Editor's note
This article is a background summary of the chapters written by Felipe Pepe for the CRPG Compendium, which will be compiled into a single article. Translated and published with permission from Indienova.
- 原文作者:Felipe Pepe
- Translator: Game history buffs
- Previous: The Evolution of the Computer and Video Game Industry: 1975-1989
1990-1994: The Big Bang of Creativity and Technology
The early '90s are often considered the golden age of gaming, full of creative, ingenious work. This point of view makes sense, and in just a few years, new genres have been created and existing genres have been refined. Some of the collections continue to this day, while some classics are unrivalled to this day.
《沙丘 II》（Dune II）为即时战略游戏（RTS）定下了标准；《德军总部 3D》（Wolfenstein 3D）和《毁灭战士》（Doom）开创了第一人称射击游戏（FPS，又称“类毁灭战士”[Doom-clones]）；《文明》（Civilization）推广了 4X 游戏；《鬼屋魔影》（Alone in the Dark）缔造了生存恐怖类游戏；《街头霸王 II》（Street Fighter II）、《真人快打》（Mortal Kombat）和《拳皇》（The King of Fighters）统治了街机；平台跳跃领域出现了《超级马力欧世界》（Super Mario World）、《大金刚王国》（Donkey Kong Country）、《索尼克》（Sonic）、《洛克人 X》（Megaman X）、《恶魔城 X：血之轮回》（Castlevania: Rondo of Blood）和《超级密特罗德》（Super Metroid）等佳作；日式角色扮演游戏则有《地球冒险 2》（Earthbound）、《最终幻想 VI》（Final Fantasy VI）、《龙战士》（Breath of Fire）和《圣剑传说 2》（Secret of Mana）；LucasArts 和雪乐山（Sierra）推出了数十款优秀的冒险游戏；《地下创世纪》（Ultima Underworld）向全世界展示了如何开发 3D 游戏。 而这份名单远不止于此：《极品飞车》（Need for Speed）、《魔兽争霸》（Warcraft）、《模拟城市 2000》（SimCity 2000）、《马力欧赛车》（Mario Kart）、《幽浮》（X-COM）、《疯狂小旅鼠》（Lemmings）、《零式赛车》（F-Zero）、《银河飞将》（Wing Commander）、《星际火狐》（Star Fox）也位列其中。
As more and more users dialed up to the Internet and access BBS, "shareware" became popular — people could try the software for free and then sign up by email to unlock all the features. Games like Epic Pinball, Duke Nukem, and Doom have taken this approach, as well as many apps. It allows smaller studios to sell their own games directly, bypassing resellers. Later, many game magazines began to include read-only discs (CD-ROMs) loaded with shareware, game demos, and trailers, further facilitating their dissemination.
The hardware market has also ushered in fierce competition. Super Nintendo and SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive became the most famous rivals in gaming history. At the same time, lesser-known hosts such as TurboGrafx-16, Philips CD-I, NeoGeo, 3DO, and others are also vying for a little bit of remaining turf.
The competition in the home computer market is even more deadly. Fueled by VGA graphics and Intel i386 processors, PCs are unstoppable. In 1993, Atari retired from the battle and began to focus on its own Jaguar console. Commodore also declared bankruptcy in 1994. Only Apple survived and struggled to maintain the Macintosh product line.
But IBM didn't emerge as a winner. In 1994, Compaq replaced IBM as the nation's largest PC vendor. IBM PC-compatible machines have evolved, and the "Wintel" combination of Windows and Intel chips is now the industry standard.
Although computers are steadily gaining popularity, buying a computer is still prohibitive. Because technology is evolving so fast and so many competing standards have emerged, consumers need to consider a variety of factors – platforms, processors, operating systems, modems, sound cards, graphics cards, optical drives, and ZIP drives – and yet no one has explained these concepts to them.
But if you choose right, you'll be happy to the fullest.
趋势:
Optical disc and Full Motion Video (FMV): Unlike floppy disks, which are only 1.4MB, ROMs have a capacity of 650MB. The leap in storage space has allowed developers to pursue even the wildest of dreams: not only can they now replace MIDI files with pre-recorded music, but they can also use pre-rendered backgrounds and cutscenes, and even skip pixel animation and add full motion graphics of live performances. Although the latter is sadly outdated these days, everyone cheered at the time because it was exactly the combination of a movie and a game that they had been waiting for for a long time. However, this is accompanied by extremely high hardware requirements: computers must be equipped with expensive optical drives, sound cards, and graphics cards to run these games.
