When Was The Golden Age of Video Games?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ธ.ค. 2023
- Today I wanted to talk about the Golden Age of Video Games.
Follow Me: / kirotalks
Credits
Footage:
LongplayArchive - Kid Icarus, Tekken, Assassin's Creed, Kingdom Hearts 2, Pokemon Yellow,
Pitfall, River Raid, Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Mega Man 2, Sonic 2,
Super Mario World, DOOM 2, Crash Bandicoot, Resident Evil, GoldenEye 007, Donkey Kong Country,
Kingdom Hearts, Jet Set Radio, Half-Life 2, Halo, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Wii Sports,
Brain Age, Portal, P.T., Outlast, Resident Evil Village, Dead Space Remake,
Zelda Majora's Mask 3D, GoldenEye 007 2010, Metroid Zero Mission, Resident Evil Remake,
Super Mario Galaxy, Night Trap, Dark Souls, The Walking Dead, Air-Sea Battle,
Nights into Dreams, Zelda The Wind Waker, Resident Evil 4 Remake, The Last of Us Part 2
/ @longplayarchive
arronmunroe - Ridge Racer / @arronmunroe
Senboza - Space Invaders / @senboza661
hirudov2d - Sheriff, Galaxian, Head-On, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Tempest, Cube Quest
/ @hirudov2d
World of Longplays (www.longplays.org)
SCHLAUCHI - Asteroids
KAGE-008 - Pac-Man, Metal Gear
georgc3 - Ultima, Viruta Fighter
Tsunao - Wrecking Crew, Castlevania Symphony of the Night,
JagOfTroy - Wolfenstein 3D
RickyC - Final Fantasy 7
Spazbo4 - Chrono Trigger, Mirror's Edge
krysztal - GTA 3
Darius320 - Tomb Raider 2013
/ @worldoflongplays
Haze Anderson - Adventure / @hazeanderson
The Dot Eaters - Mystery House / @doteaters
Scott Manley - Rogue / @scottmanley
William Ng - Game & Watch: Ball / @wnwoodworks
ballerscuba - Wizardry / @ballerscuba
AL82 Retrogaming Longplays - The Secret of Monkey Island / @al82retrogaminglongplays
FCPlaythroughs - Pokemon Omega Ruby, Sonic Generations / @fcplaythroughs
Music:
half.cool - Gemini • [ROYALTY FREE] - "GEMI...
TrackTribe - Wish You'd Never Left • Wish You'd Never Left - เกม
This video managed to input the idea that there's a whole generation of people who will grow up and be molded by live-service, money-grabby games into my head.
And that's... Quite sad.
Well if you think about it a whole generation was also molded by cheaply made licensed shovelware like the many we got during the PS2 and GC era, Scott the Woz even had a video talking about his childhood memories of gaming which were mostly with SpongeBob games, I'm pretty sure the generation growing with the current worst will also be able to look back and realize that some of the games they loved growing up weren't the best, even if they hold a special nostalgic place in them, I'm sure most people have that one horrible shovelware game they loved playing when they were kids, but those games don't have to define the generation even for the people who grew up during their time
@@meikaishi Scott The Woz is such a sad case idk how that guy is a gamer lmao
We're in the dark age of gaming right now.
why? this one hell of a generations for games,games had never been so accessible to play and to make before with emulation and engines,people with minuscule budgets can now make high quality games, it's is much more easy to know what games are good or not with Reviews,we have the best hardwares and Tools at hand, games now have huge potential for the future
@@rafhael636 Greedy corporations, overreliance on microtransactions, the indie scene carrying the gaming landscape, bad games, unfinished games, bad unfinished games that require tetrabyte sized patches and still suck, 70 dollar price tags, a bigger need for piracy than ever, employee abuse and harassment, monopolies running rampant, no original ideas, overreliance on IP's, bad reboots, bad remakes, toxic, sexist, xenophobic and ignorant fanbases, evil regimes gaining influence, and massive supply shortages. Yeah, this really is a great era for gaming.
This is a big time frame, but I'd say the late 90's to the early 2010's. Mainly because you got to see franchises grow and trends appear. Also 90's and 2000's games tend to have the most interesting cut content, too.
Same, I like this idea!
maybe narrow it just a touch and say from ps1 to the release of oblivion horse armour
this time frame was when technology advanced significantly every generation, thats why there was so much evolution, improvements, and legends being born. i think we're at the tail end of where technology can develop, it might be another few decades before such a period of rapid advancement can happen again
I think it starts in 1996(Crash bandicoot, Tomb raider, Resident evil, Super Mario 64 and Pokémon red and blue) and ends in 2013(Gta V, Bioshock infinite, The last of us and Super Mario 3d world)
Ngl I always thought the late 90’s to the early 2010’s was the golden era but I definitely can see someone calling rn a golden age too even though we do get bad game the great one still really stood out and I think every era comes with flaws in gaming but what makes it golden is how the good games from different ages still stand today maybe just me tho
For me it's the late 90s & early 2000s.
90s-00s is the golden age because this was the era that launched Video Games from childrens toys to home mainstay.
Getting arcade experiences at home like Street Fighter, the advent of 3d gaming at home being a thing, and the era of portable gaming all happening around this time frame makes it such that this is the era we largely have to thank for the one we have now. A lot of "greatest game in the franchise" was released in this era, from Super Mario World, to Megaman x4 to Sonic 3 to Symphony of the Night to Mario 64, Resident Evil 2, Ocarina of Time, Half Life, etc, were all released in this time frame. Games that are to this day considered must plays in any top list, and many of them inspired directly what would come later.
I feel that the games of the eras after this were largely made in part to capture ideas that appeared in this era, and if it wasn't for this era in particular Video games would have likely gone the way of Disco or the Arcade; a once incredibly popular social fad relatively lost to time.
That's my 2 cents anyway
Agreed
yea i like 1980s games but when you look at old commercials and media they really saw it as a toy .i wonder what would happen if a 25 year old guy was playing a game boy in public in 1990. the people probably saw it the same as a guy running around with action figures in public .
@@belstar1128 Pokemon and Tamagotchis were too big by then. Video games like that were also status symbols so it was unlikely to get judgement. When Notorious B.I.G. is rapping about "Super Nintendo Sega Genesis", you no longer get called out for childishness.
