Why is gaming not as respected as much as other mediums?

[Gurgeh]

I would like to know, how come gaming is not a respectable medium of entertainment much like that of books or movies? A lot of non gamers think that video games are just a silly "Waste of precious time" or that they are bad for us. Yet its socially acceptable or recommended that we go see a bunch of films and read a lot before we die. How long will it take before video games become accepted as movies, and books?

[krakonfour]

You have to wait for the generation that grew up with games instead of TV to become the ones in charge.
You'll need to wait about 20 years.

[krakonfour]

It's because no-one is bothered to learn what something they're not familiar with really is.

[Vendetta]

It's not been around very long, and almost no-one knows how to effectively convey narrative with games without sacrificing the game part.

Until that second part gets licked, and people stop thinking that the way to do narrative in a game is to stop being a game and try and be a film or a book with pictures (fuck Dear Esther and fuck Visual Novels), games won't be worth talking about on the same level as books or movies, because they're just aping something other because they're too shit to do it properly.

[Mr Bean]

Vendetta what about hybrids like The Walking Dead? That's a combination of animated Chose your own adventure and a puzzle game. But the narrative elements are omnipresent. Or what about games that do sacrifice some gameplay for extra narrative?

[JLTucker]

It's not been around very long, and almost no-one knows how to effectively convey narrative with games without sacrificing the game part.

Until that second part gets licked, and people stop thinking that the way to do narrative in a game is to stop being a game and try and be a film or a book with pictures (fuck Dear Esther and fuck Visual Novels), games won't be worth talking about on the same level as books or movies, because they're just aping something other because they're too shit to do it properly.

This is my problem with games these days. But sometimes the game play is so intense and challenging that the extended cinematic replication makes it worth your time (MGS 4 if you do it right).

I think my main problem is that I haven't really played a game that challenges me intellectually like books and movies have. Therefore, I lose respect for the creators. If you are going to invest millions of dollars and continue to make games more cinematic than they were two decades ago, make it worth my time and money.

Or what about games that do sacrifice some gameplay for extra narrative?

Make a movie that requires a $12 ticket instead of $60.

[Vendetta]

The Walking dead is on the borderline, mostly due to how it uses a timed conversation system which actually affects the narrative, making a game out of talking to the NPCs (like Alpha Protocol).

If they could manage to make it so that there was gameplay other than QTEs at other points as well, then it would be better.

The problem with most games and narrative is that they are either/or, either they're being a game or they're telling you a story (usually in cutscenes even if it's something like Half Life where the cutscene happens without you, the player is still locked in a box until the game has finished Telling You A Story).

Interleaving the two so that the gameplay wholly encapsulates the story is the goal. Take, for instance, Starcraft 2. The cutscenes are silly nonsense, but frequently the missions themselves tell great stories, stories about how you held off wave after wave, stories about how you evacuated those colonists by the skin of your teeth when the Protoss came to blow up their evacuation ships, etc. Tell story through gameplay.

(And no, QTEs are not the answer, QTEs are bad because they remind the player about the interface. Putting a big blue X on the middle of the screen at a dramatic moment in a cutscene does not make you feel involved and connected to the character in the cutscene, it makes you remember you're holding a piece of plastic with an X button somewhere on it, the only good cutscenes ever are the blade mode ones in Revengeance, and that's because they use a mechanic from the rest of the game in exactly the way you usually use it, and have no interface prompt to do so.)

[TheFeniX]

I would like to know, how come gaming is not a respectable medium of entertainment much like that of books or movies?

A lot of books and movies are not "respectable" even in their own medium. Fantasy and Sci-Fi are routinely scoffed at by literary snobs and considered wastes of time. Same with Romance Novels. There's a difference between reading "War and Peace" in public as opposed to "Elminster: Making of a Mage." And tell someone you're favorite movie of all time is "Schindler's List." Then tell another one it's "Freddy got Fingered." Analyze the difference in facial reactions.

Hollywood doesn't help either. Characters who read lots of books tend to be nerdy, but fairly normal, and intelligent. Video Gamers are generally portrayed as lonely depressed nerds who dress slovenly or they are about ready to murder a whole bunch of people because they played <Insert violent videogame I heard my son talking about here>.

A lot of non gamers think that video games are just a silly "Waste of precious time" or that they are bad for us. Yet its socially acceptable or recommended that we go see a bunch of films and read a lot before we die. How long will it take before video games become accepted as movies, and books?

