Do games truly 'age'?

[Anonymous No.5798054]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_DCaqBLT7I

Is it true that games age? Are we really bound so closely to nostalgia when it comes to these old games? Or is there a different approach/mindset necessary to keep playing them?

[Anonymous No.5798115]

>>5798054
>Or is there a different approach/mindset necessary to keep playing them?
Yeah it's called not having your dopamine receptors ruined by instant gratification from social media and modern entertainment that when something doesn't instantly give you a reward you can't enjoy it. So yes it requires a more evolved mindset.

[Anonymous No.5798138]

>>5798054
Not literally, it's our perception of what constitutes a good game that changes. A lot of games were considered good back then because we didn't have anything better so the standard was oftentimes pretty low.

[Anonymous No.5798159]

Individual games don't exist in a vacuum. How they're experienced depends on society at large. When society changes, so do the games.

Compared to the 90s, how we spend our free time has changed. Some topics are more salient, others less so. The movie and TV genres that were popular then are less popular now. We have different jobs and different ways are catching up to people. Toys R Us went out of business, and nobody makes ad copy like that anymore unless it's a deliberate play to 90s nostalgia.

[Anonymous No.5798160]

No, games don't age. If it was fun then, it's fun now.

[Anonymous No.5798163]

>>5798054
>>5798115
>>5798138
>>5798159
You pop the game in and it's the same fucking game from 20-30 years ago you fucking retarded larpers.

[Anonymous No.5798171]

>>5798163
>it's the same fucking game from 20-30 years ago
>IMPLYING

[Anonymous No.5798172]

>>5798159

In other words: Do you think the average game will be received exactly the same by every culture on earth? If not, than it also applies to cultures that have changed over time.

>>5798163

You're taking the idea of games aging too literally.

[Anonymous No.5798174]

Games "aging" is a meme perpetuated by the modern games industry because now they have to compete with every video game ever made, not just what's on shelves this christmas.

[Anonymous No.5798176]

>>5798054
Do games age? The answer is that we age, and the answer is that technology improves. You do have to cultivate a mindset that allows enjoyment of older games because comparatively older games are at a technological disadvantage when viewed through the lens of the present.

Nostalgia is what makes an older game stand out among its contemporaries and new releases to boot. Those moments you've had with certain games is cemented into your mind and ego, and is what helps to define who you are.

It's not quite nostalgia to say an older game is better or the greatest. Certain games have specific defining features that make it what it is and that stuff may very well not have been replicated as of yet. This is of course a very subjective topic and getting caught up in debating your favorite games with others may be a waste of both of your time. Just enjoy what you enjoy when you enjoy it, and you'll be all the better for it.

[Anonymous No.5798179]

>>5798171
>>5798172
You're the same contrarian assholes that tell me I hate games when I say modern games are trash because I'm not the target market and the market has changed aren't you?

[Anonymous No.5798185]

>>5798160
This. That video was shit. I played Tomb Raider for the first time this year and enjoyed it.

[Anonymous No.5798246]

>>5798054
Without resorting to autistic definition of what "age" means: yes, games do age*. This is not even up for discussion, it's blatantly obvious. As the player experiences more and more games, some games are simply not enough anymore. It's like when you were 10: seeing boobs on TV was a really big thing, nowadays a lot of us don't give a shit. It WAS hot back then, but it isn't hot anymore because our expectations have changed. The same thing happens with videogames: the idea that the enjoyment you get out of a game is unchanged throughout your life is stupid because first hand experience contradicts it. Case in point, I used to think my TMNT game for the NES was the shit, and now my NES is shelved on the back of my home.

[Anonymous No.5798253]

>>5798246
>I lack the mental capacity to look at things in context so everyone is as retarded as me the post
Wow nice.

[Anonymous No.5798258]

>>5798253
>"Games age", the post
You played yourself.

[Anonymous No.5798260]

>>5798258
Mental gymnastics wont work on me.

[Anonymous No.5798269]

>>5798260
You said you need to look at things at context, that's you implying "games age but you can enjoy them regardless". Which is besides the point, as the point is that games can and do age.

[Anonymous No.5798278]

>this desperation to legitimize the games age meme
We've been over it a zillion times, you trying to start a serious debate isn't changing shit that hasn't been settled long ago. Lurk more or go back.

