My first thought was 89-98 or so...mainly because it was the era of SSI and SirTech at their height. But upon thinking about it more rationally I'd say 2014-2023. Because that is where most of my all-time top ten come from- Darks Souls 3, Bloodborne, NieR Automata, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Lies of P, SnowRunner, Flight Simulator 2020, Elden Ring, Death Stranding, Pathologic 2 and a shitload of excellent Indie and small studio games like Immortality, Citizen Sleeper etc.

Not related to the topic really, but going through this in my head made me realize something. Up until around 2010 almost all my favorite games came from Western developers. Since around 2010 almost all my favorite games come from Japanese, East Asian or Eastern European developers.

The 7th console generation (2005-2015) was the last big jump in gaming. Many games in this era has aged so well they still feel like new games today and some 7th gen games still has more detail than some 9th gen AAA games. Even some 7th gen games are still selling millions today like GTA V and Skyrim,

8th gen introduced a few graphic downgrades (TAA and screen space reflections) and 9th gen went too far with upscaling, we even have games like Dragon Age Veliguard reaching 500p resolution on the PS5 at the lowest dynamic resolution, which is near PS2 resolutions while we have games on 7th gen that still looks good today like Killzone 2 running at native 720p with 2x MSAA on the PS3.

For me, it is definitely 1992-2002. Not a difficult question to answer.

1992 was the release year of the SNES in Europe, which I consider to be the best video game platform of all time. 92-93 also saw the release of several DOS PC classics: Doom, Xcom, Dark Forces, System Shock. The 90s saw the 2D-3D transition, which prompted some of the best 3D games of all time on the N64, PS1 (and which will never happen again). The late 90s also saw the development of many of the best PC RPGs of all time (Fallout, Baldur's Gate, Diablo). 2002 saw the release of Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, which was a pinnacle of creativity and player freedom. Metroid: Prime was also released that year.

Things started going downhill rapidly after 2002. 2003/2004 saw the introduction of Steam on PC, and game quality in general started deteriorating quickly after about 2005 (due to increasing corporate influences and death/selling out of key players, e.g. Bioware).

I have actually two contenders, not sure which I'd consider better:

1. 1990-2000

Things advanced quickly especially on PC gaming, every year you saw games that blew your mind (Space Quest IV, Ultima Underworld, Doom, Descent, X-Wing etc.), and a bit later the 3D accelerators like 3Dfx Voodoo etc.

The downside was that sometimes you felt PC gaming was far too expensive because the kick-ass PC you bought a year ago would struggle with the newest flight combat simulation that required more to run smoothly, I don't recall if it was EF2000 or some earlier flight combat sim that really irked PC gamers back then because even the high-end gaming PC struggled with it, people considered it insane (I don't think it was EF2000 but some other flight combat sim whose name now escapes me, I just remember all the cries of anguish due to that game, people felt betrayed new games would run poorly on their kick-ass PCs).

EDIT: I think the game in question was probably U.S. Navy Fighters (1994):

https://www.mobygames.com/game/1562/us-navy-fighters/

Man PC gamers were mad when that game make their kick-ass gaming PC crawl back then, even the PC game magazines said it was a bit insane, as if the game was really made for future PCs that we have now or something.

However, 3D accelerators like 3Dfx Voodoo (1-2) partly alleviated that anguish because with them you could suddenly run 3D games with 640x480 or 800x600 resolution and cleaner looking graphics, without much of any hit to your framerate, and they seemed to give your gaming PC several years of extra life.

Also, PC gaming in general seemed pretty DRM/copy protection free back then, which was a surprise to me coming from Commodore Amiga gaming where games were heavily copy protected, causing all sorts of problems to people who actually bought their games. For instance, among the first games I bought for my first gaming PC were Wing Commander 2 and Red Baron, and as far as I can remember, they had no copy protection nor any "look up a word in your manual" protections. It totally blew my mind, the publishers of PC games would trust their customers that much?

In the early 2000s, this all went to hell when they started adding all sorts of Starforce and other overly obtuse copy protections to PC games. I really hated the early 2000s with all those copy protection methods that caused problems also to legit users, it felt the same as the Amiga times.

2. Present time.

I have to admit I much prefer having my games in digital form instead of a big pile of CDs or especially floppies. Especially when there are some DRM-free options, like GOG, or even on Steam.

Also, the arrival of digital publishing has opened the floodgates for small indie publishers and self-publishing of games. While it means there are heaps of crapware sold too, in general I consider it a good thing there are lower barriers for making and publishing games because then you see gems more often too, among the piles of shit. More competition between game releases.

Also if you want to buy and play some particular game, nowadays it is much easier to do than in the physical times. For instance, in the past I ended up buying a couple of older physical PC games second-hand from Ebay US (overseas) for a very high price (including shipping), just because I couldn't find those games anywhere here. E.g. these games I think:

https://www.mobygames.com/game/1782/the-dark-eye/
https://www.mobygames.com/game/17013/rise-of-nations-gold-edition/
https://www.mobygames.com/game/22741/rise-of-nations-rise-of-legends/

Nowadays it is much easier to find a game you want in some digital store, many times even on GOG.
Not sure if that Dark Eye game is available anywhere digitally (legit), Rise of Nations + expansion at least should be on Steam nowadays.

