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I'm deeply worried that this generation's experiences are not preservable in the ways the last one's were. Regardless of how you may feel about hardware quirks

I'm deeply worried that this generation's experiences are not preservable in the ways the last one's were. Regardless of how you may feel about hardware quirks, etc., you can re-experience Prince of Persia today in a way that you will never be able to experience, say, Hearthstone the day after Blizzard decides to shut down the servers. Hell, even right now you can't do it fully. Modern-day games have irrevocable change as a fundamental game mechanic. You can't even experience Hearthstone as it was _last year_ (with its ban list, standard rotation, etc). Not on ladder, not with your friends, not even in some offline form. This generation's gaming experiences are ephemeral by design. Nobody seems to care now but what a strange feeling it will be in 30 years that media from 60 years ago will be completely accessible, but from 30 years ago it won't be. (I'm using Hearthstone as an example but similar principles apply to almost every successful mainstream game of this generation)

ses1984 7y ago
Why do we have such an attachment to preserving these these things? It's really only of interest for nostalgia's sake or for academics. I think you can't actually re-experience Prince of Persia today because part of the experience is being in that historical context. Hearthstone is only a game. Even if you could re-create the game, you can't re-create the feeling of queuing up with tens of thousands of other people queuing up for a new experience for the first time. On the one hand, the Hearthstone game client and server may not be able to be preserved outside of Activision's vaults, but on the other hand people are producing more content than ever before, photos, videos, text, it's a deluge and you're free to capture and scrape as much as your budget can afford. Maybe you're using hyperbole but I feel like there are better things to choose to be deeply worried about.
- spc476 7y ago
  Even if it's for academics, the academics 30 years from now won't be able to study the game. Five years ago, I examined BASIC for the Atari 2600. I'm far from an academic, but even so, I was still blown away with that was done with 4K ROM and 128 bytes of RAM. Yes, the emulation was annoying (I think it would have been slightly easier on real hardware) but I still found it to be a positive experience. To be sure, I could have had first hand experience with this, as I do remember seeing this cartridge advertised when it was initially released, but I never got the chance back then. And in retrospect, I think it's for the best, as I now have the background and experience now to know just how impressive a feat it really is. So just because you don't feel a need to revisit games (or programs) of today 30 years from now (or use programs from 30 years ago) doesn't mean apply to everyone. [1] http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/16.1 http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/16.1
  - ses1984 7y ago
    Academics 30 years from now won't be able to study the complete inside view of the trump presidency. Academics 30 years from now won't be able to study the complete inside view of what happened in wuhan during the covid outbreak. Academics will never be privy to the private thoughts of xi jinping. Academics will never be able to experience hearthstone. They will only have thousands of hours of twitch or YouTube videos instead. This deeply worries me.
    - apetresc 7y ago
      Alright, you caught me. I didn't properly scale my language, foolishly assuming it was obvious from context. I'm "deeply worried" about it the same way someone might be "deeply worried" that the series finale of their favorite show is going to suck, not the same way someone might be "deeply worried" that COVID-19 is going to wipe out millions of people.
cycloptic 7y ago
We have solutions for this but the companies don't want to do them. Get them to open source the game after a set amount of time. Get the full version control history. There is no other way. Otherwise the data will just rot away on some hard drive buried in a data center when the servers get shut down.

ses1984 7y ago

Why do we have such an attachment to preserving these these things? It's really only of interest for nostalgia's sake or for academics. I think you can't actually re-experience Prince of Persia today because part of the experience is being in that historical context. Hearthstone is only a game. Even if you could re-create the game, you can't re-create the feeling of queuing up with tens of thousands of other people queuing up for a new experience for the first time. On the one hand, the Hearthstone game client and server may not be able to be preserved outside of Activision's vaults, but on the other hand people are producing more content than ever before, photos, videos, text, it's a deluge and you're free to capture and scrape as much as your budget can afford. Maybe you're using hyperbole but I feel like there are better things to choose to be deeply worried about.

spc476 7y ago
Even if it's for academics, the academics 30 years from now won't be able to study the game. Five years ago, I examined BASIC for the Atari 2600. I'm far from an academic, but even so, I was still blown away with that was done with 4K ROM and 128 bytes of RAM. Yes, the emulation was annoying (I think it would have been slightly easier on real hardware) but I still found it to be a positive experience. To be sure, I could have had first hand experience with this, as I do remember seeing this cartridge advertised when it was initially released, but I never got the chance back then. And in retrospect, I think it's for the best, as I now have the background and experience now to know just how impressive a feat it really is. So just because you don't feel a need to revisit games (or programs) of today 30 years from now (or use programs from 30 years ago) doesn't mean apply to everyone. [1] http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/16.1 http://boston.conman.org/2015/06/16.1
- ses1984 7y ago
  Academics 30 years from now won't be able to study the complete inside view of the trump presidency. Academics 30 years from now won't be able to study the complete inside view of what happened in wuhan during the covid outbreak. Academics will never be privy to the private thoughts of xi jinping. Academics will never be able to experience hearthstone. They will only have thousands of hours of twitch or YouTube videos instead. This deeply worries me.
  - apetresc 7y ago
    Alright, you caught me. I didn't properly scale my language, foolishly assuming it was obvious from context. I'm "deeply worried" about it the same way someone might be "deeply worried" that the series finale of their favorite show is going to suck, not the same way someone might be "deeply worried" that COVID-19 is going to wipe out millions of people.

cycloptic 7y ago

We have solutions for this but the companies don't want to do them. Get them to open source the game after a set amount of time. Get the full version control history. There is no other way. Otherwise the data will just rot away on some hard drive buried in a data center when the servers get shut down.