Object of the generation?

I'm sitting here writing (or procrastinating on writing) a Soul Reaver blog, and I'm just now talking about the blocks. There are so many blocks in that game, and it got me on a tangent. Block puzzles were the most ubiquitous feature of 5th generation game design, and exploding barrels took their place the next generation. But what defines our generation? What all too common object defines our generation?

I guess this one's going to be more of a discussion, really, since I'm too lazy to organize a poll. Anybody else can handle that shit, though.

A massive purple dildo.

Perks, if that counts as an object?

QTE prompts? I guess those started in last generation with games like God of War and Resident Evil 4, but they're everywhere now.

I'm so pleased that this was the first response to this topic. The Giant Bomb community never disappoints.

Women

The Portal gun or Weighted Companion Cube. Or a giant purple dildo.

/thread

Bows seem to have a strong presence.

Ragdoll.

It may not be tangible, but it's as iconic as the other two you mentioned.

This reflects a strange bias I've noticed in the "_______ of the generation" fervor: people holding up the end of the generation as representative of the entire generation. Recency effect, I guess.

Yep, I stand by it too.

I intended to write this. Bless your heart.

Xbox controllers

I'm not entirely sure why people are still offering suggestions.

This thread should have been a poll with "A massive purple dildo" as the only option.

Climbing stuff

Big-ass ramps.

Individual fingers.

Guns... The first person shooter and even third person shooters took off to even greater heights this gen. Between the massive succsess off COD and new IP like Gears of War, BioShock, Mass Effect, etcetera. Plus the continuing popularity of franchises like Halo. Everything popular had guns.

@joeyravn got it right out of the gate!

Though my personal "OotG" is a backpack filled with an unlimited number of detachable parachutes*.

(*best when combined with a grappling hook and a complete lack of respect for physics)

Yeah, that's the first thing I thought when I saw the title of this thread. It's really the only correct answer. In fact, I was under the assumption that no one was bringing up "object of the generation" because it should be understood by everyone that "massive purple dildo" was the only answer anyone would give.

Real answer: http://www.giantbomb.com/chest-high-walls/3015-4410/

Best answer so far:

But I'd have to say the Generic Manly Man is the real object of the generation.

http://www.destructoid.com/brown-hair-and-stubble-the-new-face-of-modern-videogames-178442.phtml

http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/06/22/the-devolution-of-character-designs

Generation 7 will go down in history as that point in time where mass marketability and focus testing became more important to the video game industry than creativity and vision.

What about the 90s? You know, when half of video games were mascot platformers?

You mean when console games were marketed like toys and cartoons? And there was a butt-ton of interesting stuff coming from creative visionaries on the PC side? If I had to guess at a difference I'd guess that in the 90s most of the mascot platformers were budget shovelware that wasn't all that important to the industry. In Gen 7 you've got big money behind the new mascot. Colorful Hybrid Animal Thing is out and Generic Manly Man is in.

This post is pretty damn ignorant of the strides that indie games and downloadable games have made in terms of "creative vision". Have you seen Braid, Journey, Minecraft, Terraria, Mark of the Ninja, Thomas Was Alone, or Bastion? Not to mention the likes of Darksiders, Alan Wake, Dark Souls, Dead Space, Left 4 Dead, Portal, etc., all of which are pretty original and pretty interesting in their own ways. And we've got No Man's Sky, The Witness, and Destiny to look forward to in terms of games with "creative vision".

Yeah, I'd say the industry has evolved past mascot platformers. Generic Manly Man is an easily marketable public face but you only have to do the tiniest bit of investigating to see that modern gaming is hardly limited to that.

Yup. While other answers may be more witty responses, this is the correct one.

I think I agree

red dot sights, intricate reload animations, that weird arm rowing animation every FPS uses when you run with a gun

Arrows telling you where to go.

Blocks signified the confusion that that era could bring. "How the hell do I progress, where do I go? What's this Gamefaqs thing I keep hearing about?"

Arrows at the push of a button, flickering lights to catch your attention, a Follow man... it all signified the "oh god go here and finish the game" mentality of campaigns last gen.

I am so surprised that no one to this point has caught this and commented on it.

guns, because Minecraft, Portal and Gone is an FPS

I'd love it if like candy color boxes were a THING, but then rock band is DEAD

Oh man, there's always somebody out there who can't read but has something to write. My comment might have been a little pessimistic, and maybe I'm wrong like VGK pointed out, but you really have to perform some awkward mental gymnastics to think I said "modern gaming is limited" to Generic Manly Man. Batting at imaginary shadows like that has me worried about you. It could be paranoid schizophrenia. You might want to get checked out. Just sayin'.

Not really. You did say that marketing and focus testing are king of this generation, and those usually connote sameiness and conservative game design. All I need do is supply what conservative game design, which isn't much of a leap.

Is there a "what the fuck" emoticon? Because I feel I could use one.

Well, I mean, you did say

Colorful Hybrid Animal Thing is out and Generic Manly Man is in.

and let's not forget your original comment

Generation 7 will go down in history as that point in time where mass marketability and focus testing became more important to the video game industry than creativity and vision.

I assumed that this meant you were talking about creative dryness in the video games industry, when we're arguably at a peak of creativity and have been for a few years now. How is that "awkward mental gymnastics"? What was your actual point, anyway? That the most popular games these days are focus-tested to death? OK, yes, games targeted at a mass market are focus tested, that's a key part of making things popular. People who throw millions of dollars at a project like to do what they can to make sure that it will sell. That hardly means that creativity and vision aren't important to the industry, or that they don't exist even in the biggest budgeted of games. See GTA V, The Last of Us, and Bioshock Infinite for evidence of that.

Digital mosaic censorship. Worked for Stay Dead. It's either that or play and charge cables. It only took a whole generation of video games to show me that wired controllers are the bane of my existence.