1993's The 7th Guest, featuring a live-action cast as a ghost. It is often assumed that this game and Myst popularized CD-only
The Entertainment Software Rating Board: Violence and pornography in video games aren't new, but in 1993, the use of live actors in games like Mortal Kombat and Night Trap reignited controversy and forced a hearing to be held. In response, Nintendo began to censor its own games, and Sega set up its own game rating system. Eventually, several game companies joined forces to form the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), and in 1994 introduced the ESRB rating system for self-regulation.
The ESRB rating system is the gaming industry's response to the need for censorship
Modding: Ever since the inception of video games, programmers have been tinkering with other people's code. However, id Software found it too cumbersome to develop mods for Wolfenstein 3D, so they decided to make mods for Doom easier - they put everything they needed for development in WAD ("Where's All the Data?"). , i.e. "Where did all the data go?") file. Due to the extreme popularity of DOOM and the growth of the internet, players have made thousands of mods. This philosophy was also carried over by Quake and later Half-Life, and led to the creation of some of the best mods in Team Fortress and Counter-Strike.
The mod for DOOM, Aliens TC, was released in 1994, and it was a complete modification of the original based on the movie Aliens 2
1990：
Windows 3.0 released. Microsoft partnered with several companies to sell IBM PC-compatible machines with Windows 3.0 pre-installed, making the system extremely popular.
The World Wide Web—the Internet as it is known today—was born with the first web browser, as well as HTTP, HTML, and the first web pages.
1991：
Sega unveils Sonic: The Hedgehog, a benchmark for Nintendo's Mario series. This more agile and trendy mascot would be a hallmark of the gaming industry in the 90s, especially the console wars between Nintendo and Sega.
Super Nintendo on sale. Despite being launched much later than the Genesis/Mega Drive, the console was the "final victory" in the 16-bit war, with 41 million units sold.
Linux was released for the first time. Written by Linus Torvalds, it has led to the emergence of several free and open-source operating systems for use by numerous companies and individuals.
1992：
Mortal Kombat not only conquered arcades, kicked off a long-term rivalry with Street Fighter, but also brought parents together against the violence, paving the way for ESRB.
1993：
The CD-only disc brought players a big, well-designed, and accessible adventure game, Myst, which became one of the best-selling titles in PC gaming history.
Doom gained millions of users in the form of shareware. As one of the most important titles in the history of gaming, it popularized the concepts of first-person shooter, multiplayer deathmatch, and modding development.
1994：
Genesis/Mega Drive's next-generation console, the SEGA Saturn, was released. Due to its high price, poor marketing strategy, and a large number of games that were only exclusive to Japan, the console ultimately failed, selling only 9 million units.
PlayStation was Sony's first console. It's a powerful machine that brings 3D graphics into ordinary homes. It dominated the market at the time, selling 100 million units.
1995-1999: A new 3D world, a new audience
In the late 90s, there were also several impressive games coming out. Some of them have also developed into classic collections, while others have even created entirely new genres. But there's a difference, 3D graphics are the hottest trend right now.
Driven by a new generation of consoles, Super Mario 64, Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Medal of Honor, Tomb Raider, and Gran Turismo) has sold millions of dollars and has become the benchmark for 3D games.
On PC, RTS and FPS games are still soaring in popularity, with titles like Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, WarCraft II, StarCraft, Unreal, Quake, and Half-Life. This is partly due to the emergence of an increasingly popular feature: online battles. As the player base grew, titles such as Full Throttle, Diablo, Phantasmagoria, and Baldur's Gate all sold more than 1 million copies, a remarkable feat at the time.
However, the cost of game development quickly skyrocketed, resulting in a decreasing margin for errors, and companies like Interplay began to sink into the mistakes they made when trying to tap into the 3D craze and/or the increasingly booming console market. Some decades-old series have also come to an abrupt end with a disappointing 3D sequel, such as King's Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity, Ultima IX: Ascension, and Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire.
Windows 95 made Windows synonymous with PCs from the ground up. However, the "Wintel" combination has lost some momentum, as the Pentium chips face increasing competition from AMD. Also caught up in the increasingly fierce competition are peripherals such as 3D accelerator cards, sound cards, and joysticks, even web browsers.
With the popularity of 3D gaming, companies such as 3dfx, Nvidia, S3 and ATI are vying to dominate the market for their "3D-accelerated" graphics cards, and 3dfx's popular Voodoo graphics cards emerge as the winners.
By the mid-90s, the Internet had become at the forefront of business activity. Every company wanted to build its own website (they didn't necessarily know why), eBay and Amazon were founded, the first web banners appeared, people speculated heavily in the market – and the dot-com bubble began.
At this point, two browsers are vying for market dominance: Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Microsoft quickly won by making its browser free for all Windows 95 users, establishing a tradition of free for most browsers and sparking a lawsuit. During the trial, the court found that Microsoft maintained its monopoly position by suppressing competitors.