@@DocDreamTaker no i mean in early 1990 or 1989 when the game boy just came out. i wanted to say earlier but there was no game boy back then. the things you mentioned are from the late 90s
I think you almost have it right. I would include the early 2010s as well. Minecraft (I know it existed since 2009, but it was officially released in 2011), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and GTA V are some of the most influential games of all time.
My mind immediately went to the shift from 2D to 3D, that is literally one of the biggest moments in the industry, it's tied with the Mario versus Sonic console war era imo
The Final Fantasy series, FF6 to FF7, such a transition!
To me, the golden era came from the early 2000s to early 2010s (around 2002 to 2013). Games were smooth, many games play so much better in 3D thanks to the standardization of control layouts, new ideas were thrown in nonstop, and I do get a kick out of 6th gen graphics. The cinematography and scale in the 7th gen is funnily enough, better than in the 8th. By 2010/2011, retro revivals, amazing looking games, and XBLA were absolute. HD is also something that is a mind-blowing thought to grasp. Gameplay is just great throughout the era, and some of the flagships and killer apps were amazing. This was also the kickstart of online gaming thanks to the Xbox with Live, which was sick. This was also still when patches were lesser utilized (especially early on where there were none), so there was more on the line if the devs ever succeed or fail. Music was another huge factor, and the OSTs of the mid to late 2000s are my favorite.
i liked the mmos from that era before they discovered microtransactions and made things too linear but i kind of dislike ps2 games because they looked too dark.
personally i think it starts in 1996
I'd agree with this.
A lot of the games in this era really nailed good feeling controls, and the ones that did lean into cinematography never compromised game feel to achieve it. This era also saw great leaps in graphical fidelity, it's genuinely impressive going from PS1/N64 to PS2/GameCube in terms of visuals. After this era graphical advancements started to plateau. Online functionality was also in its infancy and hadn't started to get predatory, though a certain September 2010 Team Fortress 2 update started to spell the beginning of the end for that. Mobile games too still had just the right amount of effort put into them. Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Jetpack Joyride, Geometry Dash, and Cut the Rope all used the mobile phone platform perfectly. Nowadays mobile games tend to be either too low effort, or complex enough to warrant being on a dedicated handheld instead.
TL;DR really steady progress with really quality games.
(this funnily enough also happens to about line up with Frutiger Aero aesthetics which I adore)
I'd say for sure 90s-00s and maybe the 2010s. During this time there was just constant innovation and creativity.
Every game had its own style instead of trying to look realistic(some did but not every game). I could go on and on but you get the point.
For me it’s that period from 1998-2018 as my favorite games of all time released in that timeframe. I love games from the early 2000’s, grew up in the late 2000’s-early 2010’s era, and it ends in 2018 as personally that’s when I stopped being excited about games the way I used to be. 2023-2025 might be the comeback I’ve been waiting for, this year was stacked and stuff like Tekken 8 and GTA 6 is exactly what I needed to come back.
1990’s-2000’s, also good video, Kiro!
I really have to agree with everything you said. I've always hated when you see a Reddit reply or a TH-cam comment where their talking about videogames they grew up with & then end it with "back in the golden age of gaming" or something like that. Golden age, like generations, are just terms we make up to organize our opinions on topics. Between what consoles competed with what, what games were the best, what games were the most innovative, their all just terms. There is no definitive "golden age" for any media really. The way it's used with videogames is different from every other media type out there, since it's not based on innovation, rather quality. That makes picking a golden age automatically wrong anyway, because basing it off of quality isn't the way it should be done regardless.
I agree with most of what you say… but there’s another way to look at it. If you come at it from a negative view point, I think one can argue when video games were at their worst. Take movies. I’d argue that the 60s and 70s was one of the weakest periods for movies. Does that mean they all sucked? No but there are a lot of films from that time period that were considered “great” that now are viewed as shit.
There are always peeks and valleys. I grew up with the 8bit/16bit era but I don’t think “it’s the best”. But it was one of the most original periods. But far and away the generation where we saw the most innovation was the 5th gen. Does that make it the best? Not by a long shot.
I think whatever today is, that’s the best time period. You get all the recent releases plus any retro game you want to check out. But for the love of God, I am so sick of hearing Gen Zers call the Gamecube/PS2/Xbox as “peak gaming”. It’s almost cliche at this point.
Oddly enough, the late 90s into the mid 2000s would be my pick despite the fact that only 1 of my top ten favorite games came out in that time period. The sheer volume of great games released in that time period feels unmatched.
@@leeartlee915dude, 70s was the golden age of cinema
@@tristan_840 I’d just disagree on that. There’s a few notable films from that period but by and large, the majority of movies from that time are dated POS. Compared to the 80s where, even if the movie is “bad”, it’s still very watchable. You put on a movie from the 70s, it makes me want to take a nap.
In my opinion, I'd say that ALL eras in gaming history were the Golden Age (even the 70s and early 80s).
The game industry, in concept, is all about making technological advances over time with each console generation that passes by.
Even with the years that had gaming at its lowest, there were still a few good things to be proud of.
yea i like 70s games because you can just play it for a few minutes when you wait for something and then walk away. even in nes games like super mario bros you don't want to get interrupted in the middle of the game
My only thing with that is I think it's time gaming stops trying to be so technologically massive. Seems every year there's some boundary pushing with minimal results. I say focus on what we have and build within that.
Probably why I enjoy the Switch so much, it's absolutely not a player in the tech wars and even Microsoft seems to be getting away from that as well to an extent by making everything mid spec PC compatible.
I think right now we are in a golden age for gaming hardware. We have powerful gaming desktops, laptops, emulation devices, smart phones and consoles.
It’s never been easier to play great games on whatever device you own.
The only thing that disappoints me is that there isn't a huge difference between an Xbox, Playstation and a PC, as they all use very similar hardware, and have very similar capabilities. It is great that we can play almost anything on everything though, as long as it's ported.
No shit dawg😭 technology only gets better as time goes on
@@UltimateGattai The lack of a difference is a good thing. Before, if you wanted to play all of the games, you needed to buy all the consoles. Ports were difficult to make and often had sacrifices, especially when the publisher pawned it off onto a secondary dev team. Now it's just a preference, you could go for the convenience of either an Xbox or a PlayStation, or the customization of a PC, or the portability of a Steam Deck (or other PC handheld) all while playing essentially the same games (most of the time). And then there's Nintendo... and while I marvel at their innovations and praise their game design, the fact that the only way to truly legally play their games is on their consoles is still obnoxious.
