What was it about old games that felt immersive and inspirational that's lacking from new games
Pic related is basically the same scene idea being used to promote an old game and a new game but for some reason the old one feels more inviting to me, like it's calling me to explore
>atheists cant into tower of babel
Well, for starters the image on the left is way more fantastical than the one on the right. Aside from the giant tree, everything on the right I could see just from driving down the I-5 in the late summer. I've never seen anything like what's depicted in the left in real life, and every little detail raises a new question that gets my imagination going. Plus it's just a nicer piece of art.
But the tree itself is more absurd and hard to believe than anything on the left
It's called nostalgia. It is essentially a problem with your fallible memory. The solution is common sense, which will allow you to understand that just because something is in the past doesn't mean that it is better than anything in the present.
Nostalgia for what?
what if I'm a zoomer with no nostalgia for it, and I still find the older one more appealing?
The same could be said about anything novel.
>knee jerk nostalgia argument
Holy shit I'm starting to get it. The past doesn't actually have anything good...it's all nostalgia! Now buy new product.
It's literally just from showing concept art
art isnt a concept
art is tangible
>What was it about old games that felt immersive and inspirational that's lacking from new games
You were still able to feel joy before anhedonia from untreated depression set in.
But I can still feel joy though, I'm not depressed and I play good games often
Brain drain.
In the 80s+90s software engineers could make a shitload of money making videogames. A skilled software engineer in 2024 that makes videogames is earning 1/5th what they would working for bank of america, while working double the hours. It's not just the outsourcing to pajeets that ruined modern vidya it's the fact that ANYONE doing it is a moronic community college tier frickup.
Nobody that has ever attended a class on level design will ever make a good level.
Modders will always make the best Game Designers
These days, yes. The only genuinely good game devs today are people that are passionate enough that they'd be willing to do it for free. Anyone that seeks it out as a career is too fricking stupid to make anything good.
>The only genuinely good game devs today are people that are passionate enough that they'd be willing to do it for free.
But indies churn out 1 good game for every 100k slop games, there's like 4-5 good indie games total
Have you seen Insomniac's leaked financials? A huge chunk of budget is game dev salaries.
CDNIC
>A skilled software engineer in 2024 that makes videogames is earning 1/5th what they would working for bank of america
1/5 what they would working for FAANG-tier big tech, maybe, or at an fintech startup.
Working as a SWE for a big corp that does not have a tech-related focus is absolutely not 5x the salary from a "mid-tier" AAA studio (200-600 employees).
t. ex-Arenanet (90K TC) ex-Google (250K TC)
I think the saturation of fake pixel art is a factor affecting that perception.
the belief that if you put your heart into it and develop a great product, you'll succeed.
the modern market has destroyed such delusions
one is a tower, and the other is a tree
its different
Lack of soul. Right is a stock photo of Mexico the artist has traced and then superimposed a weird tree on top. The tree sticks out like a sore thumb as it has no synergy with its environment. Very generic, very mid.
Left has a proper three point perspective which gives depth to the landscape and makes it feel huge. The tower is made from the same material as the village and the environment, it looks like it belongs. The two headed dragon skelly adds intrigue. Is it their God? Their oppressor they killed and crucified on the tower? What made the crater and seemingly evaporated all other life outside the town? I can build a story off this.
one has roots, and the other a foundation
they are the same
Tree is way closer
He's already there, it's like 1 hill over
Tower is very far away, big adventure in between
now post what it looks like in the fricking game
>fur
The problem persists even in games
Right has more soul. Objectively. You didn't even notice the lantern and rope did you? It has actual thought put into it, rather than just lazy parallax forced perspective.
>You didn't even notice the lantern and rope did you
No they forgot to paint them yellow
Was gunna say this exact same thing. Can't believe I actually look forward to a final fantasy game for the first time ever and it's fricking PS5 exclusive. That's gotta be a red flag right?
An FF7 product being tied to PS is part of the soul. The real red flag would be seeing it on Xbox on day 1, not bothering to obfuscate the fact that it only exists to get your money. prostitutes are better when they don't act like prostitutes.
The right is just a plain mountain range that looks like it could have been copy/pasted from a million other AAA games. The image on the left has a distinctive look, and puts an object of interest in the distance.
Bait used to be believable
zoomers will never feel the joy of poring over a manual with lore, a bunch of colorful illustrations, and cool tips. your imagination filled in what the pixels didn't.
https://www.nintendo.co.jp/clvs/manuals/common/pdf/CLV-P-SAAEE.pdf
Hand drawn art will always be more soulful and interesting to look at and it was literally everywhere for decades in all fantasy media/video game manuals and such. The digital world has sucked the soul out of media.
Pixel art is also hand-drawn, you're talking about traditional vs digital media
Left was inspired by someone's personal experience or at least level 1 derivations of other media, right was inspired by online art tutorials and level 3+ derivations of other media.
Inspiration is a game of telephone.
Miss mackin the ladies in that game with the boys in the late 90s.
The answer is literally (You)
If you don't see it, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you anon..
>thing Japan
>thing
it's that simple op.
Brave Fencer Musashi
Musashi Samurai Legend
tl;dr: Abstraction.
Older games had technical limitations and lower graphical fidelity which forced devs to come up with clever metaphors to convey experiences to the player. An example of this is Final Fantasy's world map traversal. It's an abstraction of the idea of travelling on an epic journey, the game is conveying this to you indirectly with a gameplay metaphor. It works because the level of graphical fidelity was low enough that your imagination does some work to fill in the gaps.
Modern games don't have as much abstraction visually because now lifelike hi-fidelity visuals are easier to create. However despite the higher fidelity in visuals the interactivity often doesn't match the same level of complexity. There's no visual gap, but there is an interactivity gap there where the player is pulled out of the game illusion because while games may look super realistic, interactivity is still as limited as it was in 7th or 6th gen games.
It’s writing. Writing is the most objective part of media because it’s how you get immersed into the world.
The visuals matter too still. The right looks like some viet homie gazing at a random valley. The left is someone gazing at some babel like structure like he’s going to find treasure, save some prisoner, or just contact whatever is living in there. That’s where you get the inviting feeling from.
It's probably more that you can tell the right is less about worldbuilding and more about combining established game mechanics. Combined with some jaded nostalgia from an era where vidya was still fresh.