I know. All I'm saying is that when something truly revolutionary is discovered there are bound to be more than the usual amount of bad ideas. Not sure we're disagreeing here.

We aren't, really. I'm just saying it happens all the time; I do not think there are any transitional periods.

Can't say I've put any serious research into it so I can't really substantiate it. Mostly going by how it looks like by watching various media.

It's common knowledge that the Pc Game Golden Age was from circa 1997 to circa 2003.

And what about (2) and (3)? 40 and 38 years old respecitvely. Watched by many even today. And DO pop up everywhere on people's "Best Movie of All Time" lists. ???

Your argument about IMDB is not wrong, but you don't disprove the underlying point the poster was trying to make that plenty of people still consider old movies to be among the greatest ever, ergo it stands that people should consider some old games among the greatest ever too. There's a Godfather and/or Godfather 2 of gaming for many people out there.

Some modern debates come to mind:

CGI effects in movies vs old-school model/puppet/etc ones (the Thing remake supposedly uses these again, why would they, if CGI is better? Or Duncan Jones "Moon" was advertised for NOT using CGI).

Or discussions around production in music (Loundness war, digital vs analog, clearness of the record etc.). Why do people still love those hissing, slightly distorted records from the sixties above the crystal clear, loud records of today? They say the records today are too clear, too sterile! While obviously some older producers were aiming at such clearness but just didn't have the hardware to get it. The same applies for old games, I think some game creators would definately make their games more user-friendly if they have the memory to do so. They were aiming for realism and would switch to today's 3d from 2d in no time. But now we praise them for giving us a challenge or for having beautiful pixel art.

And what about the 8bit music scene?

Why do we want a grid based Legends of Grimlock, when we have the hardware to move freely? I mean Might and Magic had grids becouse it had no capabilities to animate the free movement in real time.

Is these all about old nostalgic people?

No, I think it's only in time, that people realise the charms and advantages of older designs and technologies.

I would say the game is good if it shows the passion of it's creators, making the most of the hardware of a given time. Actually sometimes hardware limitations forced programmers to make some very creative decisions and it's real fun to observe them. I love how you hear music composers struggling with those few sounds and tracks of NES synthesizer... and still many people regard Nobuo Uematsu's work on the first Final Fantasy titles as his best moments.

how so?

I found something in your post I think is important that I rarely see mentioned and that is having a vision and trying to make it real with very limited resources.

Before the computer development skyrocketed the game developers had to deal with a game market that practically screamed for new features and ideas in games because it was flooded with clones. The problem they had was that they could not just add new features like they can today because the computers did not keep up.
So they had to be very creative instead and if they absolutely had to add a feature in a game that was already pushing the computers performance they had to optimise the game to the max.

This environment spawned a ridiculous amount of clones but it also made for some great new daring shifts in games.
Nowadays they just add the feature and up the requirements 1 gig or something. Sometimes I miss the good old games...times.

This is kind of where I'm at, a good game is still good, and I don't miss some of the asinine shit we had to put up with in the old days. I still still get over it if it's a game I really liked at the time, but you know, stuff was kind of clunky back then, in a lot of ways, and it wasn't always charming.

Though, I haven't played Skyrim, I'll sub in Batman Arkham City instead:)

You know I only just noticed where this thread is going. It sort of began as "are the old games really good", but ended in "are the new games really bad". I'm keen on defending the old ones, but attacking the new ones not so much. Many valid arguments are here:

Although i must say, that I also detest multiplayerism and filler time-killer content. And I'm 24.

As many people here already said there is always avantgarde and loads of crap. There was, there is, there will be. As JMich said, finding good content requires you to be active, not passive.

Of course there are also objective interesting changes in the game market, like the amount of money involved, big bussiness connections, the larger audience... But it just made the game universe more diverse - there was no indie gaming in the past, was it? There's always resistance to dumbing down things. The proportions have changed, genres vanished, new ones were introduced, but no one can say that objectively things are worse now. Just different.

BTW I never understood replay fetish. Games are like movies/books to me: if it's a one-timer, but an unforgettable one, I don't complain. Like Soul Reaver 2, finished in 1-2 days, but that game just stayed with me. Forever. Why would I want to spend 1000 hours on one game, where there are so many great games of past and present to discover? That's why I quit playing Diablo 2 recently, I wasted too much time on this: yeah there are more builds to test, more items to find, but what is it, compared to the vast new worlds to explore in the games I have not yet discovered?

But nowadays the financial backing requirement skyrocketed too. So we can say, that small indie developers still have the problem - how to attract attention with the limited resources we have?

Yes. It's a known fact. :)
Have you ever wondered why new games are short, linear so you can't get confused of what to do and where, have "snap to" controls with lots of visual clues, tells you how you should play and only have a couple of buttons you need to press?

It all comes down to attention span. Most gamers today have a short attention span and if they don't get satisfaction every 10 seconds they get bored and play another game.

Exactly, which is why resident evil 6 is being dumbed down from survival horror to a dime adozen third person shooter.

Sorry for another snip but GOGs quoting system is too much work to get it right.

Anyway.
I'm not sure the money involved makes much difference. Before there were Indie developers too and probably a lot more than there is now. Remember Shareware? That's the old Indie scene more or less. And those games where often more daring and inventive in their design just like the Indie games today.
Regarding how Indie Developers should market themselves they simply don't have to really. There are so many ways to market something on the net nowadays that it's one of the most hated things on the net. The constant fucking advertisements everywhere.

All this talk about that games cost monumental amounts to make nowadays I just don't understand. What is it that costs more now than before? Certainly the tools for making games have become better and cheaper so why is it more expensive now?

Amount of detail (graphically, mainly) requiring more manpower would be my guess.