That last sentence is important. Never been easier to play great games, which is why I play somewhat older games.
Except of a first person rythm game roguelike, every game I play is from 2017 or older.
@@KyleDavis328 While it is indeed mostly a service question nowadays, platform exclusive titles are still a thing, when there is even less reason, because the hardware is so similar that porting and cross-platform releases should be the norm.
Gen 6. So much innovation and largely 60fps experiences on consoles. Decent enough graphics and weirdness was actually embraced. I miss it.
Agreed. 3d games had become refined enough in terms of design, controls, and performance to actually be fun to play, but it was still early enough that risks were still being taken and online hadn't become the main focus yet.
So the Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2 era.
@@connormclernon26 corretto
@@lpnp9477 And if I told you that the sixth generation is my least favorite generation, and 7 and 8 are my favorites, would you believe me?
@@connormclernon26 Don't forget that there is some overlap. The latest PS1 games and the earliest PS2 games were still pretty similar. Same with N64 and Gamecube.
Oh, and don't overlook the Dreamcast. That was also in that "generation"
Have you ever noticed that the "Golden Age" literally means an age of prosperity and happiness but it always seems like it is the origin of the things that will eventually bring the consumers happiness but not necessarily the era in which they become popular? That is because it is often attributed to the business perspective and not the individual consumer. It is "This is when (specific property) was introduced, which became the foundation for making a ( general media form) consumers will enjoy." and it ultimately becomes the drawing board they will go back to when the media enters their collapse state. With that in mind, it should narrow down the ranges for the golden era of games.
Probably 1995 to 2013 then. Creative games and spin offs to major IPs were numerous back then due to lower costs to make games and a larger AA Game market among various other factors
@@ThatGuy-ky2yf my guess for a peak decade would be 1996-2006, with a transition in the years before and after it.
Can we appreciate kiro’s approach to this topic and how he increases our passion for video games?
It was amazing!
Something that I can give 1990s for is that it's pretty much where RPGs peaked. The only RPGs that can either top or match something to the magic of Chrono Trigger are Mother 3 and the Persona games.
The early and late 2000s is where Valve peaked with all of their video games.
Tbh 2d games in general peaked in the 90s. There's only been a few games since that reach that level for me (Celeste being the big one)
@louiepikmin3184 OneShot, too.
The early and late 2000s was when basically all of Valve's games released.
Half Life 2 in 2004, the Orange Box in 2007.
The only outliers are Half Life in 98 and CS:GO in 2012
I consider the golden era of video games to be from 1979-1999. Due to how many major franchises got their start during that time period. There was:
Super Mario,
Zelda,
Pokémon,
Metroid,
Kirby,
Donkey Kong,
MarioKart,
Mario Party,
Super Smash Bros,
Sonic,
Mega Man,
Street Fighter,
Resident Evil,
Castlevania,
Contra,
Metal Gear,
Final Fantasy,
Dragon Quest,
EA Sports,
Crash Bandicoot,
Spyro,
Tomb Raider,
Gran Turismo,
Need for Speed,
Mortal Kombat,
Pac-Man,
etc.
As someone who grew up playing games from the experimental/indie era, that time period will always be my favorite from all the nostalgia and good times I can remember!
I'd say the ps2/xbox/gamecube/dreamcast generation is easily the best. Companies weren't trying to maximize profits with greedy tactics, they were doing one thing; Making games. If a game was good, it'd make money. I know that applies to other generations as well, but this really feels like when so many classic franchises hit their peak. On top of that, it was the biggest graphical leap we've ever seen. The difference between something like smash bros 64 and smash melee or, my favorite example, conker's bad fur day on the n64 to conker live and reloaded on the xbox.
Eh i think the 5th generation is better tbh
I think that era was the best but the most influential was the 1995-1999. This set the basis for what we play nowadays
@sp-hj6lg most 5th gen games were incredibly janky and ugly though. The sixth gen was basically the same, just with better controls, smoother framerates, and better graphics. I'm too young to have grown up with either, but I still think the ps2 era was the best overall imo.
@@Loathsome_LynxI disagree most of the greatest games of all time come from the 5th gen(Mario 64, Ocarina of time, FF7 and Golden eye)
@sp-hj6lg I'm not saying there weren't great games in that generation, just that overall going back and playing them today isn't very enjoyable because of how ugly they are and how poorly they ran. I was talking more about the broader industry/landscape of gaming when discussing the sixth gen. By the early 2000s, technology had improved to the point that games could be larger and more complex, and devs had the experience by that point to know what does and doesn't work with 3d games. However, online multiplayer was still very new and was by no means the main selling point of games, meaning they were still largely polished and complete on release as opposed to live service games of today. Ultimately it's just my opinion though.
I think that the PS2 era (1998 to about 2007-8) was my favorite era of gaming. This was the start of modern style games that have been improved on for years but also still an era where it felt like so many franchises got represented, on all platforms from the era from Dreamcast to the Xbox. I think that right now may rival it with how much quality and quantity we've been getting on modern consoles
In my opinion, PS2 era, and the simple argument is that games focused on fun back then
And weirdness. I miss the weirdness.
@@lpnp9477 The 90s and early 2000s were a wild time. Everything embraced counterculture and creativity.
@@lpnp9477 couldn't agree more! And the weirdness was kinda charming
nah
@@VideoGuy232 ok bommer
i think 1990-2012 was the golden age of gaming the games were amazing like we got half 1&2 mario 64 sonic adventure 1&2 zelda oot doom original portal 1&2 sonic unleashed smash bros and more and the ideas were so original
It depends on who you ask. For example, if you asked me, i’d be inclined to say it was 8th gen, as most of my favorite games came out during it, such as NieR:Automata, Celeste, Yakuza Zero, Smash Ultimate among others
Edit: typed this before watching the video
Celeste is a landmark game for trans representation
@@unicorntomboy9736 I don't think anybody is playing videogames for politics. I don't think trans representation has anything to do with it being a good game or a landmark game, more so that it was the underdog & won (IIRC) an award against major gaming titans at the Game Awards the year it released. It was a landmark game because it was an indie game showing up games from massive corporations, not because they made the main character trans. Not that you'd even know she's trans, it's a pixel-style game, nor that it matters because the game is about climbing a mountain, not advocating trans rights.
@@koolaid33 It is all of those things yes, but I think my point has merit nonetheless. The narrative is a trans allegory in many ways. In addition the game's creator is trans, and as you said, the main character is trans.
