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At what point are games considered "old"?

Satchel

Banned
I was having a chat with a friend yesterday, and I mentioned to him how cool it was that a game as recent as Sleeping Dogs was free with Playstation Plus. Which is fantastic by the way.

His response? "But that game's old"

I was pretty surprised. The game has only been out 6 months. In my eyes, anything less than a year still counts as a recent game. So I was stoked when I could download Sleeping Dogs so soon after release on PS Plus.

Especially given the length of this generation, and the ridiculous amount of games that have come from it, I would have figured a 6 month old game would still be considered "recent" at the very least.

Or is my backlog just too big?
 

emb

Member
I wouldn't really call a game 'old' until at least two generations. So PS2/GCN games are just now becoming old to me.

I understand this is a different context though. For what it's worth I'd agree that Sleeping Dogs is recent. I'd say the cut off for recent is like... two years probably? Maybe one and a half.
 

Persona7

Banned
In my experience, that is a common mindset for people who only play 1-3 huge budget blockbuster games a year. Anything more than a few weeks is "old"
 

Levyne

Banned
Huh, I don't really consider a game old until you are talking about something from a different gen, maybe two

I wouldn't really call a game 'old' until at least two generations. So PS2/GCN games are just now becoming old to me.

I understand this is a different context though. For what it's worth I'd agree that Sleeping Dogs is recent. I'd say the cut off for recent is like... two years probably? Maybe one and a half.

Yeah, a mindset like this. Only maybe only <1 year to be "recent". Not that it really matters.
 

MormaPope

Banned
Once a console stops getting normal game releases, I'd consider most of the software for that console old.

For PC games, anything pre 2003/2004.
 

DiscoJer

Member
Well, apparently games made in 1998 are considered "old school". Like referring to the older Baldur's Gate style CRPGs, as opposed to what I personally consider to be them - Wizardry and The Bard's Tale (which are like 30 years old)

So I think it depends on the genre.
 

MikeDip

God bless all my old friends/And god bless me too, why pretend?
For me, old would mean 5 years. 6 months being "old" is crazy.
 

sn00zer

Member
When everything about them has been improved in some way that makes them no longer fun...see pretty much any older game with poor controls
 

Trin

Member
2-3 years or if a newer sequel from the series has been released since. 6 months is just barely scratching the backlog.
 

HaRyu

Unconfirmed Member
When a game stops being fun for everyone and does not bring a single shred of enjoyment, regardless of how popular it once was, regardless of any sort of rose-tinted glasses nostalgia people may have for it.
 
I remember bringing Vanquish over to a friends house the year it came out. His response was, "Dude this game looks like it was done on XBOX. These graphics are terrible. Let's play something else." I think it depends on the person. Some people seem to think that anything that isn't as photo-realistic as possible is old and not worth bothering with. I can still play NES games so I am probably not the kind of guy to dismiss a game as being "too old" to play. 2600, Sega SG 1000...yeah that's what I consider old to the point where I won't be bothering with.

Same guy also said the day Symphony of Night came out, "Dude these graphics are horrible." lol
 

Dereck

Member
I was having a chat with a friend yesterday, and I mentioned to him how cool it was that a game as recent as Sleeping Dogs was free with Playstation Plus. Which is fantastic by the way.

His response? "But that game's old"

I was pretty surprised. The game has only been out 6 months. In my eyes, anything less than a year still counts as a recent game. So I was stoked when I could download Sleeping Dogs so soon after release on PS Plus.
That's because your friend is stupid.
 
In the context you're speaking of, I would probably say anything from the previous gen (or really early current gen, since this gen was so long).

More generally speaking, I think it's fair to call something old after about 10 years.
 

Levyne

Banned
Meanwhile we got vaquished

Which apparently is short, my friend tells me (yes khold im being obnoxious XD)

Ha. It's fun though. (And free lol)

I remember bringing Vanquish over to a friends house the year it came out. His response was, "Dude this game looks like it was done on XBOX. These graphics are terrible. Let's play something else." I think it depends on the person. Some people seem to think that anything that isn't as photo-realistic as possible is old and not worth bothering with. I can still play NES games so I am probably not the kind of guy to dismiss a game as being "too old" to play. 2600, Sega SG 1000...yeah that's what I consider old to the point where I won't be bothering with.

Same guy also said the day Symphony of Night came out, "Dude these graphics are horrible." lol

Whenever I play anything I just put myself in the mindset on when and where the game released...it shouldn't be hard but apparently it can be..
 
I can understand the logic behind a game 2-3 years after release being considered "old", but Sleeping Dogs? I have a hard time wrapping my head around that one.
 

DasMarcos

Banned
I wouldn't hold any real sway with what your friend said. He just meant it's old because 6 months have passed. That's all there is to it really.
 
If anything your friend shows how throwaway and forgettable modern games often are.

Noone ever said quake 3 is old 6 months after it was released.
 

terrisus

Member
I don't really think of games in terms of "old" and "new," I just think in terms of whether they're fun or not.

