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From: Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action
Subject: Re: When Is A Game Old?
Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2024 10:21:39 -0400
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On Fri, 19 Apr 2024 17:12:25 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 4/18/2024 2:54 PM, Mike S. wrote:
>> On Wed, 17 Apr 2024 20:36:49 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Nah, 1990 still was in the 5.25" time. They only faded from view a few
>>> years later. I remember when we bought our first 486 in... 1993? we had
>>> the choice between one with a 3.5" and one with both 3.5" and 5.25", and
>>> my dad took the one without the 5.25" drive. To my consternation,
>>> because I thought those disks looked kinda cool, and my uncle had a huge
>>> collection of games on them already.
>>>
>>> (and for what it's worth, here is an ebay offer for a sealed 5.25" copy
>>> of the game: https://www.ebay.com/itm/235038004341)
>> 
>> Yeah, my copy of Might and Magic 3 has a Copyright date of 1991 and it
>> came on 5.25 floppies.

>Now that was a great game.

>I only got it on CD-Rom though.

I was always a "Might & Magic 2" fan myself. Played it to death on an
8-bit computer. It was an absolutely ridiculous game, with ridiculous
encounters (in particular, I remember fighting off hundreds of
'Cuisinart'* monsters, each of which did hundreds if not thousands of
points of damage per attack. Finally having a party able to not only
withstand those attacks but nuke them en masse with magic spells was
/such/ a satisfying experience). The visuals were a noticable step-up
from the first game (which was surprisingly text-heavy). The new skill
system made the game feel more like a tabletop RPG, the automap was a
very welcome QOL improvement, and the huge open-world was the Skyrim
of its era; so much to explore, so many hidden things to discover, so
many quests to do!

But by the time "Might & Magic 3" rolled around (1991), I was pretty
much done with the franchise. It's combat-heavy game-play and
tile-based presentation felt very old school when compared to
contemporary CRPGs like "Ultima 6" or even (the then venerable) "Pool
of Radiance"). "Underworld: The Stygian Abyss", which would release
less than a year after "Might & Magic 3", was the final straw,
cementing the fact that the franchise was officially behind-the-times
(at least in my eyes). And if I really wanted to play a tile-based
dungeon-crawler, the "Eye of the Beholder" games had a freshness to
them that the Might & Magic games lacked. 

But I'll never forget the joy of smashing cuisinarts. ;-)



As for disks... the early 90s were the definite transition period
between 3.5" and 5.25" disks. I just have to look into my collection
of games; "Underworld" came on 5.25" 1.2MB floppies, but my copy of
"Wing Commander II" was on 3.5" 1.44MB disks. Not only did many games
release in different SKUs, each individually marked with what sort of
disk could be found inside the box, but pretty much every game also
included a 'disk exchange card', with instructions on how you could
swap your 3.5" disks for 5.25" floppies (or vice versa) for a minimal
charge.

Floppy disks were a surprisingly costly part of game development in
the 90s, and ate up a significant chunk of the profits for publishers.
Disks were expensive and - even purchased in bulk - could cost
anywhere from 50 cents to 2 dollars US! So with a game that shipped on
8 floppy disks, that might mean $10 of that might be spent on media
alone! The weight of all those disks also made it more expensive to
ship the games too. It's one of the bigger reasons why publishers were
so quick to switch over to CD-ROM, even when the game didn't really
need all that much storage space; it was a huge cost-saving for them.










* named after a specific chopper/blender kitchen-device that was
popular at the time