[toolz]

I think you may be romanticizing the past a bit here. I got a Nintendo when it came out too and I never did any of the things you've done. You may have just imagined everyone was behaving in the same way you were, when it's probably just as likely they behaved more like me.

[ryandrake]

I remember getting Ultima V as a kid and it came with this beautiful cloth map, some little game related physical artifacts, and a big lore book you could read to get the backstory and context. I read that thing cover to cover before embarking on that awesome game. It was really something special. They don’t make games like that anymore. Now it’s “Here, have a half-assed binary, delivered online, full of bugs (because we rushed it out without QA) that’s going to need a zero day patch just to work, and search the web if you want (fan-written) lore and immersion.”

[smcin]

Agreed. We're not romanticizing the past, it's now a business model that the first version of a boardgame is early-beta-qiality as a market exploration tactic, to see whether and how much $ should invest in fixing it.

One example I cited [0] was Asmodee Digital's implementation of Terraforming Mars released in 2018, 2 years already after the physical version of the boardgame became a global hit... yet the digital version had such basic bugs, it wasn't like they couldn't have easily found free (or paid) playtesters to document them. Stupid stuff liked forced delays/ cutscene animations; in particular I heard the mobile interface was unplayable. By all accounts it was several years before it was half-playable. But by then there wasn't much revenue potential left.

It's sad when this happens especially if you're trying to evangelize for a game to your non-hardcore friends, because a bad initial experience can kill the word-of-mouth (like they did with the digital version of Pandemic [1] (delisted in 2022), or things like Essential Phone 1.0, or 'Cyberpunk').

I'd much prefer if studios said "You can buy the beta version now for $14.99, or wait for the general release in 6-12 months for $Y".

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42294364

[1]: https://www.ign.com/articles/pandemic-digital-game-removed

[jvalencia]

I concede this may be true. First time I played D&D, I bought the rulebook and pored over it until I knew the rules and details -- and had a blast. Now, being a DM, no one reads the rules.

[clown_strike]

It's not the same. Instruction manuals were unambiguous. (SimLife's was really fun from what I remember.) You got one and it said everything it needed to.

D&D (and many other TTRPGs) have become too Judaic for my liking. You can read the Torah cover to cover, but like any religion you'll inevitably be told you don't actually "understand" it unless you also buy and read the Talmud and all these journals and attended these seminars. Literally "Rules Lawyering: The Game." All these add-ons revising canon and adding some crappy fanfic or art just feel like cheap cash grabs. It's just not good enough for what it costs.

Nintendo never sold you add-ons for the instruction manual expanded universe. Subscribing to Nintendo Power might net you cheat codes or a poster or something--bonus content--but they were never integral to understanding the games.

[bluGill]

In both religion and TTRPGs every once in a while someone says lets throw away all those supplements and get back to the original. Some of them then add supplements (either their own new ones, or the old ones) back as they realize something they want to change/clarify.

You of course should pick exactly the same stance on the above as I do. But like any true gentleman I never tell you my stance is.

[vundercind]

I loved my tiny little NES manuals (the artwork!) and big-ass PC RPG manuals like the one for Fallout 2.