Hard to believe it's been 24 years since Y2K (2000) And it feels like we've come such a long way, but this decade started off very poorly with one of the worst pandemics the modern world has ever seen, and technology in general is looking very bleak in several ways
I'm a PC gamer, and it looks like things are stagnating massively in our space. So many gaming companies are incapable of putting out a successful AAA title because people are either too poor, don't want to play a live service AAA disaster like every single one that has been released lately, Call of Duty, battlefield, anything electronic arts or Ubisoft puts out is almost entirely a failure or undersales. So many gaming studios have been shuttered and are being shuttered, Microsoft is basically one member of an oligopoly with Sony and a couple other companies.
Hardware is stagnating. Nvidia is putting on the brakes for developing their next line of GPUs, we're not going to see huge gains in performance anymore because AMD isn't caught up yet and they have no reason to innovate. So they are just going to sell their next line of cards for $1,500 a pop for the top ones, with 10% increase in performance rather than 50 or 60% like we really need. We still don't have the capability to play games in full native 4K 144 Hertz. That's at least a decade away
Virtual reality is on the verge of collapse because meta is basically the only real player in that space, they have a monopoly with them and valve index, pico from China is on the verge of developing something incredible as well, and Apple just revealed a mixed reality headset but the price is so extraordinary that barely anyone has it so use isn't very widespread. We're again a decade away from seeing anything really substantial in terms of performance
Artificial intelligence is really, really fucking things up in general and the discussions about AI look almost as bad as the news about the latest election in the USA. It's so clowny and ridiculous and over-the-top hearing any news about AI. The latest news is that open AI is going to go from a non-profit to a for-profit company after they promised they were operating for the good of humanity and broke countless laws stealing copyrighted information, supposedly for the public good, but now they're just going to snap their fingers and morph into a for-profit company. So they can just basically steal anything they want that's copyrighted, but claim it's for the public good, and then randomly swap to a for-profit model. Doesn't make any sense and just looks like they're going to be a vessel for widespread economic poverty...
It just seems like there's a lot of bubbles that are about to burst all at the same time, like I don't see how things are going to possibly get better for a while now?
I agree. But also add in the movie industry that's been complete trash for a while now. Not to mention books. I'm not sure if we'll ever see another Harry Potter level book again, at least in our lifetimes.
My take is we've already left the golden ages of movies, music, and books and probably won't get another for an extremely long time.
Video games are going through the same downfall which streaming services brought. Physical media left the movie scene as a standard while ago, but video games took longer. Now it's going to be all streaming and subscriptions where you can never own anything.
Once that happens, enshittification will peak, companies won't be incentivized to make the games good anymore, standards tank, and people will forget how good things once were.
Are you talking quality or popularity? Because there are many, many books that are just as good or better than Harry Potter.
Anything you'd recommend in particular?
This is not a callout of you in particular so don't get offended, but that's really only true if you look at the trash coming out of Hollywood.
There's some spectacularly good shit coming out of like France and South Korea (depending on what genres you're a fan of, anyways), as well as like, everywhere else.
Shitty movies that are just shitty sequels to something that wasn't very good (or yet another fucking Marvel movie) is a self-inflicted wound, and not really a sign that you can't possibly do better.
Not to mention an ungodly amount of Animated content of all varieties. Anime, cartoons, indie (Helluva Boss is hilarious and (un?)surprisingly dark), I recall seeing a screenshot of something French with amazing art style I want to look into watching.
One Piece is gearing up for a re-animation from the beginning using its new style from the Wano arc IIRC, and that is a hell of a long epic story.
Interesting! Anything you'd recommend?
Train to Busan, Parasite, Unlocked, Wonderland, Anatomy of a Fall and Close have been ones I've seen recently that I liked.
I think some of those are available on Netflix, but as I don't use Netflix I can't say which ones and for certain, though.
Edit: I just realized some of those are vague and will lead to a billion other movies lol. The first 4 are S. Korean, the last two are French and they're all from 2020 or newer so anything not from there or older isn't the right one.
Thanks! I'll look them up and give them a shot.
As with video games, the real gems imo for movies and music are from the indie scenes.
Check out the Mistborn and Wheel of Time series for books that are waaay better than Harry Potter. Anything by Brandon Sanderson and Neil Gaiman is a good time.
Also highly recommend any comics by Moebius and/or Alejandro Jodorowsky, and Neil Gaiman. Some incredible mind altering works to enjoy there like The Incal and Sandman.