[HN Gopher] Why old games never die, but new ones do
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Why old games never die, but new ones do
Author : airhangerf15
Score : 26 points
Date : 2025-05-24 21:29 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pleromanonx86.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (pleromanonx86.wordpress.com)
| mattnewton wrote:
| The article kinda dances around this point, but I think the
| largest reason "old games never die" is simply the old games
| mentioned were the good ones of their generation.
|
| Similar to the lindy effect[0] where shows that had been around a
| while were likely to stay around a while longer. The are the
| games good enough for people to host fan servers and make mods,
| and behind each good game there is a lot of forgotten stuff that
| didn't inspire anyone to preserve it.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect#:~:text=The%20Lin...
| gmuslera wrote:
| I would put focus in the survivorship bias too. He is looking
| and the survivors, and trying to figure out why they survived,
| and not the ones that didn't make it and could had some the
| same strengths, but still are not around anymore (and not even
| counted as "old games").
|
| You have MAME and other console emulators with thousands of
| games, but how much of them are present on today's culture?
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Yeah, how many old games do people _really_ remember and keep
| playing? Maybe a hundred? 2 hundred? That 's out of tens of
| thousands of games.
| DarkNova6 wrote:
| A good and interesting article, but mimicing old games will
| simply not work.
|
| While it would be admirable to have old features back, some of
| the largest problem these days is fragmentation.
|
| Up until the 2000s, a new AAA game was a shared event. Fewer
| games were released, magazines acted as moderators for a common
| understanding of the market and each game tried to trump its
| competitors.
|
| Games these days simply left more of an impact than a game
| nowadays ever could. Not to mention a younger average target
| demographic, which is now sticking to games of their prime.
| nntwozz wrote:
| This is correct, same theory as the long tail for music bands.
|
| It was more of a monoculture.
|
| https://youtu.be/WPmJoucUXNY
| Buttons840 wrote:
| We're lacking a middle ground in copyright law that would allow
| people to play Mario Bros 3 on the NES for free, but doesn't give
| everyone the right to use the Mario IP, or to resell it en masse.
| (It's only possible right now because of incomplete law
| enforcement.)
|
| The purpose of copyright is to encourage creation, but rent-
| seeking on a decades old game is not it.
|
| Copyright and patents encourage creation and invention.
| Trademarks protect consumers. These laws should not do more than
| this.
| V__ wrote:
| I think survivorship bias and nostalgia are bigger factors.
| Besides that, there are many more game releases now than ever
| before, so it is much harder to land a hit which will "survive"
| over the years.
| ivape wrote:
| The current crowds move together through games. If everyone is
| not into a game, it dies because the friend group never goes
| "lets all go play that". Current game marketing is centered
| around influencers really pushing the idea that "this is the
| place to be", they don't really sell any other vibe. It's like
| club hopping.
| esseph wrote:
| Kinda.
|
| There's a lot of very good single player games out there that
| this does not touch on.
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