I recommend Augmented Steam, it’s an extension for browsers that integrates itad among other things to the steam store, so you can see if there are better deals on other stores while you browse.
So one comparison they make is “What if Titanic was only available on VHS and you had to go buy it off eBay!” I feel like it’s a very silly way to compare video games and movies. Like what? That’s fine. There are thousands of movies that are only available in their given home release format. Video games are already digitized for the most part but it’s like asking “What if you could only play a really specific pinball machine by buying the pinball machine?”
I’m all for preserving games. As a game developer, that’s my work and I do want it to live on forever. That said it’s insane to expect any developer or publisher to fund a failed game’s port to newer hardware or still sell it for older hardware. It’s simply not worth the hassle. Make it profitable, give grants for selling older titles. If this is something gamehistory.org wants to see, offer the money to make it happen. Otherwise be happy with old formats and ROM dumps.
That’s not how I understood the analogy. What I thought it meant was vhs is an outdated format. Having it only available on home release is fine, but if it was only on VHS, and not say, DVD or Blu-ray, then it is less accessible and not easily obtainable. Titanic has released on DVD and Blu-ray, so you don’t have to scrounge around reselling sites to find an old VHS copy
In release - For the purposes of this study, a game is considered to be “in release” if the game, or a version of the game derived from its original release including emulated, modified, or reimplemented versions of the original game is reasonably, readily, and legally available from the game’s rightsholder, either in physical or digital format, for a currently produced or supported game platform.
They are expecting copyright holders of a game to indefinitely sell the game. It’s not that easy. Something like the 1999 movie Dogma would not qualify as “in release” since you can’t buy it or watch it from the copyright holder. You can however buy a DVD version on amazon from mediamaniasales legally.
Overall, the study is expecting studios to support and release classic games for current or supported game platforms. It’s a lot of work and it’s not reasonable to expect a studio to do. If people want supported classic games then they should create a system that gives money to people trying to do that. We live in a society that requires money and people work to get that money. Expecting people to put in that work for free is pretty silly.
As far as I’m concerned, if game studios simply had ISOs/ROMs of their abandoned games available to download for a nominal fee that would be acceptable. Heck with the advent of browser based emulators Sony, Nintendo and Sega (plus many early PC game rightsholders) could simply sell access to play their back catalog on their website Netflix-style via these web-based emulators, much like how archive.org handles it
Honestly I think the most achievable solution is an abandonware law that basically permits the free redistribution of any software that isn’t available for sale in any standard format for x years. Basically just codify what many companies already practice which is turning a blind eye to abandonware/rom sites distributing the very old games they aren’t selling anymore
Their definition of “classic” is rather contrived in my opinion. “Classic” means both old and influential. They ditched the influential part. From their in-depth article:
It’s hard to define exactly what a “classic game” is, but for the sake of this study, we looked at all games released before 2010, which is roughly the year when digital game distribution started to take off.
Our random list of 1,500 games was taken from MobyGames, a huge community-run database of video games.
I can’t feel sorry for the slow disappearance of some Wii Shovelware from 15 years ago. Time is ruthless to all mediocre media.
Thank god LostWinds didn’t die with WiiWare. (Though playing it with a mouse isn’t really the same, admittedly.) I was so glad when I saw it pop up on Steam.
A lot of trash doesn’t have a reason to be rereleased, for sure, but I think you’re maybe underestimating how many genuinely cool titles get neglected for a heap of dumb, business-related reasons.
It’s very interesting to see console games moving to mobile more and more (especially as phones get more powerful). I am curious if more game devs will plan on that as they design a game from the ground up, especially since designing for the Switch means the processing power is already limited somewhat (though the control scheme would certainly be an issue to a degree).
Bugsnax is a fun and engaging game that doesn’t (to my recollection) have a ton of fast paced elements, so a mobile port would be quite at home (even with mobile controls), though I suppose I would’ve preferred to see the resources going into this port go into a new game from Young Horses since I really enjoyed Bugsnax.
Commercial availability specifically. Thanks to archivers and the such, there are usually options to play most things. While I personally don’t care about commercially buying most of these classics, I do find it odd how little ip owners seem to want to make some of these older titles available
There’s such a weird attitude around release of old material. Why can’t Disney+ show the star wars theatrical release? Why won’t Nintendo sell their old titles? The only possible outcome is that people get what they want and give the company cash. It’s bizarre.
Disney, at least back in the VHS, and (probably early) DVD days, would purposefully keep their titles in the “vault” and only release a handful of titles at a time for a limited time window.
What it did was create artificial scarcity, and when they put out an “anniversary edition” of Cinderella or whatever, they cashed in.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Lucas didn’t specify Disney agreeing to not releasing the theatrical cuts as a stipulation of the sale. He’s been trying to bury those since the beginning. Last I heard he claimed they were too damaged to release.
Well most of the comments here don’t have an insight into this. The reason they don’t re-release video games or old movies is because they don’t want you enjoying old things. It’s capitalism, but it’s not arbitrary like the scarcity. Because it’s not just video games, no company wants to re-release anything. Not a tractor, not a movie, not a dishwasher, nothing.
Why? Because then you don’t buy the new thing with higher margins. Then you don’t watch the new movie and they can’t sell the new ads with the new character designs promoting it. Or you don’t get locked in to their new cartridge system. Or subscription plan. Whatever. The song is different, the story is the same, new stuff make line go up faster. With tons of waste involved as well.
