4 ms·

I miss when gaming in general was less mainstream and more weird like this. Now the silicon manufacturers hate that they even have to sell us their scraps, let

I miss when gaming in general was less mainstream and more weird like this. Now the silicon manufacturers hate that they even have to sell us their scraps, let alone spend time on making unique designs for their boxes. I bought a small press book with a collection of this art and it was a fun little trip down memory lane, as I’ve owned some of the hardware (boxes) depicted in it. For anyone else interested: https://lockbooks.net/pages/overclocked-launch https://lockbooks.net/pages/overclocked-launch

m-hodges 1y ago
Woah, that book is cool; and so much more from this publisher!
- soupfordummies 1y ago
  You ain't kidding! What a treasure trove of a publisher. Never heard of them before, great rec
- doctor_blood 1y ago
  LGR took a look at it on his channel; a very tiny book, with very tiny art, apparently all grabbed from google images. Something of a letdown.
  - debugnik 1y ago
    Wow, I just checked and that's really underwhelming: Tiny page size, lots of padding around the images and yet there's often 4 images per page. The layout makes it seem like the size a was late decision, it would be appropriate for a large artbook.
Gigachad 1y ago
On the plus side, PC gaming hardware seems to last ages now. I built my gaming desktop in 2020, I had a look lately at what a reasonable modern mid tier setup is and they are still recommending a lot of the parts I have. So I'll probably keep using it all for another 5 years then.
- brokenmachine 1y ago
  But your stuff from 2020 probably isn't AI "enhanced"!! Throw it in the garbage!
  - SkiFire13 1y ago
    Sounds like a plus to me.
  - pjc50 1y ago
    I was planning on hanging on to my Win10 PC, which was perfectly fine except that Microsoft were both pestering me to upgrade and telling me it wasn't possible, but the death of its SSD after 7 years put paid to that.
    - arethuza 1y ago
      I have a PC that is probably at least 10 years old but works perfectly well for browsing, spreadsheets and the occasional lightweight game but MS has decided, in its infinite wisdom, to say that it can't be upgraded to Windows 11. So I will probably install Linux (probably Debian) and move on and forget about those particular games... (~30 years since I first installed Linux on a PC!).
      - opan 1y ago
        What sort of lightweight games? Nethack? Solitaire?
        arethuza 1y ago
        World of Tanks...
      - khedoros1 1y ago
        I've got a computer that I built in 2008 and upgraded in 2012. It's pretty solid for higher-requirement games up until about 2015, and can still handle lower-requirement indie stuff today. I built its successor in 2020, using a GPU from 2017. The longevity of the PS4 has given that thing serious legs, and I haven't seen the need to upgrade yet. It still runs what I want to run. It's also the first post-DOS x86/64 machine I've owned that has never had Windows installed.
IlikeKitties 1y ago
> Now the silicon manufacturers hate that they even have to sell us their scraps, let alone spend time on making unique designs for their boxes. I genuinely don't believe this to be true for AMD. I bought a 6600xt on Release Day and by the time I was able to build my complete PC, it had upstream linux kernel support. You can say what you will about AMD but any company that respects my freedoms enough to build a product with great linux support and without requiring any privacy invading proprietary software to use is a-ok in my book. Fuck NVidia though.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  >I genuinely don't believe this to be true for AMD. I bought a 6600xt on Release Day That was 2021 though when AMD was still a relative underdog trying to claw market share from Nvidia from consumers. AMD of today has adjusted their prices and attitude to consumers to match their status as a CPU and GPU duopoly in the AI/datacenter space.
  - IlikeKitties 1y ago
    You can still buy their GPUs, they work perfectly fine on linux ootb and they even make stuff like the AI Max for local AI that is very end user and consumer friendly. Yes, GPUs got more expensive which is a result of increased demand for them. But for a hardware company, as long as their linux support is as good as it currently is, they are a-ok in my book.
- opan 1y ago
  I agree with the spirit of your post, and that AMD is probably the lesser evil, but it's worth noting they "just" moved the proprietary bits into a firmware blob. It's still similarly proprietary but due to the kernel being pretty open to such blobs, it's a problem invisible to most users. You'd have to use linux-libre to get a feel for how bad things really are. You can't really use any modern GPUs with it.
  - jasomill 1y ago
    I understand the sentiment, but I don't see how devices with proprietary firmware stored in ROM or NVRAM are any more free or open than devices that require proprietary firmware loaded at boot. And it looks like Linux-Libre also opposes CPU microcode updates[1], as if bugged factory microcode with known security vulnerabilities is any less non-free than fixed microcode. Recommending an alternative architecture that uses non-proprietary microcode I can understand; this I cannot. [1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Linux-Libre-4.16-Released https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Linux-Libre-4.16-Released
pjc50 1y ago
> I miss when gaming in general was less mainstream and more weird like this. To me, this is a continuum with the box art of early games, where because the graphics themselves were pretty limited the box art had to be fabulous. Get someone like Roger Dean to paint a picture for the imagination. https://www.rogerdean.com/ https://www.rogerdean.com/ The peak of this was the Maplin electronics catalogue: https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/1980s-maplin-catalogues/ https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/1980s-maplin-catalogues/ ; the Radio Shack of UK electronics hobbyists, now gone entirely. Did they need to have cool art on the catalogue? No. Was it awesome? Yes.
- pavlov 1y ago
  This great interview with Roger Dean about his career in games was recently posted: https://spillhistorie.no/2025/10/03/legends-of-the-games-industry-roger-dean/ https://spillhistorie.no/2025/10/03/legends-of-the-games-ind... Turns out that the Psygnosis developers in the 1980s used him as a kind of single-shot concept artist. They would commission the box art first, then use that as inspiration for designing the actual game to go inside the box.
  - Gud 1y ago
    Reminds me of the Anderson Bruford Wakeman & Howe 12” cover: https://row.rarevinyl.com/products/anderson-bruford-wakeman-howe-anderson-bruford-wakeman-howe-gatefold-german-vinyl-lp-album-record-209970-518816?shpxid=4ebcf15e-7bd7-4ad5-862c-d4d3eb968a83 https://row.rarevinyl.com/products/anderson-bruford-wakeman-...
- rsynnott 1y ago
  Huh. I hadn't actually realised Maplin was gone entirely. They closed in Ireland a while back, but I put that down to a general trend of marginal UK high-street retailers (Argos etc) pulling out of Ireland, but still existing in some form in the UK. Weird shop; they never really got rid of any stock that was even theoretically useable, so it was at least partially a museum of outdated gadgets.

