Comments on: Literacy

By: Dan Bruno

Dan Bruno — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:18:25 +0000

Thanks for your comment, laughingman. It’s good to hear that people are optimistic about the historical potential of services like the Virtual Console. I suppose it can only get better from here, and maybe things like Michael Abbott’s RPG class will help bring less accessible genres like classic RPGs to a new generation of gamers. The next few years should be interesting.

By: laughingman

laughingman — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:47:53 +0000

I’m coming a little late to the party, having just found this site. I share your concerns, Dan, and wonder about that, too. I have recently started keeping a gaming journal, and it’s amazing how often I reference a game I played 20 years ago when playing new ones. People who lived through the early gaming era (I’m in my 30s now) play today’s games with an entirely different reference point than the posters on Kotaku you talk about.

I have high hopes for the Virtual Console. I’ve owned the Wii a year and spent about $300 US on the VC, but I do that as an enthusiast for those games already. Will it introduce my era of gaming to this era’s gamer, and promote that gaming literacy we both seem to want? As I said, I have high hopes.

“History of Gaming” museums, with interactive exhibits and the chances to play through the classics? RPG’s wouldn’t get the playtime they deserved, though.

Emulation has a place there, but what is it? I’m a strong believer in and supporter of free and open source software (despite using Safari on a Mac OSX laptop, what can I say?), but I don’t know how this model would coexist with business models like Nintendo’s.

Very interesting question, though. I’m glad I came across your blog and will definitely be back!

By: Dan Bruno

Dan Bruno — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:02:44 +0000

Hey, thanks for coming by, Daniel!

Services like VC and Steam can only get better, but I wonder if that’ll be enough. If you’re just starting to get into video games twenty years from now, and you want to get up to speed on the history of the medium, what could you do? It’ll be unfeasible to purchase a large swath of gaming history, and if the current DRM climate persists you won’t be able to visit a games library. Rental and subscription services might help, but they generally don’t carry a lot of older games. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but it seems to me that without emulation a lot of video game history will fall through the cracks.

By: Daniel Primed

Daniel Primed — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 12:47:58 +0000

Interesting read Dan, I recently subscribed to the blog and I think that I’ll stick around. ^_^

I agree, I think for a historical or referential purpose emulation is quite useful. A good example can be seen on a retro gaming blog which I sometimes contribute articles for. The lead blogger there has recently started a sort of “book club” set around retro games (they play and discuss old games together), in such a context emulation is the ideal means of play.

On the other hand the digitial distribution services like the Virtual Console and Steam are also quite useful in that regard.