The reason they don’t re-release video games or old movies is because they don’t want you enjoying old things.
You’re assuming nefarious intent. I suspect the reality is that it’s not worth the rights holders’ time or money to invest in re-releasing old titles that very few people would buy.
Right, I figure re-releasing a game takes some amount of labor, which means someone needs to make a case for spending time on that instead of whatever the current priorities are.
That makes the efforts of archivists all the more commendable, and it’s all the more frustrating when you see a company dedicating resources to shutting them down.
it’s all the more frustrating when you see a company dedicating resources to shutting them down.
Yes, definitely sucks when they do that. I struggle to understand why unless there’s some legal reason to protect all of your intellectual property instead of just the stuff that’s still making money.
I mean some of them claim that if they don’t do that they’ll lose the copyright, but I looked it up a bit ago and there doesn’t appear to be any evidence that that is the case, so make of that what you will. ~Strawberry
Yeah, im going with this one. Even if it takes a company a total of 5 hours work to wrap an old game in an emulator and release it on steam, it’s not going to be worth it when only 5 people buy it.
I think one of the exceptions to this is music. Of course there’s top 40 and whatnot, but it’s one of the areas where older hits either don’t go away, or get repackaged algorithmically into let’s say “stuff from that decade you like that you’ve never heard before.”
Of course it’s still being selected from a much larger sample. But I think there’s something different about music.
I think music gets treated differently in this way partly because the fidelity 50 years ago was already very acceptable compared to the fidelity of brand new music, meanwhile you compare any other media and there’s significant improvements in the graphical fidelity that even movies from within this century can be poor enough video quality to degrade the experience compared to a new release
This guys videos are like crack to me, but this one was kind of boring compared to his other stuff. I don’t know why though. Fear of the cold was so much better and it’s essentially the same kind of storytelling.
You will defiantly love his other videos then. They’re all very in depth and entertaining
Then if you haven’t yet check out supereyepatchwolf - who takes similar deep dives into media but does it on a more personal level with really good storytelling. Like, really good.
You’d probably like Gaming’s Harshest Architecture. That may be the video that got me into the channel, he’s so good at creating this feeling of significance. And then you look back at the actual topic and wonder how you got so invested.
(I think the champ of that feeling in general is Kevin Perjurer of Defunctland. I have no idea how I get so invested in videos about… anything he’s made a video about.)
Stuff like FTL and “The PIT” doesn’t fit super well into your categories I feel. I think they’re a little to defined and narrow.
I think one way to slice it would be how the games handle progression, is there any? Is it only on complete runs or also on partially complete runs or every single run you gain something?
It’s similar to what you’re on but a bit more concise. So
No progression: the game is about completing a run, which is very challenging but also very rewarding.
Some progression: the game builds over multiple runs offering different/new ways to tackle it as you complete runs or discover stuff.
Full progression: every run builds on your previous runs.
I don’t see the point in naming a genre for rougelike card games. To me it’s a mash up between a full progression rougelike and a card game, and it doesn’t need a name. Also a name for rougelike with safe havens seem weird as well. And rougelikes with full progression by nature become grindy since that becomes one way to win.
The fact that you can say “rougelike card games”, and we all know exactly what you mean, is precisely why we should name that genre. There are plenty of folks who want to seek out roguelikes and not be inundated with Slay The Spire clones. (I like them just fine, personally.)
FTL is what I’d call an Action Rogue, even though it’s pausable (and actually a lot, maybe all, Action Rogues are pausable).
I haven’t played The PIT - I need to look it up.
The idea of classifying based on progression is one of the most important ideas here, you’re right about that. But I also want to capture the idea that the core gameplay itself - grid combat, real-time, cards, JRPG-style battle screens, whatever - is important.
What I’m saying is those already are genres, a game can have more than one genre so use that. Rougelike TCG, Rougelike RPG and Rougelike Action RPG are all valid and much more universally understood than trying to make people understand what “Action Rouge”, “Bandlike” or “Cardlike” is. Then mentioning the type of progression helps as well. But if we try naming all permutations with more than 3 games fitting it then we’ll just end up with 10 new genres noone will use or understand.
I’ll second the recommendation for ITAD. It’s nice that it shows me the various store prices for a game I’m already looking to pick up. As a nice secondary bonus, it’s my understanding that all the sites listed in ITAD are verified to not be sketchy in regard to grey market keys, which I go to great lengths to not support.
Word of warning: systematically classifying video games is HARD. It’s a bit like classifying any form of creative media: music, cinema, visual arts, etc. It’s hit-or-miss. RPG forums routinely fall into that rut and the infamous corollary: [insert game here] is (or is not) an RPG.
If you’re dead set on this endeavour, I’d suggest identifying main features and tagging games with a number of them. Try and pick required ones if possible. Or don’t, because gate keeping sucks. If you know how to code, this is sort of the Composition over inheritance mindset.
I agree with this methodology, and it’s reminiscent of how traditional roguelikes are defined here. I’ve used a similar approach in my own endeavor of defining incremental games - define a canon, find the qualities they share, and indicate which ones seem most important to have.
And then there is cataclysm DDA, which I guess would be described as a “Survival Rogue” based on your other names. Games with a focus on long-term survival & crafting. I think Unreal World would also fit into this category.
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