What Ever Happened to GameSpy?

[punctualturn]

I liked Kali.net better.... basically just simulated IPX so that you could play games that offered that... WarCraft 2 and Duke Nukem were awesome on it.... I bought a lifetime membership for $20....wonder if they’d still honour it

edit: it actually still exists!! I’m going to see if I can get a game of Warcraft 2 going

Kali+Descent!

Or direct modem to modem to play Doom cooperative, from DOS.

Lord, where did all that time and magical fun from the 90s went?

 

[Squid Surprise]

Kali+Descent!

Or direct modem to modem to play Doom cooperative, from DOS.

Lord, where did all that time and magical fun from the 90s went?

OMG... forgot about Descent and Descent 2... Descent 3 was pretty crummy... I think I know what I'm doing over the holiday break now!

 

[Morphine Child]

Articles like these remind me more of a good old days, rather than software itself. Keep them coming, Techspot!

 

[Badelhas]

GameSpy. I feel old. Who here played sof2?

 

[corvard]

GameSpy. I feel old. Who here played sof2?

I remember. This game sucked. Blech.

 

[Nestea]

"I have teenage kids now and they don't know how lucky they are," said Surfas. "I mean Twitch? Discord? Are you kidding me? We had static web pages. But it was an exciting time. For a short while you sort of knew a lot of the people who were gamers, which was incredible. You'd see the same people on the servers every night. "

yea, it really was a special time.

I'm glad to hear some people still remember GameSpy! I was lucky enough to get some commentary from GameSpy founder Mark Surfas, who provided a few quotes to the story. The story has been updated with these additions.

so what's he doing these days?

I never realized, up until recently (late 30s), that there will be adults who will probably never have played half-life, dune and so on, stamping them off as old games. This made me realize that aging really is a thing.
age of empires seems to be holding up pretty good with some updates from microsoft, and well counter-strike with some revisions too.
we're getting old ^^; :S

I'm off for some 90s nostalgia with the big lebowski

 

[QueueCumber]

I'm off for some 90s nostalgia with the big lebowski

I enjoy that movie more now than I ever did back then. Funny enough....

 

[QueueCumber]

I was fortunate in that my parents usually bought new and trendy things when I was a baby and toddler. I grew up with the first Pong console in the late 70s and early 80s and moved through the entire history of consoles and PCs (from Pong and TRS80 onwards).

I played a lot of Atari, but my father was manipulated into getting an Intellivision instead of an Atari, when all I wanted to play was Adventure. Consequently, I had to go to friend's houses to play Adventure.

I miss how new and exciting everything was during those times. I think we will see a resurgence in that feeling as newer techs like VR become increasingly viable. That is if they aren't implanting chips before then. Not that I agree with that kind of technology. I think there is a real danger of de-evolution when we let technology compensate for too many weaknesses without effectively helping to strengthen those areas of functioning instead. There is a real danger of unethical use with these kind of technologies, and we often power ahead without considering these kinds of issues and their consequences.

 

[Nestea]

I enjoy that movie more now than I ever did back then. Funny enough....

yea it is funny.
while I was in the 90s I wanted to get out of them as soon as possible. Seeing everything now, I wanna go back. I love re-watching 90s movies. True Lies comes to mind too.

 

[Nestea]

Ronin, 1997. another movie I rewatch often.

Not that I agree with that kind of technology. I think there is a real danger of de-evolution when we let technology compensate for too many weaknesses without effectively helping to strengthen those areas of functioning instead. There is a real danger of unethical use with these kind of technologies, and we often power ahead without considering these kinds of issues and their consequences.

you know what? Up until the start of 2020 I've also looked at it that way, but given how every resource is limited, you eventually will be forced into reorganization. I don't believe a paradise nor a dystopia can be created, not enough of resources for either IMHO.
As with all things in life, the middle is where it's at and the universe probably knows it. Reality check always kicks in.
I think pandora's box is there to be opened. You'll turn insane faster or use up more energy practicing constraint by not opening it, than dealing with whatever might be inside it.

I also don't think a Matrix/Terminator type of deal could happen. Ever. (where we get enslaved by machines)
While there could be a Blade Runner type of thing, I think it will be concentrated to a few cities like in Cyberpunk 2077. I don't see a Mega-city one deal happening.
I was appalled of how naively Lex Fridman approached the AI topic on joe rogan, but eventually I started to see it the same way (fridman: "I just don't see how we'll ever be able to do the AI stuff they depict in movies". yes, I know, give it enough progress and it might happen, but that's a big might).
Max Tegmark actually talked about compartmentalizing research in the AI sphere on lex's #155 podcast.
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL4j4KPwNGM

Either way, it's all speculation. It always comes different than one might think. Prime examples out of our world:

Intel predicts 10GHz chips by 2011 | Chips | Geek.com

Intel is predicting that its microprocessors will hit 10GHz by the year 2011. In addition, it is currently working on a system bus that is 10 times faster than its upcoming 400 MHz [...]

web.archive.org

Taking chips to 10GHz ... and beyond

Want a PC that's 100 times more powerful than a 1,000MHz desktop? Then meet the army of microprocessor engineers hell bent on breaking the 10GHz barrier

www.zdnet.com

 

[RudyBob]

Kali I actually used. gamespy was a clunk

 

[Neutronman]

Great series. Keep em coming.

Here's another one to add, that I only remembered a few months back.

Microsoft Sidewinder Game Voice. This PC toy was a huge amount of fun to play with (when it was supported and worked properly)....

 

[McMurdeR]

Interesting retrospective. I remember getting these tools off magazine disks along with drivers, patches and demos. I also remember filling zipdisks with mods and maps from these sites while at university. Such an amount of community content. Some of it was amazing.

GameSpy eventually fell into the shameless bloatware category, but it had its place at a certain time.

 

[RandomWAN]

I liked Kali.net better.... basically just simulated IPX so that you could play games that offered that... WarCraft 2 and Duke Nukem were awesome on it.... I bought a lifetime membership for $20....wonder if they’d still honour it

edit: it actually still exists!! I’m going to see if I can get a game of Warcraft 2 going

Kali was the best of that era. Far better than GameSpy.

 

[FaTaL]

Raise your hand if you used gamespy and mIRC ... ah glory days

 

[Steveb8189]

I've just finished uni and if there was as much plaigarism in one of my papers it would have been rejected. Copying whole parapgraphs from others sources is not journalism without quoting where you got it from

https://amp.amebaownd.com/posts/31751440

 

[neeyik]

I've just finished uni and if there was as much plaigarism in one of my papers it would have been rejected. Copying whole parapgraphs from others sources is not journalism without quoting where you got it from

https://amp.amebaownd.com/posts/31751440

You're posting a link to a bot-driven web-scrapping site. There's literally no original content there, whatsoever. Besides, Sami's article was first published by us two years ago; our Throwback Thursday feature highlights older pieces for new readers to enjoy.

 

[Steveb8189]

You're posting a link to a bot-driven web-scrapping site. There's literally no original content there, whatsoever. Besides, Sami's article was first published by us two years ago; our Throwback Thursday feature highlights older pieces for new readers to enjoy.

I had no idea that's what #TBT meant!

 

[Bamda]

GameSpy was the bomb! I lived on that program. I used the FilePlanet and Planet sites all the time. If you were into gaming those sites were essential. That program gave gamers a place to hang out and play. RIP GameSpy and Plant sites.

 

[BadThad]

Gamespy was AWESOME when it came out. I used it for Quake.