7 ms·

Yet the obscure forgotten stuff is still playable if you kept a copy of the disc. Those games didn't need a community to preserve them, because they were not de

Yet the obscure forgotten stuff is still playable if you kept a copy of the disc. Those games didn't need a community to preserve them, because they were not designed to be ephemeral like live service games.

Spivak 1y ago
Like for example you can play every GameCube game that was ever released for the system. There's readily available archives you can download and well-known console mods available to play them. This kind of thing just isn't possible for newer games. Self-contained, offline, drm free (or at least breakable drm) will probably be immortal but that's a shrinking segment of games.
- Discordian93 1y ago
  You can't play Phantasy Star Online for the GameCube anymore.
  - GLabrie 1y ago
    There are private servers that you can connect to, no? I remember reading about it not that long ago!
  - chmod775 1y ago
    https://github.com/fuzziqersoftware/newserv https://github.com/fuzziqersoftware/newserv
  - rawling 1y ago
    Even all the offline content?
  - wtetzner 1y ago
    You can, and you can even play it with Dreamcast and PC players: https://sylverant.net/ https://sylverant.net/
  - Firehawke 1y ago
    Completely wrong. You can play it offline one player or split-screen with just the disc. You can play it online with the disc and a minimal amount of extra work. https://sylverant.net https://sylverant.net for instance is a PSO server that supports Dreamcast v1, v2, GameCube v3, Xbox v3, and PSO Episode 3 on GameCube.
- sodality2 1y ago
  Older DRM is more commonly cracked because there’s more time to crack it. Though the arms race has grown way more sophisticated from the supply side
fendy3002 1y ago
beware of using old cd though, the older it is the higher risk it'll shatter and damage the unit.
- foxglacier 1y ago
  The unit being a $20 CD-ROM drive? Losing the disk would be a bigger problem than damaging the drive.
  - johnwalkr 1y ago
    If you want to ply on original hardware, which people that use original cds typically do, the drive might be valuable or hard to replace depending on the system.
- imhoguy 1y ago
  At that point I think the game is available as ROM file or at least the owner of rare one should make such.
  - jbverschoor 1y ago
    MSX/C64 era: games are smaller than your average png icon SNES era: games are smaller than a single photo or most bundled javascripts / cas PS1 era: games are smaller than a random electron app PS2 era: games are smaller than your average update these days
Gigachad 1y ago
Outside of computer games, there are plenty of games that have died off because the communities to play them no longer exist or the rules have been forgotten. Any game that has a multi player or team aspect will eventually die. Even if the servers stay online forever, it will not be the same experience as if you were there in the moment playing when it was lively.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  Counterstrike 1, released 25 years ago, averages around 10,000 players 'online' at any given moment, pretty much exclusively for team based multiplayer [1]. That makes it more popular (by active player count) than e.g. Hogwart's Legacy. Most modern games not only really fail to bring anything new to the table, but often feel like the overall gameplay is general decline. For instance the gunplay in Counterstrike still "feels" much better than many modern shooters. On the other hand I'm only really speaking of big budget games. I think gaming overall, if we include 'indie games' (which has an increasingly inappropriate connotation, given many "indie" games now have no less scope or depth than big budget games) is in an obvious golden age. [1] - https://steamcharts.com/app/10 https://steamcharts.com/app/10
  - ta12653421 1y ago
    Can this be played somehow in the browser today? Without install etc.
    - shakna 1y ago
      There's quite a few ports to the browser running around, though most may get you in trouble with the game's owner.
  - Hikikomori 1y ago
    Bit weird to compare a singleplayer game with little replayability to the genre defining multiplayer game of its time and try drawing conclusions from that.
mattmanser 1y ago
That's not actually true. There are lots of things that make old games unplayable that you need patches and emulators for. For example the era of games from MSDOS days often used a different memory setup which modern PCs don't support. So I own and play Darklands every few years, but it needs a special emulator to play. Luckily GOG deal with that for you for many old games.
- buran77 1y ago
  > make old games unplayable that you need patches and emulators for So then they're playable just fine. You can use a PC/console from that era, VMs or emulators, apply patches, or get the versions from storefronts like GOG. That's the crux of the matter, for older games there are many ways to keep playing them potentially forever. But for many newer games this might never be possible, especially for the multiplayer-only or always-online games, on top of the DRM. Maybe some regulation will push developers or publishers to release the components needed to make the game work (remove DRM, release the online components, etc.) once it's no longer offered for sale.
  - LegionMammal978 1y ago
    > You can use a PC/console from that era, VMs or emulators, apply patches, or get the versions from storefronts like GOG. Only insofar as those PCs and consoles are still circulating, or the platform was big enough to have good emulators (and the distribution format was standard enough that you can still rip the ROM, and the emulators themselves can still be run on modern systems), or the game was big enough for someone to have been willing to write patches for it. If you don't have the technical knowledge and skills to work around these (or you don't have the time), then the game might as well be dead for you. And of course, it can't have died enough at any point for everyone with a copy to have lost it, which is the fate of a lot of the old text adventures.
- cout 1y ago
  This is a good point. I'm still looking for a good way for my kids to play mindrover on windows 11, and I haven't found one.
- 1y ago
squigz 1y ago
It's not like they were designed like that on purpose. It was a limitation of the technology of the time. If they could've made as many live service games back then, they would have. This comparison is also unfair for a couple more reasons: - It ignores the fact that when a game was released on CD back then... that's it. No updates. No patches. Nothing. You break it, that's it. Game ending bug that corrupts your save? TOO BAD. Oh, scratched your CD? TOO BAD. Maybe try one of these folk remedies with tooth paste or some such. - And the flipside of that: that paying for live service games, you get consistent updates, new content, new cosmetics, etc, etc. You also get features like cloud saves. You don't have to worry about managing 100s of CDs or worry about a scratch on them or anything like that. Is there a problem these days with online-only games being shut down? Yes, absolutely, and I hope the industry moves away from that. Is romanticizing an era of gaming that was not all that great the way forward? I don't think so.
- mcnamaratw 1y ago
  Not all of that is true. Who played with the un-updated CD version?
  - nilamo 1y ago
    All of us who never hooked the dreamcast up to the internet.
    - Firehawke 1y ago
      Dreamcast didn't have game patches over the internet. That wasn't a thing until the Xbox. You could, in rare occasions, download additional content (e.g. PSO had downloadable quests) but the vast majority of games were standalone.
- anthk 1y ago
  We downloaded patches or get them as an extra with PC gaming magazines just fine. On CD's... everyone backed up them at ISO's and mounted them with dedicated software.
- 1y ago