At the same time, Apple lost. Its new console, Pippin, was a complete failure, and the Macintosh computer was an antique. Eventually, Apple chose to bring back Steve Jobs, whom they fired in 1985, to deal with the crisis. In 1998, Steve Jobs brought Apple back to life with the release of the iMac computer and established its position as a cooler and out-of-the-box alternative to the PC.
With the convenience of Windows 95, hot new games, and the allure of the internet, computers finally became mainstream in the late 90s.
趋势:
Online and LAN Multiplayer: Doom supports up to 4 player deathmatches. Due to the lack of internet connectivity at the time, the most popular way to play was to host a Doom LAN party. By the time Quake and StarCraft came out, the internet had already become widely available and online games were extremely popular. However, playing online isn't easy – you'll need to know the IP addresses of the players and servers and enter them manually. To make this process easier, services like GameSpy and Battle.net (Battle.net) have emerged, which list servers to help players with matchmaking.
GameSpy, formerly known as QuakeSpy, was founded in 1996 with the goal of helping players play QuakeHammer online
3D Graphics: The 90s were a time to learn how Xi to make 3D games. In the beginning, it was very difficult to even explain the concept – for which Genesis Underground (1992) published an ad in the magazine showing the same object from multiple angles. Then there were questions about how to control the character (and camera) in 3D space, how to render, how to develop tools that were too primitive, and how much system requirements were too high. It's been a long process, but it's also important technological breakthroughs such as analog sticks.
Super Mario 64 is a representative of early 3D games. It shows how far this concept can go
Multiplayer Dungeon Games (MUD) vs. Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs): MUDs and online RPGs appeared back in the late 70s, but it wasn't until the mid-90s, with the help of the Internet, that they became extremely popular and spread to all corners of the globe. There were thousands of MUDs available for players to play online, covering topics ranging from epic RPG adventures to PVP to adult role-playing. In the U.S., Ultima Online (1997) and EverQuest (1999) would become the benchmark for massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) in the West, laying the groundwork for World of Warcraft (2004), while Lineage (1998) gained millions of players in South Korea.
With 3 million monthly active users, Lineage became the most popular online game before World of Warcraft
1995：
Windows 95 came along. The system was a milestone in making computers more user-friendly and making Windows synonymous with PCs.
1996：
Pokémon was released on the Game Boy platform in Japan and sold 10 million copies. It entered the Western market in 1998 and set off a wave of "Pokémon Mania" that swept the world, encompassing games, animation, toys, cards, and more.
The Nintendo 64 was released. It still uses a cassette as a game carrier, but introduces an analog stick. This console has achieved 32 million sales worldwide.
Quake follows in the footsteps of Doom with full 3D graphics and physics. As a landmark work, it popularized mods such as deathmatch, WASD controls, and Team Fortress, and even led to the creation of the game movie (Machinima) and Speedrun.
1997：
DVDs landed in the U.S. market with far more capacity than CDs and faster transfer rates.
1998：
StarCraft is released. It's the most popular RTS game of all time, with three races, an excellent plot, and a flawless multiplayer experience. The game became an early icon of esports, selling over 11 million copies.
iMac is released. It was designed by Steve Jobs, who returned to Apple as CEO, and is a sign of Apple's rebirth.
Dreamcast is released. Hit by the overwhelming dominance of the PS2 and Sega's internal problems, the console was quickly abandoned, selling only 9 million units.
Half-Life takes FPS beyond the killing arena and opens up an immersive, interactive world based on a seamless narrative. It also has a ton of mods, and Counter-Strike, which is still popular today, is one of them.
1999：
Bleem! Publish. As a PS1 emulator for the PC platform, it has been ruthlessly accused by Sony. Although the case was ultimately won, the legal fees incurred bankrupted the company. Since then, simulators have also become taboo in the industry.
2000-2004: The rise of the modern gaming industry
If the '90s was the era of the tech explosion, the beginning of this century was a time of great change in business models. The massive number of mergers and acquisitions during this period reshaped the gaming industry.
Earlier, fifth-generation consoles, led by Playstation and Nintendo 64, were a huge success, selling tens of millions of units, greatly expanding the game's audience. Now the Playstation 2 is leading the way in the sixth generation, breaking sales records and eventually becoming the best-selling console of all time. But development costs are still skyrocketing due to beautiful 3D graphics, making games a lucrative but risky business.
Despite the fact that home computers are more popular than ever, their game lineup pales in comparison to the excellent PS2 platform. PC game companies like Maxis, Valve and Blizzard have made a lot of money with blockbuster titles like The Sims, Counter-Strike and Diablo II, but console and handheld titles still dominate the game sales charts.
