Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's different is that new games increasingly incorporate planned obsolescence as a business strategy. The game won't function unless it can phone home, stream assets etc. from their server, and they can and do plan to shut that server off at some point, forcing you to move on and buy new games. Now what's really troubling is you can conceivably employ this approach with any form of digital entertainment. I think N…
If you care about this, vote with your wallet. If you don't like a game's phone-home or planned-obsolescence "features," don't buy it (or wait for a deal and don't pay full price). I personally buy very few games on Steam, I spend like 5 times as much on GOG.
Why old games never die, but new ones do
301–310 of 335 posts
Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
Planned obsolescence doesn't account for games like Concord
Concord was dead even at the conceptual stage. The problem is these big AAA studios are always chasing the hottest new thing, never innovating for themselves. It's the same problem with movies. They're so unbelievably expensive that nobody will dare pay for something that isn't already proven. But if you do something that's proven, there's a good chance it's just gonna come up second best. Worst case scenario, it com…
Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do
#303We're lacking a middle ground in copyright law that would allow people to play Mario Bros 3 on the NES for free, but doesn't give everyone the right to use the Mario IP, or to resell it en masse. (It's only possible right now because of incomplete law enforcement.) The purpose of copyright is to encourage creation, but rent-seeking on a decades old game is not it. Copyright and patents encourage creation and inventio…
Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bit weird to compare a singleplayer game with little replayability to the genre defining multiplayer game of its time and try drawing conclusions from that.
Doom was the genre defining multiplayer game, and it released in 1993. And there were a ton of multiplayer shooters released in the 7 years interim. The only really distinct thing about Counter-Strike, besides its quality, is that it came to Steam from the very beginning. But the game had already become a classic before 1.6 launched on Steam and the idea of playing on/through Steam at the time was quite divisive.
Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do
#305The 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 would put focus in the survivorship bias too. He is looking and the survivors, and trying to figure out why they survived, and not the ones that didn't make it and could had some the same strengths, but still are not around anymore (and not even counted as "old games"). You have MAME and other console emulators with thousands of games, but how much of them are present on today's culture?
There is no survivor bias, you [insert insult]!
So many of those games were really bad even at their time. BUT YOU CAN STILL PLAY THEM. I've tossed many games out of my catalogue and for some I wished they vanish from existence and they all have survived!
While article is recycling narrative - it has a reason, but your recycled opinion is not only wrong but has no reason other than lowkey nitpick article.
Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 ma…
Look, there is no depth in Fortnite, just like there is no deepness in minds of kids that are under 10 and playing it.
Same for other points. Fortnite is arcade shooter - no one is expecting from it realistic mechanics, which would also ruin the game. Fortnite is a niche and it was kids game - some of them have grown up and moved on.
Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's different is that new games increasingly incorporate planned obsolescence as a business strategy. The game won't function unless it can phone home, stream assets etc. from their server, and they can and do plan to shut that server off at some point, forcing you to move on and buy new games. Now what's really troubling is you can conceivably employ this approach with any form of digital entertainment. I think N…
If you care about this, vote with your wallet. If you don't like a game's phone-home or planned-obsolescence "features," don't buy it (or wait for a deal and don't pay full price). I personally buy very few games on Steam, I spend like 5 times as much on GOG.
While I'm not going to say you can't vote with your wallet.
You can also just vote with a vote ... Companies group up together all the time to create trade unions to advance legislation in their favor. There's nothing wrong with individuals grouping together for a non-commercial interest.
Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do
#308The 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…
Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would put focus in the survivorship bias too. He is looking and the survivors, and trying to figure out why they survived, and not the ones that didn't make it and could had some the same strengths, but still are not around anymore (and not even counted as "old games"). You have MAME and other console emulators with thousands of games, but how much of them are present on today's culture?
I was so looking for this type of comment. There is no survivor bias, you [insert insult]! So many of those games were really bad even at their time. BUT YOU CAN STILL PLAY THEM. I've tossed many games out of my catalogue and for some I wished they vanish from existence and they all have survived! While article is recycling narrative - it has a reason, but your recycled opinion is not only wrong but has no reason oth…
That is one way to die, like a random book written 100 years ago that never became a classic and even if you can find a copy, it doesn't count as existing anymore for the current culture. A game that had enough players and cultural mindset, but that because the maker, the servers it used to run or whatever don't let them be played anymore can spawn copies and lookalikes with different names and get some player base, it is a different kind of death.
Re: Why old games never die, but new ones do
#310The 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…
> "spouses of Maxis employees vs Maxis" where can I read more about this?