Are games to be lost in time?

[Konjad]

Time passes and some works are immemorial. That's why today we discuss Socrates etc.

Nonetheless, while many book writers released their works even (initially) in dozens of copies, they eventually survived, because it's easy to copy letters.

Music? Well, it was first copied with a simple script, then with recording technology.

Movies were kinda similar, but skipping the script tech (otherwise it was a theatre), they could be recorded and then displayed - with better or worse quality - but overall they remained the same.

Games are different though because they are made with specific OS and hardware, which could be emulated but it seems to get harder and harder nowadays.

Do you think games are the most doomed entertainment (of currently known)? Do you think Baldur's Gate or Darkands will be playable in 100 years? I have my doubts. We already struggle with them. For example, Polish version of Baldur's Gate (non-EE) you can get on GOG has alpha/beta version of TotSC and most expansion quests except main one don't work, while original CD version had all quests working just fine.

 

[Gandalf]

Yes, the old games will be replaced by some new games or remakes of old games that will work on some kind of new OS, which will be integrated in our bodies.

Basically next step in computer magic are quantum computers which will work differently from current tech.

 

[NecroLord]

Yes, the old games will be replaced by some new games or remakes of old games that will work on some kind of new OS, which will be integrated in our bodies.

Basically next step in computer magic are quantum computers which will work differently from current tech.

My money is on VR if things will keep progressing.
The most optimistic of my views is that you will get to play VR fantasy rpgs or something like that.
Older titles might also be playable or preserved in a prestigious digital vault database.
Except it will be Veilguard shit and you have to do pushups "PULLING A BHARV" if you accidentally misgender the nonbinary dragon companion.

 

[Necrensha]

Extremely relevant article:
https://gamehistory.org/87percent/

First of all, most devs and publishers do not give the slightest shit about their own creations. Case in point: Square/Capcom/Konami losing the code of their old games and then later being forced to either rework the entire thing from the ground up or release Silent Hill with comic sans on every sign.

Second, most young gamers are completely allergic to old games unlike with other mediums where you will never see someone reject Michael Jackson's music because it's ''too old''.

Third, the constant generation switching of Windows/consoles is a huge problem for the future of videogame preservation. Most companies abandoned their games form older hardware and there is absolutely no way of getting other than hoping the one brazilian guy that still has them decides to upload a torrent.

Fourth, Nintendo specifically has gone very far with trying to destroy any site or any person that is tangentially related to Nintendo stuff. Remember Emuparadise? That was a dark day for anyone who cares about videogames.

Fifth, the Stop Killing Games initiative completely and utterly failed. Most people do not care that nearly all multiplayer games are forever lost in time if they aren't ultra popular. Even worse, the industry constantly replaces the ones that already exist for a slightly different sequel.

Sixth, the entire era of live service games will one day disappear and leave a huge hole in videogame history. Regardless of whether you like them or not, this is bound to happen.

Seventh, they are trying to destroy The Internet Archive right now, another blow to gaming among many other things.

Overall: be glad that you were born just in time to experience the golden age of gaming before it is erased from the records.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Time passes and some works are immemorial. That's why today we discuss Socrates etc.

Nonetheless, while many book writers released their works even (initially) in dozens of copies, they eventually survived, because it's easy to copy letters.

Music? Well, it was first copied with a simple script, then with recording technology.

Movies were kinda similar, but skipping the script tech (otherwise it was a theatre), they could be recorded and then displayed - with better or worse quality - but overall they remained the same.

Games are different though because they are made with specific OS and hardware, which could be emulated but it seems to get harder and harder nowadays.

Do you think games are the most doomed entertainment (of currently known)? Do you think Baldur's Gate or Darkands will be playable in 100 years? I have my doubts. We already struggle with them. For example, Polish version of Baldur's Gate (non-EE) you can get on GOG is alpha/beta and most quests except main one don't work, while original CD version had all quests working just fine.

You think old texts from 2500 years ago survived to our times unaltered? Hate to break it to you...

Before print texts were copied by hand, with all involuntary mistakes and voluntary alterations.

In 3rd Century BC Athens created a commission to clear the texts of old tragedies by Sophocles (written in 5th Century BC, only 2 centuries prior) and his contemporaries from those alterations. The commission ofcourse cut what it considered unfitting and added some more.

The same happened in the community of scholars in the Library of Alexandria - they altered old texts to clear them of mistakes of old.

When the great libraries collapsed and then the Roman Empire fell, numerous written works (probably around 99% in Greek and Latin) were lost. What survived to our times, often in fragments, was problably altered many times in the process.

What we got is an equivalent of remasters, remakes of old games. Faulty, imperfect, granting us only partial knowledge of how those works actually looked like.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

Young people (and many older people) often do find it difficult to enjoy other older media. Movies from the 50s and 60s get rejected because of pacing differences and poor effects work. Ancient plays lose much of their punch when the reader lacks the historical context to understand their metaphors and references. Truly timeless creative works are very rare.