Probably never. At least not on that scale. Interactive entertainment requires effort when being enjoyed. You tend to lose a good chunk of the narrative when focusing on gameplay and vice versa. On that front, some developers are making Interactive stories (hence, not video games), but they are usually boring because an FPS engine is not the best way to watch a movie or read a book.

Comparing books and movies to video games just doesn't work. You are told how the story is going and how it ends. In a video game, care must be taken because you are generally either a part of the story or directly influencing it. On the gameplay side of thing, society puts kicking balls and running as more important skills to have than Triple Kills.

[salm]

Eh, I don´t see why it could never be accepted.
Some Non-video games are highly regarded, Chess probably being the most famous example.
Also, it actually has been happening in the last decades. Just look how many main stream news sources will have some sort of sub category (titled "net world" or "tech world" or similar) in which, among other stuff, they feature prominent and less prominent video games. Every once in while a game will even make it to the "culture" or "arts" subcategory.
We´re not in the 90s when all gamers were considererd basement dwelling hypernerds.

[TheFeniX]

Some Non-video games are highly regarded, Chess probably being the most famous example.

Chess still doesn't have general public acceptance as a hobby, even if few would argue high-level Chess players are unskilled. Chess also sits at the very top of the board game medium. What about Checkers? Chutes and Ladders? Saying "I play Chess" is a long ways away from saying "I play board games." Board games, even now, are for kids and are pointless timesinks, even if Chess is in the same medium.

Video Games are in the same vein, but in an even worse position, because it's backward. The games considered "acceptable" are those like The Sims or many of the billion 0 skill and unlimited timesink games that exist in the market. Video games like Chess, that are easy to learn yet have an extremely high skill ceiling are almost always considered a waste of time because you aren't learning a "real" skill.

Every once in while a game will even make it to the "culture" or "arts" subcategory.

That's because even the most trite shit that would get laughed out of any literature class is considered high drama in video games due to the generally poor writing. And those usually aren't games anyway, just visual novels. 9 hour movies disguised as games and made in a desperate attempt to make the medium look more mature are doomed to fail because there are much better ways to watch a movie.

And if this is how the medium gains acceptance, then fuck that. Games should always focus on gameplay first. Just like every Chess piece doesn't need a background story and be cut from ivory.

We´re not in the 90s when all gamers were considererd basement dwelling hypernerds.

Even other gamers can be this condescending and you don't think the general reaction in the public is the same? If you told someone "I play video games about 34 hours a week," you're a huge loser who is destined to die alone. The irony will be completely lost on them. Being casual about gaming doesn't help the medium gain acceptance. And considering yourself practiced enough in a video game to be a professional has about 0 positive impressions.

[Dartzap]

How do you define respect?If you mean in the sense they are in competition for recognition for uniqueness and the like, then BAFTA has an entire awards ceremony purely for computer games.

[salm]

Some Non-video games are highly regarded, Chess probably being the most famous example.

Chess still doesn't have general public acceptance as a hobby, even if few would argue high-level Chess players are unskilled. Chess also sits at the very top of the board game medium. What about Checkers? Chutes and Ladders? Saying "I play Chess" is a long ways away from saying "I play board games." Board games, even now, are for kids and are pointless timesinks, even if Chess is in the same medium.

Video Games are in the same vein, but in an even worse position, because it's backward. The games considered "acceptable" are those like The Sims or many of the billion 0 skill and unlimited timesink games that exist in the market. Video games like Chess, that are easy to learn yet have an extremely high skill ceiling are almost always considered a waste of time because you aren't learning a "real" skill.

Perhaps it´s a cultural difference but chess among other non video games have a long tradition of not being only kids stuff where I live. Card games like Skat or Schafkopf are played by adults in bars and nobody thinks you´re weird if it´s your hobby. Or games like pool billard and darts or table soccer.

That's because even the most trite shit that would get laughed out of any literature class is considered high drama in video games due to the generally poor writing. And those usually aren't games anyway, just visual novels. 9 hour movies disguised as games and made in a desperate attempt to make the medium look more mature are doomed to fail because there are much better ways to watch a movie.

And if this is how the medium gains acceptance, then fuck that. Games should always focus on gameplay first. Just like every Chess piece doesn't need a background story and be cut from ivory.

Sure they should focus on gameplay but what does that have to do with games being a generally accepted hobby? I don´t have to know anything about classical music in order to accept that other people like to spend lots of money on stereos and even room acoustics so they can listen to a perfectly sounding Mozart piece.

