The best years in video games. Sooner or later, we all get to assembling that mental list, weighing up the relative merits of Metal Gear Solid and World of Warcraft in case anyone asks us at a moment’s notice to rank all the years since there have been videogames and Gregorian calendars. They never do, of course. So we bring it up in conversations ourselves, first letting our company suggest their incorrect ranking before launching into our meticulously prepared TED talk.
At face value, it might not seem to matter which years arbitrarily held the highest volume of beloved releases. But what about the broader context? What else was happening, culturally and economically, that allowed these wonderful clusters of games industry talent to burst forth? And why haven’t we had a good one for half a decade now?
