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On Mon, 7 Oct 2024 19:26:52 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:
On 10/3/2024 9:00 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Prepare for the stupidest complaint I've yet made!
I'm actually with you although in my case it's Steam, because I look a
lot at older games, and it's the date it appeared on Steam, or was
re-released on Steam, as such I find their release dates about useless.
Steam is all over the place with its reported release dates.
_Sometimes_ it will be the original release date. _Sometimes_ it will
be when the game was reissued. And sometimes it will be -as you
mentioned- when it appears on the Steam platform. It's a mess.
I'm a little more forgiving, though, since it's apparent that Valve
just doesn't care as opposed to GOG's trying to manipulate the dates
for their benefit. Arguably, many of these re-releases are "new'
versons of the game (since most of them have been updated in one way
or another to better run on modern hardware), so a modern release date
isn't completely outrageous.
But I wouldn't mind some consistency.
PC release dates are weirdly hard to nail down anyway, especially with
older games. Except for a handful of really high-profile games (Doom,
Duke Nukem 3D, etc.) you usually can't narrow it down to better than
the release _month_, and for some games you're lucky if you know the
year. But back in the 80s and 90s, there often wasn't a hard-and-fast
release date. Games were shipped and sold when they were available. In
an era when many games were hand-packed by the developers themselves,
and there was no just-in-time shipping, the release date depended a
lot on when the store got the game (and few stores waited for a
specific date; the games got put on shelves immediately).
Which is really annoying to those of us who'd like an exact date. But
the past was a weird place. ;-)
On Mon, 7 Oct 2024 19:26:52 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@gmail.com>
wrote:
On 10/3/2024 9:00 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Prepare for the stupidest complaint I've yet made!
I'm actually with you although in my case it's Steam, because I look a
lot at older games, and it's the date it appeared on Steam, or was >>re-released on Steam, as such I find their release dates about useless.
Steam is all over the place with its reported release dates.
_Sometimes_ it will be the original release date. _Sometimes_ it will
be when the game was reissued. And sometimes it will be -as you
mentioned- when it appears on the Steam platform. It's a mess.
I'm a little more forgiving, though, since it's apparent that Valve
just doesn't care as opposed to GOG's trying to manipulate the dates
for their benefit. Arguably, many of these re-releases are "new'
versons of the game (since most of them have been updated in one way
or another to better run on modern hardware), so a modern release date
isn't completely outrageous.
But I wouldn't mind some consistency.
PC release dates are weirdly hard to nail down anyway, especially with
older games. Except for a handful of really high-profile games (Doom,
Duke Nukem 3D, etc.) you usually can't narrow it down to better than
the release _month_, and for some games you're lucky if you know the
year. But back in the 80s and 90s, there often wasn't a hard-and-fast
release date. Games were shipped and sold when they were available. In
an era when many games were hand-packed by the developers themselves,
and there was no just-in-time shipping, the release date depended a
lot on when the store got the game (and few stores waited for a
specific date; the games got put on shelves immediately).
Which is really annoying to those of us who'd like an exact date. But
the past was a weird place. ;-)
On Wed, 9 Oct 2024 08:02:07 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
On 10/8/2024 6:47 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Which is really annoying to those of us who'd like an exact date. But
the past was a weird place. ;-)
That keeps getting weirder as time passes.
No, it was pretty weird back then too. We just didn't notice at the
time. Some of us even thought it was _cool_.
But, I mean... disco!
No, weirdness is the norm.
Prepare for the stupidest complaint I've yet made!
<rant>
Look on any digital video-game storefront -Steam, GOG, UPlay,
whatever- and you'll find all sorts of information about the games.
What the title is, what genre it falls under, who developed it, who
published it; why, you might even find user reviews if the store-front
is any good! And one of those pieces of information you usually find
is the release date. Not the most important bit of data, no, but it's
usually there. And because it's a very objective fact, it's the same
on all the store fronts. It's the game the day is released, after all.
How can it vary?
Ask GOG. Because _every_ game I've gotten from them, the release date
has always been one day earlier than everywhere else. Get a game from
Steam, Epic, EAOrigin, and it says "release date: Oct 29 2002". Get
the same game from GOG and the release date is "Oct 28 2002". And this discrepancy is driving me mad!
Yes, it's stupid. But I want consistency in my data! Especially since
I upload all my games into a central database, and GOG's proclivity is messing things up! I have the same game released on two different
days! It's a paradox! My brain explodes! Do you know how hard it is to
get exploded brain out of carpeting?
(In fact, I suspect this is purposeful; if you use GOG's own launcher,
or a third-party app like Playnite that combines multiple game
libraries into one mammoth list, GOG's games will always show up first
if you sort by release date.)
And sure, one day really isn't that bad. Arguably, it's even
permissible; if a game is released officially at 12:00 AM is the date
Dec 31 or Jan 1st? Who's to say? But it annoys me, especially since it
seems an intended tactic by GOG, and not just a misunderstanding or
accident. Stop trying to rewrite history, GOG! Just use the same date
as everyone else!
</rant>
Thus ends the most idiotic rant I've ever written* ;-)
------------
* so far