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Games All Downhill Since Pong?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the you-kids-get-off-my-lawn dept.

In a recent article Nolan Bushnell laments the current state of gaming, stating that modern games are nothing more than a "race to the bottom" resulting in complete and utter trash. In order to combat what he sees as the downward spiral in game quality he continues to work on his new dining experience uWink that features tabletop games and a "reasonably priced meal". RPS weighs in on the subject arguing that, while the unhealthy obsession with Halo 3 might be a bit misplaced, there are plenty of gems to be found amidst the flotsam and jetsam.

27 of 403 comments (clear)

  1. One Word: Portal. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    This was a triumph.

    I'm making a note here:
    HUGE SUCCESS!

  2. No. by Arathon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    See: Portal.

    1. Re:No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Now that FPS games have gotten as pretty as they can marketing will have no choice but to focus on game play elements.

    2. Re:No. by General+Wesc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      3.) If you're really so up your own ass as to actually believe Pong is the best game ever, what do you suggest for a future title? How many balls and paddles can you add before you've totally exhaust the third-person-timewaste platform and we're having the same discussion?

      See, that's the thing: we don't evaluate games on the potential for sequels. We evaluate them on how much we enjoy playing the game itself, and for how long they stay enjoyable. I guess.that's why we're not in marketing.

      Personally, I was never a huge fan of Pong, but Aquanoid and the like are essentially Pong and I found them great fun. I think Tetris may have them all beat, though.

    3. Re:No. by KikassAssassin · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm going to have to disagree with you there.

      You're right, brand and tech don't make a great game. However, fun, innovative and original gameplay that tests your intellect as much as your reaction speed, a surprisingly captivating story that had me hooked and wouldn't let go, a twisted sense of humor (I don't remember the last time I laughed that much at a game. The computer voice that guides you along is hilarious, and I was laughing at it almost the entire time I was playing), and an all-around high amount of polish do make a great game. Portal may be short (it only takes a few hours to beat), but it was the most refreshing, entertaining few hours of gaming I've experience in a long, long time.

      There are a lot of great games that have come out this year and there are even more great games scheduled to come out by the end of the year. No doubt, the second half of 2007 is looking like one of the best times PC gaming (and gaming in general) has seen in years. Even still, I would rank Portal as a more fun experience than any of the other games I've played this year so far, and I'm skeptical that anything coming down the pipe will top that first play-through of Portal for sheer enjoyment factor. After I'd finished the game's story mode, I was stuck on a Portal high for days. It was the same kind of high I get after finishing a really good book for the first time, and that's simply something no other game has done to me.

      You call it a tech gimmick fad, but that just tells me that you've missed the point of the game entirely. For me (and nearly everyone else I've talked to who's played the game), it's on track to be my game of the year, if not game of the decade. It seems like the only reason it hasn't been getting 10/10 scores in professional reviews is because of its length, but it was such a fun experience for the few hours it lasted that I'm willing to overlook that.

  3. Hmm, OK... by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What metric is being used here? Fun-per-pixel? Fun-per-Hertz? I guess if you go by that standard, Pong is the best videogame ever.

    --
    You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
    1. Re:Hmm, OK... by Junior+J.+Junior+III · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The original pong did not have a CPU; it was made out of discrete logic circuits soldered together on a logic board.

      --
      You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
    2. Re:Hmm, OK... by ResidntGeek · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yes. Pong was a literal 1-bit game. There were 2 instructions, and they each performed a different operation on the bit.

      --
      ResidntGeek
    3. Re:Hmm, OK... by greg_barton · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nah. By that standard hide 'n' seek beats them all.

    4. Re:Hmm, OK... by Bai+jie · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually the original pong was a wooden table with a net in the middle, two fleshy air breathers on either side holding wooden paddles and smacking a plastic ball with said paddles.

  4. Feh by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Funny

    As if Pong could possibly be better than Duke Nukem Forever.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  5. I Completely Agree... by LBArrettAnderson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have a similar view - only differing by a generation or so. I'm probably a bit younger than the author. In my very humble opinion, games have gone downhill ever since they moved from 2D to 3D. My all time favorite game is Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES version). Ocarina of time was alright, but the games these days are just a little bit too complicated with way too much stuff going on. They're fine if you want to really get into them, but again, they are too complicated, and they just feel different.

    Perhaps it's just a generation thing... you love the games you were brought up with... I'm sure that there are plenty of people who feel that games have gone downhill ever since they started using "advanced" graphics (tiles, images, etc... the stuff you see with Zelda, Donkey Kong, Mario, etc... for the SNES and NES), as opposed to a ball and some paddles...