Former PC gaming giants such as Shellhill, Brøderbund and Origin were acquired in the late '90s, and the harsh environment of the early century saw the demise of Interplay, SSI, Westwood Studios, DreamForge, Infogrames, MicroProse, Acclaim, 3DO and many others.
Many of these companies were merged under the umbrella of EA and Activision, which further strengthened their dominance in the U.S. market. The rest of the companies had no choice but to declare bankruptcy and shut down. Many analysts have made pessimistic predictions that the "death of PC gaming" is imminent. Although PC gaming didn't die, it did take a hit in the 00s.
In Japan, many companies have chosen to merge in response to rising development costs: Square and Enix, Bandai and Namco, Koei and Tecmo, and Sega and Sammy Corporation. Competition in the hardware market has also become more intense, with Nvidia and AMD acquiring 3dfx and ATI respectively, creating a monopoly on the graphics card market that continues to this day.
The biggest change occurred in the console market: Sega suffered heavy losses due to successive failures of Saturn and Dreamcast, and finally withdrew from the battlefield, but a new challenger, Microsoft, filled the void.
As the first U.S. console to succeed after the Great Depression in 1983, Xbox will have a profound impact on the industry. Because it's culturally and geographically closer to Western developers, companies eager to make a splash in the booming console market see it as the best place to get started. To make it easier for them to get started, Xbox (short for "DirectX Box") was designed from the start to make it easy for veteran PC developers to understand and work with.
The early 00s, which marked the arrival of a new era, were a time of change, with survival of the fittest or perishing.
趋势:
Online gaming: The internet has proven itself to be the "killer app" for PCs, and the average family is finally having a reason to buy a computer, and many people who have never been exposed to gaming or related technology are drawn in. The Sims and RollerCoaster Tycoon are smash hits among casual players, while online communities like Neopets, Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin, flash game portals like Newgrounds, Travian and Bejeweled Browser games such as Bejeweled, as well as some dress-up and puzzle games, are even more popular than them.
Founded in 1999, Neo Pet is a virtual pet website that quickly grew in popularity, reaching 35 million users by 2005
The dot-com bubble: This is a bit off topic, but it's crucial to understanding the insecurity of the early '00s. With the birth and spread of the Internet, several new companies such as Yahoo, Amazon, and Google made billions of dollars. Many people try to imitate them, seeing the creation of Internet companies as a surefire way to make a quick buck. When the bubble finally burst in 2000, countless companies went bankrupt and countless money evaporated, and investors became wary of tech "gold mines" such as video games.
In the early 2000s, the NASDAQ index soared on speculation on Internet companies, and then fell sharply
Handheld: After the success of Pokémon reinvigorated the more than a decade-old Game Boy, Nintendo quickly invested in the development of new handhelds, launching the Game Boy Colour in 1998 and the Game Boy Advance in 2001. All of these handhelds were successful, but the hottest was the 2004 Nintendo DS, which is still the best-selling handheld of all time. Also in 2004, Sony launched the PlayStation Portable – PSP for short, kicking off a rivalry that continued into the 3DS and the short-lived PS Vita.
The total sales of all Nintendo DS models reached 150 million units, second only to the PS2 in popularity
2000：
The Sims was unexpectedly popular, selling 12 million copies, taking away the PC sales crown from The Mystery. As of 2016, the Sims franchise has sold over 200 million copies.
PlayStation 2 release. It dominated the entire 00s, becoming the highest-selling console of all time, with over 155 million units sold.
2001：
Bejeweled is released. It started as a browser game, but then several ported works and sequels were born. The series was a huge success among casual gamers, with over 150 million downloads.
GameCube is a bet on "family-friendly" consoles, but the lack of third-party games makes it underperform. 21 million units were sold.
Grand Theft Auto III took the world by storm, selling a total of 14 million copies across all platforms. It popularized open-world sandbox games and sparked a new round of discussion about the violent elements of video games.
Xbox is Microsoft's way of joining the console wars. It revolutionized the gaming scene in the United States, selling 24 million units.
2003：
AMD introduced the first home 64-bit processor, allowing PCs to exceed 4GB of RAM (memory). In 2005, AMD and Intel announced new multi-core desktop processors.
2004：
Facebook is founded. It started out only for student users, but in 2006 it removed this restriction and became the world's largest social network with over 1.8 billion users.
Half-Life 2 brought an innovative physics engine and a more cinematic narrative approach, and led to the creation of famous mods such as Garry's Mod. Along with it is the Steam Deck in Villefort.
World of Warcraft was released and became the benchmark for MMOs in the West. Its total number of users peaked at 12 million in 2010 and has remained popular ever since.
CRPG Tongjian Online Reading: https://crpgbook.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/crpg-book-expanded-edition_3.6b.pdf
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