I only say it because it became a popular game in the trans community
Cringe@@unicorntomboy9736
@koolaid33 It can be both you know
Disregarding nostalgia, I want to say the 00s was the golden age that cemented a lot of things we see today. We got xbox live which set the idea of online multiplayer for consoles into the zeitgeist, along with trophys and gamerscore. We got the ps2, the most popular console ever, showing that the era had longevity. The gamecube gave us smash bros melee, still played today in tournaments.
And of course, the Wii, throwing motion controls into the mainstream and *definitely* influenced how VR controls are used today.
The beauty of gaming now is that you can still access and play all these old games on original hardware while immersing in new games, just like with classic movies you can spend years on your classics backlog and enjoy new releases. So if you say 90s is the golden era now, you can play 90s games and more modern ones, so instead of just sentimental journeys to remember these good old days you can still play as if it was the 90s if you want to. It's all out there available for us.
And that's exactly what I do.
I agree with golden age being the late 2000s. There were a lot of innovations with game designs, things like open world were still fascinating and yet possible. The games from late 90s were also still considered playable (unlike today when their graphics look sort of unplayable). Games like GTA, God of war, NFS etc were at an all time high. Games like Fifa, Assassins creed, and a plethora of many other games just started gaining heat. Game development cycles were short and you could get new instalments of your favourite game every one or two years. And there were always movie tie in games for your favourite movies
I became old enough to play games during the 2000's era but had a bit of 90's games mixed in; I like to keep tabs on some game franchises to see what they do with their newer instalments but I have great interest for games of eras I was too young to witness.
My favourite games ranged between the 90's and early 2000's but there's always the odd game created after those eras that I'm glad to have experienced and I enjoy diving into the older times to see what gaming was like back then; not just the game but also the other media attached to them.
Would it even make sense for me to claim any era as the 'Golden Age'? What about eras I couldn't witness?
When all is said and done each era has their own perks that stand out from each other in some way, shape or form.
There is wisdom in what you say… which is why I take such exception to people who were born in 1998 or something saying “GAMECUBE/PS2 WAS THE BEST”. What those people are really saying is “The games that came out when I was a kid are the best”.
Not exactly scientific.
@@leeartlee915 Gamers born In 1998 wouldn't really be apart of the 6th gen, maybe the tail end but they wouldn't really know what's going on yet for the most part , they would mainly be 7th gen kid gamers.
@@fawkkyutuu8851 Fair enough. How about born in 1995? that work?
Feels like it's harder to find the golden era rather than the horrid era
When thinking of the idea of a "golden age of gaming", I immediately thought of the late 80s and early 90s, which is to say, the 3rd and 4th console generations, which had loads of games that went on to help define the medium and have their influences still felt in games today...
But then again, you could say that about other eras too, and you know what? Going by how other mediums define their golden ages, I do feel like defining the late 70s and early 80s as gaming's "golden age", not beacuse of the quality of the games of the time, but because that's the time when gaming as we know it came into being, feels rather appropriate...
Personally though, I can't even pick out a "favourite era" of games, as I have favourite games from damn near every time period, though I do struggle to go back to anything older than the 3rd gen... And I also do frankly feel like gaming is in a bit of a rough spot right now, not because good games aren't still coming out, they absolutely are, but because of predatory monetisation practises becoming more and more common, and developers not being properly compensated for their work...
love your videos man
70s-80s was the time where viddeo games started to shape into genres.
80s-90s was when mascots got introduced and started making games more memorable.
90s-00s was when 3D games started to dominate and become as complex as 2D games.
00s-10s was when smaller creators became a lot more popular, the difference between handheld and console games became smaller and people started to judge the games less for their graphics and more for how fun they are.
10s-20s was when games began to get a lot more immersive with stuff like RTX and way better VR games and other media based on games became better. Also big fans of certain games began porting and changing then in incredible ways.
By the quantity of the stuff I've written for every section you migh guess which might guess when I started to get into gaming but what I want to say is that every decade there is something different happening to the gaming industry so we are always in "The golden age", even if we don't notice that. You probably can say which year was the worst for gaming but you can't say which was the best
I would say that the original Golden Age of gaming lasted from 1977 to 1994. This encompasses the release of the Atari 2600, the Famicom / NES, Master System, GameBoy, Mega Drive, SNES, and ends when those later consoles peaked in terms of console releases, game design and innovation (think pre-rendered graphics, FPS evolutions such as DOOM). It also covers the beginnings and evolution of arcade gaming, and the era of mascots and the “console wars”.
The Silver Age of gaming was from 1994 until 2006, whereby the rise of the third major competitor, the destruction of the second, and the rise of a new third was set to the backdrop of a huge revolution in affordable 3D gaming consoles and the development and implementation of the basic gaming engines, physics and features that we see in today’s games and hardware.
I guess perhaps there’s more ages. But I don’t know what we’d call them? The Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3 grounded what the previous generation has set forth, to the degree where the games we play today can be directly traced back to how they were implemented and functioned on those consoles. Effectively, those generation’s games feel strangely modern, despite being 15+ years from when it started.
For me it's around 1996-2020 (I know its pretty long but here's my explanation.) As a guy who was immersed in the games of the early to late 2010's. Of course I had a very limited scope for what games were until I learned of retro platforms which was what got me into the previous eras of gaming. Games like Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot, Resident Evil 1-2, Final Fantasy V-VII, Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye, Doom 64, Gran Turismo etc. Those games set the foundations for 3D era, then we have 2000s games that expand on the concept. Halo, GTA 3 and SA, God of War, Gran Turismo A-spec and 4, Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime, Devil May Cry, Resident Evil 4, Ratchet and Clank etc. Those Games set a trend of bigger, more experienced development houses making games that are now marked "AAA" games. Late 2000's-2010s had a dramatic shift in tech, HD, Motion Controls, Wireless Internet, Online Play. These companies capitalized on that and made so far one of my most nostalgic eras. Uncharted, Halo 3, Gears of War, The Last of Us, COD: MWII, GOWIII, Batman Arkham, Super Mario Galaxy, Twilight Princess, Xenoblade, Mario Kart Wii, GTA IV. Indie Games thrived and went mainstream like Super Meat Boy, Braid, and World of Goo. Mobile games also went on their lucky break, Candy Crush, Angry Birds, Om Nom etc. But that era ended when it had it's brief dark age due to MTX, Media tarnishing, and the Economic Recession of that year. However the PS4s massive launch as well as the Switch made for a hefty revival era of the AAA genre, Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, God of War, Uncharted 4, Marvel's Spider-Man, GTAV, Red Dead Redemption II. And more higher quality AA games releasing, such as Hades and Disco Elysium. I have yet to make a list after 2020 (For obvious reasons) and because games of that era aren't finished yet. Or my era. The choice is yours what era you prefer.
love your videos dude
I say Square's best age was the 1980s to late 2000s.
