Era can be defined as a console generation, a decade, one specific year, whatever you want. I’d encourage you to give a list of your favourite games from the generation of choice and why it was the best to you. Nostalgia is a totally viable reason too.
I’ll go first. For me, the 360 era is my GOAT. As someone in their 20s, I grew up with the 360 so nostalgia is definitely a big factor. But on top of that, I still feel like the games during that time were some of the best we’ve had. 2011 alone was a fantastic year, with Dark Souls, Skyrim, Portal 2 and many more great games. I was going to list out my favourite games from 2005-2013 but I love so many it would be far too long of a post.
I’d love to hear some of you talk about your favourite time period of games too, whether it’s agreeing with my choice or giving different opinions
It’s not just that. 2023 was a very good year for gaming, right? A lot of the heavy hitters last year were from long-running series. Look and see how many of those series had either their genesis or consensus fan favorite entries in that time period.
Not only that, Steam, Unreal Engine, e-sports, the mainstreaming of game mods, and even AAA gaming itself all trace back to that point. Historically, it’s a massively important time period for video games.
As is the late 70s and early 80s with arcades, or the start of home consoles, or high fidelity 3d gaming in the 2010s (Xbox 360 and on, Nintendo Switch). Or my particular favorite, the rise of Linux gaming starting in 2013 (Steam for Linux launch) to the release of the Steam Deck.
So why is the late 90s and early 2000s so highly represented here vs those other eras? I think it’s because of nostalgia, that’s around the time when the likely demographic of Lemmy would be getting into games (i.e. they’re old enough to remember the Internet before the last 10-ish years and be mad enough to leave Reddit, but not so old that they’re interested in such things).
So that’s my hypothesis as to why that era is so popular in this thread.