I’ve written before that I appreciate good old games. I’m not the only one.
Good Old Games is what I wish Steam would be. No DRM, relatively cheap access to games from the entirety of gaming history (still working on that one), modern OS compatibility, and no internet connection required to actually play. I just buy the games, download them, and play to my heart’s content. If my hard drive crashes, I download it again, no charge. This is the promise and beauty of digital distribution; low overhead, low maintenance, digital property and tech-savvy customers.
Why do publishers and devs abandon good old games?
OK, so beyond shilling for a cool site, what does this mean for the game industry? Well, there’s this thing called “abandonware” that is the retro gamer’s dirty little secret. It’s kin to ROM emulation, and resides in a legal grey zone. Sort of.
Strictly speaking, it’s piracy. I have no qualms calling it that, even though it does mean that by doing so, I cut myself off from the gaming nerdvana that it might supply. I refuse to pirate software. The temptation is great at times, but I’ve chosen not to go that route, so I don’t cave in. Still, I can empathize completely with the “abandonware” mindset; the publishers and devs have all but tossed these games in the trash, despite the fact that people would play them, and even pay for them. Distributing them is part historical tribute, part public service.
I don’t see myself as the young revolutionary any more, though, having grown out of my “rebel with a cause” phase. These days, I just kvetch about things here and try to find sympathetic ears, all while biding my time and building my “street cred” in the industry itself. You know, the “when I’m the CEO” mindset. In the meantime, the relentless march of technology keeps me from playing Descent and Star Control 2 on my new WinXP machine. (There’s a rant in there about backwards compatibility, but I probably should just refer to my “Planned Obsolescence” article.) These are games I own, and would love to install on a new machine and play, but it just doesn’t work.
This is even true on the consoles. Backwards compatibility is one of the big reasons I purchased a PS2. Since Sony has dropped that ability from the PS3, I’m completely uninterested in the system. The GameBoy systems have typically been very good about this, but again, I’m not interested in the new DS system because it drops the GBA slot. I have a whole library of games that I want to keep playing or replay.
Beyond the mere consumer frustration, though, there are larger undercurrents to consider. The gaming industry is young, but it still has a history, and the way that gamers binge on the latest and greatest has had the unfortunate effect of killing good old games. Publishers and development houses wither and die as the cruel Moore’s Law effect and consumer ADHD consigns their hard work to “that is so yesterday” status. Some parts of our history aren’t simply being ignored, but are being actively destroyed.
Some of these old games were actually good. Some blazed trails that modern games tread with heavy clodhopper boots. No, Pong isn’t exactly the epitome of game design, but the gameplay elements of games like Elite or Privateer are still relevant today. Yes, Freelancer did a lot of things right, but they also dropped the ball on some design issues that had already been solved in the older games. (Let us not mention Privateer 2.) Magic Carpet 2 wasn’t a perfect game, but it made for some great fun, and there’s still nothing quite like it. StarCraft has much to teach us about balance. There still isn’t a good sequel or successor to Master of Magic. Many people still play Scorched Earth, and while there is a 3D version, people still play the 16 color iteration. These old games are FUN, and that element has been lost in the shuffle.
Game designers who are content to build their own mousetrap and reinvent the wheel are not tapping into the design knowhow of previous generations. We see this sort of wanton progress in pretty much any human endeavor, but games have advanced so rapidly that there’s little time to really learn from the past before you make the same mistakes. Modern designers just make the mistakes bigger and more expensively.
I fear we have lost much in the relentless quest for higher resolution grunge, denser explosions, enhanced mammary physics and assorted “bling”. We’ve bought into style over substance and are paying for it with a dearth of game play innovation and evolution. (Must… not… make… political… comments…)
Sites like Good Old Games are tapping into the retro trend, anti DRM sentiment, and the beauty of digital distribution. If only more publishers and devs joined their cause.
“I fear we have lost much in the relentless quest for higher resolution grunge, denser explosions, enhanced mammary physics and assorted “bling”. ”
I have this (probably over-optimistic) theory that this “phase” of gaming history is starting to run down. First, graphics and mammary rendering don’t have that much farther to go. They are approaching “good enough” for most gamers. And second, suddenly “indie” games with gleefully non-realistic graphics are starting to get huge traction.
The beauty of sites like Good Old Games (and for the record, I’m a happy Steam customer as well) is that the price points are so low that even if I have the game in a closet somewhere, my time is valuable enough that I’d rather buy and download it than dig it out, install it and figure out how to get it patched and running under XP or Vista.
