
YouTube “Let's Play”s are preserving video game history - danso
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2019/05/06/how-youtube-lets-plays-are-preserving-video-game-history/
======
pmarreck
[https://archive.org/](https://archive.org/) is preserving it by letting you
play them right in the browser via emulators compiled to Emscripten.

For example here is the Macintosh version of Dark Castle, which I spent some
number of hours winning at the time (circa 1986, digitized sound was still a
brand-new thing)
[https://archive.org/details/mac_DarkCastle_1_2](https://archive.org/details/mac_DarkCastle_1_2)

If you hit "Options" you'll notice the familiar WASD keyboard control layout.
Well, this is the earliest game I'm aware of that used that layout...

Here's The Dungeon Revealed, an early Mac dungeon-crawler I also spent a lot
of time in:
[https://archive.org/details/TheDungeonRevealedMacintosh](https://archive.org/details/TheDungeonRevealedMacintosh)

Here's Crystal Quest, the first color Mac game (although the emulation is in
black&white which was also supported):
[https://archive.org/details/CrystalQuest_2_2_5M](https://archive.org/details/CrystalQuest_2_2_5M)

Here's NetTrek, one of the first LAN multiplayer games I ever played (was
fun!):
[https://archive.org/details/NetTrekTheRealVersionMacintosh](https://archive.org/details/NetTrekTheRealVersionMacintosh)

And then there is Bolo, the one game I wish there was a modern-day version of
that is remotely similar:
[https://archive.org/details/BoloMacintosh](https://archive.org/details/BoloMacintosh)
(Wish this was the color version, but anyway... It was a network tank battle
game where you could capture points and build autotargeting defense turrets by
harvesting trees via sending out your tank pilot (who was then vulnerable and
could get killed, the respawn penalty was not trivial as I recall), it was
INCREDIBLY fun at the time, literally hours in the computer lab with a group
of other nerds)

It's amazing that I can even give other people a hands-on look at this stuff
in their own browser. It's too bad that I can't show off the early network-
gaming the same way (firing up Bolo or NetTrek in different browsers on the
same LAN... It's probably possible to do, right?)

~~~
TAForObvReasons
Emulators don't tell the whole story. Sometimes features depend on the
physical game, as in the case of mario tennis and the n64 transfer pak
[https://youtu.be/QbRkBTMRxZQ?t=653](https://youtu.be/QbRkBTMRxZQ?t=653)

~~~
pmarreck
I know. But I don't see how watching a "Let's Play" is going to get you much
closer to those experiences

~~~
gxqoz
For games that have online components or are updated over time, a Let's Play
video can at least be a window into how things worked at the time. Seeing a
video of someone playing an online match in a game where the publisher has
shut down the server is better than not having this information.

~~~
CmdrKrool
Here's a nice example of someone playing Demon's Souls on PS3 a few days
before Atlus shut down the server - a neophyte playing together with an old
hand who explains lots about the game and why it was loved.

Gaming Jay: Demon's Souls (PS3) (feat. Matt) - Let's Play 1001 Games - Episode
272
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x1mC1M0_Cs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x1mC1M0_Cs)

EDIT: Adding the title of the video to go with the link, because one thing
that's especially annoys me about bare YouTube links is that if the video was
removed, YouTube doesn't even give you the former title so that you know what
you missed.

------
Noos
I don't know if they are. Emulating games is not really preserving them in a
sense, because it can't reproduce the hardware or experience as it actually
was very well. Like you can play Ridge Racer type 4 in emulation, but part of
that game's history was the special controller it was bundled with, which let
you twist the middle of it to enable analog steering wheel control.

Like you can't emulate Boktai without the solar sensor on it, and also you
don't get the sense of how dark the game boy advance's screen is. Or another
example is Trace Memory for the Nintendo DS, which made use of the fact that
the DS can close like a book (to simulate stamping on an ink pad) or that the
screen is reflective when closed at an angle (to cause two screens to reflect
into each other to make a single word.)

It works to show a boosted version of the original game, but something like
sprite flicker or having to use passwords to continue gets dropped out. Or
something like the dreamcast's VMU, which displays info on it as you play or
can be used for minigames to boost the character in the main game.

The games kind of get divorced from the hardware and media they were played
on, which reduces them some.

~~~
Kiro
I've been a gamer for 30 years and I don't remember a single game where the
controller or hardware matter so much that a "Let's Play" wouldn't do it
justice.

~~~
kevingadd
I can think of maybe 2 or 3 games total with a meaningful gimmick that needed
specific hardware or control schemes to really "work". Losing it diminishes
the game but doesn't completely invalidate it, so it's sad but it's not really
the case for the thousands of other games I've played. Better to have the
original game archived as an LP, perhaps even an LP that tries to capture the
essence of the gimmick for people who can't experience it. I think we're
entering a space now where this is a concern for more games though - an LP or
emulated gameplay for experimental VR games or games with custom controllers
may not live up to the experience at all, which is unfortunate, but not really
avoidable.

