A New Golden Age of Video Games - Computerphile

As two new games consoles are released on to the market - Ian talks about how gaming has instead been revolutionised by stealth - via smart-phones & tablets.

Ian Livingstone is Life President of Square Enix and Eidos.

This video was filmed and edited by Sean Riley.

[ButzPunk]

Saying phone/tablet games represent a golden age of gaming seems like quite a stretch. I love playing games on my phone as much as the next person, but let's be honest; the crappy little casual games you'll play for 15 minutes waiting for the bus or going to the toilet are nothing like a core game like Assassin's Creed, Battlefield, GTA or the like.

That said, I think his comments on how the business people should stay out of the game development process are spot on. Every time business decisions have a big impact on game design, it ends up making the game significantly worse or even blowing up in their faces horribly (à la Sim City 5)

[MrMartGonzo]

The golden age of video games was when software companies were run by programmers instead of accountants like today.

[Squaretable]

I was born in the late 90s, to gain perspective.

I'm very much a PC-Gamer (although I appreciate Consoles, and Accept them as only slightly inferior) And to me, the golden age for conventional video games was the early 2000s. Skill, Graphics and learning curve were all balanced. If I, at 6, 7, 8 years old could play a racing game, and consistently get in the top 50% against computers or SimCity and balance the budget, or Civilization and take over a reasonably large part of the world, I see no reason why these dumbed down games are so appealing, when a mouse and a few key shortcuts, or a simple game pad, with two triggers, 4 buttons and the arrow pad is simple enough. My iPod Touch never saw as much use as my DS. (And I hardly used the touch interface on it)

[johncitizen]

Gaming is becoming more accessible but I really don't think we are in a "Golden Age" of gaming. Sure gaming has become more accessible but I can't help but feel a lot of substance has been lost due to recent practices such as yearly releases, Devs gimping their games for microtransactions and DLC, the increasing trend towards casualization etc. Just my 2 cents.

[FelixNielsen]

The videos start out with <computerphile> and ends with </computerphile> which is all well and good, but then a single <computerphile> shows up, which oviously should be <computerphile /> ;)

[Arty-Maus]

Favorite line: "Console controllers are quite intimidating. You've got 15 buttons."
I look at my keyboard and say "Ha! 15 buttons..."

[AlexBermann]

I wouldn't call it a golden age of Video Games but rather a Renaissance of "casual" games. I do not define this by the level of involved skill but on how long you play it. When the Game Boy came out, there were many small games you played for a few minutes and went on. Tetris is the prime example.

However, there also are games which have gameplay that spans to several hours - or games which are focused on competitive playing. Both these kinds of games can be severely hurt by microtransactions.

The interesting thing is that we have been here before: the 90's had shareware titles, the beginning of the century had demo versions. The concept of playing before buying is nothing new. What is new is the accessability of indy titles, but if indy titles can change the market is debatable..

[TechLaboratories]

I agree that now is a wonderful time to be in the game development business for the everyman, however, I find that the biggest problem with tablet and smartphone games is that the lack of available power and controls outside of touch have led to a stagnation in creativity, where the game mechanic is so similar among dozens, hundreds, or thousands of titles that many feel like simple clones with different faces.

[JaytleBee]

Don't say mobile gaming is the future of gaming. It's not. It's currently just a place for companies to get money.

[NinjaWatermelon]

Wonderful video Brady, my favourite computerphile vid so far. It would be great to see more gaming videos. Thanks for all your work, it's both entertaining and educational, a powerful combo. Keep it up!

[UBFearfulFerret]

Jonathan Blow has a lot to say about this topic, but I'll put it this way: free-to-play games don't need to be awesome to be successful; they just need to be very effective Skinner boxes. It's much more difficult to deliver a deep and meaningful experience when your monetization scheme requires near-constant nagging for money. Games like Candy Crush may be great introductions to the world of video games, but they don't come anywhere close to the greatest video games of our time. They're simply very good at teaching certain behaviors through positive reinforcement, then taking advantage of those behaviors to get us to spend money.

