. Large budgets are being spent on advertising some of the most simplistic (and addictive) mobile games ever produced instead of the traditional console game model.

Mobile gaming is not new, but the ability to cheaply play the games that now rely on micro-transactions and advertising revenue is. The result has been games such as Angry Birds, Age Of Empires, Candy Crush, and Pokémon Go becoming as popular as any Mario, Madden, or Grand Theft Auto.

These games rely on easy accessibility and the addictive qualities of a reward structure.  Instead of developing deeply engaging works that immerse you in a digital reality like Skyrim, work is being done to create games like Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery where you can casually play during the commercial breaks of your favorite television show.

What does this mean for the future of video games?

In the short term, I think things will mostly be as they are today.  A split between two kinds of gamers. The casual mobile gamer who is interested in the addictive reward systems and simple mechanics and the home entertainment gamer who is interested in a complete and full experience from a game.

I don’t see another revolution coming soon. VR tech is still too cumbersome for most, and the ease of producing simple and addictive games to hook people in and separate them from their money is far more appealing for a business’ bottom line.

For the next revolution to occur within the video game community, technology must take yet another leap forward, to have nearly full immersion with VR, but without the current physical limitations of the technology.