I was pissed off when HL2 required installing Steam.
I didn’t know that was the least awful variant of this particular affront.
Don’t tell me ‘but now there’s bugfixes!’ like I never updated HL1 with bare executables. Fuckin’ Doom had multiple relevant versions. They thought 1.666 would nail it down… and then grudgingly released 1.7 a month later.
You also just have to cope with whatever broken glitches there are in the game and find a way around them because aint no patch no hotfix no nothing is coming to save you
And as a result, the vast majority of games didn’t have game-breaking bugs at launch, unlike today.
Actually true. The number of (S)NES games with game-breaking bugs was near-zero. Probably because they couldn’t just patch them later.
I think this view has heavy survivorship bias. There were many broken or heavily bugged games shipped.
Survivorship bias doesn’t make sense in this context, because I actually lived then and played hundreds of games. Plenty were buggy as hell (notice I said game-breaking bugs specifically), but none were unplayable (well, not because of bugs anyway). I hear Battletoads on NES was uncompleteable 2 player, but my brother and I never made it to level 11 together to find out.
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Games were also limited to “See if you can jump over this wall! Now see if you can do it again in a different color!”
It actually wasn’t uncommon for post-launch patches to be applied to later printings of games. A lot of start screens will have the version number of the game on them somewhere, so that you can tell. This is something we forget about since digital copies of older games tend to default to being the latest printed version.
We forget about it because it wasn’t remotely helpful at the time if you got a borked version
I sure loved having games release in several separate version with different bugs depending on which lot of discs/cartridge you got.
People paid money for the North American release of Lufia 2.
Anyone played the game “loki” straight from the box? Unplayable lmao
Updates, yes but almost every game did need to be installed though
Yeah, installed by sticking it into the console and then starting it…unless you’re talking about PC games.
I was, but perhaps this was a console discussion judging by the downvotes
Clarifying that might’ve saved you.
Then again, it’s the internet, no one does nuance on the internet.
Indeed, but then these points are like the points of Whose Line Is It Anyway
Remember having to stop mid install to put the next disc in?
Shit I installed Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 with 10 DVDs and let me tell you… that’s something I don’t want back.
Like if you want to provide a physical offline version give me a small USB drive or a Blu-ray but that one I know it’s not common outside consoles and movies.
And you needed a Microsoft Account and activate the CD Key anyway…which actually didn’t allow to install the game downloading it. Like ok I get it the DVDs was for people to be able to do an offline install, ok… But don’t force me to use them if I have access to internet… Which actually you needed to setup the account and activate the CD key online anyway, the DVD only helped reduce your bandwidth usage.
Who came up with this man??? Plus you need the first disk inserted to play like the old times… you have the damn CD key and Microsoft account to validate wtf… I swear… It was like travelling back in time but with extra hassles of today world on top.
Windows 95 had a version that came on 30 floppy disks.
NOT fun.
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5 (6?) 3.5in floppies to get Dune 2 loaded on my Amiga 2000; at least I could take the time between disks to go to the bathroom, grab a snack, read a book etc. 😅
Still the only RTS I ever actually liked. Man that menu was mind blowing at the time.
I mean you DID get updates, just hidden in different print runs/regional releases of games.
Its why speedrunners prefer a lot of japanese releases of earlier titles; Because back when Japan was the center of videogame culture, they’d get the first release of most games which often meant the buggiest version.
Yes I loved not being able to save my progress
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What cartridge came Zork on again?
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I’m the autist but you single out games to make my statement invalid? Like it wasn’t a thing back then that games didn’t have a proper save feature haha
That depended entirely on the game. Most RPGs had some sort of save feature, even the old Final Fantasy on the NES. On the SNES, Super Mario World, the 3 Donkey Kong and Super Metroid all saved your game, instead of relying on passwords.
Yes there were games that could save, but also a lot that could not and I disliked that.
Yeah, but when we did things like that we actually had to finish games before we sold them.
How do I sell my Steam library? 🥲
There are websites where you can, but you get a terrible return.
I don’t really want to support them but google will point you in the right direction if you are in need.
I had to sell my vinyl collection, full of limited editions, tons of colored vinyl extras, old rarities …
Since i had to sell them or starve, the shop that bought them off, really fucked me completely over.
I try not to think too much about it.
2 things i learned from this:
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To not collect stuff the way i did before anymore.
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There’s no higher crime, than making a mistake on your tax declaration, at least in Germany.
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As long as there wasn’t a gamebreaking bug with no way of fixing it.
remember when someone patented the concept of having mini-games while it’s loading so almost no games have it?
also awesome…Me, an intellectual, modding a game for the next 36 hours straight…then quitting after 2 days
The likelihood of the game simply not working with that much modding done to it is very high, even with load order amenities
You’re not wrong, but I can’t help myself. Just one more mod…
I remember when games didn’t need updates, they just worked, or the bugs they had were cool (or annoying and required workarounds). Though I guess it makes sense that since games are more complex and larger now, they end up having more bugs and need more updates these days.
Pros of disc games: ready to play and you own the game.
Cons: game breaking bugs exist and asking devs to send you game patches is awkward af.
Gamers in Japan were the real early access testers of yesteryear. Major bugs or glitches that were there were hopefully fixed by the time the game hit international release.
It’s honestly weird to remember that international releases were delayed months or years just a couple decades ago. Could you imagine if it took a year for BotW to release in the West?
Modern companies still get stupid about it by forgetting time zones exist. Australian journalists have caught hell for “breaking embargo dates” or “somehow playing the game early.” Nah. You said such-and-such date, not some specific time in Greenwich. It’s already tomorrow there.
You only own the game as long as the support holds. Scratch the disk, empty the card ram battery, etc. You’re done.
So, the same as any other physical object you might purchase?
games in the future are just gonna be zettabyte zip bombs
All I remember is having to go to the store, walk around the store and hope they still have it, go to the counter and pay for it and then having to go all the way back home to play it.
Now you click a button, make yourself a sandwich and the game is ready to go.
But you get obese if you make yourself a sandwich every time the game crashes, because only buggy messes get released nowadays…
If you care about your health, don’t buy overpriced bugged crap!
That’s why you wait half a year and get the game for half the price without major bugs.
I have to admit, half the reason I stopped pirating was that Steam made it so easy to just click and play.
Yet I still go out of my way to get physical (especially for new games) because I want that trade-in credit when I’m done with it.
