Hmm… Good question… They’ll have to be the kind of videogame that was the first to do something, or set the standard for something, or has had a huge, long lasting cultural impact that can still be felt today.
So in that hypothetical museum I’d nominate:
Pong.
Tetris.
Donkey Kong arcade game.
Super Mario.
Super Mario 64.
Crash Bandicoot
Metroid (the first one).
Castlevania (the original one).
Hollow Knight.
Mario Kart.
The Legend of Zelda (the first one).
TES III Morrowind.
TES V Skyrim.
Doom (the original one).
Half Life.
Counter Strike (the original one).
Ultima.
Ultima Online.
Dune (the RTS game).
Warcraft.
World of Warcraft.
Age of Empires II, perhaps alongside the Definitive Edition.
This is a pretty solid list, but I’d try to bridge the gaps between older games and more modern ones, to show how things progressed. Essentially, you want each section of the museum to tell a story about how some critical building block of gaming was taken from concept to implementation.
I would actually include both the original Castlevania and Metroid then follow it up with Symphony of the Night. Show the original Castlevania game to establish the series, then show Metroid which has the exploration and backtracking with new abilities. Then show SOTN, which shows the combination of the two (effectively cementing the entire Metroidvania genre). Then show a game like Hollow Knight or Ori and the Blind Forest, which goes on to embody the genre several decades after it has been established.
Zelda is a good one, and I’d follow it up with something like Okami, which follows the same dungeon formula in a radically different setting and art style. Again, showing the genre’s establishment, then showing how it can be adapted.
For Final Fantasy, I’d also include FFX, which follows a very similar turn-based playstyle. Maybe include a Dragon Quest game somewhere in there too, as that series tends to stick to the same basic gameplay formula. Then I’d take it in a different direction and show something like Bravely Default, which is still technically turn-based, but also has additional elements layered on top.
I’d chase Super Mario 64 with something like A Hat In Time. Again, showing the establishment of the 3D platformer, then showing the elements in use elsewhere.
You have Ultima on here, which I agree with. But I’d probably break the display for it into two different halves: For the RPG half, I would include some more tabletop-inspired games here too, as the early game devs were largely tabletop game fans who were simply adapting their favorite games into digital settings. Games like Fallout 1/2, or Baldurs Gate. Maybe even show a modern game like Baldur’s Gate 3, to show how tabletop RPG mechanics can gracefully transition to digital games. Morrowind would also fit nicely here, but Skyrim is a little too far removed from old TTRPGs to be relevant to this section. Still important to have on the list, but I’d probably have it in a section dedicated to player-made mods.
For Ultima’s one-point-perspective dungeon-crawling, following it up with something like Persona Q or SMT: Strange Journey could be impactful to show how it was adapted to more modern games.
On the home-gamer gameplay side, this is a solid list. On the technology side, I think there’s even more that makes sense for a curated museum tour. There were big leaps made in arcade tech through the 80’s and 90’s that were pushing all manner of graphics and sound, head-and-shoulders above the previous generation.
Sega’s “super scaler” boards come to mind, allowing for games like Hang-on, Outrun, and After Burner. Digitized sound samples started with Sinistar and Tempest. Dragon’s Lair amazed everyone with an interactive LaserDisc experience. There were also notable forays into AR with Time Traveler, and VR with Virutality. Lastly, we have the fully-enclosed and immersive cockpit of early Battletech simulators.
Most of these I get, but idk about hollow knight unless it’s a part of the “Metroid/Castlevania” exhibit. It’s a good game but idk if it’s quite “museum” status.
It would be part of the Metroidvania section, because it’s probably one of the best modern takes on it, and it has and currently is spawning quite a number of copy-cats. So that would cover its cultural impact too.
Bedrock Edition is fine. It’s basically at feature parity with Java now. The mod scene is almost non-existent, but for vanilla it’s fine. If that’s where your friends are playing, you’ll have a great time.
No, there was definitely some criticism before. Prior to this month, it wouldn’t be unusual to hear people complain about how it would destroy the live service market and was therefore Bad Actually for games and game preservation
The topic getting much more mainstream just brought all those people with.
There are a handful of concerns from insiders are that somewhat valid, more or less things to be careful about when trying to sort out how to make this fair and reasonable to both sides.
You can ponder how long from shutdown of an online server until the companies IP is no longer worth anything because they have to give up keys to playing it without subs. Same goes for anti-piracy. If A goes under and is bought up by B, how long is that timer before the assets aren’t worth anything anymore.
But all those concepts get thrown the hell out the window when CEOS stick their fingers in their ears and start stamping their feet and shouting “nothing is written in stone” “at some point the service may be discontinued” “Nothing is eternal” when in fact all those problems can be solved. Fucking tone-deaf asshats. Costs you money, sorry nothing is eternal. Costs them money, ohhh noooo can’t do that it might cost money.
When you launch a title with online requirements, you have to escrow or insure the servers for X months and escrow code. When you sell or fold, you then have X months to work out a new buyer or maintainer. At the end of X months. you either keep the game online through other means (sales) or provide server binaries, serverless binaries, or details/code to keep the game running indefinitely.