[Anonymous No.5798280]

>>5798171
I got the joke, anon. Don't worry about the mouthfoamer.

[Anonymous No.5798282]

>>5798269
You're really dumb if you think that.

[Anonymous No.5798294]

>>5798282
Your own words, anon, not mine. Why would you need to bring up the word "context" when talking about enjoying a videogame?

[Anonymous No.5798296]

>>5798054
>Virtua Racing
>he says literally nothing about the car handling or gameplay at all, just the graphics
>uses the Genesis versions for both it and Out Run
>"Virtua Driver"
>"Would you rather play VF or SF" as if those are the same game with different graphical styles, no mention of VF5

[Anonymous No.5798305]

>>5798294
The point is using context to understand how a game is good, retard.

[Anonymous No.5798307]

>>5798305
If you need context to appreciate a game, it shows the game has aged and can't stand on its own merits anymore.

[Anonymous No.5798308]

>>5798160
I agree. I just got done with my stick and hoop outside and now plan to churn butter. All night worth of fun!

I might even play with my top, but I don't think I could handle that much fun in one night!

[Anonymous No.5798312]

>>5798307
>If you need context to appreciate a game
Context is part of appreciating anything in life idiot.

[Anonymous No.5798314]

>>5798308
Churning butter isn't recreational you dumb fuck. People do still play with the other two around the world as well.

[Anonymous No.5798316]

>>5798312
So you admit not only games age, but many others thing do. I agree with that.

[Anonymous No.5798321]

>>5798316
They point is they don't age idiot and to critique them with modern standards is what you're doing because you have no ability to use context or understand what that means.

[Anonymous No.5798323]

>>5798312
>idiot
>>5798305
>retard
>>5798282
>dumb
>>5798260
>muh mental gymnastics
>>5798253
>retarded

Literally every post. Who hurt you, anon?

[Anonymous No.5798326]

>>5798054
>$15 controllers
I fucking miss that shit.

[Anonymous No.5798330]

The reason I can't get on board with "games age" is how it files away a lot of personal preferences as "dated". It's expecting everyone that likes video games loves slogging through a 20-hour cutscene-fest with no consequences for screwing up, and the only goal being to "beat" the game, with nothing challenging offered afterwards.

I like short games where playing for a long time means you're doing exceptionally well, and I like most of my time with a game to be replaying and trying to crack personal bests. These games are usually targeted as "aged", so if anything "games that haven't aged well" is recommendations for me.

[Anonymous No.5798336]

>>5798307
This is true, but you can't be a retard and claim that things like intentional design choices like Castlevania's jump mechanics are bad because you suck at them or that random encounters are bad because you don't like them.

I had a pretty good idea as a kid what games were time wasters versus which were classics. The best ones stand up against anything new released. The rest I'll never play again, because why would you waste time playing games that were mediocre 25 years ago.

[Anonymous No.5798340]

>>5798054
Games were designed with the console's technical limitations in mind. When you have to make concessions to things like how many sprites you can have on a single scanline or limited number of colors on screen at once, and RAM measured in kilobytes it forced a shit ton of creativity. There was very little "average" back then. Games either made shit work and were just plain awesome or they failed so hard that they barely functioned.

So yeah, they do age on the grounds that the "painters" weren't using the same canvas. A game like Super Mario Bros. 3 would never be made to resemble what it turned out to be had the designers not been backed into a technological corner. Necessity is the father of innovation.

[Anonymous No.5798357]

>>5798321
You idiot.
That you acknowledge there's something called "modern standards" is proof that games do age.
>>5798336
>you can't be a retard and claim that things like intentional design choices like Castlevania's jump mechanics are bad because you suck at them or that random encounters are bad because you don't like them.
No, I haven't said this. I saw a bit of the video in the OP and lost it when the guy said "regenerating health" as if that was a "quality of life feature" and not a game mechanic some decide to use and others don't.

[Anonymous No.5798378]

>>5798357
Sorry if I implied that you personally said. I'm saying one can't say things like that, generally.

[Anonymous No.5798448]

>>5798378
No problem anon.

[Anonymous No.5798473]

>>5798448
Don't post drawn pictures of young girls you fucking pedophile.

