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

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

#141

Post by shmerl »

clarry wrote: post #126
shmerl wrote: post #43

What you need to preserve it are games sold on GOG and other DRM-free stores.

Nah, you need pirates. You need something like what what.cd was, an archive built by enthusiasts driven by quality and the desire to have untampered original copies. (Plus patches & cracks when needed). You need abandonware sites. GOG and other DRM-free stores are subject to the whims of publishers & developers and random rightsholders. They are not in the business of archiving games. They will host censored versions…

GOG is surely quite curated, but for older games they usually don't have many objections. There is also itch.io where there is almost no curation at all.

As for preserving in other ways - I agree, you can't expect any specific store to be around in the future.

Internet Archive also work on preserving old games.

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

#142

Post by philwelch »

dpkonofa wrote: post #101
velcrovan wrote: post #3

Does YouTube have any incentive to “preserve” anything once it costs them more money than it brings in? If not, maybe it's a little early to say they are actually preserving anything. (The article does kind of acknowledge this.) Maybe its real role is as a link in a chain that leads to /r/datahoarders

I was going to say something similar. I actually think YouTube (as a hosting/sharing platform) is a net-negative for the internet because there are already millions of videos that were embedded in pages that are no longer working because YouTube removed them, the account was deleted, or any number of things. If the internet worked the way it was intended, these videos would have been hosted on the site rather than em…

> I actually think YouTube (as a hosting/sharing platform) is a net-negative for the internet because there are already millions of videos that were embedded in pages that are no longer working because YouTube removed them, the account was deleted, or any number of things. If the internet worked the way it was intended, these videos would have been hosted on the site rather than embedded and would be still working.

If it wasn't for YouTube, most of those videos never would have been embedded in those pages in the first place. If the situation you describe was in any way feasible, people would have done that in the first place instead of using YouTube. You're asking for an imaginary free lunch type of situation.

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

#143

Post by simonebrunozzi »

On this topic: I'm sure there are a few "epic" let's plays that have left a mark in history, for most games. You need to be a gamer to know, though.

To the gamers on HN: can you post your favorite "let's play", specify which game and year it is, and maybe why you like it so much?

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

#144

Post by devindotcom »

ta774477 wrote: post #128
pmarreck wrote: post #91

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. We…

Used to love Bolo on the Apple II and went searching for some videos or screenshots to no avail. First time I'd encountered destructable bases. I've been toying with Libgdx and have been thinking about a multiplayeror enhanced Bolo.

Oh my god. We spent hours and hours just playing on our own, then discovered it could be networked. What a game!

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

#146

Post by myself248 »

Kiro wrote: post #92
ASalazarMX wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sometimes watching a terrible gamer struggle, and listening to their exasperation, is more entertaining than watching some ace just zip through the challenges.

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

#147

Post by IgorPartola »

CmdrKrool wrote: post #129
jimmaswell wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a VR game where you play games on these emulators as if you're using their original consoles with a TV/etc appropriate for the time? Get a game off a virtual game shelf and put it in the NES/Atari/etc, maybe even emulating the cartridge not registering at first. Theoretically you could even emulate things like the crooked cartridge trick in N64 games (if you're unfamiliar: https://glitchcity.info/wiki/Ninte…

It's being worked on, see EmuVR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAqUos4MYmc Not to disparage emulators (I use them all the time myself, and would be absolutely on this if I had a VR headset), but there is an amusing bottomlessness to the rabbit hole here, seeing the posters on the walls and so on. Now we only need to emulate having friends, parents that love you, etc...

Ready Player One this whole thing?

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

#148

Post by baud147258 »

In addition to video let's play, I've also read a lot of image Let's play on forums. On one hand, you have the issue of link rot, with LPs which relied on Dropbox and Imageshack becoming lost. On the other hand, it's way better for interaction between the player and the reader, with the writer able to offer the reader to choose on different in-game choices. Of course such things are possible with video, but I don't think it's as easier on a forum than on YT.

Image Let's play are also superior for text-heavy games, it's way easier to skim a text on a series of pictures (or typed if the author has taken the time to do so) than in a video.

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

#149

Post by criley2 »

dpkonofa wrote: post #136
criley2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In nearly all of those cases, the content was removed because either the uploader wanted it removed, or the owner of the intellectual property in the video wanted it removed. In both of those cases, I don't see how this is Youtube's fault or decentralized hosting would be better. In the first case (uploader wants it gone) you have a sticky situation where loosely managed websites refuse (or can't) respond to requests…

I would agree with you if thousands of videos and accounts weren't removed daily due to false "intellectual property" claims and automated reporting. YouTube's system is terrible because they're so large that they've had to try to automate a system that can't really be automated. A decentralized system would require those claims to actually be validated before they're processed because, otherwise, it would be a waste…

After thinking about it, a decentralized system of intellectual property theft would not work the way you think. The owners would stop contacting individual sites for individual confirmation and would send safe harbor / DMCA reports to the host who would nuke the content without spending ten seconds on it to preserve their business.

The only sites safe would be those self-hosting, and those wouldn't be able to serve a lot of bandwidth without having the means to be sued.

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

#150

Post by scrollaway »

CmdrKrool wrote: post #129
jimmaswell wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a VR game where you play games on these emulators as if you're using their original consoles with a TV/etc appropriate for the time? Get a game off a virtual game shelf and put it in the NES/Atari/etc, maybe even emulating the cartridge not registering at first. Theoretically you could even emulate things like the crooked cartridge trick in N64 games (if you're unfamiliar: https://glitchcity.info/wiki/Ninte…

It's being worked on, see EmuVR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAqUos4MYmc Not to disparage emulators (I use them all the time myself, and would be absolutely on this if I had a VR headset), but there is an amusing bottomlessness to the rabbit hole here, seeing the posters on the walls and so on. Now we only need to emulate having friends, parents that love you, etc...

No kidding. It's like trying to preserve Pokemon Go. Sure, you can get pretty far with it, but how do you intend to "preserve" experiences like this crazy thing?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLdWbwQJWI0
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