Spivak 1y ago

Like for example you can play every GameCube game that was ever released for the system. There's readily available archives you can download and well-known console mods available to play them. This kind of thing just isn't possible for newer games. Self-contained, offline, drm free (or at least breakable drm) will probably be immortal but that's a shrinking segment of games.

Discordian93 1y ago
You can't play Phantasy Star Online for the GameCube anymore.
- GLabrie 1y ago
  There are private servers that you can connect to, no? I remember reading about it not that long ago!
- chmod775 1y ago
  https://github.com/fuzziqersoftware/newserv https://github.com/fuzziqersoftware/newserv
- rawling 1y ago
  Even all the offline content?
- wtetzner 1y ago
  You can, and you can even play it with Dreamcast and PC players: https://sylverant.net/ https://sylverant.net/
- Firehawke 1y ago
  Completely wrong. You can play it offline one player or split-screen with just the disc. You can play it online with the disc and a minimal amount of extra work. https://sylverant.net https://sylverant.net for instance is a PSO server that supports Dreamcast v1, v2, GameCube v3, Xbox v3, and PSO Episode 3 on GameCube.
sodality2 1y ago
Older DRM is more commonly cracked because there’s more time to crack it. Though the arms race has grown way more sophisticated from the supply side

fendy3002 1y ago

beware of using old cd though, the older it is the higher risk it'll shatter and damage the unit.

foxglacier 1y ago
The unit being a $20 CD-ROM drive? Losing the disk would be a bigger problem than damaging the drive.
- johnwalkr 1y ago
  If you want to ply on original hardware, which people that use original cds typically do, the drive might be valuable or hard to replace depending on the system.
imhoguy 1y ago
At that point I think the game is available as ROM file or at least the owner of rare one should make such.
- jbverschoor 1y ago
  MSX/C64 era: games are smaller than your average png icon SNES era: games are smaller than a single photo or most bundled javascripts / cas PS1 era: games are smaller than a random electron app PS2 era: games are smaller than your average update these days

