The state of Adult games nowadays.

[anne O'nymous]

That is one question, I almost use every time, my parents saying someone is younger than them.
What is younger for you? 10 years younger than yourself? 20? 30? 40?...

It doesn't works like that, everything is about the decade. While you're in your forties, any fortish is your age. But the instant you turn 50yo, they become younger, even the ones who're 49yo.

 

[MissCougar]

It doesn't works like that, everything is about the decade. While you're in your forties, any fortish is your age. But the instant you turn 50yo, they become younger, even the ones who're 49yo.

I always get sad when I see college grads who look like they are 13. And then that bar slowly gets worse and worse and I realize I'm only marching closer to the grave.

 

[grimsaint]

And so, what is the "early stage" of something that is 50 year old, if it's not its 20 first years?

we didn't really know what we were doing in 1960s and 1970s barely any games came out
Gaming didn't really peak till the 1980s and there is already quite a lot of slop there
although I was talking more about 1990s to 2000. Hentai games have become more mainstream and are even on populair distribution platforms

 

[tanstaafl]

we didn't really know what we were doing in 1960s and 1970s barely any games came out
Gaming didn't really peak till the 1980s and there is already quite a lot of slop there

No (edit: video) games came out between the 60 and 70 except hand held backlit electronic curiosities. Pong was created in 1972. Your thoughts are falling directly out of your ass now.

 

[grimsaint]

No (edit: video) games came out between the 60 and 70 except hand held backlit electronic curiosities. Pong was created in 1972. Your thoughts are falling directly out of your ass now.

Spacewars was created in 1962 and in about 1964 the first text based game was made
it wasn't really widely released back then but they were already experimenting
Pong was the first commercially available video game

 

[grimsaint]

What I'm trying to say is that when gaming first became more mainstream and more widely available, like hentai games are now, there was a lot of slop too, just like there is a lot of slop in hentai games now. So, I'm hoping and thinking that it just needs to settle a bit. There are still plenty of sloppy "normal" games, but the ratio of slop to quality has definitely improved in the "normal" gaming scene

 

[MissCougar]

we didn't really know what we were doing in 1960s and 1970s barely any games came out
Gaming didn't really peak till the 1980s and there is already quite a lot of slop there
although I was talking more about 1990s to 2000. Hentai games have become more mainstream and are even on populair distribution platforms

Im not sure I recall it like this.

my personal experience, as much as I recall, was a Commodore 64 in the mid to late 80's, then I got on the PC bandwagon in the 90's - 2000 really and everything came out on CD ROM and patching was a pita sicne you had to have the company mail you a patch disk. Beach Head and pinball games and junk.

between like early 90 To mid 90's I was on phone BBS, and then late 90's the internet started to be a thing and we had IRC and MySpace and midi files.

You still went to stores to buy games on physical shelves.

There were some junky games but because there were so few games you just kind of enjoyed that anything existed at all. Also being a gamer was a bad stigma and people thought it was dumb, so it was not popular. Being a girl gamer was even worse but that's not for this thread.

and hentai games were impossible to find in that era until the internet came around really. I think I had one hentai game on disk and it was probably because nobody had a clue it was a hentai game, Knights of Xentar I believe it was.

 

[tanstaafl]

Spacewars was created in 1962 and in about 1964 the first text based game was made
it wasn't really widely released back then but they were already experimenting
Pong was the first commercially available video game

Spacewars was created for a single computer, then eventually was recompiled by other programmers. It wasn't distributed until the 70s.

allowing the game to reach a wider audience and influence later video game designers—by 1971, it is estimated that there were over 1000 computers with monitors, rather than a few dozen.

Text based games have existed in every format that has ever existed, but on a computer they are technically video games, so I guess point to you. You're now up to 5 or so games for your original test sample.

The point stands though, until 1972 there were no video games in numbers enough to even contribute to this conversation.

 

[anne O'nymous]

What I'm trying to say is that when gaming first became more mainstream and more widely available,

So the 80's where, as I said, home computers were sold on the premise that your children will be able to play on them, and the twist that the parents could do some serious task.

Do you really thing that there would really be more than a dozen of home computers during this decades (Sinclair ZX81, Amstrad CPC, Commodore C64/C128, Matra Alice, Tandy MC-10, Apple II/III, and so on, then later Atari ST and Amiga) if it wasn't mainstream?
Oh, of course, like MissCougar said, you weren't the popular guy/girl just by owning one, but around 1 out of 3 in your school secretly owned one; goes to one of the annual convention for your computer (most top countries had one), and you would recognize your classmate among the crowd. By the way, no company would held a convention if they hadn't a large consumer base.
But be in the demo scene of your computer, and it was something else. You would see thousands people gathering for the event, official and not.

