Even today you can find quality games. Just look on titles developed by CD Projekt Red or Obsidian. There's a lot of love and passion in them, which reminds of older games that you mentioned in your post. Gaming isn't doomed. It's just susceptible to change. We won't bring back the old times, but we can support newer titles which remind us of these old times. Just look on Pillars of Eternity, Torment: Tides of Numenera or Tyranny. They're close in quality to Baldur's Gate 2.

I disagree with the notion that games nowadays are not good. There are many very good games around.

op is 100% correct. now let's see who are wrong and trying to argue otherwise
there's something very mentally wrong with people who defend the current situation, like they missed out and are butthurt about it

The curse of omnipresent internet... Back then games had to work out of the box because getting patches to the players was hard.
And also games were smaller and less complex - less moving parts that could break.
And still broken games were released even back in the day. I remember sending in my original disks for an Amiga game and getting the disks with the fixed version back a few weeks later...

Many of Obsidian's games are great, but unfortunately they seem to be going a similar way to Bioware, with their acquisition by Microsoft. I haven't played Outer Worlds, but from what I have seen, it seems to be somewhat watered down and overly focused on visuals rather than content, compared to some of their older games. It seems to be a good example of what I was saying in my previous post. With their acquisition, I have to wonder what the chances are like that they will produce any more great isometric RPGs.

It seems that there is a cycle: a new developer makes some good games that people like; they make a name, grow bigger; get acquired by big money; their games get stripped down/dumbed down to favor mass appeal; most of the top devs leave; other, smaller companies spring up to fill the quality gap they have left. I mean, there are some exceptions, sure. But the chances of a developer making a good game seem to decrease, the larger they get and the more they get influenced by fat cat execs who just want to make a quick buck and buy their next Ferrari.

You are counterdicting your self hard core pun intended haha. Your like causal ruined the game, then like well all games are trying to get you to spend huge money on them. No where ever did a causal player of a game go im gonna spend 1200 dollars on the cash shop.

The people who ruined gaming are not main stream causal gamers, hard core addictive peesonallity and cheaters did. You apparantly just got here i guess but back in 1999 people were dumping 100s of thousands on illegal ulitma online, d2 and eq stuff. Developers saw how much they were losing and got into it.

The people spending money on games are not causal players.

So no causal gaming, and more people gaming did not ruin gaming. You apparantly are just upset the majority dont like overly complex games that take hours to learn. IMO all those games you juat mentioned are garbage trash, bg 1 and 2 need over 20 gbs of mods to be any good at all. I never played fallout 2 looked bad from the start, and i dont even know what metal geae soild is other than a worthless console game from the uo age.

Here is a good example, distant worlds is a huge complex game that takes 100 hours just to get a frim grasp of the game. Stellaris is a driect copy of distant worlds, but streamlined amd dumbed down so any one can play it. Did stellaris ruin distant world nope not even close. Did the causal player from stellaris ruin distant world nope. They are making distant world 2. Did stellaris make millions yep, will distant world 2 make millions nope. Does that mean its all ruined nope.

You are just going to the wrong places, ypur arugement is like saying video games ruined board games, for most rhat is true, but there are atill people that partake in board games, and people still make them.

No gaming is Half-Lifed.

The funny thing is that some people saw Baldur's Gate as a general decline in rpgs, due to its extreme dumbing down of the d&d rules and gameplay

:S
well hmm oh , hmmm
there are some who whine about everything

Is that how you would have felt if you had seen present-day games back when you were a kid?

graphics are better, but most games are more sterile now especially the AAA ones
way too many are designed what they think will gather the most buyers and not what would make a great playing experience

I'm pretty sure games are made with code and assets using programs like 3D Studio Max etc.

Well, it's kinda true though
It barely has like 1/5th of the rules, there's no skills, no options for roleplaying (TRUE options for roleplaying, not the usual Biowarian "i'll give you a few nasty options but you still have to be good" crap), half of the stats barely do a thing... Saying it's barebones would be a bit generous. But it was a huge media hit, and it was also a Bioware game, so I guess it's going to get the good will of a lot of people who believe in gaming media

compared to the rulebook or other games?
ofc a game had more limitations than a rulebook
it would just require way too much effort to put everything into a game
i think that is understandable they limit the scope of a game , just look at what is happenening if they dont Starcitizen

Compared with previous d&d games. They somehow managed to be more faithful and present more stuff from the games than Baldur's Gate. So it's not a "technical limitations" kinda deal

there's a difference between technical limitations and bad design, and bioware's game design is whiter than white bread