Even other gamers can be this condescending and you don't think the general reaction in the public is the same? If you told someone "I play video games about 34 hours a week," you're a huge loser who is destined to die alone. The irony will be completely lost on them. Being casual about gaming doesn't help the medium gain acceptance. And considering yourself practiced enough in a video game to be a professional has about 0 positive impressions.

I don´t think that´s necessarily a problem that´s specific to video games. Some people will regard other people as weird if they spend a lot of time with a specific hobby. This may be video games, model cars, real cars, or collecting stamps. If you said you play 34 hours of tennis a week people will think you´re strange unless you´re a professional player.

TV is the exception not the rule. It´s sad. Also,even though people might do it, i dont think they generally accept it to be a good thing if you watch nearly 5 hours of tv of day. Just like they eat Mc Donnalds even thogh they know that its crap.

[TheFeniX]

Perhaps it´s a cultural difference but chess among other non video games have a long tradition of not being only kids stuff where I live. Card games like Skat or Schafkopf are played by adults in bars and nobody thinks you´re weird if it´s your hobby. Or games like pool billard and darts or table soccer.

It could be. But I'm going off the assumption that even among "respected" hobbies, there's a sliding scale of what would be considered respectable.

Saying you read a lot of books or watch more than a few movies won't generally cause much of a ruckus. But, in my experience, saying you play a lot of video games is something done only in certain company. Unless it's CoD or Angry Birds.

Poker is generally respected, yes. But devoting the same time to that which you would to TV or books can (at least around here) get you labelled as a degenerate gambler. However, Fantasy Football accounts for a metric shit-load of lost time during work hours and no one seems to give a fuck. But still, poker is like the Chess of card games as is Spades or Bridge: considered extremely difficult to master, but easy to play. Imagine you spent that same time playing Go-Fish.

Sure they should focus on gameplay but what does that have to do with games being a generally accepted hobby? I don´t have to know anything about classical music in order to accept that other people like to spend lots of money on stereos and even room acoustics so they can listen to a perfectly sounding Mozart piece.

You keep going specifically to the most "respected" (for lack of a better term) example in a given medium. Country music is generally shat on by music snobs as a waste of time. Music is another good example of a non-interactive hobby that has wide acceptance and people devote their lives to. Just saying you're a music fan has no negative connotations. Not until you describe your music taste do people start being judgmental assholes.

Owning a decent sized collection of CDs, DVDs, and books is generally no big deal. Video Game collections are for losers.

The problem is that among the general populace: determining what is a game "worth" devoting time to is even worse. What I would consider "not a video game" and a complete waste of time is the shit that is winning writing awards (while still being trite and boring) like Dear Esther or the plethora of movies Sony tries to pass off as PS3 games. Meanwhile, back in reality, the real games garnering "respect" for the medium are those most likely to keep the "time-waster" tag: mobile games because they are specifically designed that way, but people play the shit out of them. The Sims (or maybe Myst) was the original game where gameplay went to die, but it blew up the sales charts.

Also, as I stated, crowing about a game's writing at the expense of gameplay isn't any better.

I don´t think that´s necessarily a problem that´s specific to video games. Some people will regard other people as weird if they spend a lot of time with a specific hobby. This may be video games, model cars, real cars, or collecting stamps. If you said you play 34 hours of tennis a week people will think you´re strange unless you´re a professional player.

Exactly: because it's an interactive hobby unlike reading or watching TV. For the video game equivalent in books, look at those "Choose your own adventures" line of books.

Maybe I'm way off base, but I've noticed interactive mediums to be much more harshly criticized than those where everything is spoon-fed to you. Watching sports religiously is a world-wide epidemic and no one cares. But actually playing sports seems to be something we grow out of unless we're being paid $150mil a year. Always weirded me out, that one.

[salm]

I don´t know, I don´t percieve the shitting on stuff as homogenous as you.
There are people that shit on computer games and there are people that don´t.
There are people that shit on TV and people that don´t.
For any hobby you´ll find people that shit on in it and people who will accept it.

There seem to be very few things that are (nearly) universally shat on. Actually spending excessive amounts of time in front of the TV might come closest to that as it could get you labled as a degenerate moron.

The thing that causes rolling eyes is not so much the specific hobby but the excess in which it is done.

