Why don't video games have an equivalent to the National Film Registry

Perhaps this sort of deal is suited to a Just for Fun page. It would probably be JustForFun.Unofficial Video Game Registry.

Also, it would need to be very restrictive. The NFR doesn't just let any game in.

It was $400,000 in the first week of 2014. "Total" was the wrong word to use. Apparently the actual total is ten million dollars. My mistake.

And I would be all for seeing this being put on a Just For Fun page. Perhaps each entry would need a written reason for WHY it's included, though, so not just any game can be put in.

edited 13th May '14 6:10:34 PM by Tuckerscreator

Because all a critic has to do is watch a film, maybe do some research about behind the scenes work if they want to put in extra effort. Videogames need to be played to truly be a appreciated, some require much finger dexterity, fast twitch reflexes or both. Some games are so impenetrable they can't be gotten through without years of trial and error or a strategy guide. Remember, you can't really accurately review a video game if you have not played through certain sections, even if you know they exist. Not to professional standards anyway. That's on top of the behind the scenes or wider affect on culture research.

Now factor in how hard it is to play games that are even ten years old legally. This has only recently gotten slightly easier but there are still a boat load of video games that are practically lost to history every decade compared to film.

That is why there is no national video game registry and likely will not be for quite some time. Too much effort.

edited 13th May '14 7:22:03 PM by IndirectActiveTransport

Well, even though Film was a medium for 90 years, how many "development generations" of film have transpired?

We could consider the pre-Atari era as the equivalent to film in the Aughts and old Tens, the arcade boom of the 80s as that of the "double feature with newsreel" format of from The Roaring '20s to World War II,^note silents being Gen I, talkies being Gen II, The 8-Bit era as Black and White TV, 16-Bit as Color TV, 64-Bit as Stereo TV, and The Sixth Generation Of Console Video Games as the equivalent to the Hi-Def TV and the current 3D movie craze^note the previous one in the 50s being matched by the Virtual Boy.

So, film may be older, but the question becomes that of how quickly its technology has evolved. And, yes, I did blend the history of television in there, but it's a bit more like Theaters:Televisions::Video Arcades:Consoles/Computers and films were made for both of the former; it's more of a gap in technology and genres between Film and Television.^note Which, kind of reverses between Arcades and Consoles.

In any case, such a registry would be heavily dependent on Notability. As such, I think that there may be a good standard for what may be included already: WikiProject Video Games.

I propose the following guideline based on that Project: A game may be considered for such a registry that either:

• has a "main article" that is ranked High on the importance scale or
• has a "main article" that is ranked Mid and...
  • whose series has a "main article" marked High or
  • was first published before roughly 1980.

It would also be preferred that:

• the game's "Main Article" also be ranked B-class in Quality (C-class for pre-1980 games) and
• that the game is for a console (or generation for Arcade & PC equivalent) that has already ended (i.e. 6th gen or before at present, 7th gen may be added soon).

Again, this is a tentative guideline in absence of any official body.

Also, are foreign films part of the National Registry? (American Reimaginings of Foreign films count as American for this purpose, Foreign Remakes of American films would count on a case-by-case basis as to why they're on the Registry (own merit vs generic milestone).) If not, then an "American National Video Game" Registry would have a gaping hole, wouldn't you think? Send it to the United Nations.

edited 13th May '14 7:54:50 PM by DonaldthePotholer

Sadly true. And since reflexes slow down over time, older people can't really play video games at all.

And I have some thing to add to the "video games are art" thing that was brought up earlier:

here is something my band teacher said about composing music:

He said something that you do when you're composing for "TV, movies, or film" (I can't remember the rest of his statement, but I remember that part)

Only two things I see wrong with this sentence:

1. Having both "film" and "movies" in the same sentence is redundant. Just say one or the other

2. And no mention of Video Games. For some reason Video Games aren't taken seriously as an Art form compared to film and literature. I honestly wonder why we even have "Are Video Games Art" argument.

Yeah, I kinda got off-topic for a sec, but if I were to mention three medium that you compose music for, I'd only say "TV, movies (or film), and Video Games".

I am keeping in mind that he is an older guy, and for some reason old people don't play video games. Probably because their reflexes are slower than ours, so we can reacts easily to a jump over a bottomless pit.

A cursory examination of their list doesn't reveal any foreign films that leap out at me, and while there's nothing in their submissions guidelines that explicitly discourages foreign films from being added, I think that the line "The 625 films chosen to date illustrate the vibrant diversity of American film-making" (emphasis my own) seems to spell out their intentions well enough.

edited 16th May '14 1:42:59 PM by Specialist290

With regards to reflexes and age, I'll note that, going by my experiences on adventure game fora, I believe that older people do sometimes still play adventure games, which of course tend to have far less reliance on reflexes or processing large amounts of sensory input at high speed.

Not for nothing, though, most innovations in film came about in America, especially considering that's where it was invented as well.

Umm, Quake World anyone?

Basically, the massive popularity of online multiplayer was Quake's fault. Yeah, it wasn't the first, but it was the first one to really start it's own "scene" (+ get people to buy better routers.) Like, arguably all these video game news sites that are around (actually, fuck pretty much any news site for dork shit like games and anime and brostep and shit.) They all can be traced right to Planet Quake, which was basically THE website for the entire Quake community. Planet Quake basically inspired pretty much every other gaming website and well, shit TV Tropes could probably trace it roots back to Planet Quake somewhere.

I wasn't around to experience Quake World in it's prime, but basically my brother (who was like 13 when Quake World came out) said that like "Quake was more than just a multiplayer shooter, honestly it was the Xbox Live, Facebook, AIM and Wikipedia of it's time. "

edited 16th May '14 9:24:21 PM by RoboZombie

>brostep

what

My induction list would be similar to post 3 and 5, with a few extra inductions:

• Mega Man X (1993): One of the first (and most successful) third-party installments of a platformer franchise to make a successful jump to the next video game generation.
• Deus Ex (1999): One of the greatest RPG games ever made; incorporated player choice with story.
• Planescape: Torment (1999): Also famous for being one of the first games to incorporate rich dialogue and settings with gameplay.
• Thief 2: The Metal Age (2000): Defines the stealth genre and continues to inspire games to this day.
• Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (2002): The first social-stealth game ever made. Also regarded along with Blood Money as the franchise's Magnum Opus.
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006): An open-world RPG that became a benchmark and primary influence for the RPG genre to this day.
• Dark Souls (2012): Defined by its punishing difficulty and for successfully incorporating player interaction with the game's lore.
• Halo 4 (2012): Pushed video game consoles to the limits with its aesthetics and options for multiplayer.

edited 16th May '14 9:59:49 PM by sanfranman91

Halo 4 was terrible, though. The other Halo games outshine it in every way, and games like Crysis have better graphical capabilities.