And to the GoG people: Missionforce: Cyberstorm, please!
There is a certain amount of nostalgia attached to all of these old, but certainly good, games. I did try to load up one of my old SSI titles about 6 months ago, including reading up on emulating DOS/Win 95 (can’t remember which), and failed miserably.
It’s a shame really, that “bling” continues to seem to win out over gameplay. It’s symptomatic even in reviews – see the Gamespot review of Fantasy Wars – where, IMHO, it’s the fault of the reviewer to not take the time to think and plan (and even “save often”, lol) his turns in the game. And as a result, blames the game for being too hard.
My point being, that most gamers have moved on to RTS, FPS, action type games with as much explosive and/or bloody “bling” as possible. And that sells better than deep gameplay.
Tying this back to Atlantica Online, there are quite a few miscellaneous forum posts by kids who immediately criticize the turn based combat as being “too random” rather than actually realizing that there’s a lot more control than they might initially see.
Windows Vista is a beast. Panzer General for Windows does not run under Vista anymore at all. It worked with compatibility mode under Windows XP, but not under Vista.
You can find Panzer General at various Abandonware sites. I liked the Windows version more than the DOS version, because it worked beautifully in Windows. The graphics aged with grace and still look good, bitmap sprites, not 3D stuff that looks dated after a few months.
Panzer General spawned an entire series of Generals, but NONE managed to be as good as the original one. They even deviated a lot from the original which actually rewarded strategy and thinking. The balance was outstanding. The also popular Panzer General II had a stupid mechanic that allowed a single overstrength Tank to “overrun” enemy units. If it got destroyed/routed in one attack, the tank could move on and attack another time. So if the tank was a German Tiger II and pimped to the extreme, it could attack till the final objective under certain circumstances, while movement without fighting would only have had 1/3 of the range covered.
To put it bluntly, Panzer General/Allied General are still awesome games, even by today’s standards. Their successors were okay at release but now they are just old crap.
My new laptop came with Vista, now I have fancy loading bars in millions of colors and semi-transparent glass-effect “aero” windows. Wow…
But Panzer General for Windows does not run anymore. Grrrrrrrrr……… *roar*
I also treasure Ultima Online. In many aspects it was more complete than modern day MMOs like World of Warcraft. I said it at the release of WoW and when comparing UO to EverQuest, it is such a pity that the addiction-based Levelquest system won over Ultima Onlines world.
Agreed, Longasc. Nothing has really come close to the “worldiness” (I forget who coined that term over at Stylish Corpse but I’m stealing it!) of Ultima Online.
“There still isn’t a good sequel or successor to Master of Magic.”
Coolest. Game. Ever.
Jason (resident drunken idiot of Channel Massive)
Indeed. I loved Master of Magic. Heroes of Might and Magic III was at least somewhat similar and really good, too. I should try HOMM V again, but somehow IV and V did not really give me the same excitement as part III, which had extremely well done graphics for its time. I did not like some design decisions for HOMM IV and the animations and models of HOMM V are not my kind of cake somehow.
I was a big MoM (and MoO) fan, too.
Gal Civ I & II captures some of that magic, but not as well as the earlier games, IMHO.
…oh, and I was a big fan of Panzer General, too! The glory years for SSI.
Cyberstorm was awesome indeed. Seems a lot of people have fond memories of the very same games.
I also loved “Battlezone” http://www.allgame.com/cg/agg.dll?p=agg&sql=1:18377 – not many people liked it, most did not even know it, and most prefered the sequel Battlezone II that I did not like at all.
I am about to give Fallout 3 a try, but I can already tell you, I miss the isometric 3d perspective of Fallout 1+2 already. I have a certain love for this kind of perspective. This is why I hate our modern times, mostly full 3d ego-perspectives games. Seems the perspective and use of “3D Studio MAX” and “Lightwave” and their successors became mandatory.
It’s funny you would mention Max. I’ve mentioned it before, but my Bachelor’s degree is in the Fine Arts (a BFA), specializing in computer animation. I was trained to do Pixar quality visuals and animation. I specialized in rigging and animation, working in Maya. I’ve since worked in two different game studios, one using Maya, the other using Max. I know how to do super high end visuals, but I spend a lot of my “working” life doing relatively low poly stuff with small textures. My career hinges on creating interesting and appealing art assets for games.
But I still love the old Sierra adventure games. I love MOO and MOM. I’m a sucker for Scorched Earth. Gameplay rules in my little world, even though I make a living making pretty stuff. To me, the art is still important, but if the game itself isn’t any fun, art can’t save it.
