Cliff Notes – The 90s and 2000s were the best time for video game creativity
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The era was marked by a greater willingness for developers to embrace experimental and irreverent themes, as exemplified by titles like Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Saints Row 2.
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The shift towards trend-chasing and risk aversion in modern gaming has led to a decline in unique storytelling and emotional engagement, with fewer games capturing the same depth as classics like The Getaway and Ni No Kuni.
- The introduction of the eighth generation of consoles has prioritised graphics and monetisation strategies over creative expression, resulting in a gaming landscape that often feels formulaic and uninspired.
The 90s and 2000s were the best time for video game creativity – Reader’s Feature
Conker’s Bad Fur Day – they don’t make ’em like that any more (Xbox Game Studios)
A reader is frustrated that game publishers are only interested in following trends, rather than embracing the more experimental approach of earlier generations.
I don’t think many gamers understand that video games change in accordance with our culture, just like many industries do. Games were afforded the autonomy to express themselves however they pleased 20+ years ago and although we’re still seeing games that are expressive, many now seem tame and risk averse.
Trend chasing and attempting to fit cohesively into our culture makes developers and publishers money if they do it correctly, but when they don’t pull it off, the developers of those games tend to close down. Meanwhile, the publisher who likely gave those developers the blueprints to make their failed games get away with it – again, likely because they chase the money and can leverage developers to make as much money as they deem satisfactory.
The games industry, to me, is marching in lockstep with all the other giant industries, such as Hollywood film-making, the music industry, and the television industry; they’re catching what trends are popular and they follow it in the hopes they can get rich, and then they’ll repeat the formula because what we want is secondary in the grand scheme of things. Unfortunately, many of us decide not to think about this because we’ve got great games to play, or other media to interact with.
I’m a 90s and early 00s child, and I think many agree that back then we had it really good, regardless of nostalgia. Games such as Conker’s Bad Fur Day turned up to show us what sheer lunacy looks like and in my opinion that’s partly what I want games to be: irreverent and hilarious fun. 2008’s Saints Row 2 captured this as well, by allowing players to spray excrement onto suburban houses while driving around in a septic tank.
If not humour, then I’d love my games to make me really care about what’s going on. Games like The Getaway in 2002 has you play as Mark Hammond, and right at the start your wife is murdered and your son is kidnapped – and you spend the game walking through metaphoric fires to save your son.
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2013’s Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch is another game I love for its story because protagonist Oliver is so endearing, and the story is about his quest to save his mum. These kinds of stories don’t seem to happen anymore and thus it’s really hard to care about what’s going on in them, I feel.
Somewhere along the line video game expression became restricted. I blame the start of the eighth generation (the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One) for this change of direction. If you go back and play an assortment of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 games you should feel how accessible and focused on enjoyment they were.
When the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One came about the landscape altered and now it was about huge open worlds, pristine graphics, and continued exploitation of gamers with loot boxes, microtransactions, and pay-to-win schemes.
The truly great games these days tend to do things really differently and we celebrate them for it. Last year’s Astro Bot is one of the greatest PlayStation games ever made because although it is a nostalgia-fuelled platformer, it reminds us what makes video games such a beautiful hobby.
I don’t want games like Astro Bot to become flickers and rarities in the grand scheme of modern gaming, I’d rather they were the norm rather than the exception.
Video game expression is very important, and I think we should break the barriers of our culture in order to find a new horizon for video games. There are so many great experiences, as there always have been, but I believe games should be free of the shackles that often bind them. We should see the best of what this industry has to offer without compromise, because otherwise it seems like it’s circling the drain – and when that happens is becomes boring.
By reader James Davie
Astro Bot was a critical hit but not so much a commerical success (Sony Interactive Entertainment)
The reader’s features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
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