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

171–180 of 335 posts

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

#171

Post by ThatMedicIsASpy »

mattmanser wrote: post #117
CrossVR wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the obscure forgotten stuff is still playable if you kept a copy of the disc. Those games didn't need a community to preserve them, because they were not designed to be ephemeral like live service games.

That's not actually true. There are lots of things that make old games unplayable that you need patches and emulators for. For example the era of games from MSDOS days often used a different memory setup which modern PCs don't support. So I own and play Darklands every few years, but it needs a special emulator to play. Luckily GOG deal with that for you for many old games.

Very old games are a problem for windows and have a significant higher chance of running out of the box with proton on linux

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

#172

Post by Xelbair »

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 forgetting that modern games REQUIRE company releasing them to host a server, and there are no ways to host a community one. Some of them take enormous effort to create a fan server if it is even possible - as some games stream assets serverside, and if that isn't captured in some way beforehand...

you can still play those old "bad" games, they still exist.

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

#173

Post by mcnamaratw »

squigz wrote: post #169
CrossVR wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the obscure forgotten stuff is still playable if you kept a copy of the disc. Those games didn't need a community to preserve them, because they were not designed to be ephemeral like live service games.

It's not like they were designed like that on purpose. It was a limitation of the technology of the time. If they could've made as many live service games back then, they would have. This comparison is also unfair for a couple more reasons: - It ignores the fact that when a game was released on CD back then... that's it. No updates. No patches. Nothing. You break it, that's it. Game ending bug that corrupts your save…

Not all of that is true. Who played with the un-updated CD version?

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

#174

Post by komali2 »

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…

Certainly people talk the most about the best games of a given generation, but I recently loaded up a 3ds with basically the top 50 games for it, then another 30 or so DS generation games, and so on down through GBA, GBC, SNES, NES... hundreds and hundreds of games I'm enjoying way more than some of the most played games of this generation e.g. Call of Duty or Fortnite.

So not to be an old fart but I think previous generations really were spoiled by a much better on average library. Then again there are many phenomenal indie games coming out lately. Some of the best games, in my opinion, of the last 30 years, came out this decade: Outer Wilds and Animal Well, for example.

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

#175

Post by anthk »

squigz wrote: post #169
CrossVR wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the obscure forgotten stuff is still playable if you kept a copy of the disc. Those games didn't need a community to preserve them, because they were not designed to be ephemeral like live service games.

It's not like they were designed like that on purpose. It was a limitation of the technology of the time. If they could've made as many live service games back then, they would have. This comparison is also unfair for a couple more reasons: - It ignores the fact that when a game was released on CD back then... that's it. No updates. No patches. Nothing. You break it, that's it. Game ending bug that corrupts your save…

We downloaded patches or get them as an extra with PC gaming magazines just fine. On CD's... everyone backed up them at ISO's and mounted them with dedicated software.

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

#176

Post by squigz »

gmerc wrote: post #162

Old games being available has stopped enshittification and value extraction from VC and PE. The cost of new games has reached a point where that kind of capital is needed but the value extraction mechanisms these funding methods require don’t work when there’s competition from old games that allocate more value to the user. The hardware upgrade train stopped about 2019 too because more expensive hardware scarcely mak…

> MS is trying to fuck around with game pass but it’s doomed with Steam.

No it's not. Game Pass is very popular even with people like me who are massive fans of Steam. And it's been pretty successful for quite a few years now, so not sure what you mean by "trying to"

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

#177

Post by komali2 »

chii wrote: post #121
tempodox wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

so apparently, these 'users' are so lacking in agency that they willingly get milked. If so, they deserve it. There's still plenty of good games, esp. in the indie sphere, that aren't like the modern live-service-shit.

I think it's time we as a society let go of this 7,000 year old tendency to place all blame for people suffering from how a society is set up, on individuals. Don't you think we can find a way to do that without taking away people's agency?

For example, I can find news articles from the 1600s where people lament how "the newest generation just doesn't want to work anymore."

So, we've tried pinning it on individuals for a while, it's clearly not the right angle. What else might be? Could it be that the systems analysis is on the right track?

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

#179

Post by johnwalkr »

foxglacier wrote: post #97
fendy3002 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

beware of using old cd though, the older it is the higher risk it'll shatter and damage the unit.

The unit being a $20 CD-ROM drive? Losing the disk would be a bigger problem than damaging the drive.

If you want to ply on original hardware, which people that use original cds typically do, the drive might be valuable or hard to replace depending on the system.

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

#180

Post by MattRix »

zx10rse wrote: post #165
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…

I don't think it is a generational thing or a lindy effect plain, and simple greed is what is killing modern day games. Eventually they become a never ending grind loop for battle passes, points, buy more points, cosmetics priced as full fledged titles, loot boxes, etc. etc. There is simply nothing to it, no depth, no cool mechanics, no story nothing, and once a player spent x amount of hours realizing that, you simp…

The idea that there’s nothing to these games just isn’t true. Take Fortnite, the quintessential “modern game” that popularized battle passes.

You don’t need a battle pass to play, in fact all purchasable things are purely cosmetic: they offer no gameplay value. Nobody is playing Fortnite for the cosmetics, they’re playing it because it’s fun! Why would you care about cosmetics in a game you don’t enjoy playing? It makes no sense.

“no depth”: patently false. Fortnite is one of the highest skill ceiling games around.

“no cool mechanics”: there are tons of cool mechanics, both at a gameplay level and meta level, with more being cycled in every season.

“no story”: admittedly the story is a bit opaque, but the community loves the big story events that happen every season.

“no easter eggs or secrets”: Sure there are! Each new season is filled with them, and there are entire wikis dedicated to cataloguing them.

Post reply on HN