YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history

#91

Post by pmarreck » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:12 PM UTC

https://archive.org/ is preserving it by letting you play them right in the browser via emulators compiled to Emscripten.

For example here is the Macintosh version of Dark Castle, which I spent some number of hours winning at the time (circa 1986, digitized sound was still a brand-new thing) https://archive.org/details/mac_DarkCastle_1_2

If you hit "Options" you'll notice the familiar WASD keyboard control layout. Well, this is the earliest game I'm aware of that used that layout...

Here's The Dungeon Revealed, an early Mac dungeon-crawler I also spent a lot of time in: https://archive.org/details/TheDungeonRevealedMacintosh

Here's Crystal Quest, the first color Mac game (although the emulation is in black&white which was also supported): https://archive.org/details/CrystalQuest_2_2_5M

Here's NetTrek, one of the first LAN multiplayer games I ever played (was fun!): https://archive.org/details/NetTrekTheRealVersionMacintosh

And then there is Bolo, the one game I wish there was a modern-day version of that is remotely similar: https://archive.org/details/BoloMacintosh (Wish this was the color version, but anyway... It was a network tank battle game where you could capture points and build autotargeting defense turrets by harvesting trees via sending out your tank pilot (who was then vulnerable and could get killed, the respawn penalty was not trivial as I recall), it was INCREDIBLY fun at the time, literally hours in the computer lab with a group of other nerds)

It's amazing that I can even give other people a hands-on look at this stuff in their own browser. It's too bad that I can't show off the early network-gaming the same way (firing up Bolo or NetTrek in different browsers on the same LAN... It's probably possible to do, right?)

Re: YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history

#92

Post by Kiro » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:14 PM UTC

ASalazarMX wrote: post #77

cabaalis wrote: post #63

Non-techies that are my age don't get the value of let's plays. When I was a kid, it was NES and then Sega. You'd go over to your friend's house and would take turns playing Mario, Ninja Gaiden, Contra, etc. When you weren't playing, you were watching your friend play. Sure, some games were multi-player, but not all of them. Let's plays capture that same feeling of watching your friend play the game.

If your statement was accurate there would be no thriving game streaming services like Twitch, UStream, etc. Watching people play is like watching sports: it's enjoyable the better the player is; it's boring if they're just fooling around with the controls. Also, like sports, the enjoyment improves the more you know about the game being played.

I disagree. Many of the top streamers (Forsen, Sodapoppin etc) are not good gamers. They are fun to watch for other reasons. Some others are decent (Lirik) but far from pro gamers. They are a different category but just as popular as watching the pros.

Re: YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history

#93

Post by shereadsthenews » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #66

cabaalis wrote: post #63

Non-techies that are my age don't get the value of let's plays. When I was a kid, it was NES and then Sega. You'd go over to your friend's house and would take turns playing Mario, Ninja Gaiden, Contra, etc. When you weren't playing, you were watching your friend play. Sure, some games were multi-player, but not all of them. Let's plays capture that same feeling of watching your friend play the game.

Should I point out the obvious that you aren't friends with the youtuber doing the Let's Play? You can't form a real two-way bond with one another, and that is the foundation of friendship. Real friendship could bloom in many other ways and you guys could go get a pizza, go climb Everest, help them work on their car, etc. In a nutshell, that describes my fears and reservations about the way the current age is going.…

You're not friends with the cast of a TV show either. Game streaming can be much more interactive. I follow a player on YouTube who plays XCOM 2. His followers build the characters, write their biographies and so forth. Then the characters appear in the game and their authors contribute diaries about what happens to the characters in-game ... and since XCOM 2 has a "bond" mechanic, and since it takes 100+ hours to play through, and since unlike other games it's very common for characters to get killed in-game, the experiences can be pretty rich. It's just a bunch of self-organized randos on the internet, not friendship or community, but as far as what you can get out of staring at screens it's near the top in terms of interactivity.

Re: YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history

#94

Post by HHalvi » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

I find myself hearing about weird titles & demos in a lot of places (IRC's, Comments on Gaming Forums and Other places) and search for their videos all the time. And I do go back from time to time to appreciate how far gaming has come and for the memorabilia of childhood games by watching the gameplay/trailers of the same. Someone needs to step in and do a Gameplay/Letsplay database of sorts for future reference maybe?

