Afterplay and the Push Toward a Steam for Retro Games: An Interview
I recently had to chat with Patrick, the founder of Afterplay, along with James, the platform's Head of Emulation, to talk about one of the more interesting projects I've spotted lately in in the retro gaming space specifically.
Afterplay's a browser-based retro gaming platform that lets you play classic games on desktop and mobile with cloud saves, cross-device syncing, and a focus on making retro gaming accessible.
More recently (and more interestingly to me), it expanded into a storefront where indie developers sell browser-playable games, which I think is an fascinating topic and angle for an article.
In the interview here we talk about how Afterplay began, the technical challenges of browser-based emulation, where the idea of becoming a "Steam for retro games" came from, the new storefront, the future of the platform, and plenty more.
I hope you enjoy the read, and as always I'd love to hear your thoughts here!
https://gardinerbryant.com/afterplay-and-the-push-toward-a-steam-for-retro-games/
11 replies
Steam for retro games? Isn't that just GOG? They even have a preservation program.
This one is focused on emulated games, so it's more of "emulation as a service"
AH! Ok. That makes more sense. Thank you.
...that is totally on me. The title should have an edit I think! 100% something I should have seen, considering all my time on GOG, chatting to GOG employees, being friends with Heroic, owning a couple thousand GOG games.
Oh how embarrassing!
Not at all. :) Misunderstanding happen all the time. No worries at all.
It looks nice, but seems to be just another subscription service, where yo know the price increases are coming (I haven’t checked how useful the free tier is). I’d much rather like this to be a self hostable service on your own NAS or something.
Yeah I was curious if it did anything more than Romm does, but yeah no subscription service for me thanks.
I’ve been a long time user of Afterplay, it’s subscription is totally optional and has actually gone down over the years
Hmm, this not really Steam related. Looks more like a competition to itch.io, but with focus on browser games for old existing games. I would prefer not depending on the web browser, and instead having a native optimized application. Need to see this in action before coming to a conclusion.
Would be good if there is an official API, so tools like Heroic Games Launcher could integrate it.
PerfectDark? On lemmy?! I didn't even realize! I love your work!
THANK YOU!
That is so kind of you!!! Now I'll be all thrilled all morning that I have managed some kind of name recognition :P