What's different about video games is not that the older ones are harder to enjoy; it's that they're literally impossible to play now no matter how interested you might be.

 

[mondblut]

Like tears in rain, dude. Like tears in rain.

 

[kangaxx]

At some point the world will become like Kenshi, so in a way at least that game will live on.

 

[Serious_Business]

Cute thread. As mentionned, countless written texts have been lost through time. What is considered timeless and immemorial is what we managed to hold on to. That generates tradition, which presents itself, at worst, as an eternal triumph over time, and at best, as a kind of interaction with time.

The medium is very young, and very dependant on a number of technological apparatuses. The question whether or not this manages to last is one for technology itself. If anything technological habits are bound to evolve. This is true with something like pure text as well - a lot of litterature or poetry is unintelligible if you don't have the proper habits to approach it. It has to do with literacy in the largest sense. Literacy isn't a binary thing, it adapts to its object, and they are many possible objects. Assuming the conditions for games are still there in 100 years, maybe there will be some cultivation of literacy for older technology, who knows. I don't see why not, in so far as it can be a source of inspiration for new things. Ultimately the new is the obsession, but it is an ambiguous goal - it has to do with technology evolving, but also the demands market, which sells pseudo-novelties.

I can see this kind of tech literacy having a place in academia, I suppose. You'll get your "video games studies", at some point. Will that create actual enjoyment for older media? Maybe. I mean, classical western music mostly lives on through academia. I don't know that anyone enjoys it though, even classical composers, oof. They enjoy it if it crosses the lines and goes into other styles, maybe. Ideas have to be shared. If your art is closed on itself, it dies. Purity leads to degradation.

In the end, here's some basic philosophy 101 : Socrates never wrote a damn line. He never left a trace, himself. But here you are, mentioning him. Because of Plato of course. Who knows, maybe we'll write about video games too.

 

[spectre]

People will always find new things to run Doom on.
But yeah, 99,99% will most likely be lost and forgotten. Some were incorporated into pop-culture and those may achieve some longevity,

 

[anvi]

I think old music is still worth listening to, classical and 60s - early 90s. I think even in 100 years that stuff will still be as good as ever and although AI might be able to reproduce it, people will always appreciate the real deal. I also don't think it will be outdone in the next 100 years.

Gaming I think is just beginning. Only gaming historians will care about the old classics. They will preserve them and the main ones will be remembered. Wolf3d, Doom, Quake, Crysis, Minecraft, Fortnite, etc. Lots of far more intersting classics will be forgotton :/ There might be hipster gaming historians who keep track of them though. But mostly I think all current gaming will be completely outdone in the future as tech improves and once the slump ends. But first the West needs to escape the communist takeover. If they can do that, then the future will have much healthier people who are happier and more creative, more talented, more intelligent.

Everything RFK says is true.

 

[Tel Velothi]

I can see this kind of tech literacy having a place in academia, I suppose. You'll get your "video games studies"

"Vile, racist and sexist games from 1990's and 2000's were finally replaced by some more friendly, conscious and pleasing ones." :3

 

[TripJack]

once the slump ends

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

The vast majority of silent era films are gone forever; the figure is even worse for all the literature created before the printing press. We have access to maybe 1% of all the works produced in the ancient world, and even among those there are frequent doubts regarding their authenticity/origins. Let's not mention all the world's cultures that have vanished with barely a trace; that is nearly all of them.

Games are one of the best documented forms of culture. As long as we're able to store data in digital form, there's basically zero chance that a non-shovelware game gets erased from history like one of the lost Greek plays. More likely is that VR/"simulated experiences" take over entertainment, to the point where many people become unable to relate to videogames as they exist today; they will become the equivalent of silent films, or vintage porn, known only to a minority of hobbyists. This is already the case with most of the 80s classics, which are known only to maybe <0,1% of the entire gaming population. That's usually enough, though. Only 0,1% of the population can talk about Etruscan vases, or the Venetian school of painting.

More concerning is the loss of gaming culture in ephemeral mediums like the internet. Many gaming forums are gone forever, as well as many websites that hosted content. Internet Archive doesn't keep a lot of things and we don't know how much longer it'll last anyway. This opens a lot of space for hacks to rewrite history, which is something you already see a lot of on Youtube and other normie spaces like Reddit/Facebook. Oblivion is a classic RPG, Bioshock is a masterpiece, Mario 64 revolutionized videogames, Nintendo saved the gaming industry, Chrono Trigger is the best JRPG of all time, Gran Turismo invented racing sims, every middle school girl in the 1990s was playing Warcraft with the boys, etc.