But perhaps it´s different in the country you are. Or in the age bracket or social circles.

[TheFeniX]

It's not about getting shit on. It's about the lack of respect (however you define it) that video games (read: interactive entertainment) gets when compared to non-interactive entertainment. Video games can't reach the same level of exposure or "respect" books and movies because of what they are, not how new they are as a form of entertainment. The only thing close would be visual novels, which A. aren't video games and B. are only widely popular (or even really known about) in Japan.

Where it gets wonky is when talking about specifics. If you're going to play something like a board game, you could look at Chess, Checkers, and (since Chutes and Ladders is completely random, we'll use:) Monopoly. I can't think of a single person who would put Checkers or Monopoly above Chess if asked "What's a more worthwhile endeavor to waste time on?"

But Chess will always exist in it's current form as a game. That type of model doesn't work for video games, outside of Nintendo re-releasing classics with graphical updates and a few extras piled on top. In 20 years, people aren't going to know what Halo is. Even if 343 (or whoever) dig up the corpse 20 years later, no one is going to understand the significance of the game's impact of video gaming (for better or worse).

There's going to be a constant progression of new series in multiple different genres, so there's never going to be a great example to hold up as a standard on how to do video games in a genre, because the medium is terrible for protecting old content from the ravages of time.

I hold up Star Control 2 as exploration incarnate (also likely one of the best games of all time), but many people (including gamers) don't even know WTF it is and couldn't run it to save their lives, or find the 3D0 port on the Interwebs, or even give a shit because it's so old. Also, it requires effort more than "press X to win," so modern audiences couldn't handle it anyways. War and Peace and Shindler's List will never have that problem. But imagine over time, Schindler's List became more and more blurry upon viewing and slowly translated itself into a language you didn't understand: that's the progression of the video game market.

[Eleas]

When non-gamers talk about "gaming" they almost invariably mean AAA games or Bejeweled clones, because that's all they know. Maybe serendipity strikes and the person you're talking to has glimpsed some Indie game without comprehending what they saw. Ask them about Journey or Counterfeit Monkey or Shadow of the Colossus (none of whom are particularly old-school or obscure) and you'll get a baffled shrug. And that's a problem that's mainly down to exposure: if you're not into indie games or IF, you're unlikely to know anything about them because they simply get lost in the background noise of the titans of the industry.

[TheFeniX]

There's also the prevalence of multiple gaming systems and the tired idea that gaming on PC still requires thousands of dollars in parts and A+ certification. Books are books: you want to read Jurassic Park, you buy the book. DVD players and on-demand video is so prevalent and cheap as to make pretty much any movie watchable at any given time. However, if you want to replay Lost Odyssey, you better own a 360. The only other option is to dive into emulation or abandonware which is quasi-legal and extremely annoying depending on the system (I always joked that Nintendo made such jacked up controllers after the SNES to make it excruciating to emulate their games).

This, and the current trend of AAA devs releasing garbage isn't conducive to creating memorable games.

[salm]

"lack of respect" = "getting shit on"

It's not about getting shit on. It's about the lack of respect (however you define it)

This is a cruical point. What do you mean when you say respect?

It´s obvious that people respect games as a product or else the game industry wouldn´t rake in the insane amounts of money.

If you mean respect in an artistic way, well, I don´t think that´s entirely true. Some Indie games can be regarded to have artistic value. Not many people will know them but this is no different from movies. People know big block buster movies. These block buster movies are generally considered to be trash by the arts crowd, though. And the indie movies the arts crowd will prise to heaven will be either unknown to, ignored by or seen as pretentious crap by other people.

So what kind of respect do you mean?

Regarding the short half life of video games: Movies and books do have a similar problem. Sure, the cycle in games is a lot faster but look at movies from the 20s, 30s,40s or even the 80s. The difference is very noticable, not only the technical part but also the way the story is told, scenes are cut, pacing etc. People in general watch old movies a lot less than a new block buster even though some of the old movies are artistic gems. So in a way Schindlers Liste does become blurry.
Same goes for books. As the centuries go by it gets more and more difficult for people to understand what Shakespeare wrote because the language is so different form modern language.

Not sure if people in 20 years are still going to know Halo but they sure as hell still know Doom which is about 20 years old and still regarded as a game changer in FPS. Tetris is even older and still alive in its original but also a gazillion reincarnations. Pac Man is old. Mario is old.