[Anonymous No.5798489]

>>5798296
OP here. Most the video pissed me off but this was desu the worst offense, goddamn

[Anonymous No.5798535]

>>5798054
Ugh, games only age if you can't appreciate them for their objective qualities and constantly compare them to what's new. I played the shit out of SMB yesterday; it was fun and I think it's a good game. Knowing that other games have come later and tweaked/refined the formula doesn't invalidate the fun I had. I swear people nowadays can only get their opinions from top ten lists and don't know how to appreciate anything on its own

[Anonymous No.5798552]

>>5798473
Damn, man. Being a pedophobe isn't cool. Nor is being a loliphobe.

[Anonymous No.5798601]

>>5798054
games are more closely tied to technology than other forms of media like film and especially literature. you can watch a film from a hundred years ago and it still holds up today, or read a work of literature from two thousand years ago and it's still insightful and relevant. i'm not sure if games are the same way - we'll have to get younger generations to play 'retro' games and tell us. personally i'm definitely not interested in games that were before my time, so our attachment might indeed be the product of nostalgia

[Anonymous No.5798602]

>>5798473
^^^^ this

post shit like that again and i'll fucking kill you

[Anonymous No.5798605]

>>5798601
>you can watch a film from a hundred years ago and it still holds up today

Do you actually watch old films?

[Anonymous No.5798708]

>>5798605
This.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari may have caused
>women in the audience to scream during the famous scene in which Cesare is revealed
Do that shit today and people will laugh their asses off. And not just that, even filmmaking itself has aged. I think films from the 60s and 70s hold up, and from the 80s we pretty much have modern filmmaking established.

[Anonymous No.5798716]

>>5798708
I mean, I like old movies. Many of my favorite movies were made before I was born. I grew up watching old movies.

But the idea that they aren't often "dated" is ridiculous.

[Anonymous No.5798729]

>>5798054
Everything ages, video games included. People who don't understand the concept are inept and or illiterate. This isn't an opinion, it's simple plain fact.

[Anonymous No.5798731]

>>5798054
Everything ages. Even the perpetual manchildren ,obsessed with games aging, who never grow up age.

[Anonymous No.5798734]

>>5798054

The best games don´t age, they are always fun because they are perfectly designed to be fun.

The things that age poorly are the ones that are already kinda wathever on its day. Just look at the first Assasin´s creed, that shit aged worse than many 8 bit games because most of its selling hook was the awesum graphix.

The console that aged the worst for me was the n64, that generation in general, the 3d was not good enought, games looked ugly even for back then, the best games of that gen for me are the psx jrpgs that use 2d heavily or a mix of the two but in something like Mario 4 the seems are showing.

[Anonymous No.5798741]

>>5798605

do you? i´d watch a Kurosawa or a Kubrick film before any garbage that´s receiveing awards today.

[Anonymous No.5798747]

>>5798601
>or read a work of literature from two thousand years ago and it's still insightful and relevant.

Except the anotations for even something writen a few hundred years ago are bigger than the actual book. If you don´t put something like the Iliad or the Odisey in proper cultural and historical context you are basically reading nonsense.

[Anonymous No.5798749]

>>5798159

thinking that you need to insert current year politics into current year games is a very zoomer thing to think

[Anonymous No.5798754]

>>5798115
This is a funny statement considering one of the big criticisms people here tend to lob at modern games is they have too long tutorials teaching you the systems where with old arcade style games it was instant simple fun from the first second.

[Anonymous No.5798759]

>>5798734
>The best games don´t age, they are always fun because they are perfectly designed to be fun.

They still aged, they just aged well. Aged doesn't mean bad.

[Anonymous No.5798769]

>>5798741
Those are films that are known for having aged well. Their influences, some of them, are so deep that they are still evident in film today. So these old movies still feel fresh in a lot of ways.
Some films, even well known and influential ones, have aged less well. No one is going to watch silent Nosferatu or 1931 Frankenstein and get the same effect audiences got in their day. Those films have aged despite their importance. The likes of Kurosawa films, not so much.

[Anonymous No.5798771]

>>5798747
>If you don´t put something like the Iliad or the Odisey in proper cultural and historical context you are basically reading nonsense.

