Will Games Age Well as an Artform?

[Jeff-20]

American comedian and TV host, Conan O'brien says (approximately), "I can appreciate a vintage car, but not a vintage video game." Do you think this art form will age as well as others? I think the comparison to automobiles is fair; I like both for similar reasons.

[orion70]

Me, I'd rather have a wonderful vintage system to play with, than the average old car. Some of them are not even collectible items, only trash. Most videogames, played in their correct context, age better than cars IMHO.

Of course, I'm thinking about playing Computer Space on the original arcade vs driving a FIAT 126 (daddy's first car). OTOH, any retro-gaming experience wouldn't stand the comparison with e.g. a Ferrari Dino. So, I guess it really depends .

EDIT: I've seen the video, and oh well, they're taking candies from a baby. Looks like they're making easy fun of yesterday's technical limitations. They'd better keep in account that gameplay, addictiveness, and replay value had the same importance than graphics and sound back then, whereas by today's standards the latter are 80% of the game. Which is not necessarily an OK criterion.

[beamrider]

I'd argue that today gameplay is the most important thing, since all games have great graphics. Lots of my friends label console titles with "amazing" graphics as "boring" due to being too easy, too dificult or just having an uninspiring plot.

[highinfidelity]

Thieves must have stolen the Ferrari Dino!!!

Or, at least, I can't see the linked picture!

I agree that a comparison with vintage cars is unfair if not stupid. Comparing a top-of-the-range vehicle with a mass-produced game is nonsense. It's simply not well put.

Also, cars have evolved almost insignificantly through the same decades. We're still stuck with internal combustion, alternate-motion pistons, gasoline, exhaust gas and all that crap that even the most pessimist ones predicted that were going to be by far a matter of an almost forgotten past by the year 2000. Go figure in 2015.

A sentence like "a muscle car of the '70s is still fun to drive", far from being "cool", simply depicts how poorly cars have evolved in the meanwhile. In proportion, electronics evolved 1000 times faster.

[orion70]

Thieves must have stolen the Ferrari Dino!!!

Or, at least, I can't see the linked picture!

Gosh, where's the car? It was there last time...

[rhurst]

Hey, the 1970s & 1980s was all about experimentation. The plethora of video games were a reflection and a result of that: bad but not all bad.
Now that we know more, have more, and can do more, I think both the maturity and expectation level has reached an equilibrium.
So when you see someone playing a classic redux on their phone or tablet, yeah, you've been there and done that. Leave them to their mindless pursuit.