Furthermore I don´t see why long life span of a medium would be a necessary qualifier for a medium to gain respect. Performance art and theater or live concerts don´t have any life span longer than the event itself and are respected forms of art.

[salm]

When non-gamers talk about "gaming" they almost invariably mean AAA games or Bejeweled clones, because that's all they know. Maybe serendipity strikes and the person you're talking to has glimpsed some Indie game without comprehending what they saw. Ask them about Journey or Counterfeit Monkey or Shadow of the Colossus (none of whom are particularly old-school or obscure) and you'll get a baffled shrug. And that's a problem that's mainly down to exposure: if you're not into indie games or IF, you're unlikely to know anything about them because they simply get lost in the background noise of the titans of the industry.

The same is true for Movies.

[AniThyng]

Agree with the notion that the question as phrased is far too simplistic - if your idea of reading as a hobby is a collection of Warhammer 40K novels, nobody is going to consider you to be a sophisticated man of culture.

And even the idea of what constitutes a acceptable level of "gaming sophistication" is open to debate - as the owner of both a console and a gaming PC I can attest to how ridiculous it is to see PC Gamers shit on console gamers as immature children. I play console games when I feel like console games, and PC games when I feel like PC games. MUST I pick a side?

I suspect it also says something that some gamers still feel the need to actually ask this question in a day an age where GTA V is advertised on the side of LONDON BUSES - and that is that they haven't absorbed the idea that it is not the specific hobby that people wonder about, is how you present yourself doing it.

[TheFeniX]

My reply was getting looong, so I cut it down.

It's not about getting shit on. It's about the lack of respect (however you define it)

This is a cruical point. What do you mean when you say respect?

To use your "arts crowd" example, it's like bringing up Nirvana post Nevermind. They will say they have zero respect for Kobain because "he sold out after <insert shit album no one cared about>." Now try and bring up a country music singer and it's full on Hulk Smash.™ That's getting shit on.

The "arts crowd" is just as bad as people who file into movies on release based on name only. They aren't anymore cultured than anyone else, even if they do have a stick up there ass about anything that's popular. And these games held up as having "artistic value" are almost always devoid of content and merely reading the "player" a story over the course of an hour, that will be $20 please. These guys wouldn't go near a game like "I Wanna Be the Guy" and it's throwback to when if controllers hadn't been so well made (looking at you NES controller) there would be landfills topped with them.

I never said games don't have respect or lack artistic value. I said they will never attain the same level of it when compared to books or movies due to the nature of the medium. Also as part of this: people keep fucking comparing them to books and movies, which is stupid. Just like saying "I liked the book better than the movie because it went into more detail." Of course it did you idiot. Marcus Fenix's ability to jump over waist-high walls, reload, aim and shoot all without abusing the player is just as important to the "artisic whatever-ery" as a compelling story. This is why I find GTA4 was always highly overrated. Massive issues WRT gunplay, driving, physics, LOD, draw distance in general, among a host of other problems were ignored because "STORYTELLING!"

Regarding the short half life of video games: Movies and books do have a similar problem.

Gone with the Wind is still easily watchable, as are many of the classics in that time period. Actors act, the camera records them. You can access 100% of a book or movie with 0 issues these days. Games aren't like that, particularly the older ones where winning was an accomplishment, not a reward for paying $60.

[xthetenth]

I never said games don't have respect or lack artistic value. I said they will never attain the same level of it when compared to books or movies due to the nature of the medium. Also as part of this: people keep fucking comparing them to books and movies, which is stupid. Just like saying "I liked the book better than the movie because it went into more detail." Of course it did you idiot. Marcus Fenix's ability to jump over waist-high walls, reload, aim and shoot all without abusing the player is just as important to the "artisic whatever-ery" as a compelling story. This is why I find GTA4 was always highly overrated. Massive issues WRT gunplay, driving, physics, LOD, draw distance in general, among a host of other problems were ignored because "STORYTELLING!"

There's a lot of disparate things a video game needs to get right. The thing is that a lot of games that are amazing in one respect are pretty bad in others (for a personal favorite, Alpha Protocol. Decent plot, outstanding reactivity that really uses the medium to its full potential and messy action. Depending on priorities/whether you're a professional games journalist, it's a phenomenal game or terrible). Between that making it hard to agree on what's actually got serious merit and the frankly somewhat puerile focus of the industry and the fanbase selling the medium short, it's regarded on the same level as pulp novels or what have you.

