After playing a bunch of games from my GOG library, and some newer games, I wanted to bring this topic up for discussion. Obviously, this doesn't apply to all games, as there will always be gems and outliers, but this addresses the general feel I am getting from the industry.

I've started feeling that, while a ton of new shiny games are coming out, whenever I play them, I don't find myself getting invested in them like I do when I play Ultima IV, Doom, Wasteland or Duke Nukem 3D. As I think about it more and more, I've come to realise that what these games are missing (At least for me) is the personal touch of the designers and developers. When I play these older games, made by smaller teams, I get a strong feel for who the people who worked on the game were. Doom oozes heavy metal and Alien fandom, and really gives you a good idea of who Id Software were and what they liked. Duke Nukem 3D may be ultra-referential, but I feel like I know George Broussard a whole lot better after playing it (A nerdy kid who's into 80s action films, and all the silly, over-the-top goofyness that went with them).

It may seem like a stupid point, but to me, that's a big reason of why I play games. It's why I follow my favourite game developers and designers on twitter, and check frequently to see if they're working on something new. Every time I play their games, it feels like we're having this silent conversation. By simply playing the game, I am experiencing a piece of that person, and that makes the game more memorable than all the flashy graphics in the world.

Isn't that the answer to your question already? In the 90's those games developed by smaller teams were considered AAA, today the games developed by smaller teams are indie*, and AAA is multi-million dollar business that requires large teams. Add to that that AAA games back then were made for a niche audience, today for a mainstream audience. If you want smaller teams and games for niche audience, you just have to focus your attention on the indie studios and developers.

Btw, wasn't id a (high quality) Shareware studio, too?

Id was originally 4 guys, who used the shareware model for some of their titles.

What I'm saying is nothing about games nowadays feels personal. It's like every person working on it is a cog in the system. The last game where I felt something was Batman: Arkham Asylum/City, because it was clear there was a lot of love for the franchise put into the game. Both aesthetically and mechanically.

What you mention is a classic case of nostalgia googles speaking. If you never lived through those times you'll never understand one basic fact: the industry has always had the same problems.

EA have always been assholes. They prevented FO1 from beign Wasteland 2 because they didn't wanted to part with the license. They forced a Wasteland sequel which wasn't needed. They drove Origin, arguably one of the most important PC devs of all time, to the ground. They started their sports series in the early 90s. Everything "bad" they do now, they've always done.

The shallow, "cinematic" cookie cutter experiences have always been there. Think of FMV. That shit is ridiculous. Devs who want to be filmmakers have been around for a long time, and they will never go out of gaming.

People who think games should cater to minorities and diversity have always been there. I mean, there were people in 1998 who thought people shouldn't play Shadow Warrior because it was culturally insensitive and offensive to minorities. Game design be damned.

The decline of shooters is probably the only problem that is real, and it's due to one simple design decision: shift from keycard hunting and mouse and keyboard to headshots and twin sticks. Heavy metal vs dubstep happens to be a thing of the times: they just want to cater to what's popular at the time.

But yeah, gaming and games have mostly had the same problems we love to complain about today. The thing that doesn't help is that game developers and, most of the times, gamers themselves are somewhat of the bottom of the barrel when it comes to culture and knowledge. I'm not saying they are imbeciles, but an industry is just as good as the people running it. Don't expect too much from people consuming pop culture 24/7 and nothing else.

If you don't focus on new titles and focus more on older ones, is pretty obvious you will prefer the ones that you play more.

The thing with games is like with movies or music. Back in the days you had all kind of things, good and bad games/movies/music. As time went by, we kept only what it was generally acceptable as good, while the bad stuff were forgotten.
There are thousands of games that we never heard of, that most of us never played. Most of them might be awful. The difference with recent games is that you take contact with all of them, good and bad. 20 years from now, no one will play Colonial Marines. It will be forgotten. We might play games like Bioshock Infinity, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, and we will compare these games with 20 years from now failed games and we will have the same perception, that in the past, games were much better.