It just happens that most of the games I find fun are ones that were released longer ago.
 
I would say a game was old when it started to feel dated .... like Tetris is a timeless classic but a classic FPS such as Doom feels old because of all the new conventions and developments within the genre.
 
Whenever I play anything I just put myself in the mindset on when and where the game released...it shouldn't be hard but apparently it can be..

That's the best way to do it. Kind of like a time machine for gaming. Sometimes I will spot an effect in an older game and marvel at them being able to do it way back then, even though the effect might be common place today.
 

Endesu

Member
Maybe it has to do with your age?

I don't even consider some PS2 games to be old. Persona 4 came out in, what, 2008? Not that long ago.
 

Soriku

Junior Member
2-3 years I'd say.

Not that I care how old a game is. If it's a game I want to play, I'm playing it eventually. I'm playing Paper Mario N64 now on the Wii VC...
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
3 years is old, and I'm speaking as someone who regularly plays games much, much older than that. Wouldn't it be fair to say FFXIII is old at this point?

I wouldn't call it "retro" until about a decade has passed, though. A game like Silent Hill 3? Getting to be retro.
 

Omega

Banned
Old = month after release usually. At least that's how it seems

Its why publishers love consoles. Pulling stats out of my ass, but I say 90% of sales occur in the first month. It's why games tend to get frequent price drops after that. It's good and bad for publishers because you have people buying your game at $60, but if they don't get it at launch chances are they won't ever get it no matter how frequently they price drop
 

pargonta

Member
there are two ways to think about this i think...

legacy timeline context
and contemporary market reality

for example, sleeping dogs is old in the contemporary market reality. games have been released after it, the attention zeitgeist has come and gone..
but in the legacy timeline context it's a very recent game from the current generation.

just think of it like movies imo. the dark knight rises, for example, is old in the contemporary market reality.

so, yeah sleeping dogs is old through that prism, shit came out last year.
 

BocoDragon

or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
there are two ways to think about this i think...

legacy timeline context
and contemporary market reality

for example, sleeping dogs is old in the contemporary market reality. games have been released after it, the attention zeitgeist has come and gone..
but in the legacy timeline context it's a very recent game from the current generation.

just think of it like movies imo. the dark knight rises, for example, is old in the contemporary market reality.

so, yeah sleeping dogs is old through that prism, shit came out last year.
That's fair. I mean, it's not hard to determine what a "new" game is. If old is by definition "not-new", then it means anything that didn't just get released in the last month or so.
 

pargonta

Member
That's fair. I mean, it's not hard to determine what a "new" game is. If old is by definition "not-new", then it means anything that didn't just get released in the last month or so.

i failed in giving a number though... which is the difficult part.
see something like dmc or ni no kuni..those are still new to me.

maybe... 3 months? lol idk.

and ofcourse none of this matters in terms of what can be played and enjoyed, but it's interesting to think about.
 

MarkusRJR

Member
It really depends on what you view as old. It could be something like:

-An entry in a series that's no longer the most recent.
-A game no longer on store shelves.
-A game that's __ years old.
-Early home console games (games on NES, Atari, Collecovision, etc)
-Old arcade games.
 
This generation? The moment it's out the door man.

If I don't have the time to complete a game in the first few days with the rest of the hive mind, it starts to feel old.
 
I only really think of them as old once they've been around for at least 10 years or so. Probably also depends on if I played them at the time they were new as well.
 
Some games are old but have aged well (Chrono/Secret of Mana etc) - and some are only a few years old but look incredibly dated nowadays (ie - something like Blue Dragon).

Old i dont mind, dated i do.
 
I think there's a difference between "being an old game" and "not aging well." I go by that because a lot of older games are better than new ones, not just 2-3 year old games, but games that's been around for 10-15 years!
 
I was having a chat with a friend yesterday, and I mentioned to him how cool it was that a game as recent as Sleeping Dogs was free with Playstation Plus. Which is fantastic by the way.

His response? "But that game's old"

I was pretty surprised. The game has only been out 6 months. In my eyes, anything less than a year still counts as a recent game. So I was stoked when I could download Sleeping Dogs so soon after release on PS Plus.

Especially given the length of this generation, and the ridiculous amount of games that have come from it, I would have figured a 6 month old game would still be considered "recent" at the very least.

Or is my backlog just too big?


Your friend saying the game is already old is just the sad side effects of this generation hype machine marketing.

PR have effectively built hype as the main ingredient to a games success and relevancy. A game is only worth the attention during it's hype peak (usually release day). Once the game is out for a few weeks, the marketing subsides along with the air of hype surrounding it. Once that happens, the game in question is no longer on the minds of consumers and therefore will seem like old news because no one is talking about it or no marketing can be seen anywhere for the game.

Pretty much look at the sales for most HD gen games, they have no long tail sales.

Again, this generation saw the hype machine grow in full force to the point were it can make or break a game.
 
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