Confirmed for having never read either of them. The Odyssey is a fantastic story even if you don't know the context and Illiad is some of the most balls to the wall action that's ever been written and is likewise and excellent human story about the rage of grief. Yeah it presumes the audience knew the rest of the story (they're just parts afterall) but they're still great stories either way.

[Anonymous No.5798779]

>>5798741
Those aren't even close to 100 years old.

[Anonymous No.5798806]

>>5798716
Most of my favorite films were made in the 80s and 90s, and I was born in 1992. I feel that those decades really perfect cinema. The big exception, I feel, are horror/scary films, which tend to age poorly.

[Anonymous No.5798828]

Some games age really well.

[Anonymous No.5798849]

>>5798806
That's interesting

I think any horror made after 2000 is borderline unwatchable and really old ones from the 1930s or earlier are still entertaining

[Anonymous No.5798850]

>>5798771

If you never actually studied the context and don´t understand the culture and mithology behind it to at least some extent you just get a superficial experience thats only the tip of the iceberg, same with Faustus or Gilgamesh or the Divine comedy. Some of the editions for all those books literally do have a larger portion of anotations than the actual writings.

Most likely you are another kid who read the sinopsis and watched the Brad Pitt movie in highschool , the actual work itself was written for a specific culture and time and takes for granted the audience is aware of many things that receive no particular explanation. Hell, the Illiad starts in like the middle of the story of the war of Troy, it assumes right off the bat you know who the characters are and how they got there because its part of greek mithology. If you were the original audience you already knew.

[Anonymous No.5798858]

>>5798769

But i enjoy both Nosferatu and Frankenstein, those films didn´t need modern technology to convey a mood visually. The black and white lighting and set pieces for all the original universal horror movies look great today , the logic behind them is pretty solid so they convey the same thing even when its not a novelty today.

[Anonymous No.5798862]

Horror is a genre where 95% is z-grade garbage and always has been. But I definitely feel that 1970s era had the most genuinely unsettling horror films.

[Anonymous No.5798871]

>>5798850
>Most likely you are another kid who read the sinopsis and watched the Brad Pitt movie in highschool ,

Meow! But no, I've read both in several translations (though the first was in hnighschool) and this one, many times over the years.

Brad Pitt's catastrophe broke my heart.

Anyways I still disagree, of coursethe context adds a lot but even without it they're still compelling amazing stories. Ditto with Gilgamesh.

[Anonymous No.5798876]

>>5798850
>Most likely you are another kid who read the sinopsis and watched the Brad Pitt movie in highschool ,

Meow! But no, I've read both in several translations (though the first was in hnighschool) and this one, many times over the years.

Brad Pitt's catastrophe broke my heart.

Anyways I still disagree, of coursethe context adds a lot but even without it they're still compelling amazing stories. Ditto with Gilgamesh.

[Anonymous No.5798904]

>>5798308
Yeah, stick hoop and tops are just no fun anymore. Now, fidget spinners those are a blast!

[Anonymous No.5798930]

>>5798806

Big budget movies in the 80s were so good and so iconic that AAA studios decided they didn´t need innovation anymore since they found the golden formula.

Same shit happened with videogames in the ps2 era. Most games are still a rehash of what was being done 10-15 years ago but with better graphics and lootboxes, thats why the ps2 is not a retro console for me, even disregarding the deliberate cut date of 1999. Developers found gameplay things that worked and they are running with the same things to this day, the brown age of vidia is going to be remembered forever as particularly unremarkable and we haven´t exactly moved forward enough from it.

>>5798849

I watch Haxan, Santa Sangre and Kwaidan every year around Halloween.

[Anonymous No.5798939]

>>5798171
Truly the worst timeline.

[Anonymous No.5798945]

>>5798759

we could loose ourselves in the semantics all day anon. I prefer to keep the term for things that did become arcaic or are not fun today comparatively.

[Anonymous No.5798953]

Release window definitely plays a role on a game's impact, namely insofar as how it depicts market trends in its time and how the market becomes diluted with its influence thereafter. Cinematic games like Metal Gear Solid don't have the same impact now that the entire industry has shifted in its direction. People talk about SotN being too hard like it was always a problem, but they forget at the time it first came out, the only other CV games were of the balls-hard variety and many people saw its laxness a welcome departure in the try-not-to-die department.