Gigachad 1y ago

Outside of computer games, there are plenty of games that have died off because the communities to play them no longer exist or the rules have been forgotten. Any game that has a multi player or team aspect will eventually die. Even if the servers stay online forever, it will not be the same experience as if you were there in the moment playing when it was lively.

somenameforme 1y ago
Counterstrike 1, released 25 years ago, averages around 10,000 players 'online' at any given moment, pretty much exclusively for team based multiplayer [1]. That makes it more popular (by active player count) than e.g. Hogwart's Legacy. Most modern games not only really fail to bring anything new to the table, but often feel like the overall gameplay is general decline. For instance the gunplay in Counterstrike still "feels" much better than many modern shooters. On the other hand I'm only really speaking of big budget games. I think gaming overall, if we include 'indie games' (which has an increasingly inappropriate connotation, given many "indie" games now have no less scope or depth than big budget games) is in an obvious golden age. [1] - https://steamcharts.com/app/10 https://steamcharts.com/app/10
- ta12653421 1y ago
  Can this be played somehow in the browser today? Without install etc.
  - shakna 1y ago
    There's quite a few ports to the browser running around, though most may get you in trouble with the game's owner.
- Hikikomori 1y ago
  Bit weird to compare a singleplayer game with little replayability to the genre defining multiplayer game of its time and try drawing conclusions from that.

mattmanser 1y ago

That's not actually true. There are lots of things that make old games unplayable that you need patches and emulators for. For example the era of games from MSDOS days often used a different memory setup which modern PCs don't support. So I own and play Darklands every few years, but it needs a special emulator to play. Luckily GOG deal with that for you for many old games.

buran77 1y ago
> make old games unplayable that you need patches and emulators for So then they're playable just fine. You can use a PC/console from that era, VMs or emulators, apply patches, or get the versions from storefronts like GOG. That's the crux of the matter, for older games there are many ways to keep playing them potentially forever. But for many newer games this might never be possible, especially for the multiplayer-only or always-online games, on top of the DRM. Maybe some regulation will push developers or publishers to release the components needed to make the game work (remove DRM, release the online components, etc.) once it's no longer offered for sale.
- LegionMammal978 1y ago
  > You can use a PC/console from that era, VMs or emulators, apply patches, or get the versions from storefronts like GOG. Only insofar as those PCs and consoles are still circulating, or the platform was big enough to have good emulators (and the distribution format was standard enough that you can still rip the ROM, and the emulators themselves can still be run on modern systems), or the game was big enough for someone to have been willing to write patches for it. If you don't have the technical knowledge and skills to work around these (or you don't have the time), then the game might as well be dead for you. And of course, it can't have died enough at any point for everyone with a copy to have lost it, which is the fate of a lot of the old text adventures.
cout 1y ago
This is a good point. I'm still looking for a good way for my kids to play mindrover on windows 11, and I haven't found one.
1y ago

squigz 1y ago

It's not like they were designed like that on purpose. It was a limitation of the technology of the time. If they could've made as many live service games back then, they would have. This comparison is also unfair for a couple more reasons: - It ignores the fact that when a game was released on CD back then... that's it. No updates. No patches. Nothing. You break it, that's it. Game ending bug that corrupts your save? TOO BAD. Oh, scratched your CD? TOO BAD. Maybe try one of these folk remedies with tooth paste or some such. - And the flipside of that: that paying for live service games, you get consistent updates, new content, new cosmetics, etc, etc. You also get features like cloud saves. You don't have to worry about managing 100s of CDs or worry about a scratch on them or anything like that. Is there a problem these days with online-only games being shut down? Yes, absolutely, and I hope the industry moves away from that. Is romanticizing an era of gaming that was not all that great the way forward? I don't think so.

mcnamaratw 1y ago
Not all of that is true. Who played with the un-updated CD version?
- nilamo 1y ago
  All of us who never hooked the dreamcast up to the internet.
  - Firehawke 1y ago
    Dreamcast didn't have game patches over the internet. That wasn't a thing until the Xbox. You could, in rare occasions, download additional content (e.g. PSO had downloadable quests) but the vast majority of games were standalone.
anthk 1y ago
We downloaded patches or get them as an extra with PC gaming magazines just fine. On CD's... everyone backed up them at ISO's and mounted them with dedicated software.
1y ago