See, I’ve always felt that the best console in history was the Playstation 2. Not for being the most powerful, but for being the last console where the tech was advanced enough to realise most artistic visions without being so advanced as to alienate smaller developers without so much money to throw about, so it had a very strong third party library full of quirky weird and innovative stuff like Katamari Damacy and Okami.
Yes, obviously there’s still indie games now and they’re still full of innovation and quirk, but it can be very discouraging making them these days, knowing they’ll probably be drowned out by the hundred million other indie games coming out on Steam every second of every day, where the ones getting the most attention are the ones with the biggest boobies flapping about. The PS2 was an age of equality when stuff like Viewtiful Joe could proudly sit side by side on the shelf with Call of Duty. There’s just not the same social mobility anymore. You either have all the money and all the spectacle and all the attention ‘cos you hire entire small towns worth of people and work them to death, or you get patronized rigid and struggle to escape obscurity.
There’s no middle class to act as a stepping stone. And that brings me to my next point. ‘Cos sure, maybe things could change in the future. Maybe I’m just an ageing curmudgeon blinded by nostalgia for the early aughts. Maybe someday video games will stop being designed primarily around the publishers demanding that they make all of the money that currently exists in the world. But the problem with that is that it would kinda hinge on the rest of society no longer being designed primarily around trying to make all of the money that currently exists in the world. And at this point the corporations are just too entrenched, and government too corrupt, to prevent society’s continued acceleration into inevitable collapse. And when that happens ain’t no one gonna be designing innovative new video games from a climate disaster blasted hellscape.
These are the dark thoughts that nag me and make me worry that gaming has already peaked. But what do you think, commenters? Maybe you think I’m wrong. Let us know because oh lordy would I very much like to be wrong. Sorry, I swear I’m not trying to make all of these end on a depressing note. Hey, you probably can’t escape the system but you could at least find your own way to get by within it.
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/dark-souls-is-the-ultimate-game-of-all-time-extra-punctuation/