Predictions about games and the test of time

[El Presidente]

Do you think people in the future will look at the games we love the most the same way a kid today would look at a medieval toy?

The point I'm trying to make is, will people see our games almost as mere archeological curiosities, and consider them to be 100% unplayable, or will they manage to retain their playability, even if for a niche crowd of enthusiasts?

Edit: I fucked up and posted the thread prematurely, I was gonna write more but oh well this should be ok to spark thediscussion

 

[Lady Error]

Probably kind of the same way people look today at literature classics or old movie classics.

 

[asfasdf]

Digital data will disappear forever like tears in the rain

 

[El Presidente]

Probably kind of the same way people look today at literature classics or old movie classics.

I fear there might be a massive, decades or perhaps even centuries-long gap when it comes to the consumption of the games from our age. For example, maybe the arcade classics will forever retain their status as *THE* OG classics, and I can imagine people 200* years from now playing Space Invaders, Tetris, Pac-man, Donkey Kong and so on, even if for just a couple minutes, but can you imagine them playing a longer and more serious game from the 90's like, say, Soul Reaver or Thief or any other example like such? I wonder if our "longer and more serious attempts" will survive the long-term test of time like that, or if only the "instant pick and play" arcade classics will - or perhaps not even those.

* - Of course I'm not speculating here how exactly will mankind be at that point, whether or not we'll be living like the worst hellish dystopia or even if we'll be long gone. For the sake of this discussion let's assume there's a functioning civilization going on.

 

[Machocruz]

Simple 2D games, both visually and mechanically, will have a timeless, board-game like appeal. PS1 level 3D is already an eyesore, which will be a barrier to entry for the general population. The games with controls and interfaces people complain about now, like Ultima 7, og System Shock, etc. will be even more unpalatable to future people.

 

[Lemming42]

Games unfortunately aren't the same as other mediums - take an old movie (after the advent of sound, anyway) and, though the direction may seem a bit dated and the acting and accents could be a bit stagey, the plot and pacing will have the exact same effect on you that they would have had on cinemagoers in 1930. Read an old book today and, barring the occasional bit of archaic language, your response will theoretically be the same as that of people at the time.

But playing, say, Wasteland in 2024 is not the same as playing it in 1988. The interface, the visuals, the very core principles of its design are all dated in a way that the plot of a movie or the melody of a song can never date. The other thing is that oftentimes, videogames are trying and failing to do something that later games will accomplish better. Most people don't really care about the likes of Catacomb 3-D when Doom blows it out of the water in literally every way (yes, I know you can backtrack to previous maps on Catacomb, no I don't think this gives it a leg-up over Doom).

Future generations will probably do what most people do with other mediums, and select a few games that are both of historical note and remain generally accessible and easy to play to this day. Stuff like Doom, Diablo, Mario 64, Half-Life, maybe Fallout. This is obviously a shame because a huge amount of good shit will be lost, but if all goes well, future generations will be enjoying so many quality releases in their own time that they won't need to go salvaging shit from the 90s and 2000s.

Kind of a tangent but I also wonder if AI integration will eventually become such a big thing in games that future generations can cleanly divide videogames into pre-AI and post-AI, a bit like the silent/sound divide for films. It'll probably look absolutely hilarious to future people that you had to pick from three dialogue options in Fallout, or that enemies in FPS games could ever lose track of the player or get stuck on walls.

 

[KD6-3.7]

No, too ephemeral.

And that assumes humanity survives the next Carrington Event.

Chess has been around 1,500 years. Nobody will be playing fucking Pac-Man in year 3500.

Although Star Citizen may release then.

 

[luj1]

Wasteland in 2024 is not the same as playing it in 1988. The interface, the visuals, the very core principles of its design are all dated in a way that the plot of a movie or the melody of a song can never date.

bullshiet

played Wasteland like 2 years ago for the first time. Fucking loved it

 

[Lemming42]

You're misreading what I wrote, I didn't say the game was bad or that people coming to it for the first time in 2024 won't enjoy it, I like Wasteland too. It's just that there's 35 - 36 years of changes in technology, in game design, in user interfaces, and in what games are actually capable of separating a player in 2024 from a player in 1988.