And unlike nowadays, each one of those computer had its own architecture, meaning that you needed to code any software specifically for them. Something that no editor would have done, due to the rise in cost and time, if the market wasn't already largely established.

There are still plenty of sloppy "normal" games, but the ratio of slop to quality has definitely improved in the "normal" gaming scene

As I already said, it's the opposite.

But, because tanstaafl isn't wrong, the truth is that the ratio tend to stay constant. Except that it's easier to not spot the lame games nowadays, because everyone focus, and therefore talk, about the hits, and few games they really hates, but that actually don't flops. It's easier to not see bad games when they are drown in between hundreds of them, than when they were a handful among few dozens.

 

[suprisedcrankyface]

But, because tanstaafl isn't wrong, the truth is that the ratio tend to stay constant. Except that it's easier to not spot the lame games nowadays, because everyone focus, and therefore talk, about the hits, and few games they really hates, but that actually don't flops. It's easier to not see bad games when they are drown in between hundreds of them, than when they were a handful among few dozens.

Standards were much, much lower when games first launched as well - the graphics alone would get a dev abused off this very forum.

The point stands though, until 1972 there were no video games in numbers enough to even contribute to this conversation.

Indeed - when there are only a handful of games, there isn't a standard yet against which to measure other games, & everything is a novelty.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Standards were much, much lower when games first launched as well - the graphics alone would get a dev abused off this very forum.

It's not standard that were lower, it's the technology.

It wasn't nowadays, it wasn't even the 90s. In the name Commodore C64/C128, or Amstrad CPC64/CPC128, the number is the amount of KB for the RAM. For reference, before I write my post this page weight was 229 KB... So it wouldn't fit in their RAM.
Plus, that amount of RAM included the screen. And like the RAM dedicated for the screen what fixed, the screen resolution was directly linked to the number of colors. To stay with the two I named, that were the most used, the CPC had a resolution maximal of 640x200, but in monochrome. If you wanted 4 colors, you had to fall back to 320x200. But, luxury, it also had a mode 16 colors... for a resolution of 160x200. For the C64 it was 320x200 monochrome, and 160x200 4 colors.
The CPC had a processor going at the incredible speed of 8Mhz, but from memory it was limited at 4Mhz, while the C64 was at 2Mhz. And the refresh rate for the screen was far to be at 60fps. I don't really remember its frequency, but I know that for both demos where using it to synchronize the soundtrack; so fast enough to play one note during each scan, and slow enough for this to give something that can be listened.
And consoles weren't really better.

So, obvious with such stats you couldn't do much. And the reason why I tend to consider that there were really few slop at those times is probably because I was on the CPC demo scene. I used to know really well the limitation of the machine, so I also know how inventive peoples had to be in those times to make a game that worth it. It's possible that it made me more tolerant, being amazed that "they achieved to do this" even if the "this" was sucking.
I mean, take Pac Man by example. Would we do it nowadays, it would rely on advanced algorithms. But the game is based on something extremely simple, with each ghost having one and only one behavior, in top of having its assigned default zone; anyway there weren't enough place in memory for a more advanced code, nor enough computing power to handle it. And this simplicity make the game both more interesting and more challenging than what a modern algorithm would achieve.

Indeed - when there are only a handful of games, there isn't a standard yet against which to measure other games, & everything is a novelty.

Yes and no.
Clones rapidly appeared, but players were more opened to diversity than they are nowadays while, paradoxically, 2D offered more possibilities. A point'n'click in 3D would looks ridiculous. Platformers are almost non playable when in 3D, whatever if it's 1st or 3rd POV. Shoot'm'up can be done in 3D, but they are way less fun. Same for kill'm'all, that need to be in 3rd POV since you can be hit from behind.
VR can possibly lead to a comeback of platformers and shoot'm'up, since controling the view is easier, you just need to move your head. But will it happen, I'm not really sure.

 

[suprisedcrankyface]

It's not standard that were lower, it's the technology.

Those go hand in hand, its the old shadows in a cave becoming reality.

Certain era games can still be enjoyed, without any nostalgia associated. However these are (generally) from later eras once genres were defined (or a game was so great it created them).

