That's a bit exaggerated, but they're certainly responsible for http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v191/Stormrider81/lolinternet/1pghep.jpg.

I was born in '94, so I missed a lot of the games from then, I do remember playing beneath a steel sky on mandrake linux when I was 5 though. I think that was my first gaming experience.

The Xbox is true, but it was more of a stepping stone to the 360 and wasn't nearly as much of a commercial success. The PS2 had very different hardware (many early PS2 titles looked worse than Dreamcast launch titles from 1998, because it was so difficult for developers to program for) and it was still very much defined by Japanese software. And in the original Xbox days Microsoft were throwing money left and right to get significant Japanese third party support, because that's how you remained relevant in the console business at that time.

This is also why Sony has struggled so much with the PS3, as they still latched on to having alien architecture which most developers can't utilize properly. Not surprisingly there are rumors of the PS4 having more standard CPUs and GPUs.

I would say companies like EA have much of the blame. I find that most of the good games today are either Indie or from smaller companies. Minecraft and Mount and Blade comes to mind.
I was born in '97, so I think I've missed out on most of those games you refer to.
Would anyone care to come with suggestions?

90's were great at everything. It's all about money in this new age of video games. There are three companies that I look back on as the greatest PC gaming companies in the history of man: Westwood, Interplay, and Blizzard.

Sadly Westwood was destroyed by EA in an air raid, Blizzard fell to Activision, and Interplay fell to bankruptcy basically.

Consumer decides what product lives and what not. It's the gamers that killed those companies, not EA.

That's not really true. None of those excellent studios died because the games sold poorly or because of the customers, they were very successful, but because of stupid decisions from the EA management.

For example, Westwood located in Las Vegas was the king of RTS, and their games sold very well. EA decided they wanted to buy this company that made the good RTS games, so they did. And then they though, why have two development studios close to eachother and not just merge them? So they did, Westwood moved away from Las Vegas and to their EA Los Angeles studio. But the thing is, the people at Westwood didn't want to move to LA, they quit, and started Petroglyph Games instead. And then all the people, that had made Westwood a success to begin with, were gone.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080617105525/http://pcgtw.retro-net.de/index.php?id=games:keeper3

As the neutral third person party simply watching this for entertainment I must state something. That is what we call an oh snap. Your rebuttal TinyHowie?

That's not really the whole picture though. Westwood had a number of commercial flops outside of their core C&C games. Renegade (which had been in development for a long time) didn't do very well, Earth & Beyond crashed and burned, and I can't imagine many cared about Emperor: Battle for Dune either. They also had a console pirate game that didn't recieve much attention. In addition to this they had a bunch of internal projects at the time like a C&C MMO and a sequel to Renegade, and I can't imagine EA were too hyped up over either of them after E&B and Renegade 1.

I liked Emperor Battle for Dune. It's critical reception is pretty half decent.

Lies. As Freddo says, the companies were doing very well, and EA hostile-takeovered them hoping to squeeze more cash out of them, and more importantly, one or two of their franchises.

I know that's the way it's supposed to work, but it's not actually what happens in the real world. Especially where corporations like EA are concerned.

Agreed. It's a much more nuanced situation. And EA had a now well-known habit of purchasing companies with verbal promises added to written contracts--the former not being carried out. Garriott has growled loud and long about the way he was betrayed by EA's promises. I sat in a bar with some of the Westwood Studios crew after they'd gotten the axe, swearing up and down that they were promised they'd have full control over the product for a specified period of time--and didn't get one quarter that. New World Computing sold its soul for greater funds, and ended up being used by one of EA's founders, Trip Hawkins--who had started up 3DO--as a cash cow. When they didn't produce the huge hits he expected, but only good selling games, the NWC team was fired, despite having created the Might and Magic and Heroes of Might and Magic franchises. Their efforts didn't matter. Their successes didn't matter. They were supposed to save his flailing bad deals. They didn't. End of story.

The non-gaming industry folk who work at EA are symptomatic of the issue at large, the way money-at-the-bottom-line sharks regard genuine game developers. And while there are certainly good games industry people around, the atmosphere has noticeably changed in the games development profession. Read the blogs of those who have left it, and gone into indie development. Not about their bosses, but about what the industry is doing. It's not pretty. That's why there's nostalgia for the 90's in gaming. It was a period when more money was flowing into games development, but the industry had yet to fully take hold.

Excellent post right there, thanks for that

Because more people play video games now than ever, so gaming companies such as Blizzard and Bethesda are trying to bring their games into mainstream so that they can make a [censored] ton of money. Not to mention it costs more to keep up with current games and graphics, so they need to make their games even more appealing to be able to break-even with how much money went into the game. It's an ongoing system.

Sorry it is what had already happened. Wake up.

Edit: never mind, pointless response is pointless.

It's funny how gamers tried every effort to blame others of their own faults. When dev didn't make the exact game in their minds, they blamed the dev. If that failed, blame EA. They never thought about where EA had those kind of money and became the giant of gaming industry in first place. The money didn't drop out of the sky or given by Satan to destroy gaming market. It's by gamers those who ask for that particular type of streamline gaming that gave EA such power, that gamers the consumers, the group with most bargaining chips and those who would preferred to be streamlined that decided those corps had to die.

I worked and talked with game developers here and even thought they so heartfully wanted to go back to the 90s, the market just wouldn't swallow it. All their products with most traditional gaming concept failed terribly, while their action no brainers jumped skyrocket in the sales chart. Kids these days don't play with their brain, they play with their parent's money. They don't play for fun, they play for sense of accomplishment they lack in real life. This is directly from a successful developer over here I talked to.

Ask around you, not ones from this RPG forum groups, but from that general public out there. A research from a friend (cause he could utilize resource from his company) tells SP games are really close to death. People love to compete results with each other, from ladder board or from competitive matches. Mobile phone games cannot survive long without multiplay support. Facebook no brainer games have more players than Skyrim, and lasting for more than 2 years with the dev and Facebook making millions dollars just from selling e-coins. Most MMORPGs have life span no more than 3 months. While you think of only the AAA big titles out there, there were hundreds of indie dev with full passion of creativity and great ideas actually died without anyone knowing, only to be rescued by EA. What will you think if you are one of these thousands of developers? You gave so much that were supposed to be great back in 90s for so many years, yet you did not get a single approval, while you still have family to feed and your future to consider.

Think not of this little forum group of RPG gamers. There is a fact that we have to but would not want to admit, that we are the loud minority among gamers. Think of those majority out there that find games only through words of mouth, sales chart and poster ads in metro. Think of those co-workers that surround you that play only on their iPad and prefer to watch action movies over playing action games, those who value CG effects over solid content. They are the majority out there, they decide our market. They spent 10 hours a day for work, they had to be with family when they got home, leaving only less than 2 hours for themselves. They spent most of their brain juice at work, leaving pretty much nothing left at home, what kind of games would they want?

The gamers brought this to themselves, and no one else to blame.

The Night's Watch have sent a raven, they need their wall back.

Right, because the industry is so faultless. Yep, sounds typical. One side are the horrific evil monsters, and the other the shining beacons of hope. *sigh* Life ain't that simple.

Keep right on defending companies that don't give a damn about you, friend