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Why old video game media should be preserved, like this game for future information.
Dimon6579
Posts: 501 Member
Why should the sims 1 should be saved? Well, it is part of our culture of designing games and using this medium, we can explore how our culture evolved over time in games. Such games might include things that at the time were the normal, but could now be considered bad or inappropriate to do. By keeping info on the past, we can evolve to the future and keep our history alive. I am a fan of history, and losing any early digital games will cause issues in preserving our digital past. As a big fan of preserving video games, when i die, i plan to donate all my old nes and snes games to a video game preservation history society, something like this one:
https://gamehistory.org/
I am very passionate about preserving older games, and i hope some of you consider this. As the world is now, most companies release their game, fix them with patches after awhile, then just don't care and drop them. We already lost some early history of video games, and that is quite sad. Luckily most times people dump alpha builds of old games on the web for preservation. For example, a alpha version of the sonic game was released awhile ago to show what changes sega did to the game.
It saddens me alot that MAXIS nor EA do not care about preserving their old games. We lost DARKSPORE because of the neglect of preserving games. If you never heard of DARKSPORE, it was a spinoff game made by ea about spore where you play online with other people and fight bosses. It was a always online game and this is why it was lost, and also, many companies do this and retire the online parts of games, and since some games are online permanently, this is how they are lost.
So what does this have to do with the sims 1? I consider it the first AI controller game made by will wright that allowed you to control "sims". Originally called dollhouse simulator, this changed alot of things about gaming in the late 1990's and early 2000's. If MAXIS or EA tends to preserve this game, i would not have this discussion on here. I feel that older games should be put into a collection, and be able to be freely used by anyone to experience our culture via digital media. By refusing to save it, it would be like we forgot all movies we made, or perhaps we do not honor certain people by just forgetting about them. AS part of our culture, i feel this game should be preserved for the future, at least in some kinda form. Peferably physical. Anyways, i wanted to know what other people think of preservation of video games like the sims 1.
NOTE: I Did in the past try to convince EA/MAXIS to preserve the game. I also found a mod to allow one to play it on windows 10 pc's. I hope i can still play my physical copy on windows 11 when im forced again when i buy a new pc to get that new os.
QUESTION: What is your opinion about saving our digital games for future generations for historical and cultural purposes? Do you agree with me or not? Please post constructive commensts only below. Thank you for reading and have a nice day.
https://gamehistory.org/
I am very passionate about preserving older games, and i hope some of you consider this. As the world is now, most companies release their game, fix them with patches after awhile, then just don't care and drop them. We already lost some early history of video games, and that is quite sad. Luckily most times people dump alpha builds of old games on the web for preservation. For example, a alpha version of the sonic game was released awhile ago to show what changes sega did to the game.
It saddens me alot that MAXIS nor EA do not care about preserving their old games. We lost DARKSPORE because of the neglect of preserving games. If you never heard of DARKSPORE, it was a spinoff game made by ea about spore where you play online with other people and fight bosses. It was a always online game and this is why it was lost, and also, many companies do this and retire the online parts of games, and since some games are online permanently, this is how they are lost.
So what does this have to do with the sims 1? I consider it the first AI controller game made by will wright that allowed you to control "sims". Originally called dollhouse simulator, this changed alot of things about gaming in the late 1990's and early 2000's. If MAXIS or EA tends to preserve this game, i would not have this discussion on here. I feel that older games should be put into a collection, and be able to be freely used by anyone to experience our culture via digital media. By refusing to save it, it would be like we forgot all movies we made, or perhaps we do not honor certain people by just forgetting about them. AS part of our culture, i feel this game should be preserved for the future, at least in some kinda form. Peferably physical. Anyways, i wanted to know what other people think of preservation of video games like the sims 1.
NOTE: I Did in the past try to convince EA/MAXIS to preserve the game. I also found a mod to allow one to play it on windows 10 pc's. I hope i can still play my physical copy on windows 11 when im forced again when i buy a new pc to get that new os.
QUESTION: What is your opinion about saving our digital games for future generations for historical and cultural purposes? Do you agree with me or not? Please post constructive commensts only below. Thank you for reading and have a nice day.
A sims 4 player, but i mostly play on steam. I do not own sims 4 on steam, but thru origin. I play on few occasions sims 4.
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Comments
That reminds me of the fact that people still want The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection to return. Before The Sims 4 released, Origin did the thing that if you had The Sims 2 there, you got it replaced with Ultimate Collection. For those who didn't, they could open the "Redeem Code" thing and type in I-LOVE-THE-SIMS to get it for free. After it ended, it was possible to get it through calling EA help and claiming you had The Sims 2. However in 2018, the code support ended and it was no longer possible to get The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection. However, people still want The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection to return, as there are still those who don't have it but want it. The discussion was closed, but it is said that it is because it is incompatible with modern hardware and software, which is true, but people have created things like Graphics Rule Maker to make it work.
I do hope that the high demand will get it back somehow. I think the main fear is that compared to Maxis in The Sims 2 times, the team is different and they might mess up the coding.
We need to be better about media preservation in general: Not just the big money-makers or critical/scholarly darlings, but obscure titles and even the outright failures as well. Think of all of the literature that was written in the same era as Shakespeare or Twain or Dickens that wasn't preserved because it lacked popularity with the right people. Think of all the movies that will never be re-released on streaming or home video (and have even become lost media because every known copy has been destroyed or allowed to deteriorate over the years) because they flopped at the box office. Think of all the games that current generations either can't play at all or can only play either by going through the expense of purchasing original hardware and a physical copy or using...internet-enabled means.
The PS1 Lunar remakes and their Sega CD/Mega CD originals are not available on any virtual console platform as far as I'm aware of. They haven't been ported to PC. You can only play them without going broke buying a physical copy (because several market-related reasons caused them to be relatively rare) through resources provided by dedicated fans on the internet. However, these are important games. They helped establish many important JRPG storytelling tropes, took advantage of the technology of their time to provide an immersive experience through impressive (for their time) animated cutscenes, The Sega CD/Mega CD Lunar games were among the first JRPG's to utilize voice acting all the way back in the early 90's! Like TS1 and many other important classics, these games need to be preserved for future generations to experience, enjoy, and learn from. We NEED to take video game preservation, and media preservation as a whole, a LOT more seriously.