    1. Re:I Completely Agree... by ashitaka · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Maybe generational but there is an aspect of what kind of games do you like.

      I watch my son playing Final Fantasy on his PS2 and the ridiculous complexity of weapons, healing potions, tactics, characters and maps just takes away any possibility of me just enjoying the game or environment.

      The only thing I'll play on the kids consoles are the driving games.

      For me there would still be great pleasure in Xevious or Tempest.

      --
      If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
    2. Re:I Completely Agree... by Jarjarthejedi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's probably generational. I've played Space Invaders, Pong, and Galaga in their original styles and I found them all terribly boring. Give me a full form FPS or RPG any day. I recognize that a lot of people love those games but for someone whose first real game was Battlefield 1942 those older games are far too simplistic. That ridiculous complexity is one of things I love about games. As long as it's done right it offers you plenty of things to learn how to use which is something I find fun.

      I'm sure you'd have a great time playing Tempest again. I wouldn't enjoy that game much at all, I'd much rather play Age of Empire 3 or Battlefield 2142 or Halo 3. To me those are good games (well, Battlefield loses points for it's awful DRM lagging my computer for 10 minutes after I close it...) and the 'classic' games I nostagize about are Battlefield 1942 and Star Trek Armada 2 (which I still play). Simplicity is probably a great thing in a game, if you grew up with simplicity.

      As Douglas Adams once said, "Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things." That's really what this article is all about, modern games are against the natural order of gaming for those who grew up with Pong-generation games. To those of us who grew up with modern games they're normal and ordinary and the older games are boring.

      --
      There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
  6. Self-projecting much? by The+Orange+Mage · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Coming from the guy who was part of Atari AND founded Chuck E. Cheeses, it seems Bushnell is stating HIS personal goal/philosophy of gaming.

  7. Wii by David+Nabbit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Has Mr. Bushnell played Wii? The article is pretty vague on what exactly his beef is with modern video games, but Nintendo seems to be aiming to do the same thing he is with his interactive restaurant games (minus the food of course).

    --
    "Her idea of wit is nothing more than an incisive observation humorously phrased and delivered with impeccable timing."
  8. Aperture Science by User+956 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I find that it's hard to overstate my satisfaction. We do what we must, because we can.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  9. Zero risk committee thinking by Weaselmancer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    IMHO, that's the reason why games today for the most part suck.

    Games these days are multimillion dollar affairs. And that's even before the movie is released. There is so much money at stake that no sane person would ever risk making a game without a market study and focus groups. Large projects demand it.

    And that's the problem - innovation gets lost in that process. Put another way, innovation isn't safe.

    Back In The Day(tm), it was just a couple of guys sitting around thinking up wacky ideas. Sometimes they stuck, and sometimes they didn't. If it failed, who cares? It's just a half a dozen guys that are already on the payroll. But if it worked, you could get innovation - and that made the difference. That's why guys my age sit around playing MAME and not giving a crap about Madden 07. How different could is possibly be from Madden 06?

    Nolan is a product of the Golden Age. That's why he's disappointed with today's games. Innovation was the thing back then. A half a dozen mad mavericks could easily turn the world upside down with a really great idea.

    Sadly, not possible today. That's why despite all the beautifully rendered cut scenes, bazillions of vertexes per second and obscene piles of money thrown at new titles these days the games are just simply missing that magic spark. And just plain fall flat for guys from our time.

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
    1. Re:Zero risk committee thinking by king-manic · · Score: 4, Interesting

      IMHO, that's the reason why games today for the most part suck.
      Games these days are multimillion dollar affairs. And that's even before the movie is released. There is so much money at stake that no sane person would ever risk making a game without a market study and focus groups. Large projects demand it.

      And that's the problem - innovation gets lost in that process. Put another way, innovation isn't safe.

      Back In The Day(tm), it was just a couple of guys sitting around thinking up wacky ideas. Sometimes they stuck, and sometimes they didn't. If it failed, who cares? It's just a half a dozen guys that are already on the payroll. But if it worked, you could get innovation - and that made the difference. That's why guys my age sit around playing MAME and not giving a crap about Madden 07. How different could is possibly be from Madden 06?

      Nolan is a product of the Golden Age. That's why he's disappointed with today's games. Innovation was the thing back then. A half a dozen mad mavericks could easily turn the world upside down with a really great idea.

      Sadly, not possible today. That's why despite all the beautifully rendered cut scenes, bazillions of vertexes per second and obscene piles of money thrown at new titles these days the games are just simply missing that magic spark. And just plain fall flat for guys from our time.