As others have said, its the late 90's earl 00's. Its where PSOne/N64/GB/GBC were rounding out their lives and have built up multiple iconic improvements and series and the start of the PS2/Gamecube/GBA/Xbox/PC really started to take off. So many of those games and way games are designed were defined during this period as 3D started to stretch it legs more.
This was a very interesting video and a fun watch too, sometimes we gotta enjoy things that we still got because you never know what you got until it’s gone, Happy New Year 2024 Everyone!
Golden age of gaming is RIGHT NOW. Yall wont even realize it until a decade or two from now. This is also the last generation of physical media for games.
Fair enough but some games can be BUGGY af in the modern age.
Honestly I think physical media might have a chance, players are getting fed up with cloud gaming and large day 1 patches
The indie game space has never been more blossoming. It’s beautiful
Micro transactions, unfinished products and anti-consumerism makes this argument invalid
Pizza tower ultrakill, sf6, armored core 6, super mario wonder, and the list goes on. We had some great games this year, but some buggy games as well
I would argue around 2005(ish) to 2012/13 was the golden age of gaming in my opinion, so basically the seventh generation era, with Xbox 360 and PS3. I remember games like Lollypop Chainsaw and Ridge Racer 7.
And minecraft
i think moos were great at that time because they didn't have microtransactions yet .
I saw the title and found myself thinking if "golden" meant "best" or "important". Best is subjective but important, there are some concrete innovations that allowed for gaming to exist as we know it today.
The first thing that was needed was the idea that a console could play more than just 1 or a handful of games. So, that would be the Fairchild Channel F console. The idea of a console being more than just the games on it but the hardware's potential of playing other games through its motherboard and chipset. Before, we'd have a whole bunch of machines that played a set number of games. What you got in the box was it, meaning that if you wanted to play another game, it meant an entirely new machine. With the channel F, you could buy new games and play them through the system, essentially turning the machine into a standard foundation upon with various different types of houses could be built.
Ok, so we have the idea that we can play different types of games but this industry isn't built off the back of 1 or even a handful of developers. 3rd parties are the lifeblood of most consoles and, let's face it, whether a console fails or succeeds depends on them. So, how did we get the modern system of developers? Well, Activision was the first 3rd party developer in history, when developers broke away from Atari to create games on their own and be recognized for their efforts. But that wasn't quite it. Developing on the Atari was like PC development, anyone could make games, royalty free, causing a flood of new developers to release shoddy games to gain riches in the gold rush that was the video game market at the time. Our modern system, with needing to obtain licenses and dev kits only came around in the 90s, especially after some legal cases in court that said developers were free to reverse engineer hardware and release games as long as they didn't use anything that was copyrighted (some had run afoul of that by using copyrighted code in their games).
So, that's what I would consider Golden Age, from 1976 to early 1990s.
Objectively, the Golden Age of videogames was the 2000s (2001-2011).
The 6th generation (GameBoy Advance, PS2, GameCube, Xbox) and 7th generation (DS, PSP, Wii, PS3, 360) was that sweet spot in time where the technology was good enough to make any game you wanted, but it was before the 8th gen when developers started releasing games unfinished and adding microtransactions and the games took up half of your hard drive space with their massive installs.
The early 2000s will undoubtably be the golden age.
I’d say 1980-2000 mostly because of the great amount of impactful games that have been released during that time period
I think it is maybe hard to pin point a certain era, because there been a lot of stuffs over the years. I think with the late 1970s and early 80s is a good point, because that when games were being started.
I feel like it's sometime between the SNES and the PS2, personally, I enjoyed the PS1 generation the most, or rather, the 90's/Noughties. All those SNES/PS1 JRPGs, the Pokemon games, shooting games like Doom and Wolfenstein, the start of Monster Hunting games, crazy action games like Devil May Cry... And countless others.
Plus, games were cheaper and didn't have these huge AAA budgets/time constraints we do today, and with weaker hardware, they had to be more creative as they couldn't brute force stuff with powerful hardware.
i grew up primarily with games from the 2010s yet i feel the golden age should be considered as the 90s-00s.
1990's. Why? We saw the birth and refinement of so many genres.
Wolf 3D (the grandfather of FPS) led to Doom which led to Quake, which led to Goldeneye.
Street Fighter II defined fighting games, which led to Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, etc
Virtua Fighter came 2 years after SF2, but led to Tekken, Soul Calibur, MK4, etc
T2 the Arcade Game gave more lightgun exposure, leading to Time Crisis, House of the Dead, and more
We had
Dance Dance Revolution
NBA JAM
TMNT Arcade
I could go on. The game play from these shaped how players see games today. It's not that these games are better, but the foundations for so much was refined during the 1990's. We saw some improvements as time went on, but if not for the arcade boom of the 1990's, a lot of experimental gaming wouldn't have led to the staples we have today.
The 2000's, 6th gen. Yes, I grew up in this era, but I don't think I'm biased for thinking that. Honestly, I didn't appreciate the era nearly enough at the time and a lot of games I love from that era I didn't play until recently. During that time I only had a handful of games I liked: Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil, Max Payne, TimeSplitters, Prince of Persia, and a few movie tie-in titles, yet the vast majority of my favorite games of all time came after, in the 7th and 8th generations, when gaming captured my attention enough that I finally considered myself a dedicated gamer and not just a casual. And my personal favorite era is one I wasn't around for, the 5th gen, where limitations led to creativity behind mechanics and art direction... I also just love JRPGs to death.
But I think the 6th gen was special because it established most of what we have today. Today we still have indies tearing up the dance floor of innovative game design, but the big AAA games are all sporting refined, sterilized, and safe formulas that were established on the PS2, GameCube, and Xbox Original. Art styles were experimental, mechanics were experimental, storytelling was experimental, heck the workflow was experimental and the turn out rate was high - it was an industry founded on and fueled by passion. The technology was finally at a point where people could do whatever their imagination conjured up and fidelity wasn't at the point of requiring copious amounts of tedious detail work.
