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Everything Old is Old Again
TechDock writes "GameDaily interviews some of the folks involved with retro game services, including GameTap, XBox Live Arcade, and assorted standalone retro game devices. They discuss the new business models associated with the retro business, and why 25 year-old games are still popular." From the article: "Want to feel really old? It's been 26 years since the sound of 'waka-waka-waka' first resounded in an arcade. Yes, 1980 was the year Midway licensed and installed the coin-op version of Namco's Pac-Man in the U.S. And 2006 is the year that Pac-Man has become one of the most popular downloads on Xbox Live Arcade and GameTap. Talk about a game with legs."
Pac has no legs!
It's been 26 years since the sound of 'waka-waka-waka' first resounded in an arcade.
I'm pretty sure I remember seeing the Muppets on a TV in an arcade before 1980...
This guy's the limit!
Four Ways in which My Life is Just Like Pac-Man's:
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1. Ever-present wail of sirens
2. Relentlessly pursued by ghosts
3. Four special pills daily keep ghosts at bay
4. Occasionally eat some fruit
(by John Crownover, http://mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/16JohnCrownover
Sam! If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.
Does that count?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Even if the code to PacMan were lost, you could write that sort of gameplay again in just a couple of hours.
Granted, you could make a pretty faithful Pac-Man clone in a few hours, maybe less if you weren't too picky about how close it was, but to make an exact duplicate would be difficult for a few reasons.
First, the Ghosts aren't exactly random, and they aren't exactly "patterns". They more or less respond in accordance to the player and almost precisely at that. A really good player with excellent timing can develope a pattern that will result in the ghosts moving in exactly the same way each time. The best players have a pattern for each level up to level 18 at least.
Each of the four ghosts have a response different from the others so while in a very indirect way the player may be "controlling" the ghosts they are designed to respond in a way that makes them more or less close in on the player.
Pac-Man is a brilliant game in a lot of ways. Some people really appreciate how brilliant it is, and they're the ones with the 50,000+ scores. Some people just acknoledge that it's a classic. Others only know it because it's famous. But no matter how you look at it Pac-Man is going to stick around a long time because it just happens to be fun.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I don't know that that's necessarily true. I think part of retro popularity is that sometimes things have inherent value. It's the same way that William Shakespeare's plays don't go away after so many years. Now I know that I'm comparing Shakespeare to Pac Man, but bear with me here.
I love listening to the Beatles and the Doors, I was born after these bands were long dead and buried (well maybe not buried in the case of the Doors), I discovered them anew in my own life and formed my own kinship with their recordings.
In the same way the first video game my little nephew ever played (at about 2 or 3 years old) was the first Super Mario Brothers. There are newer, better, more graphically entertaining games available, but my nephew is just as happy playing Super Mario Brothers as he is playing anything else (and he's now a bit older).
I would argue that old games have inherent value, they are classics for a reason. There are a million old games which straight up suck, but they don't get the downloads because nobody cared then and nobody cares now. Just like music, film, plays, books, novels, etc. videogames have retro value because they are inherently entertaining, not because they are the newest technology and the best EFFECTS EVER... Many of today's games that are great graphically will be forgotten quickly after they are released, because they lack the same things that make classics strong. Mario, Pac Man, Duck Hunt and friends will bridge the gap generation after generation because they are as good now as they were then, even if we have better graphics.
There are certain things which defy trendiness because they are good art and good entertainment, and these things will remain when everything else crumbles. People get so concerned with pushing units that they forget these facts in every one of the trades I just mentioned. Some things are eternal, some are rubbish. Those which only have nostalgia value (because it was the only game you had one time as a kid growing up) won't get exceptional attention now just as they didn't then. It's not just being old that makes them popular, it's the fact that they were great.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Pacman is popular for exactly the same reason that countless people pay money to see the Mona Lisa.
Firstly, it's simplistic, and not filled with greater meaning. Secondly, it's popular/famous, and present in 'popular culture'. If you asked somebody who wasn't into games/art about Gradius/Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch, they'd greet you with a blank stare, but mention EVERYONE knows Pacman/Mona Lisa to one extent or another. Thirdly, it's deeply layered. Despite simplistic gameplay/subject matter, there is a rich possibility under the surface.
