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The Future of Game Design
IGN has the beginnings of an interesting series up entitled The Future of Game Design. The first part of this series covers game design elements that we've seen in the past that the author would like to see show up more often in future games. From the article: "We need better art direction in our games. Not just more polygons or slicker textures, but games with a better sense of visual style. Off the top of my head, one of the first games that really showed a distinct sense of art direction and style in this generation of games was Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus. That game oozed with style, and even though it was simple and quick, it became one of my favorites because the main character, Sly, had real character." As we start to get into Uncanny Valley territory I hope more artists take the approach that Sly and WoW have.
There were just as many bad games Back in the Day (tm) as there are now. You've simply forgotten about them. In 5-10 years, you'll forget about the bad games taking up shelf space today and only remember the stand-out titles, and make the same complaint.
This doesn't just apply to games, either. It applies to almost everything. The "Good Old Days" were not necessarily any better than today, but the effects of time have made you forget the bad and remember the good. That's why people want a return to the "values" from the 1950s, or complain that Hollywood is just churning out mindless blockbuster action flick after mindless blockbuster action flick, or complain that the airwaves are overrun by Britney Spears wannabes. Do you really think that there wasn't divorce, death, rape, abortion, violent crime, or any of the other ills of today's society back in the 50s? Do you really believe that back in the day Hollywood only released one or two films a year, or even went years without releasing antyhing because nothing was good enough? Do you really think that there were entire stretches of years where no artist released any music at all? Of course not. The collective consciousness has just swept all of the bad behavior, bad movies, bad music, etc under the rug and idolized what came before.
Tuck this thought away in the back of your mind, and drag it out in 10 years when you find yourself lamenting that the current crop of video games pale in comparison to the gameplay found in the "classic" Half-Life 2.