I watched the series of the early 2000s and 2010s and compared them with the series closer to the 2020s and directly felt the difference, as if the authors really tried something before, I really cried when watching or was happy for the characters. The same with games, I played several games from the 2000s, and one sank into my heart, even after playing it a few years later, its plot still evokes vivid and pleasant memories, which has not yet happened with any game from the 2010s and even more so from the 2020s.
I’m not the only one, am I?
Hollywood is legit dying. COVID+strikes+inflation+higher interest rates+LA fires have pretty much decimated the industry. There is cost cutting across the board. No one wants to take risks.
Part of it is that there’s aqlways low quality and high quality content being made, but time acts as a filter. The stuff you’ll still be able to find to watch from the past is more likely to be the higher quality things from that previous era.
I personally think there is still a slight difference in quality as well, but it’s easy to forget all the shit TV that doesn’t make it into history books or to any online services.
This happens with music all the time. People ignore all the shit that didn’t chart and pretend like everything from [insert time period here] was just the top of quality stuff we remember
Not really, no. But I am noticing a lack of quality in, like, everything else. I swear to God, every time I turn around lately, something is poorly designed, or produced, be it some web service, or the fuckin ice trays I bought that shattered the first time I tried twisting the ice out.
On the other hand, we’re currently in a very good period of music, which I assume is “content”.
Man there’s obviously some exceptions of really good shows and games but there was a ton of garbage shovelware type crap in the early 2000s in both mediums. Video games had tons of movie to game entries that were terrible, plenty of no-name games that were incredibly generic with bad mechanics or ripping off other more successful games, way too many sports and racing games, I could go on.
Older games really had more of a “spray and pray” approach where they developed so many more games and hoped to get people’s attention in stores rather than everyone knowing every detail about everything right as it launched like today. This had pros and cons for sure. The developers of GTA:San Andreas said that they had 2 years to make the game and they already had the engine from Vice City. They finished it and had so much more time they just started brainstorming new ideas and things they could put in, which does stand out looking back at it now.
This point could be said doubly so of the previous generations of games in the late 80s and 90s. Take a look at a list of SNES or Genesis games. There are hundreds if not thousands of just absolutely terrible sidescrolling platformers that are not worth anyone’s time. You walk, jump, and shoot or punch and they all play the same way.
TV I feel like was pretty bad in the 2000s as well. Cable TV was still the default method of watching shows, and that meant crappy sitcoms with laugh tracks, cop dramas like CSI, reality TV, and so on. I didn’t see the sopranos, which is arguably one of the best TV shows to ever exist and came from this era, until 2020 when I was 28 years old. Even if I wasn’t a kid back then, I didn’t know any other family who had HBO. Now everything is at everyone’s finger tips, going back decades if you do want to watch something old like the office or whatever. Back then I just had to sit through whatever was on TV, with commercials, or censored movies, or I’d have to watch something on DVD that I had already probably seen too many times.
Anyway this is getting kinda rambly, but all I’m getting at is nostalgia can be a helluva drug. There’s so much crappy media, games, tv, music, movies, whatever made all the time since art has ever been a thing. A lot of it sucked back then, and sucks now. And that’s fine. One day someone will be reminiscing about 2020’s games like Clair Obscur and saying stuff in the late 30’a suck lol. And there’s plenty of good games and shows coming out now, it all depends on your taste. I love a ton of indie games and anime for example. There’s so many good examples from all eras, and everything is more accessible than ever before in history.
Have you played Disco Elysium?
Stories put together by larger studios are made to suck every penny out of it they can. They make formulaic stories, distilled down to an average denominator of the population. Predictable, mediocre, and bland have become the norm, in order to mass market one thing after anothrt. We are inundated with heartless, soulless content.
Look for more indie or low budget things. Those are put together by people who want to do it. By people who want to tell their story, show their art, and make something great. Great stories are still being told, you just have to find them.
*Edit: spelling
Yeh the mass market thing really does spoil a lot. I have noticed an uptick of movies lately that are and should be serious, however they seem to squeeze in silly jokes and or goofy music. Why? i am assuming to hit an extra market but it just ruins credibility in my eyes and the movie ends up with an identity problem.
Conversely there is no more stupid, fun comedy movies coming out anymore. Think Will Ferrell or Adam Sandler movies, that kind of thing. The 90s / early 2000s was the golden age of dumb comedies, and now it seems that those sorts of movies are rarely ever produced anymore
It feels like there has been some dropoff, particularly in higher-budget areas. Big studios seem to be taking fewer risks, and small creators have less money (and time by extention) to spend on art.
That said, it also feels like discoverability has gotten far worse. Social media has become increasingly insular, more personalized, more algorighmic, and ultimately harder to explore. Its not like the old days, where you could find a new thing, even from a random person’s forum signature.
As the barrier to entry has lowered with easier tools the quality naturally falls.
@BetaSoldier It’s probably gonna be a bit of both. If you grew up in the 00s/10s, then you would’ve been watching a lot of that stuff during a more influential point in your life, and one where you have far less to compare it to, so it feels a lot better. Plus when rewatching unless there’s some stuff that really doesn’t hold up you’ll be leaning on the nostalgia a lot.
I’ve run into a lot of stuff from the past 6 years that’s hit me like a truck, a lot of it in the indie space.
No one is spending any money on making stuff. The local theater has like 12 screens, and half are playing movies like caddy shack. There’s just not the willingness from the studios. They won’t risk losing money, theyll take the small consistent profits of existing ip and minimal production cost.
Indie games are still good. There are some YouTube channels that produce quality exclusive content on other platforms. But for sure the good stuff is harder to find, and there aren’t blockbusters like the 80s and 90s.
But are there B-movies like in the 80s? I remember renting tapes of movies that I would have trouble finding today.
I don’t know, sounds like all of that is subjective to me.
If this was applied to YouTube, then yes, quite noticeable.
Not with TV, no. There is plenty of high quality TV in the late 2010s and 2020s.
Somewhere in there, TV and movies switched. Movies used to be good, now they’re trash for the most part. TV used to be trash with the occasional gem, now there are many good TV shows. I heard a lot of writers got fed up with movies and switched to TV.
Yes, this does not happen in all industries, in some the effect is a little opposite. But what about the uniqueness or depth of the plot, did they average out?
As time marches on, it only gets harder to make a unique plot, does it not?
You should have seen the degradation of content when the eternal September started back in my days…
I will say I used to get quite emotional more often playing good story driven games compared to now. Whether that’s because of the inferred change, or I’ve become more cynical and dead inside…who knows (I suspect the latter).
