AI-assisted development is bringing old games to platforms we'd never have thought possible. That's exciting, but the growing flood of unfinished ports is beginning to raise an uncomfortable question: how many of these games are actually worth playing?

Some of the ports we’re seeing in the retro handheld community lately have been great, and I love seeing developers push these little devices beyond what they were ever intended to do. But I’ve definitely noticed what feels like a growing amount of ‘port-slop’, with new projects appearing seemingly every few hours, many of them feeling more like quick experiments than anything particularly worthwhile.

I’m not against the experimentation at all, but I do wonder if we’re reaching a point where quantity is starting to overshadow quality. Anyway, I put together a short opinion piece about it, just my own thoughts on something I’ve been noticing lately, especially here with my favorite old system: the PSP.

  • _Lory98_@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    141·
    3 days ago

    I had noticed it a lot on the PSVita subreddit, and it bothered me. Sure the first time you see it, it might be interesting from a technical perspective, but aside from that what’s the point? You learn nothing as a developer and you leave nothing meaningful to the community.

    • PerfectDark@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      14·
      3 days ago

      It just depresses me. I really enjoyed visiting the PSP sub-reddit, if only to see hardware collections, see the odd interesting story. Now it is filled with slop. The last week or two I just stopped even looking

      Being so tightly woven in with the retro handheld scene, I know for a fact that 99% of the devs (apps, emulators, front-ends and the like) all make use of it in some way or another. The difference is that they’re using it as a tool. These port-slop games are just so pointless

      It all makes me sad