There's no equivalent for movies or music, the experience of enjoying them isn't fundamentally different across time - other than dealing with the lower audio fidelity, listening to music from the 1930s is excactly the same as listening to music made today. That's not the case for videogames, where the core aspects of game design and technology, and even things like control schemes and interfaces, change so dramatically over time that older titles will inherently feel increasingly inaccessible or redundant to anyone who didn't grow up with them and/or already has a good amount of experience in playing games of that era.

tl;dr: ask someone who's only familiar with modern music to listen to Ella Fitzgerald, they'll still enjoy her music, because the experience of listening to music doesn't depend on the era it was made. meanwhile, ask someone who's familiar with modern games to play Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny, and watch what happens. And in case you can't read: I'm not saying Blade of Destiny is bad, I'm saying it will be inaccessible to people more familiar with later games, and that this inaccessibility is unique to videogames as a medium.

 

[luj1]

older titles will inherently feel inaccessible to anyone who didn't grow up with them

Yes if you are a zoomer with ADHD

I will say it again, I did not grow up with Goldbox era games. Like Wasteland, Wizardry 6 and Dark Sun. I played them recently (~2 years) and was hooked for weeks.

What you are talking about is a metabolic attention problem.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

I would assume almost everything will be forgotten outside of a museum setting. Think how difficult it is to preserve hardware and software now and then think of how it will be in 50-100 years now everythings digital. Every version of windows kills more games and it's only getting worse.

Assume all data will be unreadable 20 years after it was written and you're probably pretty close.

 

[Lemming42]

I will say it again, I did not grow up with Goldbox era games. Like Wasteland, Wizardry 6 and Dark Sun. I played them recently and was hooked for weeks

Oh god, please help me by reading my posts. I'm not saying people going back to play older games won't enjoy them, I'm not saying that you have to have grown up in the 80s/90s to enjoy 80s/90s games, I'm not saying it's impossible to replay the games (or play them for the first time) nowadays, and I'm not saying the games are retroactively bad.

What I am saying is that technological changes over time have led to older games being more inaccessible and having ever-higher learning curves for people raised on modern games. I don't even see how this is a controversial point; put a kid raised on post-2010 games down in front of Ultima IV and they'll have a hell of a time adjusting. This is not because they have ADHD, nor because Ultima IV is bad, but rather because the conventions and technology used by games of the 1980s are unfamiliar, and because modern games have different interfaces and QoL features which the kid will expect and find absent, and the game is thus harder to access for a kid nowadays in a way that music/movies/books/etc from the 1980s aren't.

 

[luj1]

What I am saying is that technological changes over time have led to older games being more inaccessible and having ever-higher learning curves for people raised on modern games.

And I answered - YES - it's true for the current generation

This is not because they have ADHD

VERY debatable

 

[luj1]

I would assume almost everything will be forgotten outside of a museum setting. Think how difficult it is to preserve hardware and software now and then think of how it will be in 50-100 years now everythings digital. Every version of windows kills more games and it's only getting worse.

Assume all data will be unreadable 20 years after it was written and you're probably pretty close.

good point

i still have a BUNCH of discs of everything, and I doubt the physical media itself will degrade to the point of UNREADABILITY, however there might not be an OS to read it (or an OS compatible with required hardware) is what you are saying?

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

I doubt the physical media itself will degrade to the point of UNREADABILITY

It is in many cases. CD rot is a real problem.

Think of how many floppy drives you see today. Hell DVD/Blu ray drives are rare now. What happens when we run out of USB C cables in 10 years and all our devices rely on them to charge?

 

[Lemming42]

Remember those shitty "CD cleaner" things that game stores used to sell, claiming they'd fix unreadable discs?

Stick a CD that's partly unreadable in one of these things, turn the handle, and in no time at all, you'll have a CD that's fully unreadable.

 

[Vic]

Remember those shitty "CD cleaner" things that game stores used to sell, claiming they'd fix unreadable discs?

Stick a CD that's partly unreadable in one of these things, turn the handle, and in no time at all, you'll have a CD that's fully unreadable.

just use toothpaste bro

 

[911 Jumper]

How popular is backwards compatibility? A ten-year-old with a PS5 or an Xbox Series X|S is unlikely to care about PS1 or original Xbox games. Today's young barely play old games. They are more likely to play a new indie game inspired by a retro classic than to go out seeking old hardware and games or emulation solutions.

 

[Vic]

Today's young barely play old games. They are more likely to play a new indie game inspired by a retro classic than to go out seeking old hardware and games or emulation solutions.

oh boy, do you know how many comments like "I'm 13 years old and I love this song uwu" I've seen under music from the 70s and 80s?

many kids go through hipster phases to feel special, and also if somebody is really interested in gaming he will trace back the roots of his favorite games.

Not particularly important for backwards compatability tho.

