> For example, you can still play games like Master of Orion 2 or Total Annihilation in multiplayer, because they rely on players hosting servers, and some people still host servers 25+ years after release (and people have even written fan patches to make that possible today, if necessary).
You make it sound like a good thing. And it indeed is for gamers. But it's the worse nightmare for established dev/pub that people play the old games, on their own servers, instead of your latest title.
It actually happened quite a lot. Starcraft I was (is?) more popular than Starcraft II in Korea, where the biggest Starcraft E-sport scenes are. I recently learned that Red Alert II is still fairly popular today in China, and Red Alert III players don't exist.
"How to out compete our previous title" is a real problem that established studios face. The lack of durability is a "solution".
I'm glad we didn't have to worry about Mozart or Beethoven trying to bury their previous works so that they wouldn't have to compete with their previous titles. This seems like a perverse incentive unique to modern creative works.
Well without modern technology, you need a well-trained orchestra to replicate Symphone No.9. The marginal cost was a totally different beast at that time.
Well, you have to make a better title then. If people prefer Red Alert 2 to Red Alert 3, then it's not like Red Alert 3 somehow deserves or is entitled to any money or attention; it has to earn it by being a better, desirable product - and from the opposite side, the players are entitled to keep playing the older game forever, they paid for it fair and square.
You make it sound like a good thing. And it indeed is for gamers. But it's the worse nightmare for established dev/pub that people play the old games, on their own servers, instead of your latest title.
It actually happened quite a lot. Starcraft I was (is?) more popular than Starcraft II in Korea, where the biggest Starcraft E-sport scenes are. I recently learned that Red Alert II is still fairly popular today in China, and Red Alert III players don't exist.
"How to out compete our previous title" is a real problem that established studios face. The lack of durability is a "solution".