| The_Liquid_Laser said: You hit the nail on the head. It's all about game preservation and that is why digital only sucks. I feel that a person really appreciates physical media when they see a game they really like become no longer available to play. The digital only movement is really a way to fool younger people who haven't experienced this pain yet. |
Digital on PC was more about convenience than consoles, when PC had physical media you also had intrusive DRM schemes (They still exist though), but you also had stupid CD Keys that consoles never had.
Then you had CD Keys+Exclusive game clients/launchers from all the different publishers... And needed to patch games individually from the publishers website.
I used to Install StarCraft: Brood Wars every time I upgraded/reformatted/replaced my PC, so I actually learned my CD Key off by heart... And was required for Battle.net play.
Now it's all in once place on Steam and far less hoops to jump through.
| The_Liquid_Laser said: 1) MMO's that change. You'll never be able to go back and play the version of the MMO that you really liked, and eventually the servers close and the game is gone for good. Now realize that this actually applies to any game that relies on a server (like online shooters). Once that server dependent game is gone. It's gone. |
Sometimes modders/communities band together and re-host old MMO's in their original inception, obviously that can only work on PC...
| The_Liquid_Laser said: 3) Retro PC gaming. It's a pain in the butt if it isn't on gog.com, and even then it isn't perfect. I've heard people sing the praises of how PC gaming is perfectly backwards compatible, but in my experience that isn't so. For example, I tried playing my physical version of Freedom Force a couple of years ago, and it didn't work on the current version of Windows. I did some google searching to find out how to update, but every solution that was claimed to work actually didn't work. Maybe I could have got it to work if I put several more hours of work into it, but I found it easier to just buy the game again from gog.com. Even then they don't have the original intro to the game anymore. That is probably something I will never experience again. And a lot of old games are not on gog.com. |
Virtual machine is your friend. Perfect backwards compatibility.
Just setup a VM on your desktop, load Windows 98SE (Or whatever OS that is best for that era of games) and bobs your uncle.
Or do what I do... And build an era-correct PC.
| The_Liquid_Laser said: Do you know what kind of gaming doesn't have any of these problems? Console gaming on a pre-internet console. If I want to play a PS2 game, I just turn on the system and put the disc in and start playing. It's so easy. That is the beauty of these old consoles. But the newer consoles aren't even that great. Games now require patches and a lot of games are just a disc/cart that let you download the game. That sucks. I would totally buy something like a Metal Gear collection if there was no downloading. But downloading really means there is no game preservation going on. However, if the game is 100% on your cart or disc then that game is there as long as the physical medium exists. Your hardware can die and you can replace it and still play the games. This is the sort of thing we are losing with the push toward digital gaming. |
Games are also ballooning in size... It makes it hard to fit a game on disc/cart these days when the media itself hasn't actually kept up with increased data sizes.
We need a successor to Blu-Ray.
| Chrkeller said: And having a dozen old systems just isn't practical. Heck I'm not sure a snes would even connect to my current TV. |
Component/Composite to HDMI adapters exist, even a scaler would be a good choice.
However older games that used CRT's unique "behaviours" to make effects like translucent water by checkerboarding the sprite and the display naturally blurring the pixels will never look great on a modern display anyway.
--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--
