I haven't read the full thread, but just wanted to post my 2 cents.
Seinfeld:
Comedy is supposed to make you laugh. It fails miserably at that point (and IMHO so does Friends)
M.A.S.H:
Both the movie and the series are great.
As for games:
The average age of gamers is still increasing.
This site houses a lot of people who remember the first release of classics like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, The 7th Guest, Monkey Island, etc.
As several studies have shown, humans have the tendency to remember the good and forget the bad.
Gamers aren't any different, I'm sure I have played some crappy games over the years, but I can't remember them.
However nowadays the younger generation, the ones in their teens, seem to think that bad or outdated graphics mean a crappy game and good graphics probaly mean a good game.
My personal issue with a lot of modern games is the lack of gameplay and the hold publishers want to keep over it.
In the passed games with dozens of hours of time to finish were normal.
A short game often meant a lower review score.
Nowadays anything above10-15 hours is a lot.
Replayability in single players seems to have been exchanged for multiplayer option.
Personally something I regret.
As for publishers, they tend to hold too much control over games.
Activision does that with MW2, from which they can basically pull the plug at any given time.
EA is doing with C&C4 (the first C&C I won't buy) what Ubisoft is doing with all their games: demanding to always be online.
I can understand they want to fight piracy, but please start screwing over pirates and not your customers!
On a side note, I don't mind games series, but please build in some serious quality controls to keep it healthy instead of milking them to their death.
The last few lines are a bit of a rant, but a frustration I have which keeps growing as it keeps being fed.
Luckily GOG provides me with lots of games I either never came around to play, didn't notice when released, wasn't interested in back than, or for whatever other reason I never played or looked at.
In June I'll become 35.

Very true. The problem they say is no one will buy it. 3D was a very cool novelty in the beginning with 3DFX and games like Tomb Raider and Quake. What it's turned into is an easy way to get rich. There hasn't been an evolution jump for gaming in what 15 or 16 years? That's a long time considering how far it's come along. I believe indie game developers will be on the lead track when it does jump again.

Also 3D graphics age a LOT worse than 2d...
Some of the older 3D games could seriously poke your eyes out with jagged polys ....
Give me glorious hand-drawn 2d or give me deletion! (y/n?)

There were but, again, there was more diversity in the market -- it wasn't just dominated by FPS and Madden games.

And it isn't now, if you look beyond the few big publishers.

I'm a sucker for cheap games. If looks good and it's not ridiculously overpriced I'll try it. That's not to say I think all games today are awesome though. I hated Oblivion.

Because like it's been said, people follow the blockbuster mentality and want to get ther summer/holiday/hallowwen/thnkgiving title, and because people figure "I paid a lot of money for this expensive hardware, I better have some games that exploit it to the maximum."

Rep points for that poke your eyes line. :D

It's slowly coming back to that mostly thanks to digital distribution outlets that give indie developers some foot traffic/marketing. I was referring to the fact that even the mainstream publishers put out a diversity of games back then. But before digital download places started appearing you still had about a decade of non-diversity in gaming thus creating a generation of people who want mostly MW2 clones.