@Long: Oooooooooh Battlezone! Man I loved that. Even got the expansion for it. I wish BZ2 had been better programmed — I *still* have performance issues with it (before the days of hardware TnL and all that jazz) but the two lead devs *still* put out the occasional patch for the game! Last one was a few months ago.
A lot of the older games I tend to notice have that whole “rose-colored lenses” thing going for them, then I install one and it’s like “whoah… this can’t be right, I thought I used to love this! This is CRAP!”
However… *snipes the jerk at Sierra who took down all the Tribes & Tribes 2 servers*
To me, not including backward compatibility is understandable in consoles, because you want to be shuffling bits as fast as algorithmically possible, and mandating a few conditions on software or swapping into specific rendering API is simply better for that. Plus, you’re not necessarily looking at game software getting direct access to your memory map or anything like that any more.
Some nights I dream, though, of publishers releasing fantastic old games’ source code, like Maxis with SimCity 2000 or (more recently) Microsoft with Mechcommander 2.
I don’t deny that I possess ROMs to many games that I purchase, simply because I prefer to play them on my desktop (larger monitor, don’t have to deal with The Wide World of Console Crashes, load and boot times are negligable, I can play with whatever controller I want.) Besides which, CDs get scratched, wires get worn…
I wish we had a universal emulation system – an emulator capable of running DOS, Win 95, NES, SNES, PS, and so forth, and then the subsequent release of code/ROMs from publishers.
Though, on the publisher side, I can see why it’s not a high priority…
Besides which, retailer reaction would probably be unfavorable. But then digital distribution is on the rise…
I’ve played with two ROMs, and I had a handy justification for both (though I no longer have them, or an emulator). One was Secret of Evermore, which I only grabbed because the cart crashed. The other was Seiken Densetsu 3, which I figured was never released in the States anyway, so I was just um… researching.
I still wish they would release that game to the States.
I definitely wish there were a universal emulator, and that the devs would release their code. Some people will definitely see the “rose colored lenses” when they try older games, but there will also be those who find some value in them. (I’ve dealt with a little of both, actually, sometimes in the same game.)
Indeed, with digital distribution, especially the GOG.com model, it’s possible to find a market for these good old games. If nothing else, I’m hoping that they will be available for archival reference. Looking at the design decisions of games like SimCity 2000 (I never did have the patience for the later iterations, but loved 2000) may well help future projects. I’m just as interested in that benefit to the industry as I am in the personal benefits of playing old, beloved games.
Mmm… MOM, MOO…
This is similar to my shock at why failed MMOs don’t do the right thing and open source their server side code. Let people who loved the game keep it going. Heck, set up a basic license system so a little money flows back to you if need be.
There are games out there that had thousands or tens of thousands of devoted fans. When the MMO shuts down, that’s it. I think that is such a waste.
I know the argument is “if we give that away for free, they won’t play our next game because they will still be playing the old one.” And when you piss them off by killing a game they love, how excited are they to play any more games from you? But if you give them something generous like this, how much more willing are they to try your next game? Think about it publishers.
-Michael
Muckbeast – Game Design and Online Worlds
http://www.muckbeast.com
That’s actually has happened, at least for one MMO I can call off the top of my head: Uru Live is now open-source because Cyan Worlds couldn’t keep it going.
On second consideration, I would imagine most games now aren’t opened because the publishers are worried about licensing issues and the game engine. (If the game music wasn’t composed in-house, typically you need to renegotiate the license if you change the price/volume of your product. If the game engine is bought off another company, you can’t open the source for that.)
>_<
Where’s the edit button on this thing?
That’s what I get for changing tenses constantly during revisions…
Waffles, Microsoft released the MechCommander 2 sourcecode??? Wooot? Please tell me more.
I will google for more info about that right now anyways, just in case I do not find it.
I’m sure you’ve found it by now, it’s pretty much the top result: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=6D790CDE-C3E5-46BE-B3A5-729581269A9C&displaylang=en
It was released as part of a promotion for the XNA system when they opened X-Box 360 development tools to the public, (the X-Box is the only console I know of with an open development kit) intended to boost use of their Visual line of products (Visual C++, Visual C#, etc). I speculate this is one of the reasons downloadable games have been doing so well on the X-Box, but I don’t have any data as to that.
Note, it’s not exactly open-source, it’s shared source. http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=310374&SiteID=1 for the EULA.
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