[salm]

To use your "arts crowd" example, it's like bringing up Nirvana post Nevermind. They will say they have zero respect for Kobain because "he sold out after <insert shit album no one cared about>." Now try and bring up a country music singer and it's full on Hulk Smash.™ That's getting shit on.

The "arts crowd" is just as bad as people who file into movies on release based on name only. They aren't anymore cultured than anyone else, even if they do have a stick up there ass about anything that's popular. And these games held up as having "artistic value" are almost always devoid of content and merely reading the "player" a story over the course of an hour, that will be $20 please. These guys wouldn't go near a game like "I Wanna Be the Guy" and it's throwback to when if controllers hadn't been so well made (looking at you NES controller) there would be landfills topped with them.

It looks like you´re saying that respect = liked by "arts crowd". But on the other hand it looks like you don´t really care about the "arts crowd" because "arts crowd" = snobbery.
I´m still not sure how you define respect.

I never said games don't have respect or lack artistic value. I said they will never attain the same level of it when compared to books or movies due to the nature of the medium. Also as part of this: people keep fucking comparing them to books and movies, which is stupid. Just like saying "I liked the book better than the movie because it went into more detail." Of course it did you idiot. Marcus Fenix's ability to jump over waist-high walls, reload, aim and shoot all without abusing the player is just as important to the "artisic whatever-ery" as a compelling story. This is why I find GTA4 was always highly overrated. Massive issues WRT gunplay, driving, physics, LOD, draw distance in general, among a host of other problems were ignored because "STORYTELLING!"

Well, I never said that they have the same respect as movies and books. I said games have come long way in the last decades and see no reason why they shouldn´t go further. The short half life is an interesting problem but not one that I think can not be overcome as protrayed with my examples in my last post.

Gone with the Wind is still easily watchable, as are many of the classics in that time period. Actors act, the camera records them. You can access 100% of a book or movie with 0 issues these days. Games aren't like that, particularly the older ones where winning was an accomplishment, not a reward for paying $60.

This is just the technical side, though. Gone with the wind is difficult to watch these days for a lot of people because it uses old ways of storytelling, pacing etc. This again makes it boring and thus difficult to watch for many people.
The same is of course true for old games. They are less intersting for many people because they use old techniques.

Lots of old games actually are accessible. Just type it into google and you´ll find a whole bunch. Tetris, Doom, the best example is Quake with Quake live.
They might be slightly different in some graphical detail but this ,in my opinion, is not really relevant because the core of the game, the gameplay, is the same.
In movies you could easily say that you don´t experience the original feeling because they were designed for 1.66:1 or 1.85:1 screens and you mostly get to see older movies in 4:3 format. Furthermore the experience is vastly different if you watch it in a darkened cinema on a large screen with no disturbance than at home in a room an on a screen that are a lot less suited for movies with crap sound.

But then "lots of people watch/play/read it" doesn´t seem to be the qualifier that is necessary for your definition of "respect".
So again, how do you define respect?

[TheFeniX]

It looks like you´re saying that respect = liked by "arts crowd". But on the other hand it looks like you don´t really care about the "arts crowd" because "arts crowd" = snobbery.
I´m still not sure how you define respect.

Ugh, no.

Do you like Pizza? No? You think it's a waste of time when you could be eating salad? Yes? Do you care if other people eat pizza? No? Then you lack respect for Pizza. Do you trash pizza as a food-stuff in conversations that bring it up? Do you deride those who eat pizza as fatty-fat-fats? Then you are shitting on pizza and it's fans. Maybe it's a colloquial thing, but it's not a hard concept: you can lack respect for something without being an asshole about it (thus, shitting on it).

I don't like Twilight. I tried reading the first part of the second book. It's mentally painful to read, but my wife enjoys it. I don't really respect that, but I don't go out of my way to make her feel terrible for reading it because I went through the same shit playing video games in the 80s and 90s.

Well, I never said that they have the same respect as movies and books. I said games have come long way in the last decades and see no reason why they shouldn´t go further. The short half life is an interesting problem but not one that I think can not be overcome as protrayed with my examples in my last post.

I disagree for reasons stated in previous posts.

This is just the technical side, though. Gone with the wind is difficult to watch these days for a lot of people because it uses old ways of storytelling, pacing etc. This again makes it boring and thus difficult to watch for many people.
The same is of course true for old games. They are less intersting for many people because they use old techniques.

