Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why old games never die, but new ones do

pleromanonx86.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 335 posts

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#101

Post by joshvm »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #54
joshvm wrote: post #12

AMD recently annoyed the gaming community - who are among the most susceptible to unnecessary upgraditis - by saying that friends don't let friends buy GPUs with more than 8GB VRAM. If you look at the Steam hardware surveys, that's probably true. An M-series Macbook can play most stuff that isn't current AAA. Proton let's you play virtually anything on Linux and it's incredible (plus the Steam Deck). There's no point…

Wait, what are you talking about ? Because AMD also recently announced the cheapest (?) new midrange GPU with 16 Go of VRAM : https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/amds-radeon-rx-9060-xt-want...

https://wccftech.com/amd-says-8gb-vram-is-sufficient-as-majo...

It was a little tongue in cheek, but this comment by Frank Azor has been circulated around (and taken out of context):

> Majority of gamers are still playing at 1080p and have no use for more than 8GB of memory. Most played games WW are mostly esports games. We wouldn't build it if there wasn't a market for it. If 8GB isn't right for you then there's 16GB. Same GPU, no compromise, just memory

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#102

Post by joshvm »

wtallis wrote: post #24
joshvm wrote: post #12

AMD recently annoyed the gaming community - who are among the most susceptible to unnecessary upgraditis - by saying that friends don't let friends buy GPUs with more than 8GB VRAM. If you look at the Steam hardware surveys, that's probably true. An M-series Macbook can play most stuff that isn't current AAA. Proton let's you play virtually anything on Linux and it's incredible (plus the Steam Deck). There's no point…

Map editors and modding have always been pretty common for both turn-based and realtime strategy games, and the entire MOBA genre originated from RTS mods. Bethesda RPGs have active modding communities in part because they always need community-made patches to be playable. Doom and Quake and Unreal had very fruitful mod and fork ecosystems with offspring that went mainstream like Team Fortress and Counter-Strike. Sev…

I think this is still survivor bias though, and the games that traditionally offered map editors still do. There are a lot of games nowadays that allow user-contributed levels/content if not full-on mods.

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#103

Post by joshlemer »

999900000999 wrote: post #99

I want FOSS alternatives for every genre. I tried to make a FOSS MTG clone and I keep running into weird edge cases. Anyway, even small games need solid teams to get started. Even if the games are ultimately monetized , it would be nice to have a FOSS core. I want to play COD without a bunch of stupid skins and side effects. I would pay 60$ over the base 60$ to disable that non sense, it’ll never happen though. Back…

I agree. I feel pretty discouraged from investing the amount of time it would take to get really involved and proficient in a game, if that game is ultimately not owned by me fully and can be paywalled. There's something more satisfying and timeless about a game like Chess or Go which partly I feel is due to them being owned by everyone/nobody (I mean, yes they're also centuries/millenia old but still).

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#104

Post by tempodox »

zeroq wrote: post #61

The biggest problem today is ownership . There are dozen of games that made headlines 5 years ago that you can't play today because servers are down. Some of those games are single player only. You can't host these games like you could Quake or CS back in the day, because you never owned them in the first place. I own couple hundred games on Steam and similar ammount on Epic but when I die no one will find an obscure…

It's the same enshittification trajectory as everywhere else. It starts with a product that serves its users and once the money starts flowing in, users are turned into cattle to be milked and shorn.

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#105

Post by amatecha »

DarkNova6 wrote: post #3

A good and interesting article, but mimicing old games will simply not work. While it would be admirable to have old features back, some of the largest problem these days is fragmentation. Up until the 2000s, a new AAA game was a shared event. Fewer games were released, magazines acted as moderators for a common understanding of the market and each game tried to trump its competitors. Games these days simply left mor…

Right, when Doom came out, everyone who was interested in computer games and could get their hands on this game would absolutely do so. Similar for other major games like Diablo, WarCraft, Quake, etc. Even if someone didn't end up liking it, there was basically no chance they wouldn't at least try it because these were like THE games to play at the time.

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#107

Post by wellthisisgreat »

overgard wrote: post #88

I think another reason might just be: simplicity. A lot of these older games are much easier to pick up and grok. I remember I used to play a ton of Battlefield 1942 back in the day (like, in a competitive clan, going to LAN parties, that kind of thing). I tried picking up Battlefield V but I just gave up because it felt like there was just too much going on. It probably has a host of other great things, but my main…

BFV and 6 and all that are just bad tbh, I can’t imagine a competitive BF1/5/6 etc scene at all- it’s either aim assist hell, or just lowest common denominator of a gaming experience that stuffs you with stimuli and leaves 0 room for any tactics and communication let alone strategy.

For BF1942 adjacent experience try Hell Let Loose it’s really quite brilliant (and modern)

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#108

Post by tzs »

klodolph wrote: post #90
jmyeet wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking survivorship bias [1]. That and general nostalgia are common explanations for this but I find the explanations unsatisfying. Like if this were true, shouldn't we be seeing similar survivors from the 2000s and 2010s? I mean there are games that are beloved years later (I'm looking at you, Zelda: Breth of the Wild) but the gaming landscape is fundamentally changed. We now have free to play games that hav…

Games from the 2010s I still see people playing: FTL, Celeste, Undertale, Skyrim, Mass Effect 2, Stardew Valley… there are definitely survivors from the 2010s. Your list may be different from mine. Not counting any of the perennial games like League of Legends or Fortnite.

People are still playing EverQuest which is from 1999 and is still actively developed with new expansion packs coming out once a year. They have made a lot of changes to make it more friendly to solo players and small groups, and a lot of UI improvements, and you can play free with some limitations.

Here's a comment [1] with more details on what EQ is like nowadays.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31368588

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#109

Post by wiseowise »

jmyeet wrote: post #85
mattnewton wrote: post #2

The article kinda dances around this point, but I think the largest reason "old games never die" is simply the old games mentioned were the good ones of their generation. Similar to the lindy effect[0] where shows that had been around a while were likely to stay around a while longer. The are the games good enough for people to host fan servers and make mods, and behind each good game there is a lot of forgotten stuf…

You're talking survivorship bias [1]. That and general nostalgia are common explanations for this but I find the explanations unsatisfying. Like if this were true, shouldn't we be seeing similar survivors from the 2000s and 2010s? I mean there are games that are beloved years later (I'm looking at you, Zelda: Breth of the Wild) but the gaming landscape is fundamentally changed. We now have free to play games that hav…

> Like if this were true, shouldn't we be seeing similar survivors from the 2000s and 2010s?

We absolutely do: GTA SA, Team Fortress 2, Star Wars BF 1&2 (original one, not remaster abomination), private Lineage 2 servers with thousands of players, same for WoW, WarCraft 3, original Dota, LoL with millions player base, Dota 2. The list goes on and on.

Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do

#110

Post by tpxl »

klodolph wrote: post #90
jmyeet wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're talking survivorship bias [1]. That and general nostalgia are common explanations for this but I find the explanations unsatisfying. Like if this were true, shouldn't we be seeing similar survivors from the 2000s and 2010s? I mean there are games that are beloved years later (I'm looking at you, Zelda: Breth of the Wild) but the gaming landscape is fundamentally changed. We now have free to play games that hav…

Games from the 2010s I still see people playing: FTL, Celeste, Undertale, Skyrim, Mass Effect 2, Stardew Valley… there are definitely survivors from the 2010s. Your list may be different from mine. Not counting any of the perennial games like League of Legends or Fortnite.

On the other hand, Overwatch 1 is dead because Blizzard said so.
Post reply on HN