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Do You Think Retro Gaming as we Know it will be Gone if Cloud/Streaming/All Digital Gaming Becomes the Norm?


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Being someone who likes video games and wants to play them 10-30+ years down the line, stuff like streaming only game systems and all digital systems kind of make me worry about how we'll preserve and play these modern games in the future.

 

Is it going to be next to impossible to play today's games tomorrow through emulation or by using the native console, or have people already found loopholes and such to preserve such stuff? 

 

(Sorry if it sounds like I repeated my first paragraph, I'm very tired at the time of writing this post)

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I'm not interested in streaming games, games that require you to hook up to a dedicated server or require a subscription or sell additional 'virtual items' as a way to soak the player for additional money.  Over the years sites will go down, systems will lose support when they are not making enough money, not only will the games not work, entire consoles may become a worthless pieces of junk.  

 

I'm not a heavy gamer, if I'm generous I may play an hour or two a month, but even then I want to own my games and have them available 24/7 without having to be reliant on any third-party for the privilege of playing my own stuff.  

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Basically coming off that last post, yes, if it went entirely streaming gaming as you know it or even care about it will be dead, at least at a full blown commercial level.  You'll get the online upstarts (indies, etc) who still make things you can buy, download and even make media out of it to buy too.  I don't see that going away unless you find streaming so fast and hardware so capable internal storage is nuked outside of space for the devices own OS and APPS + room for upgraded files/OS expansions within the life of the product.

 

In either case you'll be driven underground to those who fight back on an independent level, or you buy increasingly older stuff and cling to using that to find your fun.

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10 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

or you buy increasingly older stuff and cling to using that to find your fun.

I'm probably going to do that. I already told myself if next gen is all digital or (god forbid) streaming only I'm going to only buy Nintendo products, and after they switch to all digital or streaming only i'm just going to buy games 20XX backwards.

Edited by Magmavision2000
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21 hours ago, Magmavision2000 said:

Being someone who likes video games and wants to play them 10-30+ years down the line, stuff like streaming only game systems and all digital systems kind of make me worry about how we'll preserve and play these modern games in the future.

 

Is it going to be next to impossible to play today's games tomorrow through emulation or by using the native console, or have people already found loopholes and such to preserve such stuff? 

 

(Sorry if it sounds like I repeated my first paragraph, I'm very tired at the time of writing this post)

This is one reason there will be much resistance to an all-streaming future, because it will erode consumer rights.   Companies don't care about 95% of old games, just the handful that are still profitable to include in flashback collections.  

 

If you are someone who only cares about new games, doesn't use mods, doesn't care about have bragging rights about having the latest hardware, and has a very fast and reliable internet collection, then streaming is for you.   But there are tons of people who don't check all those boxes and are going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a streaming future.

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Yes, I think streaming has the potential to kill retro gaming as we know it today, but it'll still exist in a different form. It's all just about companies finding ways to extract more money from you by getting you to either subscribe to a retro gaming channel on a monthly basis, or by selling games to you over and over every time a new service comes out. The fact that you can buy an old system now and purchase used physical copies of old games and own them yourself forever must horrify the game companies. That's a potential sucke... um, "customer" that they don't currently have access to.

 

Obviously the older systems and games that are already out there won't suddenly cease to exist, although their numbers will just naturally dwindle over time. But if the world switches over en masse to streaming services (which I'm not convinced it will, but I guess it's possible), then there just won't really be retro gaming as we now experience from that point forward. You wouldn't be able to go out and buy a console in 2050 that was made in 2030, because there won't be any such thing, and no way to play games on it even if there was.

 

The PC is not a perfect analogy because in most cases you can still play an old game you purchased 20 years ago on a modern PC *somehow*, and without buying it again, but I think it has some parallels to what might happen with game consoles. Nobody really buys physical PC games anymore, it's at least *harder* to play old games on a modern system (to play 16 bit games, for example, you actually need to run an emulator, and anyway many people don't even have physical drives to install them from anymore), and consequently I feel like physical collecting and retro gaming on PC is barely even a thing, despite the PC having a huge back catalog of great, older games. A lot of these are available on Steam or other services, and I think that's how most people play them now, if they play them at all - through some modern service that requires them to buy the game again. I've done this myself - I've got games like Railroad Tycoon II and the whole X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter series sitting in my Steam library right now, even though I bought them on disk when they were new. These aren't improved versions or remakes or anything, just the same exact games that I have now bought twice because the original release will no longer run on my machine.

 

When you do have old games and new games mixed together in your library, and you're playing them all on a modern system, it doesn't even feel like you're "retro" gaming, it's all just gaming. There's no nostalgia to it. So it's a different experience too. And I expect console retro gaming will be something like this in the future as well, although you might not even "own" the games in your own library at all.

