Commenter EcksJay22 wonders if video games will hold up as well as the classic films of yesteryear in today's Speak-Up on Kotaku.
I was playing some Splinter Cell yesterday and remembering how jaw-droppingly amazing it's graphics were at the time. They were still okay, but a lot of the initial wow factor the game had was naturally, and understandably lost.
This got me to thinking, will games age as gracefully as other media? Great art is great regardless of its age, great music or literature is timeless, and great movies remain amazingly watchable on their own merits, regardless of technological advances.
Games, though, are certainly much more heavily reliant on technology. This is a relatively unique position. Old black & white movies were technologically limited, but great ones stand on separate merits. We can appreciate and love old games, sure, but 'old' games are only 20-30 years old. We aren't at a point where avid gamers are a generation removed from early works. Mario is 20-30 years old, the Wizard of Oz is 75+.
Obviously we can't know how this will play out, I just thought the technological reliance of the medium will create some interesting and unique dynamics as years turn into decades.
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[Art by David Stonecipher]