A Global wish of Thankfulness and Happy Thanksgiving to Americans

[Myll]

So you're done with the Thanksgiving feast and just couldn't help yourself, but to come into Steam today, eh? Don't worry, even Gabe sneaks in too, if he's being honest.

Back in the 1980s, when video games were all still sold in boxes - no matter if a Computer game, or a Console game cartridge - they all came in a box. Thanksgiving was always a "down day" for chores so you could take the time to install a game - which took a lot of work. You could have 3-5 total floppy discs you had to load into the computer, in order, and had a lot of details to follow in the Game Manual for installation -- a Game Manual that was often up to 50 pages long (looking at you, Sirotech aka Sir-Tech games), and a hard-copy of the manual was included in the box. The first 10 pages could be just about how to install the game! Part of the "fun" back then, which Gen Z may not appreciate, is that since we didn't have modern distractions like Smartphones or the internet, we would have to deep-dive into the Game Manual, while awaiting all these floppy discs to load, one after the other. No kidding - some games were so huge, compared to a lower-end computer's capabilities, that it could take a half-day just to install a game, and get all the settings correct, which could sometimes mean calling Customer Service for the game company to help manually type in code into the game's files (but don't expect that call to happen on Thanksgiving in the 1980s!).

The "old days" of gaming, before the internet and downloads made it possible to install a game almost unnoticed, in minutes or in seconds, and with games that rarely even include a Game Manual, and are often PDF files buried in the game installation files, and mostly ignored by modern gamers.

Be thankful for those who came before you - they put in days and weeks to do what now takes hours or seconds in the modern day, but Game Development is still an arduous task and in itself - has not seen a significant reduction in time. It still takes a ton of coding to make a modern game, and make it well, no matter how much Moore's Law increases computing speed and capacity.

[HereIsPlenty]

Remember tape decks and the awful whiny sound they made when loading? That sound will haunt me forever. And dial-up internet connections, spending a day trying to download Magic Online. Or even the effort to stay connected during online games.

Yes, we remember. And screw those days. We are anew.

[Myll]

Originally posted by HereIsPlenty:

Remember tape decks and the awful whiny sound they made when loading? That sound will haunt me forever. And dial-up internet connections, spending a day trying to download Magic Online. Or even the effort to stay connected during online games.

Yes, we remember. And screw those days. We are anew.

I can remember in the original Asheron's Call, when we were able to get 100 people (their Avatars) not only on the same online game, but same game server, and in the same sector on the map without it booting anyone off the game - that was "progress" in the MMORPG world back in the late 90s (no one had seen 100 or more Avatars in one game-place to that point). The Dev's even custom made a gathering room just to see how many gamer Avatars could cram into one virtual "place" and see if the game remained stable.