m-hodges 1y ago

Woah, that book is cool; and so much more from this publisher!

soupfordummies 1y ago
You ain't kidding! What a treasure trove of a publisher. Never heard of them before, great rec
doctor_blood 1y ago
LGR took a look at it on his channel; a very tiny book, with very tiny art, apparently all grabbed from google images. Something of a letdown.
- debugnik 1y ago
  Wow, I just checked and that's really underwhelming: Tiny page size, lots of padding around the images and yet there's often 4 images per page. The layout makes it seem like the size a was late decision, it would be appropriate for a large artbook.

Gigachad 1y ago

On the plus side, PC gaming hardware seems to last ages now. I built my gaming desktop in 2020, I had a look lately at what a reasonable modern mid tier setup is and they are still recommending a lot of the parts I have. So I'll probably keep using it all for another 5 years then.

brokenmachine 1y ago
But your stuff from 2020 probably isn't AI "enhanced"!! Throw it in the garbage!
- SkiFire13 1y ago
  Sounds like a plus to me.
- pjc50 1y ago
  I was planning on hanging on to my Win10 PC, which was perfectly fine except that Microsoft were both pestering me to upgrade and telling me it wasn't possible, but the death of its SSD after 7 years put paid to that.
  - arethuza 1y ago
    I have a PC that is probably at least 10 years old but works perfectly well for browsing, spreadsheets and the occasional lightweight game but MS has decided, in its infinite wisdom, to say that it can't be upgraded to Windows 11. So I will probably install Linux (probably Debian) and move on and forget about those particular games... (~30 years since I first installed Linux on a PC!).
    - opan 1y ago
      What sort of lightweight games? Nethack? Solitaire?
      - arethuza 1y ago
        World of Tanks...
    - khedoros1 1y ago
      I've got a computer that I built in 2008 and upgraded in 2012. It's pretty solid for higher-requirement games up until about 2015, and can still handle lower-requirement indie stuff today. I built its successor in 2020, using a GPU from 2017. The longevity of the PS4 has given that thing serious legs, and I haven't seen the need to upgrade yet. It still runs what I want to run. It's also the first post-DOS x86/64 machine I've owned that has never had Windows installed.