None of the art, mechanics, or storytelling we have today is anywhere near as groundbreaking, unless you look to indies inspired by that era or AAA remakes of games from that era. Games did get better, but only technically. They only got bigger, better looking, and better feeling and handling, but the most common mechanics and genres of today's most beloved and respected games all came from that era. There are still great masterpiece video games coming out today, but I do think we're in the dark ages of gaming, simply because the industry is a greedy mess and innovation, while it does exist, it isn't taking on the larger role in the AAA space that it was in the 6th gen. Now it costs too much money to risk replicating or refining anything new or experimental, so games that get the marketing push to have the widest reach and deepest impact are games that are copying the safest and most refined formulas, leading to stagnation on a wider scale than ever before.
I do think we're due for a renaissance. There are years I thought it was here, 2017, 2023... but then the industry just doubled down on its bs and we sank even deeper through the floor. One of these days though. I believe, I'm no cynic. I believe in future generations to break out of this stranglehold we've been in for the past decade plus. I think we have to solve the industry this time, which is gonna be a huge process even once people at the helm manage to kick that mindset into gear.
In my opinion the golden era were 2000-2010, not so much because those were my teens, but also because I legit believe this was the era wheredevs were more prone to experiement with genres because games didn't cost (as much) to produce yet, and therefore also didn't need to make 10 mill dollars. Now a days everything is copy paste of what other do. Someone made a live service game, now everyone does it because they've realized micro transactions are easy money. Nintendo made Breath of the Wild, so now everyone makes open world games, because they believe that "ultimate freedom" is all a game needs to be good.
The PS2 is literally still THE home console with the biggest ORIGINAL library of games, with titles that will never see sequels today because many of those types of games were niche and wouldn't earn enough money today. I mean we never saw a Beyond Good and Evil 2, and From Software's Echo Night series is also dead and gone.
Also, note that I say "home console with the biggest ORIGINAL library of games", because I know that by now the Switch's library is most likely the biggest overall... but the Switch is nothing more than a port machine.
I get the perspectives you were trying to draw but that mid 2000s BLEW everybody's minds, story, graphics, and mechanics wise.
Lets all just agree to that
For ME, the golden age was around 1989 to 1994-5-ish, and then it cropped up again in 2003 and hung around until about 2010-2011-ish.
Definitely 2007-2017 for me
Mario Galaxy, Sonic Unleashed, Infamous, Pokemon BW, Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted, and so many more games to list, this decade was incredible
2014 was a cursed year for video games, it was awful. Assassin's Creed Unity is an example of how bad a year it was
Imo the golden age was 1994-2006.
We had ps1, ps2, dreamcast, sega saturn, n64, wii, xbox in those years. Gaming legends were born like lara croft, crash bandicoot, sly raccoon, jin kazama, ratchet and clank, kiryu kazuma, spyro, as well as link sonic and mario existing in 3D and more.
SO much that was cemented then, a lot of games are built on legacy that was established in that decade specifically.
The golden age will always be the present. New games are always coming and out you can play what’s came out in the past at your own leisure (provided you have the console / emulators)
While was born in the 2000s and grew up with games from the 2000s-2010s but I usually consider the 80s-90s to be the golden age as some of the most iconic franchises & characters like Pac-man, Mario, Sonic ect. were being established.
I consider my generation 2000s-2010s to be gamings silver age because prior ideas and genres were being expanded and inproved upon.
and I guess that would make this era late 2010s to 2020s to be gamings bronze age, no idea what the later half of this era will bring us going forward.
For America the golden era probably started with the ps2 and finished with the wii. We had before the crash(Atari), after the crash(NES/SNES), golden era(PS2/Wii), and modern era(PS4+).
As far as my backstory goes, I grew up with the NES and Genesis then moved onto computer games. My era list is mostly based on the popularity of gaming as a whole.
I’m in a weird place as to what my “golden age” of games is, because I fell out of gaming from when I was in middle school alllll the way up to 2020. I bought a Wii for 10 dollars at Goodwill with Super Mario Galaxy and Kirby’s Epic Yarn. Since then, I’ve gotten a switch and a handheld emulator, and I pretty much just play games that I like. I don’t feel a particular loyalty or nostalgia for any console specifically, I honestly feel like there’s a “golden age” to be found in every generation of gaming.
The thought of "generations" is basically home console exclusive. No such thing with classic 8-bit home computers, PCs, or arcade systems.
There's a difference between the golden age for YOU and the golden age in gaming.
The golden age was the 70s through the early 2000s. Around the PS3/360/Wii days was when the golden age stopped and gaming really changed from the golden age.
I think of two golden ages.
2D golden age in my opinion was SNES/Genesis era. 16bit was so much more improved capabilities of all of the previous systems, and there were a lot of magical games working within its limitations.
Then the GameCube/PS2 era for the golden age of 3D gaming. Once people got through the first attempts at 3D on the N64/PS1 era, GC/PS2 brought the best of 3D games. It holds up because it was really before everything went online. Once everything went online, the quality of games overall has just gone downhill.
We are living in a good era now, but yeah, nostalgia is strooooongggg
2017 was the best year for gaming, because it had so much great games
You could also say this for 2012, 1992, 2023, 2007, etc. etc. etc.
Every year has at least 10 or more phenomenal major videogames.
Nope
@@koolaid33 ehhh some years were definitely worse than others, many would say 2014 was disappointing compared to the years before and after it
sorry but i have a hard time even remembering what came out that year lol
@@belstar1128 the one game I remember from that year is Breath of the Wild.
That's it.
The golden age of gaming is the late 80's and early 90's. Thats where all the beloved characters and game elements that inspired every single generations of game coming after.
1996-2011 from Mario 64 to Skyrim.
After 2011, DRM/Microtransactions fucked everything up.
I grew up with the Genesis but for me the Golden era is easily the 7th gen. Graphics were good, gameplay was solid, we had incredible cinematic experiences and a very colorful indie scene, games were released in a steady pace and we didn't had Games as a service.
in the golden age rn with the quality of stuff we have.
Everything’s a sequel, and good new IPs are few and far between. Compare that to 2000s where most games were experimenting with new ideas.
