1996-2001.
I think it was the zenith of classical computer gaming. Many games from this era were spiritually built upon great games form previous ten years and creativity still seemed to be the main driving factor. Planescape: Torment, System Shock 2, Baldur's Gate Saga, Gothic etc. represent an ideal combination of good audiovisual quality, artistry, design and storytelling.

However, the most influential era was probably 1990 - 1995.
Ultima Underworld, Ultima 7, The Secret of Monkey Island, Wizardry 7, System Shock, nuff said. This is my second favourite era and the ultimate nostalgy-based era as well. Also, probably the last era of truly hardcore games.
For example, I still replay Wizardry 7 from time to time, and I'm always in awe how complete this game is: complex character development, many different kind of puzzles, tough and often strategic combat, vast world full of greatly designed dungeons, you name it. I remember it took me almost a year to finish it without a walkthrough!

Of course, the most creative era was 1980-1989 for obvious reasons but due to technical limitations not everything could be fully realised, at least as I'd like it to be.

In 21th century, the marketing/propaganda (http://www.metacritic.com/games/plat…rolls4oblivion - see the difference between critic and user ratings, there may be some backslash after all:-) ) has grown stronger and stronger and generally, the games seem to be devoid of substance, likely because the form is the main selling point. There are exceptions, of course, such as Witcher, which is hopefully part of a new trend emerging.

In conclusion, 1990-2001 was a great period in computer gaming history.
I've chosen 1996-2001 since nowadays I play games from this era much more often than from 1990-1995, but it still was a tough call.

96-2001 for me, too. I do find it interesting in going thru the game lists that it really takes a slide in 2000. That happens to coincide with when Monkey was born, so I can't help but wonder if the games truly declined or my lack of free time biased my "internal ratings" so I didn't feel bad about not having time to play anything.

Originally Posted by narpet
Yes, today's games have all the bells and whistles you could hope for. But the games of old made you use your imagination. And if you haven't lost that skill, the old games are still great.

I think that's one possible drawback to our current and upcoming crop of games. They have become so realistic (regarding graphics and sound) that it's hard for us to use our imaginations like we would when reading a good book.

I think there is some truth in it.

Imagination -> emotion -> emotional binding -> better memories of a game, more immersion etc. …

If that's the way it is, then it would make sense to me.

Glad to see intelligent replies with good arguments. Still one question keeps bugging me. If those old games really were better, why do new companies make crappy games today?

The way I see it, there is a great demand for more intelligent games, but still the demand is not met, so people are forced to play old titles to get what they want.
I am aware of the fact that most people don't have time, nor energy to get into serious, deep and complex games, but still there is demand.

1) Keep in mind that the Watch isn't exactly a fair indicator of market demand. We likes us sum old skool RPG here. With game development costing millions of dollars, you've got to move ~50,000 copies just to break even. Our active community is a couple hundred souls and our total community is probably a few thousand. Nowhere near enough to merit the attention of a mainstream publisher.
2) The portion of a game's budget spent on technology has increased significantly. Of course, graphics is the first item on that list, but even if you discount the eye candy, the game engines have to be much more complex now. We expect an interactive world, so the engine has to let you pick up the plate off the table and throw it at the window which has to break into a realistic number of pieces with the appropriate sounds. Can you imagine a game coming out today with the NPC interactions of MM7 (and I'm indicting my #2 all-time favorite game here)? We expect NPCs to talk to us and have motivations and go thru the motions of true-to-life schedules. It takes a lot of programming to make that all happen, and we haven't coded the first line of the first quest yet.
3) As an offshoot of #1, computer games used to be the territory of hardcore geeks, which generally implied a certain level of intelligence. A relatively uniform market made it easier to know and cater to the target audience. These days, we've got everyone from Granny to sk8t3rd00d playing on PCs, consoles, handhelds, and frickin cellphones. With such a broad and fragmented market, the lowest common denominator gets really darn low.
4) It usually takes a large team to develop a game these days. This results in a couple significant changes in the development cycle. First, you lose the creativity of the lone cowboy coding games out of his garage. Second, you start making compromises that are unavoidable in any group undertaking. Finally, it takes much more money to make it all happen, which means the beancounters (publishers, in our case) have much more influence on the project from start to finish.

Originally Posted by dteowner
1) Keep in mind that the Watch isn't exactly a fair indicator of market demand. We likes us sum old skool RPG here. With game development costing millions of dollars, you've got to move ~50,000 copies just to break even. Our active community is a couple hundred souls and our total community is probably a few thousand. Nowhere near enough to merit the attention of a mainstream publisher.

I tend to agree. That's why I like it here.

Basically, mediocrity rules these days because it's most economical.

Or better put to write an RPG you need to write and script it on top of a working engine. With a twitch/action game all that's needed is the engine so making an RPG extra is development work that can be easily broken. See the Arcanum thread for example.

--

On another point I would make 1987-1993 a separate era as well. It was around this time the 16bit computers took over with their Quadruple Hi-Res RGB color monitors - Mac, Apple //gs. Amigas, Atari ST, IBM 286 (although technically the TI99/4a was 16bit).

We started to see more detail in the much larger characters and some them required new fangled hard drives. You couldn't get away anymore with simple 2d icons representing region and smooth scrolling 3d graphics were invented with UU. The game that dominated this era was the Space Sim/RPG hybrid Wing Commander which spun off its own movie.

This thread was a pleasure to read! I am very interested in this kind of discussion! I do not have the experience in games you guys have since I am born in 93… I think I got my first pc hmm… let me think …I think when I was 6… so that means 99! I HAVE played some of the old games I hear about and some did prove really fun to play! Since I do not have any older experience and almost all my gaming has been centered "in the new era" I will pick that!
Again I say that it is a pleasure to read these discussions!

At your service. *bows*

I voted for 1990-1995 as it encompassed most of my favorite games (Ultimas VI and VII and all of the Wing Commander games).

I completely agree that the next period was HEAVILY influenced by that era as well (Heck, in the BG1 manual they make a point how much they loved Ultima among other things).

One point I would make about the current era is that while I think the offerings of the major companies have been subpar, and while the truly indepent publisher is quickly heading towards extinction, we've seen a massive growth in the modding community, and more importantly the accessibility of those mods.

Additionally, there has been a lot of growth in the open-source side, allowing more people to make reasonably high quality games from scratch. I find that most of what peaks my interest these days are either mods or those types of OS games.

It looks like this poll has been interpreted to be about Roll Playing Games and not Games in general.