[RyanGatts]

Boy howdy do I not agree with this guy :/ I think we _are_ in a golden age of game design, but it's sure as shit not because of the prevalence of iphone gaming. The iphone only revolutionized pricing models and touch input. The actual game design of most iphone games is functionally identical to games that were pioneered 30 years ago. Angry Birds is just an Artillery game (which was invented in 1976), Plants Vs Zombies is just Space Invaders (1978) combined with Rampart (1990), Words With Friends is just Scrabble with and internet connection. I'm not saying that these games are _bad_, but they're definitely not _new_, and certainly not representative of a new golden age.

If you look at indie/small-game development, on the other hand, you'll see people pioneering game design due to the historically low barrier to entry and the prevalence of free game engines and incredibly cheap distribution models. Minecraft, Braid, The Binding of Isaac, Gone Home, Spelunky, FTL, Bastion, Amnesia, Fez, Octodad, Antichamber, The Stanley Parable, The Witness, Journey, Among the Sleep, Day Z. These games are embracing themes, mechanics, and stories never seen before in videogames -- and are doing it with a surprising amount of success! We live in an age of experimentation, and _that_ is what makes it a golden age.

Of course, indie development and the iphone are not independent things, but the iphone regularly gets the least new, least interesting releases. It's great that there's revenue to be gained off of the expanding market for these simple games, but it's hardly worth intellectualizing over.

[pyrophosphate]

This is like saying it's a golden age of music when everybody shifts toward shallow, top 40 pop music.

Yes, it appeals to more people, for a while. But nobody will be looking back in ten years and remember Words with Friends as a great game, and certainly nobody will be playing it.

When people look back at whatever they, personally, call the "golden age" of music, they're not remembering the popular shovelware songs, they're remembering the GTA5s, the Age of Empireses, and the Metal Gear Solids of the music world. Games with some depth and immersion, or a great story, are the ones that define a golden age. None of those are even attempted on mobile platforms.

[brianpso]

Man, this was like the content a whole lecture in a 7 minute video for me. Brilliant video.

[Lugitaro]

Smartphone games are the exact opposite of something you would expect in a golden age of gaming. They are the ones that *ruin* gaming.

[FASTFASTmusic]

The company I work for got the game funded on Kickstarter. It's a wonderful platform for indie developers and last year seemed to be the pinnacle of the adventure-game-revival. Our Game "Quest for Infamy" is due to be released early next year. There is definitely a new golden age of games, especially retro adventures.

[chuunyu]

You never mentioned PC gaming. It certainly has an impact.

[xDroidster]

I love this channel, keep up the good work!

[SuperMangoli]

I'd say that the gaming industry is split in 2 parts: 1st part is the AAA industry that produce your Assassin's Creed, GTA and so on. They very rarely make good games anymore and just want to get a quick buck by using micro transactions, pay-to-win models and other stuff to get as much money out of the consumer as possible. And they have to because they throw so much money away for "advanced hair physics" and other crap that nobody notices. They are doing that at the expense of gameplay and the consumers.
2nd Industry is the mobile and indie space. Here you have shorter games with not so photo realistic graphics (but they often look better than AAA games when they use the right art style) but they are cheaper. They don't require so much money and staff to make so you can try out new stuff very easily. Of course there are many bad games and games that basically want to rob you, but If you look carefully, you'll have a great time.

[kaoskastle]

I feel like a lot of people may have misunderstood the speaker's point (or perhaps I did?). I understood him as saying that we are in a golden era of gaming not because of tablets and microtransactions and whatnot, but because of the second topic he discussed: the prevalence of the independent developer. The fact that anybody with time, talent, and passion not only has access to all the tools necessary to make a game, but also to all of the distribution and monetization routes necessary to actually become _successful_.

To say ten years ago that the AAA:indie game ratio on many peoples' gaming platforms of choice would begin shifting towards the indie side would have been regarded as ridiculous. The fact that we're at the point now where a couple of folks in a garage can release a game and actually make a living doing it... if that's not a new golden era of gaming, I don't know what is. The modern indie scene is the Wild West of 1970's~early 1980's game development all over again, and that's exciting.