The last truly innovative game I remember was rocket league. A completely fresh and original concept. Fortnight might get some credit for helping establish the battle royale genre. Otherwise it’s still fps, rpgs and hack and slash dark souls games, with a smattering of 2D platform throwbacks…
I'd say 90s to 2010/2012. I know the 80s and 70s had their moments but during the 90s established franchises made big jumps (Metal Gear Solid), genres were revitalized and modernized, handhelds were pushed to new limits, new technology helped with the development of new games, coming probably a bunch of stuff to I can't remember now. There's just so much that happened
To anyone saying the golden age is now, just realize that we once had a time when games were complete upon release. Nowadays, we have to wait on updates, patches, and DLC for a game to become fun. It was just a different standard back in the day
I think the 2000s because tons of good games came out like kh2, Metroid Prime, Sonic Adventure, and tons more
before I watch the video I'll leave my own personal answer
whenever you were a kid and\or teenager
when you're young, everything is full of surprises on life, being good or bad, since everything and anything is new to you, this also applies to games.
when you get older those surprises become harder to happen, so it's way less frequent, and everything in life is like that, but still the surprise, the magic moment still can happen for you, it'll just not be as frequent as when you were younger.
I'll assume the video will have a similar answer to this or say whenever they were young.
I grew up playing games from 2012 from 2019, that was the time when I didn't own that much games at all. I played online games like Tanki Online or some website flash games(I didn't own any devices like consoles, handheld games or a pc). But I really wish that I would've born playing games from the 90s because I understand that that time we didn't have almost any games more than 16-bit and games were more colorful than now.
6th gen was peak. It was a time in the industry when hardware AND innovation hit their zenith at a crossroads. The best way to describe it would be to imagine if indie games today were on the same level as AAA. to top it all off, every company was targeting the same demo (the core consumer) which pushed them to go all out with the exclusives. Games were complete at launch with everything included. No dlc. You unlocked everything through playing. But It was the end of an era as 7th gen was the start of the practices and commonalities we see today. dlc, mtx, patches, CoD, diminishing returns on graphics etc.
I was born in 99', so I was a 2000's kid. I played My PS2, DS and Wii and didn't care what was the newest thing. The retro boom had kicked in, so I actually went back and collected what I could find and I became obsessed with it. Once the next generation had kicked in, I got a PS4...but never played it. The games had too much story that I also didn't like, not a single relatable character for me and I learned what my taste was for the first time. And online games broke how I Imagined playing games were. Kids didn't visit each other to play games anymore. I bought a Wii U and it became my most played modern console, but I only got 3 games and I barely played on it anyway, because every year I bought one or more older console. So despite growing up with a generation that's beloved by many, I feel like it's when gaming started to feel too corporate. My favorite era was the 90's because it was like the wild west. There were console oversaturation and every company wanted to became a mainstaple in the marked. Because of intense competition, we would see new innovations, new genres, unique and defining game libraries and differences in games and consples each continent played. We would also find examples of very disliked games and genres that would sement itself forever in that specific timeframe.
While the fourth console generation was when everybody made 2D sprite games, it luckily didn't die off by the 5th generation, but was pushed further by other, less successful consoles. In hindsight, it was good for the video game history too have these nichè obscure consoles too because of the innovations they made. We maintained a balance of the newest innovations being pushed the most, but we still had more games for the ones that preferred what we had before.
6th gen to me will always be about mediocre, but enjoyable licensed games, and be the start of how the gaming landscape would become for the rest of the timelime. You could say the rise of PCs and smarphones could have changed the industry once more, but I would only see that way if we didn't have consoles anymore at all.
The most defining era was 1995-1999. Most of the best selling sagas started in those years. The leap to 3d and more mature games with better mechanics and cd audio for music and fmvs was life changing. The market went from 70 mill consoles to 160 mill consoles in one generation.
1998 was my best year because of : Zelda 64, Resident Evil 2, Tekken 3, Banjo-Kazooie and many others.
People need to realize that the "golden age" of media is what you want it to be. The reason we have such a fond memory of the past is because we had a limited perspective. The 80's had mountains of shovelware, the 90's had terrible forgotten consoles, the 2000's was oversaturated with edge, and the 2010's+ has circled back to shovelware that pretends to be more. We don't remember bubsy the bobcat or big rigs racing in the same way we remember zelda or halo. It's not that we deny isses in the past, it's just that our adult perspective forces us to see both the good and the bad on equal footing in the modern era.
If you want to go back to the "golden era", realize that it's never gone away. Indie games have gone a long way to show what worked in the old days, and even some AAA can actually push boundaries in ways they used to. And there is no shame in playing an old game either, your not stuck in the past because you thought a mario game made 20 years ago was better than a mario game made now. An era isn't defined by arbitrarily balancing the good and bad, it's defined by what made it great.
It’s so hard to pick a golden age, but my personal one is early 2000’s! Nostalgia choice? Maybe but so much effort was put into every game, from triple A company options to even license games, and not all were quality but so many were so good!
For most people I have found that it typically depends on what decade you were between the ages of 10-17/18 years old.
Also, it depends on the genre. If we're talking JRPGs, then most will tell you the 90s were thr Golden Age.
I would say that Japanese videos games in general were at peak during tr 90s up to mid 2000s.
to me it's about the ability of devs to make good games with as few restrains impossible. basically, from when we had the tech to have deep games with emergent gameplay, to when the industry started attracting 'money people'.
One thing that people dont really bring up enough in my opinion is the possibility we could still be in the golden age. Animation, Movies, Comic Books have all been around ages longer then Video Games have, and the defined "golden ages" took yearrs to be agreed upon and defined.
That is a really good point. It will probably take another century until we can clearly say which era would be golden.
Babe wake up the 🐐uploaded a new masterpiece
In my opinion Golden Age was from the mid 90 to 2010, the leap in technology in those years were Amazing, and a lot of game and series that we love were born during that period, plus, older franchise found their best shape, like Zelda or super Mario
In a way I would say the decade from 1996 to 2006 was pretty good. Not sure if it's "the" golden age, but it was pretty good.
We made the jump from 2D to 3D, graphics improved drastically each year, but it was still full of great quality games.
Many genres were first made, existing types got more depth and improved a lot, and generally the modern landscape was formed.
No, not locked to any console generation. The latest titles of one generation and the launch titles of the following generation overlap, in time, detail, content, and quality. And outside of home consoles the concept of generations doesn't exist at all.
Interesting to describe 05-09 as experimental and creative, considering the years directly after that were very samy and boring with everything being brown and playing the same.
