[brabel]

Before reading this I didn’t realize how today gaming is different from 80’s and 90’s gaming , to the point Kazeta is a thing! I thought that mostly, CDs had replaced cartridges and loading games became slow, but apparently subscription plans, online chat and “micro transactions” are now accepted as standard gaming?!

[ZaoLahma]

Yep. Most games nowadays are released broken and incomplete. Being able to patch a game after release truly is both a blessing and a curse. Then they throw microtransactions on top of the already rather ugly mess.

Microtransactions were supposed to finance free to play or "live service" games where they paid for new content over several years, but (of course) they've found themselves into what's solidly not... that.

[opan]

>Being able to patch a game after release truly is both a blessing and a curse.

Very true. We got stuff like Minecraft, Terraria, and Core Keeper that got updates to improve the game at no additional cost for years after release, but we also got early access games that sell you on a potentially good future game, and only sometimes deliver. Starbound is a disappointment that often comes to mind.

[voidfunc]

Have you been living under a rock for the last 15+ years?

I haven't touched a CD since the late 2000s.

[rkagerer]

Have you been living under a rock for the last 15+ years?

Yes, and I'm not coming out until projects like this finish scooping up all the crap MBA's have excreted all over the place in that time.

[pansa2]

CDs specifically are obsolete, but games on optical media are still a thing. Unlike ROM cartridges, which AFAICT died with the GBA in 2008.

[masklinn]

While they’re flash rather than rom, the switch 2 still supports physical distribution media.

[pansa2]

True, but the way they work is more like discs than ROMs: their data isn’t immediately available but needs to be loaded into RAM.

[masklinn]

True, but the low latency and constant-ish access patterns of flash makes a lot of its performance characteristics closer to ROM than CDs, even with the intermediate copy.

[euLh7SM5HDFY]

I was under wrong impression that it doesn't. They really muddied the water with those other "game-key cards".

[sgbeal]

> Unlike ROM cartridges, which AFAICT died with the GBA in 2008.

Look up the Gameboy 3DS :).

[pezezin]

3DS carts are actually NAND flash, and if you don't play them for long enough the may lost all the data!

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2021/05/psa_yes_your_ds_an...

[sgbeal]

> 3DS carts are actually NAND flash

TIL. Thank you :).

[npteljes]

Of course. Physical media is long out. What was the last time you saw a laptop with a DVD drive?

On PC especially, online is first. Games come with update managers, "launchers", and that's the absolute standard - publishers either roll their own, or submit to established ones like Steam.

Micro-transactions are accepted, but far from universal. People bemoan them for some reason, but I'd say that the vast majority of games don't have it.

Subscriptions normally come with games with a managed online gaming experience. How else are supposed to be funded, I wonder? I think it's normal to pay for a service, be that gaming, or a gym membership.

[sgbeal]

> Micro-transactions are accepted, but far from universal. People bemoan them for some reason, ...

Because, for one, with them came "Pay to Win". Nothing good comes from Pay to Win except that someone lines their pockets.

A professor once told us that something like 1/3rd of people have personalities which are prone to become truly addicted to something. Microtransactions, regardless of their justification[^1], actively target personalities which are especially prone to instant gratification and the endorphins triggered by spontaneous purchases.

[^1]: They _are_ fundamentally justified - it costs money to keep any digital service going, and tons of it for a service like an MMORPG.

[npteljes]

Yeah, I agree with you. I handwaved micro-transactions away too much, because of what an easy time I have with them. But I truly dislike them as well, especially for the exploitation factor.

To rephrase what I originally wanted to say: "Micro-transactions are accepted, but far from universal. Gaming got huge - even if you discard every game that has micro-transactions, the catalogue is still vast and impressive."

[voidUpdate]

I have several laptops with a DVD drive, so the last time I saw one was last night

[npteljes]

That's cool! They rarely come with them though these days. I have taken a quick look at two large webshops of my location: one had 1200 machines with 0 of them having an optical drive, and the other had 5500 machines, with 2 of them having optical drives.

[hulitu]

> apparently subscription plans, online chat and “micro transactions” are now accepted as standard gaming?!

And looong download/update times (Delta Force - almost 4 hours). Makes a ZX Spectrum which loaded games from cassettes pale in comparison.

[reactordev]

My children have only known micro transaction riddled games. When I show them old school games, they scoffed at the graphics and returned to their phones.

[ranger_danger]

Why would one allow their children to grow up with dangerous addictive slop knowing full-well that it's bad and what the better alternatives are?

[reactordev]

We didn’t, we locked down those phones and only allowed them to play certain approved games. No transactions were ever had. We would give them gift cards for some for Christmas or birthdays but they did not have access to payment methods on their phones.

[carra]

Also, don't forget there are now launchers (you can't run your game yourself, it has to go through us) and EULAs (you can only play what you buy in our terms). Nice times indeed...

[alex_suzuki]

I had to explain to my kids (10 and 6yr old) recently what this shiny round thing was that they got from the library…

[sgbeal]

Back around 1990 my youngest brother, who had always seen CDs, asked me one day, "what are those things in your closet?" "What things?" "They look like CDs but they're big and black!" He had never seen a record before.

[Gabrys1]

They got a coaster from the library?