The most easily understood example is 999, a game for the Nintendo DS that
utilized the two-screens quirk of the system for narrative purposes. It was
later ported to mobile and those versions had to drop the twist since there
was no way to express it on other platforms. (To briefly summarize, the two
screens represented separate timelines and the DS's constraint of only
allowing touch input on one screen meant that whatever you saw on that screen
was the only thing you could actively participate in)

------
velcrovan
Does YouTube have any incentive to “preserve” anything once it costs them more
money than it brings in? If not, maybe it's a little early to say they are
actually preserving anything. (The article does kind of acknowledge this.)
Maybe its real role is as a link in a chain that leads to /r/datahoarders

~~~
cobookman
You overestimate the cost of storage at this scale.

It's totally worth them storing the data given the marginal cost.

A 10TiB HDD is only 150$ retail. These videos can likely be stored in less
than 200MiB on average.

Storage has gotten cheaper YoY

~~~
duiker101
Just a few days ago there was a discussion about how Google is now indexing
less contented from a years ago[1].

If Google can't keep indexes which are relatively inexpensive why should they
keep videos that are more expensive and possibly no one will watch? Especially
as the length and number of videos is increasing faster than ever?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19762907](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19762907)

~~~
Already__Taken
You're not scanning through bulk storage like that all the time. Indexes have
to be managed to be useful too which is another cost.

~~~
duiker101
Videos still need to be indexed, why would Google keep the videos without
indexing them?

~~~
chillacy
Let’s not confuse the videos with the index of the videos. Videos can be
stored on the slowest and cheapest medium, indexes might be kept in memory or
flash. Each video takes hundreds of mb compressed, an entry in the index could
be constant per video

------
cabaalis
Non-techies that are my age don't get the value of let's plays.

When I was a kid, it was NES and then Sega. You'd go over to your friend's
house and would take turns playing Mario, Ninja Gaiden, Contra, etc.

When you weren't playing, you were watching your friend play. Sure, some games
were multi-player, but not all of them.

Let's plays capture that same feeling of watching your friend play the game.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
Should I point out the obvious that you aren't friends with the youtuber doing
the Let's Play? You can't form a real two-way bond with one another, and that
is the foundation of friendship. Real friendship could bloom in many other
ways and you guys could go get a pizza, go climb Everest, help them work on
their car, etc.

In a nutshell, that describes my fears and reservations about the way the
current age is going. It's all watching and commenting and not enough back and
forth interaction and doing.

~~~
jimcsharp
I wonder if async forum communication / semi-interactive celebrities can
adequately replace the 'piece' of human interaction that makes prisoners go
insane in solitary confinement. I'm sure we'll find out soon.

------
jordigh
Call me old-fashioned, but I often prefer screenshot-based LPs. LParchive is a
great resource for those.

I did enjoy Void Burger's video LP of Silent Hill but I liked that she used
subtitles for commentary instead of her voice (I think the only time she spoke
was to grumble after a particularly frustrating game over).

~~~
surye
This makes me think, YouTube could really use multiple audio tracks that can
be selected by the end user for commentary in general, not just LPs.

~~~
frosted-flakes
This is something I've always wished for. That way, I could turn off the
annoying background music that makes it hard to hear what's being said, or if
there's a copyright strike against some music, only the music track gets
deleted.

------
ru999gol
Unfortunately disk space is still expensive and rather limited, its unfeasible
to really preserve YouTube in any meaningful sense. Maybe someday, like Google
Video, YouTube videos will disappear forever.

~~~
nullandvoid
Perhaps we may have a data revolution before the point of having to delete
this old content arrives. I remember watching something on the possibility of
storing data within DNA ( the long-term storage possibilities looked very
promising not that long ago ).

Is there any other exciting tech which may be on the horizon / advancements in
this field?

------
nostalgk
Owing to that I simply no longer have space or money to repair my older
consoles, I've often turned to these let's plays to relive some of my favorite
video games.

With every new console generation, backwards compatibility is discussed as one
of the main points of contention, yet continually it is shelved. Because of
this, I am skeptical of the rumors of the supposed universal compatibility
that the Playstation 5 may have.

I will note, as someone who hasn't played since the 360, that Xbox appears to
be taking steps in the right direction. I hope that continues to put pressure
on Sony to allow their own games to be compatible with the new consoles, and
maybe Nintendo as well to offer better virtual console offerings (a long shot,
I'm sure).