 

[911 Jumper]

Today's young barely play old games. They are more likely to play a new indie game inspired by a retro classic than to go out seeking old hardware and games or emulation solutions.

oh boy, do you know how many comments like "I'm 13 years old and I love this song uwu" I've seen under music from the 70s and 80s?

many kids go through hipster phases to feel special, and also if somebody is really interested in gaming he will trace back the roots of his favorite games.

Not particularly important for backwards compatability tho.

Music is different – you literally only have to go on YouTube or a music app to experience it. It requires very little effort and it's often free. Playing old games on original hardware requires both effort and money. Even going down the emulation route requires some technical know-how.

There are people in their 20s on gaming forums saying how they can't go back to PS360 because of the terrible IQ and frame rates. Others criticise the actual graphics, animation quality, “problematic” elements, etc. We're supposed to believe these same people are going to put up with the inferior graphics and inconsistent frame rates, to say nothing of the non-politically correct elements that characterised older gens because they love video games that much?

I do see “we need a current gen remake of X” comments under older games. That's the way today's young express their contempt for older games. They can't appreciate, for example, RE5 for what it is. They need it remade with current gen graphics, the problematic elements stripped out, and gameplay that is streamlined for the “modern” audience to which they belong.

Btw, I am not talking about people who are in their 30s or above today. The desire to play and preserve older games within this group is understandable.
I am talking about today's 10 to 15-year-olds who have no nostalgia for NES, SNES, Saturn, PS1, PS2, etc. because their first consoles were machines such as the PS4, X1, and Series X|S. That kind of kid is unlikely to care about playing Koudelka on a PS1 or via emulation.

 

[Vic]

I am talking about today's 10 to 15-year-olds who have no nostalgia for NES, SNES, Saturn, PS1, PS2, etc. because their first consoles were machines such as the PS4, X1, and Series X|S. That kind of kid is unlikely to care about playing Koudelka on a PS1 – or via emulation.

Yeah you a generalizing like I said I think there are kids who either go the hipster route and want to play old games or actually have a passion for gaming and want to know how their favorite games evolved. I don't think that there are zero people like that in the world.

 

[Lemming42]

A lot of kids today are pretty into Doom and Half-Life, for what it's worth. Memes for both of them all over the place.

 

[911 Jumper]

I am talking about today's 10 to 15-year-olds who have no nostalgia for NES, SNES, Saturn, PS1, PS2, etc. because their first consoles were machines such as the PS4, X1, and Series X|S. That kind of kid is unlikely to care about playing Koudelka on a PS1 – or via emulation.

Yeah you a generalizing like I said I think there are kids who either go the hipster route and want to play old games or actually have a passion for gaming and want to know how their favorite games evolved. I don't think that there are zero people like that in the world.

Same people saying that older gamers who say games were better in the past are letting nostalgia cloud their judgement. Same people who don't care about physical games and who believe the future of gaming is all digital.
These are the people who care about old games with crude graphics?
I'm sure there are some young people who are curious enough to explore older games. But most do not. I think if you could pull up the backwards compatibility (excluding last gen) telemetry on both Xbox and PlayStation, you'd find the BC feature is underused.

 

[Vic]

I'm sure there are some young people who are curious enough to explore older games. But most do not. I think if you could pull up the backwards compatibility (excluding last gen) telemetry on both Xbox and PlayStation, you'd find the BC feature is underused.

yeah pretty much

 

[Konjad]

I would assume almost everything will be forgotten outside of a museum setting. Think how difficult it is to preserve hardware and software now and then think of how it will be in 50-100 years now everythings digital. Every version of windows kills more games and it's only getting worse.

Assume all data will be unreadable 20 years after it was written and you're probably pretty close.

Have you ever heard of virtual machines?

How popular is backwards compatibility? A ten-year-old with a PS5 or an Xbox Series X|S is unlikely to care about PS1 or original Xbox games. Today's young barely play old games. They are more likely to play a new indie game inspired by a retro classic than to go out seeking old hardware and games or emulation solutions.

An average PC tard just plays the newest CoD or Hogwart Legacy or whatever else is new too.

Old games will always be a niche, although I'd say people who are more into RPGs usually tend to play older ones as well. With time there will be less of them but I'd imagine still plenty of people who will play Gothic or Fallout.

I'd be more concerned about great games that even most codexers do not want want to play because 'looks old/janky lmao' like Prelude to Darkness or The Void.

Lack of PR even in the past seemed to make 'dexers not want to play these and if they are unpopular on 'dex then I doubt they will ever get traction anywhere else.