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Sometimes I find myself thinking about the difference between video games and traditional games. For some reason, we assume video games are transient. What you
by danielvaughn 4y ago
Sometimes I find myself thinking about the difference between video games and traditional games. For some reason, we assume video games are transient. What you played a few years ago probably isn’t what you’re playing today, and you certainly aren’t playing something that you played 25 years ago. Of course there’s the nostalgia remakes and all that, but that’s a small subset.
On the other hand, you have chess, poker, monopoly, etc. These games persist unchanged for decades, sometimes centuries.
Obviously the transience and rapid development of software is a major factor. But it’s interesting to ponder what a persistent digital game would look like.
I suppose Tetris is probably the closest example I can think of.
- thanatos519 4y agoThere's always The Ur-Quan masters: https://sc2.sourceforge.net/ https://sc2.sourceforge.net/
- Pxtl 4y agoTraditional games cannot iterate because they exist as an agreement by the players, they don't have anybody who "owns" the game to improve it. Notice that in tabletop and modern boardgaming, where they do have a coherent owner, we do see revisions and iterations. If I play Dungeons and Dragons today, or Cosmic Encounter, or Magic the Gathering, it's not the same game as 25 years ago. Not as radically as video games have changed, but still they have evolved because the owners of those games have iterated on them. To my mind, the non-transient part is that these old games have clear successors that hew very close to their original form that still draw new players. If you want to play Quake, you will find a massive number of games that play very very close to Quake and have active playerbases.
- cardanome 4y agoReally? This might be true for multiplayer games (though people still play Counter Strike 1.6 I guess) to some extend but for single player games I don't see how they are transient. Most of the games I play are ten years or older. Admittedly lots of games that I never got around playing as a child. Also, retro gaming is huge. With gog.com it is pretty easy to play old game⌊. Though many more modern games might get lost forever because they require access to certain servers. We need legislation that forces publishers to open source games including the server-side code once they stop supporting them.
- acomjean 4y agoWell some games are eposidic. I play a little fortnite, and the island keeps changing, significant things come and go (some weapons, map locations, bosses, ufos, boats). Its keeps it from getting stale, but you can never go back to the way things were..