Our definitions of "difficult" are so far apart. Dark Souls isn't a hard game. It just relies on mechanics considered too outdated for the modern audience. Namely observation and patience. The current climate for video games has even taken old gamers like me and made them pretty fucking weak. If I don't immediately get a waypoint to my next destination, my first response is to get annoyed which I consider a huge failing on my part.

"Poor" pacing (which is a problem with many current movies and is a very subjective topic) isn't even in the same ballpark. GwtW is still watchable by nature of the medium. You can still access 100% of it's content, even if you don't like/understand all of it. Anyone who likes torrid romances is going to eat it up, no matter their age.

Lots of old games actually are accessible. Just type it into google and you´ll find a whole bunch. Tetris, Doom, the best example is Quake with Quake live.

A remake by id doesn't constitute an "old game."

They might be slightly different in some graphical detail but this ,in my opinion, is not really relevant because the core of the game, the gameplay, is the same.

Quake has always looked like shit, but that's neither here nor there. It's also about nothing other than gameplay. It's not a game I'd ask someone to play if I wanted them to take the medium more seriously unless I was specifically comparing it to competitive sports.

In movies you could easily say that you don´t experience the original feeling because they were designed for 1.66:1 or 1.85:1 screens and you mostly get to see older movies in 4:3 format. Furthermore the experience is vastly different if you watch it in a darkened cinema on a large screen with no disturbance than at home in a room an on a screen that are a lot less suited for movies with crap sound.

The quality of the experience isn't at issue.

You ever heard of expanded RAM? 220 5 1 ring any bells? MSCDEX? When many classic PC games were new they required either beastly amounts of hardware or a hammer to get them to work at all, sometimes both. Even today, gaining access to many classic games requires more time than it would take to read a novel. Only recently was "The Dig" released on Steam. Warcraft 2 is almost unplayable with the original discs and Blizzard won't re-release a current version. Even though I own/owned a SNES and FF6, emulating them exists in some kind of legal limbo.

Meanwhile, every piece of shit ever made for the big screen is available to purchase and watch right now if you own a $20 DVD player. Now, why is that possible? It's because transfering that type of media into a modern format is pathetically easy. Video Games do not work that way, so unless there's either publisher support or an insane group of fans with technical know-how, an older game will languish in obscurity.

Sadly, playing many older computer games is easier than it was originally, even if you have to deal with Java. However, there's more than a few old PSX/2 games I'd love to replay, like King's Field that require too much effort to bother with.

EDIT: Another newer issue I left out that's going to effect longevity is the prevalence of this "always online" bullshit. You want to play Unreal Tournament with your buddy? Setup a listen server and rock on. You want to play a round of Chromehounds for old times sake? Go fuck yourself. And with this shit bleeding into single-player games, good luck.

[salm]

So not respecting a pizza/video game means not eating/playing it and considering is a waste of time while not caring about other people eating/playing it.
If that is the definition then all three, games, books and movies are not respected by many people. They are also repected by many other people.

@definition of difficult: There´s obviously a misunderstanding. I´m not talking about the difficulty of games as in how hard is it to play/complete (how would you even know what I find difficult?). I was talking about the technical difficulty to get it to run on the one hand and the difficulty of enjoying it due to old types of cineastic mechanics, or in case of games old types of game mechanics. Or perhaps "out of fashion" would be a better word than "old" because some types of mechanics get popular again here and there.

I never said the pacing of GwtW was poor. It´s different and not what is in fashion at the moment. Therefore many people won´t like it. I highly doubt that Gone with the wind would be a success if it was released now (and looked exactly the same as it does).


Concerning annoyances form the MS Dos era, yeah, I still remember autoexec.bat, interrupt jumpers and annoying shit like switching floppy disks due to the lack of hard disks. Of course that was mainly because the PC was a pretty bad device for gaming at that time compared to other systems like C64 or Amiga. But I fail to see what this has to do with the discussion at hand.

You say that Quake live is a different game than the old quake? Why, what´s the difference? Also, why did you ignore the other games I mentioned? Tetris and Doom are very old, highly regarded and still playable. Same for the LucasFilm Games adventures on SCUMM.
And while I´m sure there are difficulties with playing some old games there are plenty of games that can be played with emulators. I wouldn´t make it such a big issue that it´s not 100% of old games that can still be played. After all other types of entertainment/art lose certain pieces as well.
The big classics (the Gone with the Winds among games if you wish) do actually survive.