The problem is their budgeting. They want to get 1,000 employees across 4 years to create a consistent, coherent experience. In order to make it easier for them and the users they "streamline" the game though which is why they always spew out the same mainstream titles. They're also afraid to take risks and stick to formulas that made them profit before.

Indies on the other hand are the developers of old. They always experiment, always try to get back to the old days when games were just fun and not minimalistic story arcs with excessive action/adventure to compensate the lack of epicness. :P

I have no nostalgic connection to any of the games I mentioned, except Doom.

You're just getting old.

But you assume past times were better. That's a different case of nostalgia goggles, more subtle than the usual. Doom is just an Eye of the Beholder clone (admitted by id themselves) and far from the innovative piece of tech people makes it to be. It's still a very good example of game design though.

I seriously doubt they used those words to describe it. :D

its a loaded question as it depends totally on each individuals taste. There are a ton of old games that for me sucked and were just cashing in on a genre to make some money just like some new games. There are also new games that have a ton of 'soul' via story telling, art assets etc. Its all subjective isnt it? That said, i have replayed several older games and will do so in the future as they are my favorites, while plenty of polished new games I wont look back on.

I don't think that's quite it. I've been excited for newer games before, and it is only recently that i've been getting these feelings (past 4-5 years?). A lot of indie titles still give me the great sense of a personal experience, and not just the retro-style ones.

Mostly yes.. but witcher 3 had some soul in it especially with that heart of stone thing.. Also I don't actually see even fallout 4 totally soulless, it is really rugged on the edges but soulles.. I wouldn't go that far. also Risen series had a lot of soul. Dragon age inquisition was a bit soulless in my opinion.

I'm playing jrpgs to get back my soul. Which are usually linear, bring on lightning returns! =)

Side note.. I haven't felt as good using double barreled shotgun since original doom what it is in fallout 4. Also gun sounds are great and I know it is a bit weird thing to say for a game what should be more of an heavy rpg. I wouldn't call that heavy.

Edit1: Fallout 1 blocked my way to get out of room because that one npc. i was having a good time before that. I don't remember much about fallout 3 but i like 4 more perhaps i'm just too casual nowadays. Like my brother said, games should be fun.. I was like "well, there you are right."

Not to speak for the guy, but I don't think that's precisely what he's saying. What he's saying is more along the lines of auteur theory - that, good or bad, the personality of the creator can be glimpsed through the work. That generally works better with smaller projects that aren't focus-tested as much, although it can still apply to blockbusters in the right circumstances.

The last time I felt a connection with a game that has a soul was many years ago, when games weren't so available to me. As kids, we could never dream of purchasing a game legally as we didn't dare ask our parents for a tenth of their salary just to buy one game. The most we accomplished was once when we bought a "megapack": ten games for the price of one, and it was a great deal – there were two good games in it and at least three mediocre ones, while the rest of them were shovelware. So we had to resort to low-level piracy – friends visiting each other with bags of empty floppy disks (back when few games weighed more than 10 MB), or going to my friend's dad, who was the only one with a CD burner in the neighbourhood.

And we played those games to the fullest. We would first complete one game, then complete it again, then add a goal of discovering as many secret in it as we could, then added a challenge/competitive element etc. I remember a very old game, called Stunts. A primitive-3D racing game with tracks full of loops, jumps, tunnels etc. What's more, it had a level editor that allowed us to create our own stunt tracks. Infinite replay value, in a very true sense of the world. We played that one for many months, and it never got old for us. Today we'd maybe play it for a week or two, then tinker with the track editor for a few more days, then abandon it altogether and move on to a new game. Or Prince of Persia. Once we mastered it after many playthroughs, we would do "cinematic runs", imagining elaborate stories and dialogues from the sparse background and enemies that looked the same. We just knew how to squeeze each game dry as regards entertainment value.

Nowadays there's at least one new release worth the asking price per month, while GOG.com keeps me abundantly supplied with old games I want to replay or old games I never played back when they were hot stuff. Add the limited gaming time to the mix, and there's no chance I can play the game for long enough for it to feel special to me with so many new games to try.