When games first came out in the 1980's, they didn't have the graphics that are available on computers today. Instead the makers of the games came up with original ideas and concepts that where completely original and unique as they where never heard before. They made their games on gameplay elements and didn't really think about graphics like game developers do today, this was because nothing in the games looked anything like what it actually looks like in real life.

Some of the most famous computer games ever made, like Pacman and Pong all first appeared on very old systems where they couldn't use graphics to make their world look anything like our world, so the game developers where pushed to come up with new gameplay elements in each game that they made. They came up with new, fresh ideas that made the public buy their games.

As computers developed and became more advanced, and became known as "Consoles", the graphics that game developers could use in their games also advanced at an amazing rate. As the graphics in games got better, game developers seem to have gotten lazier and seem to copy old ideas and make them into new games, meaning that gameplay in games hasn't advanced at such a rate as graphics did, but did this ruin gaming?

Since it has started the games industry has grown larger and larger, and it has now over taken the film industry in moneymaking terms. This has led to a globalization in gaming and also the mass production of games. As the industry has grown games companies like EA and Eidos constantly release sequel upon sequel until the public grow bored of the games. A perfect example is the Tomb Raider series, when the first game was released it was hugely successful as it introduced a new gameplay element, somewhat taken from the old Prince Of Persia games. The game made a huge jump in graphics and showed Lara Croft running round a 3D world unseen in games before. Then Eidos released a game every year until the public gets pretty sick of the game. Another example of this would be EA's Fifa series, every year the same basic game is released with new stats in it.

This doesn't necessarily mean that they ruined gaming; in fact they are just giving the gamers more of the games that they like. With the advancement in graphics there have been many excellent games that come up with new ideas or mix together the best parts of different games and improve upon them. Such games would be Mario, which was Nintendo’s creation that made gaming more popular with the public. After Mario, SEGA quickly came up with Sonic which was basically the opposite of Mario, where Mario was slow Sonic was super fast. Other games that used technology to give the gamer a new and interesting game would be the horror fest that is Resident Evil and the Brilliant Deus Ex.

Many of the games that are released today are quite similar. On the PC most of the games that are released are First person shooters (FPS), they are mostly games that involves you going round decapitating people with huge guns. When games like Doom came out, the FPS idea was new and interesting, but then games companies overcrowded the market again and everyone was making this type of game, soon very few of these games became successful, and the really interesting and intriguing ones got left behind, by games like Quake and Unreal Tournament that involved nothing but blasting people apart.

On consoles companies like Sony became dominant companies, these where people that where only interested in making money, they forgot all about gameplay and tried to make each game have better graphics than the previous. The only console game company that tried to do anything different was SEGA who came up with brilliant games like Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi. The fact that the company nearly went bankrupt suggests that the public don't want new ideas; they want the same ideas and same games over and over again with a slight re-vamp.

Although the revolution in graphics has somewhat taken away the emphasis on gameplay elements in games, I don't think that we can say that it ruined games. In fact if the graphics had not of developed in the way which they did, games may still be that thing that a few people play that are sad and pathetic according to the public, or maybe computer games may not exist any more, and games companies would have died out long ago. Games companies need to start using the advancement in graphics that has happened to their advantage now and come up with new interesting fresh ideas, that are new. We've had all the Adventure games , we've had all the same sports Sims, we had hundreds of FPS games, now we want something new, and game developers need to make this new game soon.