It makes sense if you are completely consumer-brained and only see it as “companies will make less (live service) games if they are forced to support them/let them be community supported”
No, remember, it only makes sense if you are consumer-brained
Less live service games = less consooming. Some people literally don’t care about things that are in their best interest, they will happily pay $120 for a game that has pay2win microtransactions and requires a monthly subscription and will also shutdown after 18 months, as long as there is a new one to buy after it.
so far the only legit critique I’ve seen is the uncertainty of what this will mean to indie devs - will they be forced to sign with publishers who can assist with compliance etc., what will compliance actually look like to small shops, etc.
I will say this: the vast majority of game devs feel the same way and want to be able to play the games we paid for as well. there’s just a bit of fear of the unknown for small devs.
Why would they? Most people didn’t know about the petition until a few weeks ago, and I think people are largely knee-jerk supporting their favorite streamer (in this case, PirateSoftware). I don’t think there’s a concerted effort here to kill it, just people coming out of the woodwork now that it got a lot of attention.
Perhaps, which I think is really unfortunate. I think he misread or misunderstood what the petition was about, and doubled down instead of taking a step back.
But he’s not going to be making a bunch of accounts on random message boards like Lemmy to try to kill it. The more reasonable argument is that some of his fans and other people who disagree w/ the petition are attacking it, not that he or the games industry cares enough to come here and spread FUD, I think regular people are dumb and emotional enough to do that for them.
I’m not concerned with it. I’ve looked into it a bit, and it seems like PirateSoftware ruined his own reputation. It just took his very visible cockup in that WoW raid for people to realize that he lies a lot and refuses to acknowledge when he’s wrong.
I think he misread or misunderstood what the petition was about
Possibly. I’m not going to speculate on that because it’s not really important.
But he’s not going to be making a bunch of accounts on random message boards like Lemmy to try to kill it.
I doubt it as well. I’m more suspicious of corporate astroturfing. And Lemmy isn’t too small of a target for it, since astroturfing is pretty cheap.
I’m not concerned with it. I’ve looked into it a bit, and it seems like PirateSoftware ruined his own reputation. It just took his very visible cockup in that WoW raid for people to realize that he lies a lot and refuses to acknowledge when he’s wrong.
I think he misread or misunderstood what the petition was about
Possibly. I’m not going to speculate on that because it’s not really important.
But he’s not going to be making a bunch of accounts on random message boards like Lemmy to try to kill it.
I doubt it as well. I’m more suspicious of corporate astroturfing. And Lemmy isn’t too small of a target for it, since astroturfing is pretty cheap.
Yeah, I haven’t found a reason to care about PS beyond showing courtesy to people who went out of their way to provide receipts for their claims. I also haven’t seen enough to warrant ruining his life. That’s about as much effort as I care to spend here.
The bigger concern is what happens at the EU. Surely that’s where corporations are going to focus their energy, because it’s a lot easier to convince some bureaucrats than millions of gamers. Sure, some negative press helps, but the real impact is made by lobbyists.
Do you have specific examples of him making multiple accounts to amplify a message? If so, that would certainly change my opinion of him and would explain a lot of the unsubstantiated claims made here.
So TL; DW for anyone that made it down this far: PS’s mod made a Twitch alt presumably for the purpose of buying bits to keep a hype train going. Whether this is legal or consistent with the Twitch TOS is debatable.
I mean I was critical of it well before it hit 1.4M signatures. As it ramps up in articles about it, I'd assume an increase in negative sentiment in addition to the positive side. Its not a perfect thing and has different viewpoints, so it makes sense.
And what is your argument against the petition? All it says is that developers need to leave their game in some playable state for those who laid for it, with several options offered as examples
Because as you already stated, that's all it says. There is a lot of open interpretation to what that means and not all of it refers to big publishers/devs like EA.
For example, indie games like Objects in Space. It was Early Access and ran into technical issues which led to funding issues as they could only work so long on it. Its broken essentially. But it doesn't matter if the project was beyond their scope of skill or they ran out of money, they would be forced to pay to fix it. This means (and for other indie devs) if not certain their project will succeed, having to block sales in EU. Its potentially the most damaging not to the Ubisoft's and EA's, but to the Flat Earth Games, Bugbytes, ColePowered Games, etc. Its asking new indie developers to take on optional risk by releasing in the EU. Remember no where in the petition does it mention live service games. Only just games.
Additionally, the points brought up in the petition needed to be bullet proof. The moment that petition started to get close to 1M, you know publishers started turning gears to block future legislation. The committee of petitions will verify the petition and then refer it for fact finding. The points needed to be concise for the purpose of the fact finding committee. And they needed to be geared towards the EU acting which around a dozen times now have stated that while concerns are valid, it is up to the member nations to propose legislation on this (which is who the major publishers are reported to have approached - not some EU committee).
