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"Is 'Doesn't Age Well' a proper phrase to use with video games?"
Before watching the video, I will say that, yes, I do think that saying that a game "hasn't aged well" is indeed a proper thing that can be said about video games. You don't have to agree, good or bad, though. It's an opinion.
On a graphical basis, some games using late 90s/early 00s 3D technology, for instance, have aged like room-temperature milk and look like shit today (though they may still be timeless classics, otherwise, as far as gameplay or story goes). As one extreme example, I thought Super Mario 64 looked godly amazing when I first saw gameplay footage for it (before the N64 was even released), but now... um... no, not so much, now. Don't get me wrong, it's still an amazing game, but the graphics are, let's say, not up-to-snuff compared to more modern stuff. Which is fine, of course, but let's be real here. And that's one of the games that I think is actually less dated, graphically, than many, many others of around the same era (or later, in some cases).
On a thematic basis, some games, even if they may look just fine, are really dated based on their storylines or whatever, whether that's due to really dated memes/jokes being used in the game or due to the game containing other types of "funny aneurysm"/"harsher in hindsight"/"hilarious in hindsight" elements or, for example, racist or sexist or homophobic shit that was "okay" back in the day but which goes over like a lead balloon these days. Or, you know, just the general fact that people (creators and consumers both) just didn't seem to give much of a shit at all, generally speaking, about the stories in video games, good or bad, until some point pretty far advanced in the history of video games. At one point in time, stories in video games were an afterthought, at best, even in the games that were trying to tell a story, and weren't just, like, a puzzle game or something where the story really didn't matter at all.
Also, any game that still uses, say, SecuROM or some other archaic form of DRM (and those do still exist, even today, though most have tried to patch it out) is certainly a game that I would claim "hasn't aged well" at all.
Now, to watch the video. Maybe Ian and/or Pat will address my points and maybe even convince me otherwise. We'll see.
Like I said, opinions. It's all about opinions. I would have thought this would be self-evident, but apparently not? Of course, the phrase "opinions are like assholes" exists for a reason, after all.
Anyway, Ian doesn't find a problem with the term, but... finds problems with the term. (I.e. he apparently doesn't like it when it's applied to graphics...? Um, what?) Pat just seems to dislike the term outright, no matter what.
Pat: "With other media, we don't do that. We don't do that for movies. We don't do that for TV shows (usually). We don't do that for music."
Bull. Shit. Right or wrong, we absolutely do that with those things. Look at the original Star Trek, as just one example. Yes, it's still great. (I mean, I still like it, anyway.) But actually look at it. Even ignoring all the Trek stuff that has come out since then (Next Generation and beyond), the original Star Trek is incredibly zeerusty. Shit that's supposed to look like "the future" instead looks like... well... like it came out of the 60s, which it did. In other words, it looks dated as fuck. On a visual level, it has not aged well. Or go back and look at old 80s cartoons. We might have eaten that shit up with a spoon and asked for seconds when we were kids, but if we go back and try to watch some of that shit nowadays, it is almost physically painful with how dated and nigh-unwatchable it is.
As for movies, no, I really don't much care to go back and watch old black-and-white silent films now, because there are far too many modern movies with color and sound for me to ignore, these days, such that I don't want to go back and watch that old, dated stuff. Not saying I'd never watch an old silent movie or whatever, just that I don't really care to do so, because it just doesn't appeal to me. Because they haven't aged well, in my opinion.
As for music, listen to any old music that was recorded on some old-ass, scratchy medium, and that's the only version of that song still available today (outside of covers or remasters or whatever). Yes, that music has not aged well, regardless of the quality of the actual song itself. I mean, I've heard old bluegrass songs played on modern radio that sounded like they were recorded inside a tin can. Songs were okay for what they were (given that I don't much care for bluegrass to start with), but those particular instances of those particular songs certainly hadn't aged well. Probably perfectly acceptable back then, but now, maybe not so much.
Or books. I love me some Dracula, as one example, but Bram Stoker's attempts to use "contemporary lingo" for the "lower class" characters is nigh unreadable today. And I feel like that's probably how people trying to write "southern twang" or "jive"/"ebonics" or whatever nowadays are going to be regarded one or two or three hundred years from now. Hell, any sort of ephemeral slang will be laughably dated and won't have "aged well" according to posterity, same as now. Look at Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, for instance, and hilariously dated shit like "I will bite my thumb at them, which is a disgrace to them, if they bear it."/"Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?"/"I do bite my thumb, sir."/"Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?"/"Is the law of our side if I say 'ay'?"/"No."/"No, sir. I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir."/"Do you quarrel, sir?"/"Quarrel, sir? No, sir." That's the modern equivalent to rival gangs trying to act all hardass in order to stir up trouble with another gang, which is not inherently funny at all, but all that "bite my thumb" shit is hilarious now (just as it was over two decades ago when we read it in high school).
You can still watch/listen to/read/play all these old things and completely enjoy them, but you have to admit that, on an objective basis, these things were created in a time when the technology used to create it was vastly inferior to what is available today. Or were created in a time when certain story elements were socially acceptable that are not socially acceptable today, e.g. Kirk calling Asian people "Yellows" in a Star Trek episode, "The Omega Glory" (which is one of many reasons why that is my least favorite episode of The Original Series, because that shit certainly didn't "age well," in my opinion). Or were created when certain words and phrases weren't meant to be funny but, these days, are hilarious.
On the whole, I guess I can see where Pat is coming from, but I just don't agree with him, at all. While I'm personally fine with going back and playing old SNES and NES and Atari games, I'm also okay with other people opting not to play those games for whatever reason, even if that reason is simply that they don't think the games have "aged well" or whatever. I guess I do agree with Pat in that I don't think other people should be acting like goddamned gatekeepers and trying to dictate to me what I can and cannot enjoy, simply because it hasn't "aged well," but then, that goes beyond just the use of that particular term and more into the realm of those people just being raging assholes.