 

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Today's physical media give the illusion of future playability. Most major releases require day one patches to even be playable or to obtain the whole game. If online services cease to exist a whole lot of this console generation's physical games will become coasters.

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2 hours ago, Hyper_Eye said:

Today's physical media give the illusion of future playability. Most major releases require day one patches to even be playable or to obtain the whole game. If online services cease to exist a whole lot of this console generation's physical games will become coasters.

This made me think. Does the Xbox one X even have any native game discs? Id imagine you have to download patches to play in higher quality. That would be pretty bad for the future.

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5 hours ago, Hyper_Eye said:

Today's physical media give the illusion of future playability. Most major releases require day one patches to even be playable or to obtain the whole game. If online services cease to exist a whole lot of this console generation's physical games will become coasters.

Realized that back when the PS3 came out in short order as it took very little time for the HDD to be exploited releasing beta level releases on discs that never would have occurred on the PS2 as they were forced to get it right before release.  When the PS4 was coming up and PS3 stuff I cared about dried up I sold the games before the value plummeted even further.  Some days I wish I had kept a few as the system is still around for media use which it's excellent for.  Then I sit back and remember why and then think how many years it has been since that choice knowing the end is closer than ever from when Sony will want to stop.  Nintendo is that weird one, their steadfast infuriating to some in the industry desire to keep costs down by never having more than a minimal acceptable level of internal storage forces those clowns to still make things work out of the box.  You do get a few jerks who try and pull the wool like with EA and 2K who then turn around get nasty and blame Nintendo owners and not their own incompetence, but on the whole updates you do see are optional (or standard pack style) DLC and quality of life improvements over a game that already is 100% playable on the card for 3DS and Switch, disc before on WiiU too.  Because the wider storage is a choice, they have that concern keeping them from releasing beta guinea pig ware.

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Truth be told, there will always be a physical option... Even on the NEW high end consoles (New Xbox one 8K speced model), will have a media drive in it.  After what people did after the original announcement of the Xbox one, I don't Microsoft OR Sony would make that mistake again. 

 

The ONLY problem you will see if some content/games will not be available via physical.

 

Keep buying physical games and you'll be fine with those games...

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this is an interesting discussion I'm glad hasn't devolved into one of those goofy 'vs' threads.

 

looking at it from a slightly different perspective, i'm not overly concerned about cloud/streaming gaming taking 'over' any time soon- especially in the US where in a lot of areas there are either 1) data caps, 2) really sucky Internet, or 3) combination of 1 and 2. 

 

I do feel like Sony and Microsoft would like to lock players into a digital-only format, if anything so that folks can't trade in games and are locked into it on their account- PC gaming through Steam has gotten us conditioned and used to this forever now, it seems like.  If it's multiplayer and they shut the server down, sucks to be you! (buy our next new game)

 

It's hard to say in 20 years if folks will be able to play their single-player XBox One games (as an example), but I'd imagine on the original console that some degree of modding would be required after the lifecycle of the console has ended.  Nintendo seems to be the holdout with a foot in cartridge-land and a foot in digital, but there's no way to tell how that will fall out.

 

just opinions- 

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On 7/7/2019 at 4:56 PM, Magmavision2000 said:

Is it going to be next to impossible to play today's games tomorrow through emulation or by using the native console, or have people already found loopholes and such to preserve such stuff?

 

It's tough to say what advancements will be made that make that task easier.

 

One thing for certain is the game publishers are going to push streaming and digital as hard and fast as they can. It's the equivalent of a factory doing outsourcing. And that means continued milking of the customer and ever increasing control of the games.

 

I'm personally not much a fan for quadruple AAAAAA titles. They're just too big and the learning curve too high for the reward you get. Besides, they're all the same and have short "self-life".

 

 

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12 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

Serious question: for those who don't play modern games anyway, who gives a flipping toss what happens?

 

Especially since ye olde Retro is emulated so nicely and we can play thousands of arcade, cartridge, and computer games for free or next to nothing. 

I'm kind half-in, half-out.  At the end of the day, though, I feel the same way you do. 

 

I've taken the opportunity several times to laugh at my son when his precious Internet cuts out and I can still play my *offline* Grandpa games.  :D

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A lot of us here are from the time when games didn't need 0-Day patches or other on-line DRM checks and content download.

 

The first generally recognized DLC was like those scenery disks for flight simulator. Or those EAMON adventures. And then much later on, Doom wads. And just prior to all that starting in 1978-1981, many things became available via BBS and AE-line. So "digital" should be nothing new to hardcore oldsters.