Re: YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history

#95

Post by linuxftw » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:23 PM UTC

At this point, saving video games seems like saving examples of drinking glasses from you local discount store.

Humanity simply can't save a copy of everything from all time. We should let more go. By preserving everything, we're decreasing signal to noise, IMO.

Re: YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history

#96

Post by jimcsharp » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #66

cabaalis wrote: post #63

Non-techies that are my age don't get the value of let's plays. When I was a kid, it was NES and then Sega. You'd go over to your friend's house and would take turns playing Mario, Ninja Gaiden, Contra, etc. When you weren't playing, you were watching your friend play. Sure, some games were multi-player, but not all of them. Let's plays capture that same feeling of watching your friend play the game.

Should I point out the obvious that you aren't friends with the youtuber doing the Let's Play? You can't form a real two-way bond with one another, and that is the foundation of friendship. Real friendship could bloom in many other ways and you guys could go get a pizza, go climb Everest, help them work on their car, etc. In a nutshell, that describes my fears and reservations about the way the current age is going.…

I wonder if async forum communication / semi-interactive celebrities can adequately replace the 'piece' of human interaction that makes prisoners go insane in solitary confinement. I'm sure we'll find out soon.

Re: YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history

#97

Post by kibwen » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

Ayeceedee wrote: post #42

kibwen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like someone to do the math on that 200MiB estimate. YouTube stores every video at multiple resolutions, and has replicas in data centers all around the world.

Ah! Small note. There are methods of compression and encoding that allow for scalability. There's some fancy signal processing you can do to encode multiple into a single bitstream without necessarily storing redundant data. But, I'm not in industry, and the last time I poked my head in I recall things being way uglier and more complicated than I had imagined. There was a good conference talk that was linked here onc…

Interesting, thanks! I'd love to read more about ways to encode video that allows streaming at a variety of resolutions with a minimum of redundancy, if anyone has any links.

Re: YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history

#98

Post by kortilla » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:32 PM UTC

capitol_ wrote: post #53

orcdork wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be very interested to hear about any respectable museum that sends off items that are not displayed to be stored into some rich person's attic (or for display at a private residence as I assume you are implying).

The modern art museum here in stockholm often borrow items for their exhibitions, from other museums, artists or private collectors.

Borrowing items to display is not the same as giving away your own when you’re bored with them.

Re: YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history

#99

Post by killingMisuse » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

jimcsharp wrote: post #96

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should I point out the obvious that you aren't friends with the youtuber doing the Let's Play? You can't form a real two-way bond with one another, and that is the foundation of friendship. Real friendship could bloom in many other ways and you guys could go get a pizza, go climb Everest, help them work on their car, etc. In a nutshell, that describes my fears and reservations about the way the current age is going.…

I wonder if async forum communication / semi-interactive celebrities can adequately replace the 'piece' of human interaction that makes prisoners go insane in solitary confinement. I'm sure we'll find out soon.

I can tell you it does not adequately replace any such thing.

But more importantly, let's suppose it did. Knowing that nature often chooses the path of least resistance, what do you think would come of such a discovery?

1. A larger quantity of half-assed pseudosocial forum interactions replacing what was previously face to face interactions, because we can squish more people into ever more meager lives, netting a greater wealth inequality than ever before imagined, if more people lock themselves in their rooms and live at the edge of sanity, barking garbage text messages at each other over the internet.

2. An ambient increase rich lives that experience meaningful face to face socialization with healthy peers who genuinely enjoy each other's company.

From where I sit, the odds seem promising that there is only one thing coming our way.

Re: YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history

#100

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 14, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

nullandvoid wrote: post #29

ru999gol wrote: post #14

Unfortunately disk space is still expensive and rather limited, its unfeasible to really preserve YouTube in any meaningful sense. Maybe someday, like Google Video, YouTube videos will disappear forever.

Perhaps we may have a data revolution before the point of having to delete this old content arrives. I remember watching something on the possibility of storing data within DNA ( the long-term storage possibilities looked very promising not that long ago ). Is there any other exciting tech which may be on the horizon / advancements in this field?

[deleted]