      Indie != Good. Innovative != good. Small != Good. Generally it's nostalgia clouding your judgment. You look back and remember xcom, pacman, supermario, rygar, etc.. and forgot all the dreck. There was always derivative dreck, innovation usually sucked, and golden ages are more about you then what ever you are reminiscing about. Nolan was part of the original video game collapse. It was partly his fault for letting the really dumb people run Atari.

      A good idea getting to a good organization can still make a good game. KOTOR, BioShock, FFXII, Halo, Warcraft 3, Disgea, etc.. were all non too original games that achieved success by doing it right and fun. Even now small developers can still make games. IF you criteria is that a good idea ought to be enough then the newest gen of consoles will fit your bill. Wii is intrinsically cheaper to develop for and the PS3 and 360 all have smaller scale downloadable games. Try Flow, theres just an idea, one guy, and a ton of oddly addictive fun. Try any of the XNA titles, try Most DS game. This is the true golden age.

      --
      "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
  10. he forgot tetris by wizardforce · · Score: 4, Interesting

    he forgot tetris... BLASPHEMY what other game do you know is able to etch its self directly into your brain? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect though he is somewhat correct, a lot of the games have been utter garbage lately, although most of the bad games of the past died a quiet death to be forgotten as it should be.

    --
    Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
  11. Get off my lawn!.. dang kids.. no respect... by bombastinator · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lets review.

    New things are not as good as the old stuff back when they weren't as degenerate.

    "reasonably priced meals"

    Old fashioned entertainment

    Isn't this all a little stereotypical Old Fart? i'm waiting for him to start talking about how good 70's cars were compared to today and what great artists "the Captain and tennille" were.

  12. Can't agree by Stormie · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Pong" is a little before my time, I've only got about 23 years of experience as an avid gamer. And, in my opinion, this is just bunk.

    Back in the good old days? There were fantastic, innovative, fun games, and there was also immense quantities of absolute garbage.

    And now? There are fantastic, innovative, fun games, and there is also immense quantities of absolute garbage.

    Any claim that games were "better" in the old days is just so much nostalgia and selective memory. Think a bit harder, you'll remember those games you pirated on the C64 that were so bad that you'd spend 2 minutes waiting for the game to load and then only 30 seconds playing it before you tossed the tape back in the case.

  13. What's the proposed alternative... uWink? PASS. by mookie-blaylock · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, great, he's a father of the industry.

    Ever been to uWink, his latest idea? It's godawful. Imagine the most tired, re-tread, uninspired, and dull fare you could get from the unholy collision of an Applebees, California Pizza Kitchen, and PF Chang's. The hook? You get to use a touch screen to order your food! Wow, touch screens! You know, like you use at the airport, your ATM, the occasional gas station, and about 500,000 other places. Plus they've got incredibly dull table games... Oh, and for kicks, the touch sensors on the screen are so comically inaccurate -- so make sure to double check that you're getting what you've ordered.

    The decor is kind of like chromey mid-90s meets that bar in Star Trek 3, only people look like they're having a lot less fun. Basically, imagine any "futuristic" concept hacked out by any of a dozen subpar ad agencies or architecture firms around 1997. The Century City food court is 10x more self-consciously "futuristic" in its design and seems less ridiculous.

    And the last bit of fun: Anything that's actually edible on the menu will be sold out. Ditto for any beers worth drinking. So enjoy that exotic pepperoni pizza and bud light...

    Nope, sorry, give me Mario Kart, Guitar Hero, GTA, Final Fantasy 4, Katamari Damacy, Civilization, X-Com, Star Control, or any other of about six dozen games that are brilliant or brilliantly fun. If I wanted to go someplace and be bored while surrounded by awful overpriced food and where touch screens pass as a killer app, I'd hang out at the airport.

    --
    I am not Herbert.
  14. He's just trolling by rgo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I respect Nolan for his GREAT contribution to the gaming industry, but I can't believe he said that current generation games are pure trash.
    Come on, the company he founded was a great contributor to the videogame crash. The crash happened many years ago, and a phenomemon like that hasn't repeated ever since; not because there are huge budgets or people buy crap, but because there are very good games in the market. There are games with charismatic characters (Mario), cinematic experiences (Goldeneye, Metal Gear Solid), inmersive worlds (Oblivion, Zelda, Half-Life), or plain-ol fun (Wii Sports, Mario Kart, DDR, Guitar Hero, Metal Slug).

    Maybe he is ranting against american game publishers like EA, Activision, that like to market the same crap season after season, giving no more entertaining value. Maybe he is too old and don't play complex games. But that is no excuse, because there are also really good indie (or indie like) games, like Every Extend, Geometry Wars, Bejeweled, Clubhouse Games, Pac Mac CE. Games that are WAY more fun than the late 70s titles.

