[Japo]

Also maybe nobody can compare the present with any other time objectively. Most games nowadays may be crap, but most old games were crap too. We remember only the memorable ones. There are lots of substandard FPS but there were lots of substandard graphic adventures and sidescrollers and so on. There are great games nowadays, they're a minority but so were they back then.

But it's true that there's less business risk in the industry nowadays. Look at Sid Meier, after trying and innovating in every genre barely making any money, now he knows he only has to release a new Civ and people will buy it.

Also there may be hard games nowadays and there may have been easy games in the past, but there's a trend. There is no game nowadays as insanely hard as Shadow of the Beast and many others, and there are lots of stupidly easy games (call it consolitis or whatever), little more than interactive movies.