Last but not least, nowadays you can play those same games from those past golden decades, so now there is so much more to choose from what to play, from the past decades too. In that sense gaming has never been as good as it is, you can buy and play also those 1990-2000 games I mentioned earlier.

You can even play those dreaded 2000-2010 PC games without their Starforce or SecuROM shit copy protections, GOG has lots of such games too which I specifically didn't want to buy in the early 2000s due to their copy protections.

Would it sound strange to say that my golden years are after 2010 (when I became financially independent from my parents), and that I'm still into them? That's because I'm still not bored of gaming, nor of replaying some of my older games (as I'm replaying the Two Worlds series these days).

I think I would have to go with the 1995 → 2004 decade:

1995
- Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
- Discworld
- Sam & Max Hit the Road

1996
- Duke Nukem 3D
- Civilization II
- The Settlers II
- Discworld II: Missing Presumed...!?

1997
- Diablo
- Age of Empires
- The Curse of Monkey Island
- Tomb Raider II
- Quake II
- Riven: The Sequel to Myst

1998
- StarCraft
- Jazz Jackrabbit 2
- Caesar III
- Baldur’s Gate

1999
- Alpha Centauri
- Warzone 2100
- Dungeon Keeper 2
- Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings
- Pharaoh
- Unreal Tournament
- Planescape: Torment
- Worms Armageddon

2000
- Star Wars Episode I: Racer
- Deus Ex
- Diablo II
- Icewind Dale
- Dark Reign 2
- Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
- Zeus: Master of Olympus
- Quake III Arena

2001
- Myst III: Exile
- Startopia
- Anachronox
- Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive
- Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds

2002
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
- Neverwinter Nights
- Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
- Unreal Tournament 2003
- Age of Mythology
- Heroes of Might and Magic IV
- Icewind Dale II
- Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom
- O.R.B: Off-World Resource Base
- Warlords Battlecry II

2003
- Freelancer
- Ghost Master
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
- Beyond Good & Evil
- Tropico 2: Pirate Cove

2004
- Unreal Tournament 2004
- Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
- Scrapland
- Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
- The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth
- Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines

1996-2005. Not a very difficult question to answer.

In 1996, 3D graphics really became a thing with Super Mario 64, Crash Bandicoot and Tomb Raider. These 3 games were revolutionary to say the least.

And in following years, we had a vast world of gaming fun. RTS games continued to rule the PC market, stealth games became popular, online gaming was born, sandbox games became popular (I will always state that 1988's Wasteland was the first sandbox game ever made), FPS shooters were at their prime, and creativity and innovation were all over the place.

There were so many games, and so much quality. You can list dozens of incredible, extremely high-quality games per year. Just take vv221's post. And that was just the tip of the iceberg, really.

But then, in 2005, the Xbox 360 was released, and everything went downhill from there. Less creativity, less innovation, more abusive policies (online DRM, microtransactions, endings sold separately...), SEGA was now a third-party, Nintendo was going through some strange experimental phase, Sony was not as big as it once was and Xbox was kind of a jerk. Oh, yeah. And the PC market was polluted by, you guessed it, Steam.

I am surprised to see that there a people here that think that "The Golden Years" go all the way to the 8th generation. Some of the weakest years in the entire history of video games, if you ask me.

Excuse my English, folks! I hope I did not misspell anything.

I'd say maybe 2011-2021. I've been gaming since the 80's and I still enjoy games from the early and late 90's or the early 2000's, but during that time, my rigs were shared and/or subpar for gaming, I had no money or support for buying games, I had to rely on freeware, playing at my friends', exchanging illegal copies, later downloading abandonware, purchasing from the bargain bin, or borrowing scratched CD-Roms from the library.

I only discovered legit digital distribution at the end of 2010, when I found GOG. In that time, indie games started to get big as well, there were bundles galore (HIB was still DRM-free on top of it), sales offered huge discounts, etc, and all of a sudden I had this massive collection of games to play that I bought with my own money and that I could play on my own PC. And it contained the best of all worlds, old games, new games, indies, AA and AAA titles. I got my first proper graphic card, and at some point I also begrudgingly bought my first gamepad for reasons and unexpectedly fell in love with it. And at the end of that decade with the advent of Covid, as horrible as that was, I also made some wonderful co-op experiences with friends and family members who were suddenly stuck at home bored out of their skulls, looking for something to entertain themselves with.

I'm still happy enough with the present, as far as gaming is concerned (not concerning everything else), but of course the DRM-free indie bundles and massive discounts are gone, I somewhat miss the old times at GOG and, more importantly, I miss playing with my friends and family.

