AndroidArtsMay 5, 2024
The most complex game thing I had to deal with as a kid was preloading with a Turbo/Fast loader.
The amount of "meta" now with updates, accounts and competing services has greatly eroded my interest, but it might just be me getting old.
I think I would probably have been background-noise angry if loading games on my C64 was as complicated as gaming is today.
Show threadArantorMay 5, 2024

@androidarts I find the indie scene tends to eschew a lot of that stuff where you can just buy a game and play a game.

The updates question is different; games back in the day tended not to get updates, but because the tools are there now, devs tend to use them.

I do wonder if there's a need for a more permanent sense of persistence about a release.

Show threadAndroidArtsMay 5, 2024

@arantor On the Amiga, some games did have versions (sometimes pseudo-sequels), I guess. I think modern games get more updates simply because it can be done, and also because of game balance for competitive, which wasn't really a thing in in the past, nor was mutable hardware.

Personally I think a preferable way to handle it is to get optional larger updates... less nagging every time a game is started. Unless the game somehow needs constant content injection, that is.

Show threadArantorMay 5, 2024

@androidarts Sure, there were expansions and pseudo-sequels and full-blown sequels (and whatever is happening with SWOS these days!), but nothing like the patch culture and incremental updates of today.

I feel like we lost something in all our technological progress of the last 30 years.

There is a desire that because we can, we must. Mind you, it also seems like a game is declared 'dead' if it doesn't have continuous updates...

Show threadBlackthorn
@arantor @androidarts another thing, I think, is that a constant flow of updates gives you the idea that the game is "alive", that the devs "engage with the community" and this is very important for young players. I've seen negative comments for games on Steam where the user had over 100 hours in it, but still commenting "devs abandoned the project, do not buy" but according to other reviewers the game was actually completed.
May 7, 2024 at 4:05pmWeb
Show threadBlackthornMay 7, 2024
@arantor @androidarts that being said, I bought Elite Dangerous on a discount, discovered that an account on their website was mandatory to play in single player and refunded it without logging a single minute into the game.