this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2025
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That's a very old-school gaming style. Every game I played on my Atari 2600 was like that. You never win, you just play until you lose. I used to wonder about the possible mass side effects of this - were we subtly conditioning people to accept being losers?
Preparation for real life, I guess. There's no win condition that I know of :)
I think you win if you have a satisfying life, career, kids or whatever you personally want to get out of it, and don't have to be poor when you're old. I'm not rich or famous but I feel like I won at life.
the reason they were like this is that arcade machines were the progenitors of video games and the point was to keep people pumping quarters into them.
And if you were on the scoreboard you'd be pumping more than quarters!
And if a game did have an ending, you'd often just get "well done but the fight against crime is never over" screen and be dumped right back at the start of the game anyway.
I remember rolling the scoreboard in Space Invaders or Breakout past a million. It just starts over at zero - absolutely no congratulations whatsoever lol. Took me till like 5am to do it too.
I believe it teaches persistence, resilience, strength under fire, and humility. I love Atari.
Adventure and ET both had endings.
Does a landfill really count as an ending?
Hey - you can find them pretty cheap at Vintage Stock too!
I don’t get the reputation. It’s not the greatest thing to grace the Atari, but it’s not really bad. It’s not as bad as say, the Atari Pac-Man port. Just a kind of mid-tier game.