Okay, i'm now officially a giant nerd.
Retro games are "pure" in a sense; ...they don't bore you with cut scenes
The Pac-Man series did have cut scenes; they were just under one minute each.
In the first one, Pac-Man is chased from the right edge of the screen to the left by the four ghosts. The four ghosts reappear in their blue edible form and a larger Pac-Man chases them off the right side of the screen.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
....things were the same as I suppose they are today. You young whippersnappers!!!!
However, back then, they promoted game play, not eye candy. I don't care how low my ride is or how much it's been tricked out on my "underground" racing game. If I race my NFS car around a track, I can bang it up for a while and come out unscathed. I just make it to the finish line faster by bouncing off the other cars.
However, in Pole Position, you needed more skill. You blew up when you hit another car or road sign. You had to be careful around the turns or you didn't place in position for the next race. Let's see how many young NFS players even qualify in Pole Position.
The other thing about retro gaming is that the older gameplay works well on a handheld platform. You may not always have your DS or PSP with you, but you do have your mobile phone.....
I want a spinner on my next phone. I want to take Tempest with me wherever I go.
were those real-time or pre-rendered?
Collector's Edition
I think in some ways older games are still popular because the games are GOOD and they will always be GOOD, they aren't good because they're following a trend or a fad they are themselves and they are classic and original in their execution; they don't try to be things that they're not.
That's not to say that games today are all bad, certainly there are THOUSANDS of old games and we still only talk about a very very small number of them. I think every generation has titles that stand the test of time. Doom, Street Fighter II, Mario 64, Final Fantasy VII, etc. Those games will still be played for a long long time because they're original and timeless.
In other ways retro games like PacMan are popular because there aren't any modern alternatives, and in the rare instance that we DO get a modern alternative gamers jump on it like rabid wolves, just look at titles like Bejeweled, Geometry Wars, Lumines, Brain Age, etc. All of those games are incredibly simple rely very minimally on graphical glitz for their popularity and could probably be recreated in a short time with some dedication.
Basically, They're simple cheap and fun games, and the gaming industry seems to completely ignore this type of game... We keep hearing about the costs of development rising but that's only because they're pursuing the graphical envelope, if they just stopped and looked around they're realize that there is a giant gaping hole in the market for fun and innovative retro-style games, that are cheap to develop and offer infinite replayability. I love lots of older games but I don't really think I like them for nostalgic reasons (I'm too young to remember PacMan in the Arcade but I still love the game) it's just because they're good games, I also love Geometry wars and if they made more GOOD games in this simple style I'm sure I'd find a lot to like in them too.
Why does everything have to be 3D? Why does everything have to use the latest technological advances? Why can't new hardware advances be used to make new and innovative classic games (think of a PacMan era game but with the advantage of the wiimote). There's no reason except that the industry rarely ever thinks to make games like that. Hopefully we'll get some indy talent fixing this situation with things like Steam, XNA Express/XBLA, and the Virtual Console.
Collector's Edition
You know how to use wikipedia. I'm so proud of you. Now stop.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Well, that's how the web should work. References for people who don't know who Morgan Spurlock is, what "Super Size Me" is or what's the point of the reference to Super Pac-Man (i.e. huge Pac-Man, i.e. Super-Sized).
Slashdot makes external links heavy on the text by adding the domain name in brackets after the actual link. It's not my fault, that's the way Slashdot works. I hate it myself, and I'm too lazy to go check my account settings to see if there's a way to disable that "feature".
Pac-Land.
Don't forget The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway!
No, but seriously, time is a good filter. Usually the higher end of things tend to be remembered, at least all the crap gets forgotten. As big as Disturbed are, in 20 years, hardly ANYONE will remember who they are. If you really think back to the early 80s in gaming, there was a whole lot of shit out there... I'm a proponant to think that creativity is pretty constant among humans... no matter how corporate we get, or how primative we become, there's usually always about the same amount of truly inspiring things out there, and it may take decades for it to get all sorted out, which is why you are guarenteed at least some semblance of quality if you look back at stuff in the past.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.