~~~
jon-wood
The XBox One's emulation is fantastic in the odd occasion I've used it to play
a 360 game - other than the shape of the controller you'd be hard pressed to
tell that you're not in fact using an XBox 360.

~~~
stordoff
Actually in a lot of cases, the games run better on Xbox One[1], and an
increasing number are enhanced for the Xbox One X, which means that by default
they run at a 9x higher resolution (so 720p -> 4K; 3x vertical, 3x
horizontal).

You can see here[2] some comparisons for Forza Horizon and the difference is
quite striking.

[1] [https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-vs-
xb...](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2016-vs-xbox-one-
backward-compatibility)

[2]
[https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-forza...](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-forza-
horizon-back-compat-looks-stunning-at-4k)

~~~
nostalgk
This is especially striking and a huge step in the right direction, in my
opinion. Oftentimes these days I've turned to emulation to older games due to
the resolution on, say, PSX games being very low, but often easily scalable
through an emulator.

I do hope the industry trends towards this.

------
gallerdude
I love Let's Plays, I basically grew up watching them. As a kid a little
interested in video games, they gave me a lot of context of how games changed
overtime (how the transition to 3D affect Mario, Sonic, and Zelda), which
gradually lead me into Computer Science.

I only had a few friends as interested in video games as I was, so it was huge
to see these people who knew _everything_ about their favorite games. And most
importantly, Let's Plays are really casual, the people who commentate are
funny, and it feels like hanging out on someone's couch. I remember when I
accompanied my mom to her spin class, I was reminded a lot of Let's Plays -
the instructor would give some commentary to a shared enjoyed activity.

------
minimaxir
It's worth noting that video game LPs as a format in general have been on a
downtown lately, likely because streaming (a la Twitch) has been on the rise,
is more profitable, and requires substantially less post-production work. The
implosion of the Something Awful forums which incentivized the creation of
high production-value LPs didn't help.

~~~
greiskul
True. And one extremely sad thing for conservation, is that Twitch does NOT
save all streams forever, it only keeps vods around that have been marked (I
think by the creator?) as interesting. In one of those speedrun history
videos, there was actually a case of a world record in a game, that was
streamed, had many people witness it, but was not saved, and deleted by
Twitch, and now we are not exactly sure how the run was actually performed, we
just have the time for it. Luckily I think the record I mention was broken,
but I can imagine that there are similar important moments out there that will
be lost before anyone notices their value.

Imagine if we only had Twitch Vods of PT, and nobody actually saved them cause
at the time there was no point to it, and they were all lost now.

------
nindalf
> If you rip out all the pages of existential angst and whining from Hamlet
> and jump straight to him stabbing motherfuckers, you lose the understanding
> of the full experience.

Thought this use of "motherfuckers" was unnecessary, but then I remembered the
plot of Hamlet.

~~~
devoply
I see what you did there, Oedipus.

~~~
pretendscholar
Eye see what you did

------
d33
You can only talk about preservation if you actually can pull the content out.
It's not like Google doesn't shut down a handful of projects early - at some
point they might decide to wipe unprofitable videos as well and we might end
up with no preservation whatsoever.

~~~
thatannoyingguy
But there are people who are constantly downloading the let's plays of those
youtubers, so there will nearly alway be a copy of a video if it isn't on
youtube and it might end up on archive.org later on

~~~
ru999gol
Are there really? I do watch a lot of let's plays and sometimes download them
in bulk, but I don't keep them around for long. 1080p60 takes a lot of space
and recently a lot are even in 4k.

~~~
zrobotics
You just need to visit r/datahoarders to verify this claim. No, I don't
understand it either, but it is definitely something people do.

------
shmerl
What you need to preserve it are games sold on GOG and other DRM-free stores.

~~~
clarry
Nah, you need pirates. You need something like what what.cd was, an archive
built by enthusiasts driven by quality and the desire to have untampered
original copies. (Plus patches & cracks when needed). You need abandonware
sites.

GOG and other DRM-free stores are subject to the whims of publishers &
developers and random rightsholders. They are not in the business of archiving
games. They will host censored versions, patched versions that differ from
original releases, you don't get original ISOs and you don't get to choose
your patch level, you don't get to reject tweaks that break compatibility with
the systems the said games were originally supported on, etcetra. And then
games get pulled from stores, for any number of reasons.

If you want an archive, don't leave it to a commercial entity who aren't and
couldn't be in the archival business even if they wanted to. GOG doesn't want
it, what they want is a curated storefront and it's notoriously hard to get
your game on GOG, because they don't want it. You know all this, I know you
do.

~~~
shmerl
GOG is surely quite curated, but for older games they usually don't have many
objections. There is also itch.io where there is almost no curation at all.

As for preserving in other ways - I agree, you can't expect any specific store
to be around in the future.

Internet Archive also work on preserving old games.

------
ErikAugust
What Archive.org does to preserve actual games (ROMs) should be talked about.
YouTube does not have the right motives in place to thought as reliable in
this regard.

