Has the internet made gaming too easy?
1985 and Melbourne Mother Dorothy Millard begins to play Commodore 64 HobbitOne of his favorite computer games. After fighting the trolls and escaping from the goblins, when other players call him special, he documents his journey by preparing a ready, detailed map and noting his solutions. Hobbit Help line for guidance on how to level.
This was a normal day in the life of a player in the 1980s and in the early 90s, concrete, analog communication forms king. If you get stuck while playing a game, you’ll have little choice to call a friend, go to local Arcade to visit the game guide or watch the masters in the workplace.
A screenshot of Hobbit (1982) with the permission of Beam Software.Credit: ACMI collection
Since then, a lot has changed in forty years. Telephone aid lines like Millard’s, who died last year, disappeared, replaced by quick different options such as Google and Reddit. Instead of sharing tips and tips in local computer clubs, today’s players enter virtual servers in the Discord Group chat.
“The game could be deeply annoying at that time, Dr “People played Hobbit Trying to understand how to solve things for more than three months… The lines of help like Dorothy’s were really important. People just had to share information – there was no other way. “
Dr Helen Stuckey says that playing games in the 1980s can be both extremely frustrating and satisfactory. Credit: Simon Schluter
Although the game can be difficult, Stuckey finally says the feeling of overcoming an obstacle is beyond the realization. This feeling that the Australian moving image center (ACMI) aims to recreate. Game WorldsA playable exhibition with more than 30 iconic Video Games from the 70s Until now.
While remembering games like Team castle And early Sims – Which strategic positions and cheating codes once whispered among friends – you can’t help but you can’t worry: Is it almost easy to dominate the games now?
Sims 4 (2014) screenshot with the permission of electronic arts.
The first days of game mastery
Telephone aid lines and mouth to mouth, early players were not the only way to collect tips. Stuckey, game magazines Nintendo power And GamePro, Maps often had life lines for players, thanks to special aid columns such as maps, cheat codes and hidden item positions.
“At that time, as Dorothy was running in Nunawading, he would meet many information processing clubs personally, but at the same time send bulletins,” he says. “There would be full tips and information lists about game software.”
The guidelines were also extremely popular, especially Final Fantasy VII. It was essentially equivalent to a contemporary FAQ page, but they were only heavy, printed guidelines with detailed impressions, character statistics and enemy lists.
Final Fantasy XVI Online (2023).Credit: With the permission of Square Enix.2
Stuckey, as we seize Web 1.0, to share information through a modem and telephone line, to quit and connect to file exchange of computer -running software that allows users to connect to the Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) transferred from zines and clubs collected from the clubs.
Tim Koch, Creator of Microjam with ACMI Salix8 sunsetHe says he remembers using BBS in primary school.
“You will connect Commodore, Amiga or any early computer using a standard telephone line to steal the bulletin boards in Melbourne or Sydney, or he says. “I remember that Julian Assange was even in the same Commodore 64 Bulletin Board in Melbourne.”
If you don’t find the advice you need through these forums, Koch says that many young actors will trawl through game magazines in journalism and “scribbling cheat codes behind their hands”.
“This has opened another industry for cheat cartridges, or he says. “You can buy devices that will slow down your machine or freeze memory.
Video Game Case Study: Neopets
New York -based Zac Silverman Neopets Ambassador known better by him Neopets The name “Macosten, says that the virtual pet game remained under water with niche forums and fan -made websites in the late 90s and early 2000s. For example, if you want to share tips on how to train your neopeta in the best way, you need to program your own fan site.
“You might think that you have your Web 1.0 Proto-Social Media, or he says. “The forums covered everything because they covered all issues. So you still had to go to different websites to discuss different things.”
Then there Neopets Basically social clubs guilds. Silverman says that they still exist today, but to a large extent online environments such as Facebook groups. Also, there is Jellyneo, a virtual guide for everything Neopets.
Silverman says that each of these sources develops next to the Internet. In places where the guilds would once face, they finally switched to Skype or AIM Messenger. Now, they are largely in mismatch. As for Jellyneo, Silverman social media is more or less completely killed by the online guide forums, but the rest of its resources is still being used today.
When Neopets was released in the late 90s, players shared their tips and opinions through guilds and fan -making websites.
Is it very easy to master in games?
Nowadays, a single search in Google or Chatgpt offers immediately comprehensive guidelines for real -time discussions, full YouTube road traces, and incompatibility servers. The ease of instant (and endless) information of the 80s and 90s shared, difficult -earned discoveries.
Koch, this, eliminated some of the mystics around the game. “He feels more closed circuit for how we interact with games. Perhaps he is more homogeneous and divided into sections.”
Now Koch says players approach games that focus more than creativity. Although modern players do not need to understand the coding of a game, players of the 80s and 90s often have learned basic programming, so that they can skip certain challenges. This usually improves the knowledge of mechanics and encourages attempt to try.
Playing games in the original Commodore 64 wasn’t like playing a game on today’s powerful machines, full of floppy drive driver and data.
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Koch says, “By design, you’ve been encouraged to go in as much as you have done,” he says.
Koch says the types of games played by people have changed. Like Metin Adventure Games Hobbit Today’s game world that dominated in the 80s, Red Dead Redemption 2Here only to experience the world usually prefers to mastery.
Stuckey says that the level of complexity in the games is often increasing to meet the flow of information and increases the clues that players can now access.
“If you play multiple narratives and big role-playing games that you run multiple maps-there is an assumption that you can access all these animated pieces-you can find ways to help to follow, or he says.
Stuckey says there are many players who will never dream of looking for a trick code googling or online help – if you want, “cigars”.
Even our understanding of what it means to dominate a game has changed.
“People now need to bring something special to the table, such as personality and show rather than a simple mastery, Stug says Stuckey. “There is a great Korean World of Warcraft actor. He had dominated everything in the game, so he made a video that represented and destroyed hundreds of hours and made all the hard -earned works … People will only watch entertainment. “
Platforms like Reddit and Twitch may not have made the game very easy, but Koch says they reduce the social connection level; Publishing about a trick code may not feel as socially satisfactory as whispering Mortal combination Cruelty to a friend in the school yard.
“I was reconnected with friends who talked about kidnapping a sense of community and friendship – when five or six people will sit in the parts of a game completely obsessed with a game, or he says. “Even the Arcade experience… Now it is hard to come to that energy, the pure connection that everyone has no smartphone.”
Game Worlds is at ACMI on September 18 – February 8, 2026. ACMI website.
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