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Yeah digital is nothing new at all on the PC end, but also the PC end of things has over the years traditionally guarded that software games or otherwise from expiration infinitely better than the home gaming market devices with their walled gardens and control freak behaviors.  Steam and GoG have made it dramatically far worse for them to look like rigid evil clowns given you can even fire up a 1980s DOS game (thanks to GoG) on Windows 10 without any effort involved, as has Steam with 90s games forward given they have gems like Wolf3D/Doom and forward too.  They patch and re-patch stuff to get it alive and to stay alive.  PC games care not due to this if you're running a 40 year old OS or a 40 month old one, the stuff still works and the availability is pretty vast.  You really can't say that for the other side sadly which is why so many now resort to piracy in some many realms from PC emulators, to android boxes, chinese cheapo devices, and so on.

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On ‎7‎/‎12‎/‎2019 at 4:52 PM, Flojomojo said:

Serious question: for those who don't play modern games anyway, who gives a flipping toss what happens?

 

Especially since ye olde Retro is emulated so nicely and we can play thousands of arcade, cartridge, and computer games for free or next to nothing. 

I believe the point is that in 25 years, today's modern games will be retro games and will we and younger folks be able to play them as retro fans in 2045 like we play 80s and 90s games now?

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On ‎7‎/‎8‎/‎2019 at 3:49 PM, spacecadet said:

Yes, I think streaming has the potential to kill retro gaming as we know it today, but it'll still exist in a different form. It's all just about companies finding ways to extract more money from you by getting you to either subscribe to a retro gaming channel on a monthly basis, or by selling games to you over and over every time a new service comes out. The fact that you can buy an old system now and purchase used physical copies of old games and own them yourself forever must horrify the game companies. That's a potential sucke... um, "customer" that they don't currently have access to.

 

Obviously the older systems and games that are already out there won't suddenly cease to exist, although their numbers will just naturally dwindle over time. But if the world switches over en masse to streaming services (which I'm not convinced it will, but I guess it's possible), then there just won't really be retro gaming as we now experience from that point forward. You wouldn't be able to go out and buy a console in 2050 that was made in 2030, because there won't be any such thing, and no way to play games on it even if there was.

 

The PC is not a perfect analogy because in most cases you can still play an old game you purchased 20 years ago on a modern PC *somehow*, and without buying it again, but I think it has some parallels to what might happen with game consoles. Nobody really buys physical PC games anymore, it's at least *harder* to play old games on a modern system (to play 16 bit games, for example, you actually need to run an emulator, and anyway many people don't even have physical drives to install them from anymore), and consequently I feel like physical collecting and retro gaming on PC is barely even a thing, despite the PC having a huge back catalog of great, older games. A lot of these are available on Steam or other services, and I think that's how most people play them now, if they play them at all - through some modern service that requires them to buy the game again. I've done this myself - I've got games like Railroad Tycoon II and the whole X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter series sitting in my Steam library right now, even though I bought them on disk when they were new. These aren't improved versions or remakes or anything, just the same exact games that I have now bought twice because the original release will no longer run on my machine.

 

When you do have old games and new games mixed together in your library, and you're playing them all on a modern system, it doesn't even feel like you're "retro" gaming, it's all just gaming. There's no nostalgia to it. So it's a different experience too. And I expect console retro gaming will be something like this in the future as well, although you might not even "own" the games in your own library at all.

 

PC retro fans still have DOS box and the like for their 80s and 90s games.

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DOS Box has saved me so many headaches as I have a quite small collection of original games on 3.5 and CD that won't work at all on anything beyond or even including WinXP or 64bit OS's and does so magnificently.  Much as it has been a huge key to much of what GoG hosts from years past too, of which I have a few, and some are even games I have on physical for one reason or another too (like found the real one later, or liked it enough to get the mission packs/bundled sequels too.) PC is its own beast as things have moved along DOS and Win3.X in DOSBox has been sorted out to a level anyone can do it alone or using a frontend (or a GoG pre-pack.)  Win9X-XP has been a bit more problematic depending what kind of installer/executable style was used as 16bit is blocked and some 32bit can be questionable too.  I think in time people will make some kind of WinBox too considering the hoops involved running a VM for most people as it is now.

 

Consoles and handhelds though, not including Android as that is out there with APPs that run as it is a faux environment for those APKs is out there now, many versions in development too.  But the iOS stuff, Nintendo, Sony, Sega, MS, not really outside of emulators and traditional ROMs and ISOs, gets a bit more murky with download shop stuff, and really bad with repair/complete to 1.0+ patches.  If they or someone would sort that out to be as smooth as PC is now with older stuff I think much of the paranoia and push back would dry up.

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