If I would describe something as "golden" age, it would be a bit longer than the mentioned decade. So about two decades from the early 90s to late 00s/early 10s
Golden age I'm living in it baby I enjoy gaming
My opinion, the golden age was from 1996-2005. So many amazing games and innovations occurred during this time.
Leaving personal taste aside, to me the golden era of gaming was definitely around the PS1 and N64 times, thats when what would become modern gaming was defined, genres evolved and were born to fit the now common 3D gaming, and then they were refined into what would become the industry standards with the PS2, GC and Xbox
I'd say 1980's to 2010's saw us go from 8 bit to ultra hd (4k) ... from mainly arcade units to home gaming
From simple at this point basically moblie games complexity to
full on worlds behind the game GTA 3~5 ; Skyrim
From mainly 5 genre types (RPG, fighting, shooter, survival, story) to dozens of game genres using hundreds of times more complex gameplay
Till now it started to become super commercially viable past 2015~2020'ish
and games starting to been treated far more like a business sector
Late 70's, early 80's up until the NES World be golden age. NES release up until PS1 release is silver age, after that we're in the golden age of 3D gaming until around 2010, then silver is where we are now. We're about to hit extremely lifelike games over the next year. I might go as far as to say this will be the golden age of CINEMATIC GAMING
The Golden Age of Gaming (to me) is/has always been/will always be the 1980s, 1990s, early/mid 2000s.
Online gaming, Microtransactions and Season Passes (mostly began in the 7th Generation) is where gaming started to lose me.
Decent video.
I think we might actually be in the Golden Age of games, and this year in gaming is proof enough in my eyes, though the last 5-8 years in general have seen a ton of games that truly rewrote the gaming landscape. The prevalence of great indie games and the massive studio games that continue to drive massive innovation have made this year one of the most jampacked with things to play in the history of gaming.
I might be nostalgic for the 2000's, but adult me going back then would be bored with the selection of games compared to what we have even just from this year.
Though rushed and buggy games, alongside microtransaction-filled trash games have definitely plagued gaming in recent times, I think we're in a key moment where the "bubble" has yet to pop, where games have gotten so massive that *some* studios feel the need to cut as many corners as possible *but* that enough companies are able to keep up with and even exceed the ever-rising standard without cutting such corners at all that we still have an overall higher number of new, fun, and innovative games.
I do think the Indie scene still has room to expand even more than it already has, as it has continued to grow in both scope and scale, but I'm not so sure most studios developing AAA games will be able to keep up for much longer.
If this is the golden age of gaming, then I hate it. The idea the biggest games of our time right now is Fortnite & other penny-pinching games just trying to take your money is saddening. Dying Light 2, Silent Hill Ascension, Fallout 76, Redfall, Starfield, Roblox, metal gear Solid: Survive, GTA Online, Battlefront 2, etc. have all blown up in the last 5-8 years & are notorious for being bad games, squeezing micro-transactions out of the consumer, locking content behind pay walls, or in certain cases like GTA Online & Roblox, have horrible protection for their consumers from malicious intent such as IP stealing, predators or trolling. There have been great games over the last 5-8 years, many I've loved, but trust me the bad outweighs the good in my eyes.
A few good games isn't enough to make up for the horrible slop we're fed 99% of the time from the AAA gaming scene for the past like 5 years at least.
@@koolaid33 As OP said, that Bubble may indeed pop, and we may go back to the 5th/6th gen approach for AA and AAA games.
1996-2016 was the best era. After that I’d say the switch has been the next best thing and still dominates imo. There have been a few standout years for modern games like 2018 and 2023. It feels like the big tripleA companies today focus on ways to generate revenue other than making fun games. After last year though things are definitely looking better. Great video btw
As an older gamer, I agree! 2007 to 2013 was the best era of gaming
Golden age was back when you can play halo 3, reach, mw2 and gears in split screen
I feel like the golden age of gaming is entirely subjective. To me, I feel like the early 2000's is where there was a whole lot more innovation and creativity from many gaming developers. We have played with many amazing gaming icons such as sonic the hedgehog, jak and daxter, sly cooper, ratchet and clank, crash bandicoot, and mario, etc. It's an era where I grew up in. It's all in my opinion.
I think the golden era of gaming was from the SNES/Genesis generation up through the 360/PS3/Wii/DS/PSP generation. We got so many revolutionary games almost every year in that time frame. Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2, and 3, Streets of Rage 1, 2, and 3, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Super Mario RPG, Yoshi's Island, Chrono Trigger, Pokémon Red/Blue, Pokémon Gold/Silver, Final Fantasy 6, Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid, Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, Goldeneye 007, Perfect Dark, Super Smash Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee, God of War, Halo 1, 2, and 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, Gears of War 1, 2, and 3, Bioshock, Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 2, Wii Sports, Wii Sports Resort, Fable 2, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us, The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, etc.
In comparison, since then, the only games I would call revolutionary are The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, God of War, God of War Ragnarok, Baldur's Gate 3, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Super Mario Maker, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
Those past generations also weren't flooded with live service crap and loot boxes.
without even watching the video, it was from gen 4 to gen 6; that's when most of the best games ever made came out, AAA games were largely good, and games weren't plagued by underhanded financial schemes, and they also weren't held back too amazingly much by technological limitations
that said, I grew up playing gen 5 to gen 7 games, and I'd basically never played a single gen 4 game until high school, but I wish I had a SNES & genesis growing up
i think the golden age of video games was the wii era. animal crossing and fighting games became more popular, as well as legend of zelda
The current time is the 'Golden Era'.
Because all the games of the over 40 years can be played today in some way, shape or form.
2008-2016 final offer, after games just started to get really good, especially 3d titles and modern sequels owe it to this time, and before micro transactions really popped off. Genuinely I couldn’t think of a better time than this to be a gamer
The Golden Age in my opinion is what you paid for is what you got. It was yours. Owned by you. No one could take that away from you. Now these companies aim to release products that allow them to change the game, reclaim the digital items, when you PURCHASED the product. Not rent, not leased, not subscription, your PURCHASED game can be taken from you and altered to the company's standards.
I actually don't entirely agree with the ending statement, since while I acknowledge that people who just pick their childhood generation as their favorite do exist, I and I'm sure many others don't.
I grew up on games between the late 2000's and mid 2010's, but my favorite generations are actually the 6th gen (Gamecube, Ps2, Xbox) & this current gen.