    I also been thinking that maybe he doesn't really like videogames, but he likes to make them. It has always happened, just read some interviews to game developers and they'll tell you they don't really play games. Maybe he liked the old games, closer to the heart of the beginnings of videogaming, he was a protagonist in the revolution. Right now, there is nothing, in gaming, that makes him PASSIONATE because he FEELS there hasn't been a real Paradigm Shift(TM) in the way games are made or people interact with them. I hope he is trying to say what I have just written, but the interview is very poorly done to draw any conclusions.

    I only have one message to him: Mr. Bushnell, thank you, you're work has made a great impact in our lives, in ways that no one can imagine. I'm glad you are still an active innovator, I love your restaurant idea, but don't treat the gaming industry like that, please look at Wii Sports and Wii Fit and you'll really see gaming is changing for the great benefit of our glorious nation.

  15. Hey, remember that one film? by doyoulikeworms · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where it was a bunch of pictures of a horse running? Yeah, that was the best fucking film of all time. It's just been downhill from there.

  16. Agreed by Kadin2048 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Up until a few days ago, I probably would have agreed with TFA. I played my share of console and arcade games as a kid, and a computer game here and there (I even gave WoW a shot, and it admittedly keep me going for a few months), but I just don't generally find games all that engaging. Either they're too simple and I get bored, or they're too frustrating, and I get annoyed and bored. It just feels artificial -- if I want a challenge, there are enough projects on my to-do list to keep me busy for several lifetimes, and if I want escapism, there are a lot of books. I'm not denigrating people who do like games (we all have our hobbies), I just didn't really get the draw.

    But that was before a few weekends ago, when the S.O. and I were at a friend's house and saw Wii Sports in person for the first time. I'd heard of it, of course, but had never really played it. Overall, I'm not sure it'll go down in the annals of videogames as more significant than Super Mario Brothers, but maybe it should: I saw more non-gamers pick up and have a good time with that game than I've ever seen before, on any system. Lots of people who normally would have just tuned it out as annoying background noise ended up taking a turn. And perhaps more significantly, we weren't the only couple leaving that night and saying "wow, we have got to get one of those" to each other. It's a video game system that doesn't feel like a 'video game' system -- it felt like poor-man's virtual reality. And a week later, despite living with one of the most anti-video-game people I know (and at their insistence, no less), I found myself rearranging the living room furniture so that there's more room to play Wii Tennis.

    As far as I'm concerned, Nintendo should let Sony and Microsoft fight over the established market: they're creating a whole new one, or at least bringing a lot of people whose last console system was an NES back into it. The major question for them is whether they're going to be able to continue to produce games that maintain the very high bar for playability and group fun that Wii Sports does (so far, most of the third-party titles we've picked up from Blockbuster have been a bit disappointing). The question of whether the Wiimote is revolutionary or just a novelty will ultimately depend on whether they can get more games that use it effectively and intuitively, instead of just using it to emulate traditional controls or as an addon, rather than the platform's core and distinguishing feature. At least in my opinion, if you play it sitting down, somebody missed the point.

    I've played Halo 3, and yes, the graphics are pretty amazing (it's probably the first game I've played where the flamethrower looked borderline convincing). I suspect, based on the hardware, that the Playstation's are even more impressive. But there's nothing there that makes we want to run out and drop half a grand. (When they're selling for $100, I'll buy an XBox3 so I can play through Halo for the plot.)

    Wii Sports (and the ensuing sore arm) was pretty much worth $250, just for the sake of watching people whose knee-jerk response to any console system is "I don't do video games" change their minds and start to enjoy themselves within a few seconds of handling the controller.

    Games are not dead. I think that the game publishers and the hardware developers just went though a very risk-averse phase where nobody wanted to take chances, and so they ground out basically the same product, to the same audience, over and over. If you liked that product and its evolutionary improvements, it was great. But if you didn't, there could be pretty long dry spells. I'm not sure whether the Wii is the beginning of something different, or just a temporary oasis, but you'd have to be an idiot not to enjoy it either way.

    --
    "Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
  17. Two Words: Narbacular Drop. by 5of0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.nuclearmonkeysoftware.com/
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narbacular_Drop
    The predecessor to Portal (Portal was written by the ND guys, Valve hired them on the spot), with all the community-created levels, has the awesome problem-solving puzzle elements of Portal without the Valve graphics. It took a couple students from DigiPen to create the unique concept that was Portal, not some internal Valve guys. I'm glad that a company with the popularity/graphics expertise of Valve could bring it to a wider audience and make it more acceptable to the general gaming public.
    Just FAYI.

    --
    You all have Oo.o and Firefox, so get World Wind.