 

[TripJack]

Oblivion is a classic RPG, Bioshock is a masterpiece, Mario 64 revolutionized videogames, Nintendo saved the gaming industry, Chrono Trigger is the best JRPG of all time

not really reinventing history if retards were saying the same things 20 years ago

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Oblivion is a classic RPG, Bioshock is a masterpiece, Mario 64 revolutionized videogames, Nintendo saved the gaming industry, Chrono Trigger is the best JRPG of all time

not really reinventing history if retards were saying the same things 20 years ago

The danger is that dissenting opinions disappear from the record. I want gaming historians, 100 years from now, to read Vault Dweller's Fallout 3 review.

 

[Tel Velothi]

The danger is that dissenting opinions disappear from the record. I want gaming historians, 100 years from now, to read Vault Dweller's Fallout 3 review.

I'm afraid we are not the only ones in history to want such things - got me kinda sad. But it's a universal things I guess. It's all the same.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Do you think games are the most doomed entertainment (of currently known)?

Yes. Online sources cataloguing them will disappear one day too. The good thing is that this mean there will be legends about games in the future. Games that nobody is quite sure really existed, or if it was just grandpa imagining things.

 

[Beastro]

Video games are too technologically dependant.

A written work just requires an understanding of the language, but what will people do finding an old CD with a game on it that was broken at launch and now lacks the necessary patches to make it playable?

Worse in ways are ones like pre-WoW, non-theme park style MMOs that are also culturally dependant.

You can play Everquest classic still today, but you play it without the player culture that existed then. If you remade the PvP servers, few would work to recreate the player cultures that existed on them, like the ardent anti-PKs that roleplayed as zealously noble protectors and would play as terrible PvP classes like Paladins because they wanted to RP more than make full use of the games raw mechanics.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Perhaps ironically it will be the oldest video games that are most likely to survive into the far future. DOS is such a simple environment that I guess Dosbox or a similar emulator should always be available as long as computers bear any resemblence to what we have today.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Lots of LPs and the like lost to the ages as well. It's fucking criminal that some awesome stuff was lost off twitch when they decided to start purging VODs. Footage from tourneys, speedruns, world first achievements in various things... The suits obviously give zero fucks. If anything, they prefer if people couldn't even access information about older games, because the more perspective you have, the harder you are to scam with a shitty product. We certainly see the same shit going on in the real world, with tons of consumerist garbage being sold to people only due to ignorance of cheaper, more effective products, services or techniques.

The only saving grace is that information storage is so damned cheap that it's entirely plausible for dozens of weirdos out there to have entire libraries of game roms and the like. There's torrents of entire NES libraries out there, including super weird crap like beta versions and bootleg games. Though it's hard to imagine us getting to that point with games once you get to the DVD era and games are multiple gigs a piece.

Steam is going to go down someday too, and take with it literally thousands of games that were never popular enough to bother cracking, so they won't be on a torrent anywhere. To be fair, plenty of that will be literal scam games and the like, but there's tons of awesome indie games out there with probably less than 10,000 copies sold. It's doubtful anyone has a library holding all of them.

 

[Beastro]

Lots of LPs and the like lost to the ages as well. It's fucking criminal that some awesome stuff was lost off twitch when they decided to start purging VODs. Footage from tourneys, speedruns, world first achievements in various things... The suits obviously give zero fucks. If anything, they prefer if people couldn't even access information about older games, because the more perspective you have, the harder you are to scam with a shitty product. We certainly see the same shit going on in the real world, with tons of consumerist garbage being sold to people only due to ignorance of cheaper, more effective products, services or techniques.

The only saving grace is that information storage is so damned cheap that it's entirely plausible for dozens of weirdos out there to have entire libraries of game roms and the like. There's torrents of entire NES libraries out there, including super weird crap like beta versions and bootleg games. Though it's hard to imagine us getting to that point with games once you get to the DVD era and games are multiple gigs a piece.

Steam is going to go down someday too, and take with it literally thousands of games that were never popular enough to bother cracking, so they won't be on a torrent anywhere. To be fair, plenty of that will be literal scam games and the like, but there's tons of awesome indie games out there with probably less than 10,000 copies sold. It's doubtful anyone has a library holding all of them.

It's ok if we lose Sex with Hitler to the sands of time.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Its already over. Most old games are already lost or unplayable.

 

[Nutmeg]

There's torrents of entire NES libraries out there

Pre-7th generation console and handheld, non optical media libraries can fit on one 512 GB thumb drive. You can add all home computer, pre-2000 non optical media games as well.

On the other hand, just NTSC and NTSC-J CD era console libraries would need 16TB+.

 

[Cohesion]

Do you think games are the most doomed entertainment (of currently known)?

Yes. Online sources cataloguing them will disappear one day too. The good thing is that this mean there will be legends about games in the future. Games that nobody is quite sure really existed, or if it was just grandpa imagining things.

Star Citizen. Whole family did buy jpgs for hundreds of years before CIG finally implemented Singularity(TM) engine which changed the world forever.