My question is simple: do you think games which are released these days will still be cared about as 'our' oldies are today? Will there be some kind of 'Abandonware scene' (no matter if it's using this name) trying to preserve titles like No One Lives Forever 2, Medieval, NHL 2003 and all these?

For me alone, the answer would be clear: since I'm not the slightest bit interested in those games at the moment, why should I care for them in a few years? There are more than enough people who do buy these games and consider them good/great now. Do they get these emotional links to the games which drives most of us though?

I'd say yes, on the nostalgia factor alone. I can understand why you don't care that much for current games (though I think there are still some worthwhile games being produced these days -- they're just lost under tons of crap), but for a kid groing up now, playing Half-life, NHL 2003, or whatever, when he looks back in 10 years' time, he'll remember his youth, and the games he played back then, with fondness, and it's likely he'll want to revive and preserve the memories of those games. Even if the games aren't as good as they used to be, I think it'd be a good thing if some of the kids today would grow up to be the abandonware webmasters of the future.

I think not, seeing as nowadays, games are rarely innovative and come out in series, of which the last episode is always the most technologically advanced and therefore considered by the masses as 'the best'... But I do believe there will always be a certain number of games that have their dedicated followers, by offering something pretty unique (eg. Black & White)...

A second problem is that nowadays games are more hardware-dependent than ever; for example games that only run in 3dfx Glide are destined to become obsolete...

About the emotional link: I think they'll get the link if the game is good enough, and seems to create a universe of its own so to speak... So the nostalgia will be pretty limited I guess...

You two summed up the thoughts I've been having almost exactly. It's just that I can't decide which argument to follow!

I certainly think 'modern gamers' will get an 'emotional relationship' to some games. Maybe fewer than a few years ago, but still some. And that's good! As much as I hate these games personally, it at least shows not all of them are as forgettable as I think they are.

For most of the games, I agree with Mole though. I mean, we already see that with almost all games already, don't we? Who continues playing a game as soon as there is a sequel? Even huge hits like Age of Empires are completely forgotten!


The technological component is something I've never really thought of. Don't modern chips support these graphic modi anymore?

I can't immediately think of an other example, but in the case of 3dfx I don't think any new hardware supports it, which is strange because I thought nVidia had bought the entire 3dfx company... It can't be that hard to use Glide on their graphics cards, but they don't seem to worry about backwards compatibility.

My point is: I remember Glide being many times faster than OpenGL and DirectX at the time, but it eventually just disappeared, died because game developers no longer supported it... If a new standard should come and replace OpenGL, and if it gets the needed support, soon all current video hardware would also become obsolete, because OpenGL support would be discontinued just like it happened to Glide... So in ten years time, you'd need a PC with ten different graphics cards to get a collection of abandonware running...

But that's a problem you face nowadays too (although in a different form). For some AB-games you need a pure dos mode which isn't supported by MS latest os winxp/win2000... I'm pretty sure that by the time these games do hit AB-status (which I think some will), they will have found a work-around through a patch or an emu or something...

There is already a workaround for glide, it's called a glide wrapper. I'm not sure about it's compatibility factor, and how much it slows down your comp while you use it (it's basically an emulator), but the important thing is that you can play glide games with glide hardware.

What about series like Warcraft for example where 1 and almost 2 can be considered abandonware classics by some right now, but 3 will of course have a following from those who loved the first two but will it survive.

Good games will live on ones the everyone remembers, ones that we're groundbreaking, even some series games for example final fantasy 7 will be remembered whilst others won't. Games now I think largely don't get remembered because they are all looks and have not much playability, unlike the games of old which were storyline galore even if they weren't much to look at. I still remember the first game I ever finished Police Quest 1 damn I loved that.

I'd like to throw in one more theory: Doesn't it often happen nowadays that games are remembered, but really only as a memory? What I mean by that is this: When I ask someone about Age of Empires (always using that example because it fits so well), they of course remember it, remember playing it for hours, remember they considered it groundbreaking at the time it was new. When I then ask them however why they don't play it anymore, they answer that there are way better games (like for example Age of Empires 2) now and AOE1 has become obsolete.

I've seen the same train of thought with many 'newer' Abandonware webmasters: their work is based 100% on memories, but they would never play the games they're offering again. But for me, that's not everything because I really and still love those games! That is why I don't like it for example when game reviews are written fully in past tense: "the graphics were great, it was extremely funny,....". This is not referring to passages directly talking about memories of course, but about descriptive parts.

And this trend - even though it is existing in 'current Abandonware' - seems to be a lot stronger concerning 'modern' games...