MrPopo wrote:Initially, saving was an expensive operation. So games with auto save tended to be either games that specifically were built around it (e.g. Starflight and its self modifying code) or were on mainframes, where the expense wasn't an issue (e.g. Rogue). Come the mid 90s on the PC you potentially could have implemented auto save, but at this point there was wide industry convention for manual saves. Auto save ended up being limited to level-based games sometimes giving you the "as you enter the level" auto save. The modern form of auto save that is context sensitive required rethinking games; a mixture of auto save friendly level design and concepts of combat transitions.
marurun wrote:Auto save existed as early as the late 80s, but wasn’t necessarily commonplace then.
MrPopo wrote:Initially, saving was an expensive operation. So games with auto save tended to be either games that specifically were built around it (e.g. Starflight and its self modifying code) or were on mainframes, where the expense wasn't an issue (e.g. Rogue). Come the mid 90s on the PC you potentially could have implemented auto save, but at this point there was wide industry convention for manual saves. Auto save ended up being limited to level-based games sometimes giving you the "as you enter the level" auto save. The modern form of auto save that is context sensitive required rethinking games; a mixture of auto save friendly level design and concepts of combat transitions.
Chk991 wrote:It's interesting how design in games used to be focused on the lack of saving ability, like shorter games or the use of save codes and what not..
MrPopo wrote:What I mean by "saving was expensive" is twofold. The first is that storage was expensive, so your system randomly writing data to your storage devices was a bad idea. The second is that storage was slow, so devoting time to writing to storage was not something you wanted to inflict on the user without their consent.
Limewater wrote:Another factor is wear and tear on your save medium. And the drive itself. Autosave in office applications caused the early death of many usb flash drives about twenty years ago. People resented that.
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