*TWO PEOPLE* created (most of) this game?!?

[CUnknown]

Morkilus - yeah, you're right this is the way computer games started in the good old days! Like, remember Lord British in his heyday making those Ultima games mostly all by himself..

I really think that "too many cooks spoil the broth" is dead accurate. If you have one or two guys with a clear picture of the game they would like to see and the desire to work like crazy to make it a reality, you end up with the best games. I mean, to me anyway, I believe that computer games used to be much better in the 80's and early 90's. There was a time in the early 90s when games like Wing Commander, Doom, Civilization, Star Control, X-Com, Dune II, Ultima Underworld, etc, etc were all coming out basically back-to-back in a serious burst of creativity.

All of those games have since spawned numerous sequals and some even entire genres of games:

Wing Commander - at least 5 games and Privateer
Doom - the FPS genre (although Wolfenstein started it, it was really Doom that made the genre take off)
Civilization - the modern turn-based strategy genre (4X), Dominions I'm sure the devs would admit owes a lot to Master of Magic, a spin off of Civ and MOO. MOO deserves credit, too - especially in terms of AI, it had the best AI I've ever seen in any 4X type game - but, I think that MOO was inspired by Civ mostly.
Star Control - only 3 games, but I really like this one!
X-Com - At least 4 games, I believe, and also Laser Squad Nemesis, and probably it has influenced others. This is a type of game that I've heard lots of people (including me!) want more of and for some reason aren't getting. So, 4-5 games, but it should have been more.
Dune II - the entire RTS genre
Ultima Underworld - certainly inspired the Elder Scrolls series and probably more

Also, you've got Ultima Online of course that inspired the MMO genre, but that was later in the 90s.

It seems to me that in the 70s and 80s you had the one or two guys in their basement making awesome games, then you had the 90s where the game industry "matured", people were working in small groups, and in the early part of that period is where you find like 90% of the creativity of all the mass-marketed games that have been produced ever since. They've just been putting out endless sequals of the games I've listed and of others I've probably forgotten. They do that, imo, because there are too many people working on the project and individual creativity is stifled. Also because the powers that be are reluctant to spend the cash on something that isn't a sure thing. Of course, not every "sure thing" is really a sure thing - MOO3 anyone?? So, I think that strategy is self-defeating.

I think the only good games coming out now are independent ones like Dominions. I could be wrong, but whenever I check out the mass marketed games they always seem to disappoint me.

Edit:

Oh, I forgot Alone in the Dark which I believe inspired the Resident Evil series and the action/horror style genre.

I also forgot Sim City which was the first of the Sim games.

Also Street Fighter which inspired basically all the fighting games, although that was a little earlier in the late 80s.

Taking a look at IGNs list of the top 100 computer games (the one made in 2005), I count 40 of them being from the period between 1989-1995, and that doesn't include Civilization II (1996). Civ I wasn't on the list. I suppose Civ II may have been a better game, but I still think the credit belongs to the trailblazer, not the sequal.

Also, that number would be a lot higher if we included any game defined mainly by a genre created by one of those 40. I think it would include just about all of them in that case.

I apparently have too much time on my hands today.