Backstory: From time to time, I pick up a random old game magazine from our archives to re-read some articles, smile with nostalgia at remarks like "this game requires a really powerful machine, it needs at least a P550 CPU", and in general, have a blast from the past.
A few days ago, I picked up the 2001/01 edition of PC Guru (one of the two major Hungarian gaming magazines), and decided to check out the section for reader mail.

In one letter, after writing about how full of charm Stonekeep is -despite its age-, and stating that he can absolutely recommend it to any fan of the genre, the author writes the following (direct translation, no paraphrasing or additions by me).
"I wonder why this is? Is it that earlier, game developers could make games and now they're exhausted? Or have they run out of enthusiasm and now only profits are important? Will we only see new, commercialized parts of game franchises with which they can earn much money? (Because it's the trend nowadays...) And I don't say this only in regards of Stonekeep, it's valid for every other genre as well. P.e. among action games, we used to have Doom and now we have the sensationalist Q3 and UT. This 3D madness, becoming a real mass hysteria, doesn't do any good to games, because developers only concentrate on the visuals, the content is totally neglected... I feel the situation is desperate. The days of quality PC games -which used to mean the PC's charm- are over."
The editor answered that quality games weren't dead, but there were much less of them than earlier, that companies always make most of the products that appeal to the greatest public (this being also the reason for TV channels being flooded with South American soap operas), and that developers are forced to create games at a fast pace, not allowing for creating good games.

I thought it interesting to share because it could have been quite easily written today. It seems that the situation was, at least in this regard, the same ten years ago as it is now.
While the author certainly seems to have been in a gloomy mood, and the situation may not have been as dire as he states, I began wondering about certain things. (These are more like rhetoric questions; I'm not necessarily looking for answers for these, just sharing them with you.)
-Was it a commonly shared feeling ten years ago that no more quality games were made? Or is it only a few gamers' delusion?
-If the state of PC games was even remotely as bad as the author wrote, how comes there are so many remarkable games from that period? (For example, just in that one edition, there were reviews of Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Insane and Ground Control Dark Conspiracy, all of which are available here.) Or if it wasn't, what could have made the author have such a negative disposition (and the editor partly agree with him) besides the obvious fact that many people seem to only notice bad tendencies?
-When people complain that today's games lack creativity, is it as much of an exaggeration as it was in 2001? Or is it truer today?
-Ten years from now, will as many of today's games be regarded as true gems that stood the test of time as there are from 2000-2001?

Discuss as you please.

I feel like as far as console games now, violence has become king. All I see are ads for grim ultra-violent shooters. My theory is society is ok with children simulating shooting others in the head all day and all night because violence is a cherished value in our country...

I just looked up games from 2001. It was a bad year. One problem was that the Star Wars prequels were out, and all the cheap cash-ins were around. However there were games there to show the industry was still innovating. Black and White, while not to everyone's taste, was undoubtedly a challenge to conventional gaming.

Having said that, That was once Bullfrog had been completely eaten by EA, and nothing good was coming out of there. I remember it being a time when 3D was becoming sufficiently powerful that the focus was on wowing people with the graphics rather than the game which they kept very safe (kind of where we are back to now).

It was about 2004/05 that there was a brief respite when games like Bloodlines, and Psychonaughts really showed some originality. However now we are currently in another low patch, with games companies needing to stay afloat in the hard times, so playing safe (I wonder if there's a correlation between economic prosperity and original games).

So in answer to your questions: It was first really noticed as a problem 10 years ago (and it was a problem). There aren't many remarkable games from 2001, and not that many form 2000 (think about all the FPS clones around at the time. It is worse today than in 2001, but it was bad then. In ten years time, I haven't a clue.

violence was always the king. carmageddon, shadow warrior, blood...


to op question i have one word answer.

nostalgia.

past is always better in memory than it really was in real life.

in 2020 we will look at 2010 and see how better games where then than they are now (in 2020)

same with music, books, tv shows, movies.

there are better and worse things released every year. we do remember great ones better than they really are. and we forget about bad things...

that dillusion is shared by most of us.

Most popular games appeal, much like movies, to our deep seated instincts...fear,anger,love,greed,etc. I feel like the old vibe (90s) games did have more of creative/cerebral edge because designers were inspired by the possibilities of the dramatically improving technology.
Nostalgia is powerful for those who care to examine the past at all. I think most "gamers" are into new and sparkly.

Thanks for your input, everyone!
@lukaszthegreat
Nostalgia sure does have much to do with it; I mentioned that many people tend to only see bad tendencies, but you're right, it's also true numerous people also see the past in a better light than they saw it when that past was the present.
@wpegg
It was in the edition of 2001/01, so that year was still ahead of us.
That said, you are most probably right about that period being one of unsuccessful experiments and cheap trends that were really only meant to skin players.
We'll have to see if today is just another such period, followed by a new renaissance of good PC games, or the current ominous trends are here to stay.

My hope for the future is that as technology brings developing tools to non-corporate developers and artists games will become available that are truly creative and unique.

Tools for developing games are already available to the general public, and have been for a long time. Indie games wouldn't exist otherwise.

I think tools that enable innovation, will naturally require a high level of expertise in programming. The issue being that the more you want to go against the grain, the less a tool can help you, as it's designed for the norm. There were tools out in about 2000 ironically, that were promising everyone that they would be able to write their own FPS. They worked, you got to write a very basic doom clone. If you wanted to do more, you needed to move outside of their tool, and therefore needed to be a C programmer.

The best high level tool that I can think of at the moment that might appeal to you is Microsoft's XNA framework, though I'm not very clued up on that, so I don't know quite what it involves.

XNA requires programming knowledge. I was playing with it for a bit but due to lack of time dropped it. Might come back to make shitty platformer games :).

But seriously seen what some of my fellow student were creating back at uni and it seems it's a great starting point for learning :)

Ign's top pc game of 01 was Ghost recon. The runner up was Max Payne.

PC gaming is OVER. It's done ! ;P

Every generation whines about the old times, that's just how humans are.

Humans are comfortable with the familiar. Generally true I guess. Some consideration must be made to our times though. Our world has never been exactly like it is now.