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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 M

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.
ThatMedicIsASpy 1y ago
Very old games are a problem for windows and have a significant higher chance of running out of the box with proton on linux
- sitzkrieg 1y ago
  can you provide an example?
  - bombcar 1y ago
    I think he means that trying to run some early win16 games will fail on windows, but run fine in emulation/wine, etc. But of course, you can run dosbox on windows, too.
  - HideousKojima 1y ago
    The 2008 Prince of Persia is easier to get running through Proton than on Windows. For the Windows Steam release you have to disable the Steam overlay and some other tweaks to get it working
  - ThatMedicIsASpy 1y ago
    Every time people tried to make 20-30 year old games work I quickly test them on my Linux machines if they are available on the internet archive and so far they have worked out of the box every time. The last one was a German point and click game from ~28 years ago. Adding them to steam and forcing proton is also simpler than something like bottles for me. People try to run them on W10/11 and they won't start, the windows compatibility layer hardly gets them up and running.

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.

ThatMedicIsASpy 1y ago

Very old games are a problem for windows and have a significant higher chance of running out of the box with proton on linux

sitzkrieg 1y ago
can you provide an example?
- bombcar 1y ago
  I think he means that trying to run some early win16 games will fail on windows, but run fine in emulation/wine, etc. But of course, you can run dosbox on windows, too.
- HideousKojima 1y ago
  The 2008 Prince of Persia is easier to get running through Proton than on Windows. For the Windows Steam release you have to disable the Steam overlay and some other tweaks to get it working
- ThatMedicIsASpy 1y ago
  Every time people tried to make 20-30 year old games work I quickly test them on my Linux machines if they are available on the internet archive and so far they have worked out of the box every time. The last one was a German point and click game from ~28 years ago. Adding them to steam and forcing proton is also simpler than something like bottles for me. People try to run them on W10/11 and they won't start, the windows compatibility layer hardly gets them up and running.