I'm still salty about EA's Darkspore (which I might add doesn't mention on the case that internet access is required to play - which I did not have back in the day), but this petition just feels like minimal impact. I would just like to remind people that advocating SKG may feel good but that rarely equates to doing good.
NOTE: I'll probably be downvoted to hell on it, but I imagine that is all that will happen. There really is no solid argument against what I've said.
For example, indie games like Objects in Space. It was Early Access and ran into technical issues which led to funding issues as they could only work so long on it. Its broken essentially. But it doesn’t matter if the project was beyond their scope of skill or they ran out of money, they would be forced to pay to fix it.
First off, that studio will not be forced to go back and fix their game. Western democratic governments, including the EU, works on the basis that ex post facto laws are invalid. The game is already dead and abandoned from your telling, so there would be no expectation to revive it.
The true solution for studios making new games in the future is to implement exit strategies for multiplayer implementation early on in development. And for single player games, much of that exit strategy is to not require login servers after the game is abandoned.
And to address your specific example, there is one option that is extremely cheap and easy to implement that will certainly pass requirements: release the sorce code. If a EA game is truly so bungled that it’s better off abandoned, studios and publishers will always have the option to fully abandon it.
The moment that petition started to get close to 1M, you know publishers started turning gears to block future legislation.
You’re forgetting this is the EU, it’s significantly less susceptible to industry lobbying than the US. If it wasn’t the GDPR wouldn’t exist and Apple would still be using their proprietary chargers on all new iPhones.
The points needed to be concise for the purpose of the fact finding committee.
Have you not read the petition? I doubt it could be anymore concise in its language while still being possible to pass. You can’t specify exact implementations for games post-abandonment because any single solution will not work for every game.
There really is no solid argument against what I’ve said.
That is a claim befitting an egotistical fool. But at least now you can’t complain that nobody has addressed your concerns, as you claimed in your first comment.
Have you not read the petition? I doubt it could be anymore concise in its language while still being possible to pass.
Require video games sold to remain in a working state when support ends.
Require no connections to the publisher after support ends.
Not interfere with any business practices while a game is still being supported.
That's it... 3 sentences is not concise. You want to base multi-national law off of 3 sentences. Maybe you should think that through a bit more. If the time can't be spent to actualy write out constructive goals or at least milestones (which is supposed to help dictate multi-national law) then maybe it should wait shouldn't it until you can.
You're forgetting this is the EU, it's significantly less susceptible to industry lobbying than the US
The VGE (the lobbying group you're talking about) helped to write the consumer protection, digital content licensing, and age ratings for the EU.
They already helped create your laws so that's not really true is it.
There really is no solid argument against what I've said.
marked by brevity of expression or statement : free from all elaboration and superfluous detail
Aka, “short”.
The petition absolutely is ‘concise’. You just have no idea what that word means.
Using fancy words in an argument only works if you actually know what those words mean.
Not only that, a long petition containing lots of details has its own drawbacks. For one, fewer people will read it and/or understand it, which will make it easier for detractors to confuse the general public with misinformation.
Concise is synonymous with "to the point". In other words, you don't have to have lots of words, but they do have to be on target which your 3 sentences are not. So, no, it was correct word use on my part.
The fact that you can't argue the VGE's involvement or anything other than a word's definition really doesn't make you look like you have a strong case here lol.
Again, it seems like you have strong feelings, but that doesn't win court cases. Sorry, not sorry.
The fact that you can’t argue the VGE’s involvement or anything other than a word’s definition really doesn’t make you look like you have a strong case here lol.
So you’re just ignoring all the other points I made earlier? On top of refusing to acknowledge that you don’t know what words you’re using?
Concise is synonymous with “to the point”.
No. The word you are looking for is “succinct”. You’re doubling down harder than PirateGames at this point, and with you including some egotistical snark at the end of every comment and claiming that you can’t possibly be wrong just further demonstrates that you’re a walking example of Dunning-Krüger syndrome with entitlement issues.
Get over yourself. Instead of petulantly whining about a petition on the internet, go and do something actually productive with your life.
So, I see the ad hominem attacks, but no actual argument of facts. Oh, and the "other points" you made earlier seem to be just you making up what the petition will do. Remember, you have 3 sentences to work from and things like releasing source code doesn't seem to be in those, does it? So, where did you get the source code mention you had? Is there a website with expanded bulletpoints I missed? No? Just something you felt should happen? You do that whole thinking with your feelings a lot, huh?
Well, ad hominem I'm afraid is where you lose the argument in totality.
Once you start down that path, nothing you say can be taken as a fact.
You argue with facts/logic, not with emotion.
Good luck with that petition.
Me being terrible at games now is because I am old and can’t sink the same time into it. But I beat Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on NES. Do I really need to prove myself anymore?
I remember Flayra from Natural Selection, a half-life mod twenty years ago. I remember him making appeals for investors/donations to keep Unknown Worlds afloat (or maybe just launch it as a company. I recall a video he posted where he showed us his tiny apartment and the milk in his fridge.)
Then Subnautica came out years later and I thought ‘Well I’ll be damned.’
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