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For frame of reference, the original Nintendo wasn't discontinued until 1995. The GameCube wasn't released until 2001. I do find it fascinating how many thousa

For frame of reference, the original Nintendo wasn't discontinued until 1995. The GameCube wasn't released until 2001. I do find it fascinating how many thousands or tens of thousands of man-hours might go into developing a video game or other interactive media, but the shelf-life for mass enjoyment and cultural relevancy is measured in years or at most a decade or two, unlike more traditional forms of non-interactive media such as literature, photography, painting or even film. In the case of video games this is particularly true today due to rapid advances in graphics and computing capabilities, and also rapid evolution in game design and mechanics. For example, a large swath of early 3D games suffer from outdated control schemes such as "tank controls" which anyone outside of enthusiasts might find too jarring for enjoyment. Some titles have thankfully gotten rereleases with improved mechanics and QOL, and have found new audiences. I imagine this is logarithmic and that video game shelf life will expand over time? Unless interactive media and technological progress are forever entwined.

mhink 2y ago
Honestly... I don't think there's much difference between games and other forms of media in terms of longevity in the public consciousness. "Singin' in the Rain" was released in 1952 and might very well still at least ring a bell today, but what about "Monkey Business" or "Viva Zapata!", released the same year? Those films even had some pretty big names (Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando). Even nowadays, there are still plenty of "shovelware" movies out there. That being said, I think the real difference comes down to the fact that games are (by necessity) relatively tightly coupled to the hardware required to run them. Movie projector systems, while complex, are still much "dumber" than a computer. I think it's safe to say that if you have a film print from, say, the 60s, there would probably be a range of projector models from the preceding decade that could play it. By contrast, if you have a copy of a PC game from, say, 1996, you're going to have to pay a lot more attention to its specific hardware requirements in order to build a system that's capable of running it. That raises the skill floor to run it in the first place. Honestly, I think this is one reason console retrogaming is so popular: to play a game, you only have to get a hold of a working console. The problem these days is that consoles are becoming more PC-like, so they're kinda backing into the same problems as PCs.
spencerflem 2y ago
Imo it already has, since ~ps3 controls have been pretty standardized and graphics was good enough for The Last of Us level quality, so the limiting factor is more the art budget than the technology. The biggest problem is multiplayer games that need to keep a community and cloud servers only that can be shut down on a whim Other than that, there's the culture aspect thats just as true of books and movies where new things can say something about the current culture that old ones can't as easily and its fun to be excites about something new

mhink 2y ago

Honestly... I don't think there's much difference between games and other forms of media in terms of longevity in the public consciousness. "Singin' in the Rain" was released in 1952 and might very well still at least ring a bell today, but what about "Monkey Business" or "Viva Zapata!", released the same year? Those films even had some pretty big names (Marilyn Monroe and Marlon Brando). Even nowadays, there are still plenty of "shovelware" movies out there. That being said, I think the real difference comes down to the fact that games are (by necessity) relatively tightly coupled to the hardware required to run them. Movie projector systems, while complex, are still much "dumber" than a computer. I think it's safe to say that if you have a film print from, say, the 60s, there would probably be a range of projector models from the preceding decade that could play it. By contrast, if you have a copy of a PC game from, say, 1996, you're going to have to pay a lot more attention to its specific hardware requirements in order to build a system that's capable of running it. That raises the skill floor to run it in the first place. Honestly, I think this is one reason console retrogaming is so popular: to play a game, you only have to get a hold of a working console. The problem these days is that consoles are becoming more PC-like, so they're kinda backing into the same problems as PCs.

spencerflem 2y ago

Imo it already has, since ~ps3 controls have been pretty standardized and graphics was good enough for The Last of Us level quality, so the limiting factor is more the art budget than the technology. The biggest problem is multiplayer games that need to keep a community and cloud servers only that can be shut down on a whim Other than that, there's the culture aspect thats just as true of books and movies where new things can say something about the current culture that old ones can't as easily and its fun to be excites about something new