IlikeKitties 1y ago

> Now the silicon manufacturers hate that they even have to sell us their scraps, let alone spend time on making unique designs for their boxes. I genuinely don't believe this to be true for AMD. I bought a 6600xt on Release Day and by the time I was able to build my complete PC, it had upstream linux kernel support. You can say what you will about AMD but any company that respects my freedoms enough to build a product with great linux support and without requiring any privacy invading proprietary software to use is a-ok in my book. Fuck NVidia though.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>I genuinely don't believe this to be true for AMD. I bought a 6600xt on Release Day That was 2021 though when AMD was still a relative underdog trying to claw market share from Nvidia from consumers. AMD of today has adjusted their prices and attitude to consumers to match their status as a CPU and GPU duopoly in the AI/datacenter space.
- IlikeKitties 1y ago
  You can still buy their GPUs, they work perfectly fine on linux ootb and they even make stuff like the AI Max for local AI that is very end user and consumer friendly. Yes, GPUs got more expensive which is a result of increased demand for them. But for a hardware company, as long as their linux support is as good as it currently is, they are a-ok in my book.
opan 1y ago
I agree with the spirit of your post, and that AMD is probably the lesser evil, but it's worth noting they "just" moved the proprietary bits into a firmware blob. It's still similarly proprietary but due to the kernel being pretty open to such blobs, it's a problem invisible to most users. You'd have to use linux-libre to get a feel for how bad things really are. You can't really use any modern GPUs with it.
- jasomill 1y ago
  I understand the sentiment, but I don't see how devices with proprietary firmware stored in ROM or NVRAM are any more free or open than devices that require proprietary firmware loaded at boot. And it looks like Linux-Libre also opposes CPU microcode updates[1], as if bugged factory microcode with known security vulnerabilities is any less non-free than fixed microcode. Recommending an alternative architecture that uses non-proprietary microcode I can understand; this I cannot. [1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Linux-Libre-4.16-Released https://www.phoronix.com/news/GNU-Linux-Libre-4.16-Released

pjc50 1y ago

> I miss when gaming in general was less mainstream and more weird like this. To me, this is a continuum with the box art of early games, where because the graphics themselves were pretty limited the box art had to be fabulous. Get someone like Roger Dean to paint a picture for the imagination. https://www.rogerdean.com/ https://www.rogerdean.com/ The peak of this was the Maplin electronics catalogue: https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/1980s-maplin-catalogues/ https://70s-sci-fi-art.ghost.io/1980s-maplin-catalogues/ ; the Radio Shack of UK electronics hobbyists, now gone entirely. Did they need to have cool art on the catalogue? No. Was it awesome? Yes.

pavlov 1y ago
This great interview with Roger Dean about his career in games was recently posted: https://spillhistorie.no/2025/10/03/legends-of-the-games-industry-roger-dean/ https://spillhistorie.no/2025/10/03/legends-of-the-games-ind... Turns out that the Psygnosis developers in the 1980s used him as a kind of single-shot concept artist. They would commission the box art first, then use that as inspiration for designing the actual game to go inside the box.
- Gud 1y ago
  Reminds me of the Anderson Bruford Wakeman & Howe 12” cover: https://row.rarevinyl.com/products/anderson-bruford-wakeman-howe-anderson-bruford-wakeman-howe-gatefold-german-vinyl-lp-album-record-209970-518816?shpxid=4ebcf15e-7bd7-4ad5-862c-d4d3eb968a83 https://row.rarevinyl.com/products/anderson-bruford-wakeman-...
rsynnott 1y ago
Huh. I hadn't actually realised Maplin was gone entirely. They closed in Ireland a while back, but I put that down to a general trend of marginal UK high-street retailers (Argos etc) pulling out of Ireland, but still existing in some form in the UK. Weird shop; they never really got rid of any stock that was even theoretically useable, so it was at least partially a museum of outdated gadgets.