[Anonymous No.5798968]

More interesting than the idea of games ageing is how games can sometimes seem to faintly hint at future (now past) games that never exist. They still kind of stimulate the imagination as to what the next entry in the series could be, even if you know the series died or the next entry was nothing like that.
i.e. playing Mario 64 you might imagine a sequel on the N64, which would be a future game in the Mario series in 1996 when Mario 64 was released but a retro game in 2019 had it actually been released in say 1997-8. Basically, an imagined future of the past. Maybe I've just overdosed on hauntology.

[Anonymous No.5798969]

>>5798945
It's not semantics, it's the simple meaning. Everything ages. Whether it ages well or poorly and to what degree is an aspect of that. To just say something has aged and think you're saying that it aged badly is incorrect. You can choose to continue being wrong, but know it's your lazy choice.

[Anonymous No.5799010]

>>5798953
>People talk about SotN being too hard
?

[Anonymous No.5799038]

>>5798969
Exact definitions mean nothing to the 3 or 4 autistics that think games can't age.

Age = time something has existed.

[Anonymous No.5799040]

Some do in the sense that you play new games and get used to new standards which makes returning to some other games way harder.

[Anonymous No.5799086]

>>5798858
Yeah, you enjoy them. But I doubt you find them frightening. Certainly not in the same way their earliest audiences did. That's the sense in which I mean they've aged.

[Anonymous No.5799095]

Anyone got any good print ads for genesis or super nintendo?
Some of the really good ones from back then during the competition?

[Anonymous No.5799190]

Games "aging" is almost always shorthand for "I'm not interested in understanding the context that this came out in, and I think that's the game's fault." If you said "I don't like THPS1 because not having manuals means I can't link together long combos, which is what I like the series for," then I'd understand. If you said "THPS1 didn't age well because it doesn't have manuals," I'd think you're a dipshit who can't tell the difference between subjective preferences and objective issues and flaws.

[Anonymous No.5799193]

The definition of aged: FMV games on Sega CD like Sewer Shark.

[Anonymous No.5799406]

>>5799038
Yeah and they don't matter.

[Anonymous No.5799407]

>>5799193
But those weren't good even when they were new.

[Anonymous No.5799413]

List games that have aged.
There are none. Data does not decay over time. Graphics don't become worse. Aged games is a myth and a deceptive phrase used by charlatans.

[Anonymous No.5799446]

>>5799413
Lol illiteracy

[Anonymous No.5799453]

>>5799193
This is pretty accurate really >>5799407 games that were already crap don't age badly the same way something that was revolutionary when it was new but was surpassed to a point of near redundancy.

So though Sewer Shark didn't get better with age, certainly it also didn't get much worse. Street Fighter 1 is a near perfect example of aging badly.

[Anonymous No.5799470]

>>5799453
No it isn't.

[Anonymous No.5799476]

>>5799470
Lol

[Anonymous No.5799483]

>>5799453
SF1 was a generic fighting game when it was released, it's as bad as pretty much every pre-SF2 fighting game. In my mind, a game that "aged bad" is some game which was too praised back then and nowadays it's pretty much unplayable. I'm pretty sure original SF wasn't praised as an amazing game when it was released, while SF2 was praised to death and still is a pretty solid, while sometimes bugged, game in 2019

[Anonymous No.5799490]

>>5799483
There was no such thing as a generic fighting game when it came out. I remember when it first appeared and it really did seem amazing.

[Anonymous No.5799782]

>>5798849
It depends on the kind of horror we are looking at, e.g. I saw Halloween and it was stupid, then saw the latest Halloween and it was also stupid but it was scarier, which isn't saying much.

[Anonymous No.5799795]

Thief: The Dark Project is one game that for instance I don't consider to have aged poorly, gameplay-wise. We can talk about the graphics, but I found the game to be incredibly enjoyable nowadays.

With better graphics, it's one game that could easily release today. The major difference would be that journalists would call it a "hardcore game" because it doesn't have quest arrows, minimaps, buttom prompts, etc. (which in itself could be considered a form of ageing, as most games make use of those nowadays).