PS: Even though my decision for this decade was first and foremeost based on the circumstances, not the games themselves, and even though some of my favorite games like FRUA, PS:T, NWN, Portal, VTM: Bloodlines, Arx Fatalis, Psychonauts etc. are from different eras, I still think 2011-2021 is the decade that I could easily find the highest amount of great releases in, including such awesome games as Subnautica, Outer Wilds, A Short Hike, Life Is Strange, Slay the Spire, the Divinity: Original Sins, the Shadowruns, all the WadjetEye games, the Joe Richardsom adventures, the Daedalic and better Telltale Adventures, and many many more. Sure, the 90s had lots of cool stuff, too, but I think if you've got an open mind for all kinds of games and you compare the numbers, it's just gotten more and more over the years. And IMO the quality has not declined either, if you're not just focussed on AAA games.

Probably 1990-2000 for me. We got so many unique, then new experiences like Civ I, Wing Commander, the Kombats, DOOM, Wizardry VII, Diablo, Grim Fandnago, AVP '99 (probably unparalleled as multiplayer experience for me), and the System Shocks just to name a few. Plus the joy of LAN parties and the dawn of console gaming with the Nintendo 64 and PS1 really just made it a truly unique time of gaming and introduced a new way to be a community and experiencing art in such an interactive manner.

Listing is as follows:

1990- Wing Commander
1991- Civ I
1992- Mortal Kombat
1993- DOOM
1994- Primal Rage
1995- Wizardry Gold
1996- Diablo/Resident Evil
1997- MDK
1998- Baldur's Gate/Grim Fandango
1999- System Shock 2/Syphon Filter
2000- Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force

I'd have to go with 2000-2010 (give or take a year one way or the other).

TRON 2.0, Max Payne 1&2, Star Trek Armada 1&2, Away Team, Elite Force 1&2, Warcraft 3, MoH Allied Assault, KotOR 1&2, Battle for Middle-Earth, Witcher 1, SWAT 4, Jedi Knight 2, Jedi Academy, Prince of Persia Sands of Time trilogy... all amazing games, and probably many more.

I can't pick any 10 consecutive years, since my favourite games are strrewn far and wide across time. One example from each decade I have played any games in:

1987 - Nethack
1997 - Dungeon Keeper
2003 - Freelancer
2012 - Shadow Warrior 2
2023 - Baldur's Gate 3

To me, it feels as though the years you chose were some of the weakest:
* As I mentioned, Baldur's Gate and Final Fantasy 7 ruined most CRPG branches.
* Entire genres became endangered. In particular, there's an extreme lack of 2D platformers from that era. In fact, you even have game companies like Sony of America having explicit rules against 2D games. (With that said, 2D platformers were overdone (on consoles, at least) before then; it's just that they suddenly became nearly extinct (outside of handhelds), with only a few, like Yoshi's Story and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, coming from that era.)
* Also notable is the lack of turn-based games. On PC, it felt like every game had to be real-time in some way, which severely hurt the WRPG genre. On consoles, if you look at the JRPGs there, there's thing like action commands and minigames, not to mention obsession of wasting storage space with FMV videos that do nothing for the gameplay.
* Speaking of which, consoles lost what I felt was the main technical advantage they had over PCs; the lack of load times.
* It also felt like this is when so many games coddled the player. FF7, for example, felt way too easy.

The industry did recover, in terms of game design (ignoring the DRM issue), coming out of it. Cave Story released as freeware in 2004, leading to the revival of the platformer genre. (There's also the metriodvania/adventure hybrid La Mulana, releasing just a few years later.) It looks like turn based WRPGs didn't really recover until 2014 (Divinity: Original Sin and Wasteland 2 released that year).

Mine are 1991 to 2001. 1: Genesis was hitting it's stride with so many great games. 2: On the PC side, doom, quake, half life. 3: Super Nintendo. 'nuff said. 4: Arcade games! So many great arcade games.

I still remember the original Killer Instinct arcade intro. "Available for your home in 1995 only on Nintendo Ultra 64! KILLER INSTINCT!"

Genesis was home to the weird experimental games. Nintendo was playing it more safe. PC games were coming into the limelight with Windows 95 and 98.

You could find a arcade almost everywhere then. I was massively big into the neo-geo 4 in 1 MVS.

Playstation turned everything upside down too.

Really I could go on with how many great games are burned into my memory from this era.

Wolf 3D marks the start for me, so if 10 years, that'd make it 1992-2001/2002. If possible, I'd probably stretch it a couple years until maybe 2006 or so (mostly just to include Titan Quest :P), so 15 years rather than 10.

Coming out of it, the industry went worse. More genres became endangered and games became WAY too easy. I think that during those years (1996-2005), games did become a lot easier, but rarely too easy. It was only during the 7th generation that losing was nearly impossible because people would get mad at game over screens and developers were afraid that people would not play their games. Thank God for Miyazaki.

I think that those ten years offered the most variety, creativity and innovation in the whole history of video games.

Remember when games were absurdly difficult to mask the fact that they were only 20 minutes long? That didn't happen anymore.

Remember those old PC games that did not feature any sound, nor the graphic quality of console games? That was a thing of the past as well.

Censorship was now rare, games were evolving into something more than a "toy for kids who want to waste their time", and graphics peaked in 2001 (because graphics must only be readable, not realistic - many 5th generation games had that issue of not being able to tell the difference between a normal texture in the background and an object with which you could interact).

Anyway... I could go on and on. I do see your point and I respect your opinion, I just cannot bring myself to agree with it.