For my first article I was planning on doing an onslaught of the current state of Abandonware Rings, and going into lengthy detail how I felt they was being neglected; then I contemplated and fished around the ‘scene’ and thought; Wait a minute, I should really appreciate that we have these two rings left. And even though these two rings aren’t living up to the quality they used to, they’re still being updated and they are still pretty much enforcing the rules they have – so back the fuck off.
My reason for becoming active in the scene again, was due to the fact I met up with a friend after twelve years, and we began to go into hours of conversation about the old games that we used to play – as sad as that might sound, I must admit it did trigger off a sense of nostalgia for me.
Arriving back here is like being new to the scene, people that I considered to be my clique of the scene (Hah! Remember when there was cliques?) have all gone, I’ve got three people from the community on my MSN list, opposed to the thirty I used to have – I have no sites, and a majority of the new blood here, who lets face it run the scene now, won’t even know / remember me. It’s like going back to school, only ten years after. So two ways this site could sway, a quirky community based site, or a barrage of ramblings from a has-been.
But my question is this; and this has probably been beaten on the head so many times, it could be classified as ridiculous, but (and here goes); Where the fuck is everyone? Sure the scene is giving birth to a lot more fantastic and quality-focused download sites, yet it seems communication with each other, is down to a shoutbox on said website. I mean, I’ll go to the forums that I actually know and have recently found, and the second last ‘topic’ was from August 2007 or something. Furthermore another interesting question; people that are still involved with Abandonware, does this not bother you, or just seem normal?
9 comments:
Heh, well I remember you The Saint :D, although I don't think I ever knew you too well, just saw you around the community...
My blunt and honest opinion is that the 'abandonware scene', if it can be called that, is more like a bunch of web sites that have their own communities these days, rather than a multi-site spanning community like it used to be...
Agree. To much competition. No cooperation at all. Bad, very bad :(
Hey, bro.
Yup, I remember you alright, right along with 3k/Diskboy, the 2 main peeps that I remember the most of.
I went away from the scene in around 04/05, and after coming back at the start of this year, I looked around and found basically nothing of the old scene anywhere, finding that, I got a small pain in my chest (you know the feeling when you long for something since gone).
Frankly, it's got nothing to do with competition, or cooperation, it's to do with the ever growing technological world, the older generation (not so old) have all since grown up and have jobs, familys and what not and really don't have the time for it anymore.
And the new generation? Well do I even need to explain that...
I long for the good old days, but I fear those days are long since gone and are being forgotten with each passing day. :'(
I think Isaac pegged it. I'll only add two things:
We did have a discussion on the Abandonware Blog about whether abandonware had a shelf life. I can kind of buy that theory now. If abandonware is built on nostalgia, you can't really have nostalgia for things you haven't experienced. So every 5 or so years, what's considered abandonware to the current generation will shift. They'll look fondly on the Super Nintendo games they grew up with, but not the original NES, as they never played that system. Meanwhile, the old generation will get consumed by jobs and responsibilities, and "die" off.
I also believe that a majority group of visitors to these sites are those who already know what specific game they want, or that just want free games. These people aren't going to register on forums or start up shrine sites. They're going to visit your site, pull the games, and go.
I wouldn't blame competition, as there's nothing to compete over. Same token, I don't really see how all the various sites could help each other out any more than they already are (link shares and rings). We tried cross-site activities like the Review Roundup, and that died on the vine. I can understand why - there was really no incentive.
By the way, thanks for starting up a new blog/forum for the community. Wish you the best with it.
Plus the fact that in its hay day, the abandonware scene was in the era of Dial-up, where people would cruise the scene to pass the time while their 1mb file took an hour to download :D
Hey man! I've linked to you from our own journal.
Not sure about communities really, I never really got that much into them even back in the day. Which i kind of regret now. I guess tho that people come and go when it comes to online communities. You get a few hardcore types who go on forever but can't really expect all the old names to still be around.
Anyway tho I've no idea what's out there currently - been ages sinced I trawled the sites. Time to have a look!
First of all, thank you guys for stopping by, it's nice to see your all still around!
Just to re-touch upon what Romano said, isn't it the opposite; of no competition? I mean, thats what got us all buzzing right? The drive to compete with 'x' ring / site / whatever. And viewing them compete was as much fun, sorta like a nuclear arms race.
I never understood the theory "They moved on". If you have a wife, a job, real life commitments, even kids - does it really mean, that you can't sit down during your lunch break, or during your net browsing time at home, and spend a mere 15 minutes, posting a comment or updating your site? I think it's the spark, it just withers out - it's just not new and shiney anymore.
Stoo: Nice to see you mate! Thanks for the link exchange, I will be reviewing everyones website, that makes a link-exchange with AG!
Once again, nice seeing you all here and thanks!
Anom: I forgot something. We used to talk via ICQ in 2002, but I never told you that your signature at the AG forums, inspired me quite a lot.
It was something like;
"-I have a 56k connection
-I have a crap computer
-I'm 15
-I use free geocities webspace
But this is my website: The Joystick"
Heh, was that really my sig? :D Quite profound for me haha...
I remember I used to be really motivated to keep on building my site back when it was completely a new thing (as you say above, maybe i lost the spark). Used to have to reupload constantly as my free accounts were deleted, and manually change every html page to reflect the new location of the games etc... Jeez, if I still had to do that my site would have died years ago...
BTW, in 2002 I was 17 actually :P
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