------
plibither8
Could the story be renamed to 'How YouTube's "Let's Play"s are Preserving
Video Game History'?

~~~
danso
Good suggestion, and done.

(I originally submitted it with the headline as formatted in the article, _How
YouTube let 's plays are preserving video game history_)

------
baud147258
In addition to video let's play, I've also read a lot of image Let's play on
forums. On one hand, you have the issue of link rot, with LPs which relied on
Dropbox and Imageshack becoming lost. On the other hand, it's way better for
interaction between the player and the reader, with the writer able to offer
the reader to choose on different in-game choices. Of course such things are
possible with video, but I don't think it's as easier on a forum than on YT.

Image Let's play are also superior for text-heavy games, it's way easier to
skim a text on a series of pictures (or typed if the author has taken the time
to do so) than in a video.

------
HHalvi
I find myself hearing about weird titles & demos in a lot of places (IRC's,
Comments on Gaming Forums and Other places) and search for their videos all
the time. And I do go back from time to time to appreciate how far gaming has
come and for the memorabilia of childhood games by watching the
gameplay/trailers of the same. Someone needs to step in and do a
Gameplay/Letsplay database of sorts for future reference maybe?

------
Nition
The article is written as if YouTube started the trend of "Let's Plays", and
that it's the only place you'll find them. As far as I know it really started
with the "Let's Play!" subforum on forums.somethingawful.com, many of which
are now archived outside of the forums at lparchive.org.

------
SimeVidas
Until something happens to Google, and youtube.com goes down (^_^;). Can we
consider any website to be permanent?

~~~
pcpie
Can we consider electricity to be permanent?

~~~
mrob
Seeing as electricity is a commodity, made by many different suppliers, we can
consider it much closer to "permanent" than a website existing at the whim of
a single company.

------
simonebrunozzi
On this topic: I'm sure there are a few "epic" let's plays that have left a
mark in history, for most games. You need to be a gamer to know, though.

To the gamers on HN: can you post your favorite "let's play", specify which
game and year it is, and maybe why you like it so much?

~~~
hnick
I watch them mostly for self-indulgent reasons, so I don't think a non-gamer
would enjoy many. The main reasons are to preview a new game before buying, to
relive a childhood game, see the end of games I remember not completing, or to
watch someone go through a game I've finished and see how they react to
various situations. Depending on the game and streamer this can be
entertaining for different reasons, such as their personality or skill level.

On the last point a recent one I enjoyed was Joseph Anderson's Undertale blind
playthrough. The game is notorious for throwing unexpected meta-narrative
about games, gamers, and even stream viewers, and seeing a critic encounter
that where he didn't expect it was entertaining. It also has a very difficult
boss as "punishment" for certain choices you make on a typical third
playthrough, and he definitely proved himself as a competent gamer when it
only took him a few hours to beat that encounter. I could hear the change in
tone as he got quiet and entered the zone and knew it wouldn't be long.

Like all Let's Plays though it is long and probably best viewed while you are
doing something else.

------
unixhero
XBoxAhoy aka Ahoy is the best retro-documentary channel I've ever seen:
[https://www.youtube.com/user/XboxAhoy](https://www.youtube.com/user/XboxAhoy)
Highly recommended!

------
myself248
I wish we had a "let's play" for mundane stuff like logging into WinCIM and
AOL back in the day. Nobody would've thought to commit those things to VHS.

------
asyncanup
Couldn't agree more. But how will YouTube itself will be preserved beyond
Google's economic interests?

------
godelski
> It’s a long-observed fact that the phenomenon of the YouTube let’s play has
> benefits beyond just entertaining viewers and gradually introducing
> teenagers to neo-Nazism via YouTube’s algorithm.

This is really poor wording. Maybe s/benefits/affects? Because I don't think
anyone (well maybe neo-Nazis) think "introducing teenagers to neo-Nazism via
YouTube's algorithm" is a benefit.

~~~
Noumenon72
That's why it's funny -- because no one would say that seriously, so there's a
contrast between the serious tone and the content. Rock Paper Shotgun is a
funny site, and manages to gently editorialize like this without seeming
strident.

------
linuxftw
At this point, saving video games seems like saving examples of drinking
glasses from you local discount store.

Humanity simply can't save a copy of everything from all time. We should let
more go. By preserving everything, we're decreasing signal to noise, IMO.

~~~
stordoff
Incidentally, a point raised in Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001):

> But in the current, digitized world, trivial information is accumulating
> every second, preserved in all its triteness. Never fading, always
> accessible.[...]All this junk data preserved in an unfiltered state, growing
> at an alarming rate.

> an overabundance of digital information -- the world will drown in the
> coming flood of information

------
JohnFen
YouTube is not a good place to preserve anything, though...

------
ccnafr
Depends on the "Let's Play" quality. Most I've seen are just garbage. Only a
handful of channels are actually playing these games without curse words or
social commentary

