Retro Gaming Has a Port-Slop Problem
Some of the ports we're seeing in the retro handheld community lately have been great, and I love seeing developers push these little devices beyond what they were ever intended to do. But I've definitely noticed what feels like a growing amount of 'port-slop', with new projects appearing seemingly every few hours, many of them feeling more like quick experiments than anything particularly worthwhile.
I'm not against the experimentation at all, but I do wonder if we're reaching a point where quantity is starting to overshadow quality. Anyway, I put together a short opinion piece about it, just my own thoughts on something I've been noticing lately, especially here with my favorite old system: the PSP.
https://gardinerbryant.com/retro-gaming-has-a-port-slop-problem/Open linkView original on lemmy.world
5 replies
Thank you for writing and posting this. I'm not huge in the scene but have noticed a large amount of posts in this community claiming XYZ game from 30+ years ago has been emulated. Recently there was the post here from the guy that recreated "Z" (a game I admittedly had not heard of), and he responded to every comment in the thread, accept the one asking if AI was used to port it. Like, if you used AI, just say you did! I'm not vehemently against it in the right application and recreating an old game seems like a decent use case for it. But the fact that they shied away from the question says that not only was it made using AI, it was probably entirely made with AI and barely tested.
I used to see a headline saying that a game had been recreated, and immediately think "hell yeah" and move on. I don't think that I have ever installed one of these games and actually played them before. With the rise of AI development, I don't even get the blip of excitement anymore, I just say "neat", assume some people are really happy to play a childhood favorite, and that's it.
It has turned from a drip to a flood of these. I've seen so many niche-niche communities get inundated with these half-baked 'ports' or projects. It is the same thing each and every time. Someone puts in the tiniest amount of 'work' (they prompt Claude), show off the title screen or a minute of gameplay, release it and then immediately move on to the next one.
I'd be stunned if a single person on the PSP side specifically has even finished a single of of these ports. I'm just sad. Maybe this is the future, but I loved the admittedly quiet spaces which just had die-hard fans, not this port-slop
I'm wishing you well on covering the good sides of the retro gaming hobby, and weathering these flood of AI slopware. It's one thing for me as a passive enjoyer to just see some of them and ignore. It must be hella exhausting to see something interestingly niche pop up and found out it's going to be abandoned slopware in a short time.
I've enjoyed all the posts you shared here and on the other site, to get differing views.
Thabk you Jaygray!
That's really kind of you, to not only read my regular articles but my (newish) NeoCities experiment. That means a lot!
This whole new rapidly changing world is a lot. A lot to see happen so quickly. I feel for some of the talented dev teams I know, because things are changing so darned quickly now :(
Them not answering to the question only reveals that they are in for fake internet clout, even though they cheated to get it.