Once the limit of technology was raised and standardized (within homes) it really did cause an explosion in gaming. Prior to that is was a niche hobby, with games half being experiments rather than just pure entertainment.

 

[Icarus Media]

I always get sad when I see college grads who look like they are 13. And then that bar slowly gets worse and worse and I realize I'm only marching closer to the grave.

"Good thing about growing old, everybody gets good looking." - Billy Connolly.

 

[vaivaliz]

idc how many ntr games are made, ill still be playin em when i see a new one

 

[tanstaafl]

Standards were much, much lower when games first launched as well - the graphics alone would get a dev abused off this very forum.

The existing standards are what games are made against, meaning games are made in their time with the standards of that time in the minds of the devs or dev. And yet the ratio of good vs shit remains fairly constant. I'm talking about after that first decade or so of course, because, as you said, the novelty of anything that could be considered a video game offset a lot of what could be considered shit. After that though...

It's almost as if an objective set of standards could be established the ratio could eventually change, but as humans that isn't going to happen.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Once the limit of technology was raised and standardized (within homes) it really did cause an explosion in gaming. Prior to that is was a niche hobby, with games half being experiments rather than just pure entertainment.

I don't know what you imagine games were in the past, but they were far to be experimental, and relatively well established.
There were 2 periods of experiments during the short video games history. The 70s, when people discovered that computer can be used that way. The 90s, when the PC standard appeared, unleashing computers power with the 640KB RAM by default, that could goes up to 4MB, then quickly above it, and with the VGA then SVGA cards that offered 256, then 16 millions. It continued until the mid 2000s because after having played with the absence of limits, Half-life opened the way to real time 3D and opened world.
In those two eras, yes there were games that were partly experiments; Wolfenstien 3D, Descent, Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D and Half-life, to only name the most significant. Yet, those experiments came from indie studios. The studios that nowadays would have been called AAA were way more conservative. Before Half-life, none of them really cared about the fact that it was possible to do 3D games, sticking to what was the traditional games of those times; this even if there's 5 years between Doom and Half-life.
The spirit was more free (LucasArt and Sierra made fucking lovingly weird games), but the game mechanism far to be innovative and even less experimental. They stayed true to the 80s, prolonging the period of stability that this decade was. The demo scenes, and as I said some indie studios in the 90s, were pushing the limits, but game studios weren't looking in that direction, staying conventional. This even when Amiga made a real breach, mid 80s, by offering the first environment really multitask, while breaking the video limits.

 

[tanstaafl]

The spirit was more free (LucasArt and Sierra made fucking lovingly weird games), but the game mechanism far to be innovative and even less experimental. They stayed true to the 80s, prolonging the period of stability that this decade was. The demo scenes, and as I said some indie studios in the 90s, were pushing the limits, but game studios weren't looking in that direction, staying conventional. This even when Amiga made a real breach, mid 80s, by offering the first environment really multitask, while breaking the video limits.

I always use Alone in the Dark (1992) as an example of 90s imagination and ingenuity. It was a masterpiece of a game that most people today couldn't even play. Yet it inspired the entire Silent Hill series and quite a few other games stylistically and set a standard that can still be felt today.

 

[Count Morado]

LucasArt

 

[anne O'nymous]

I always use Alone in the Dark (1992) as an example of 90s imagination and ingenuity.

Fun Fact/My life/No one care: I used to hang out with its dev.
I remember it, because it was him. He surely don't remember, because I was a pure nobody

This being said, as I almost not hinted to in my post, at this time I was more a fan of humor than of technique. God, when did the industry became so stuck up and stopped to make games like Day of the Tentacles or Space Quest? Outside of Borderlands and Saint Row series, is there a game made after 2000 that remember that weird is fun?

 

[tanstaafl]

Fun Fact/My life/No one care: I used to hang out with its dev.
I remember it, because it was him. He surely don't remember, because I was a pure nobody

This being said, as I almost not hinted to in my post, at this time I was more a fan of humor than of technique. God, when did the industry became so stuck up and stopped to make games like Day of the Tentacles or Space Quest? Outside of Borderlands and Saint Row series, is there a game made after 2000 that remember that weird is fun?

A few. Fall Guys was plain old simple fun, and a bit weird, but it was cashing in on the Minion vibe I believe. Schedule 1 is a game that could fall under that category, but it is cashing in on the controversial nature of its premise. There's always a gimmick these days.

Edit: Minecraft...before it was sold to Microsoft. It was pure brilliance and originality and made by one dude...who is now a billionaire. heh.