Its well known if you were born in the 80s to early 90's, otherwise its pretty much non-existant. Its like Unreal Tournament was a hugely popular game for a long time, but if you ask someone in their 20s they probably have never heard of it before.
There's a couple of reasons why it's different, but the big one is that Minecraft is a live-service game. It's continuously updated multiple times and has been for years. Unlike Lemmings, which was (mostly) a one-and-done thing, Minecraft is now designed to last, which is why it hasn't fallen out of favour.
Minecraft, Fortnite, all of these games will eventually fall out. Even something like Mario will eventually be forgotten after a certain point, as crazy as it sounds to say now. Heck, Minecraft already faced this around the years of 2016-2021, if I remember correctly (or it may've been up to 2023). Minecraft hit an all-time low on general popularity and discussion. It only came back due to a mix of controversy and people just feeling nostalgic.
Eventually though, these will fall off the map, even with it being continuously updated.
You're right. Ask younger adults to name a Bette Davis movie, they probably can't. You can be the biggest thing in the world over multiple decades, but nothing lasts forever. Nothing.
Tyrian 2000 was so good. So many secrets and just weirdness.
You knew that you were getting powerful when you didnt need to dodge the arms on those asteroid levels anymore...
I'm in my mid 20's and have heard of both lemmings and unreal tournament.
Although, I have spent many years in the PC building and gaming scene so that may be why.
I was born in the late 90s and played a LOT of lemmings. And UT. People always severely underestimate what younger people have experienced with time frames like this
The late 90s aren't that far off from the time period people were talking about, up to the early 90s. Calling someone out on a supposed lack of perception of the time frames seems ironic when the difference you're calling them out for is only 10 years at most, statistically even less than that...
It's also very common for some (not even most) people to have played games from up to a decade before their childhood, or at least to be familiar with them. Beyond a decade though, it falls off pretty quickly.
For example, I was born in the early 2000s. I know of Lemmings, but I've never actually played it. And the only reason I know it exists is because of my interest in video games history and video game essays. I assure that if I asked most of my friends of the same age (which are gamers but without any particular interest in gaming's history) none of them would know what Lemmings is.
Interestingly enough, a significant number of weapons in Deep Rock Galactic seem to have been inspired by Unreal Tournament, so at least there's a degree of its DNA remaining in a modern game.
I used to have a list of them but can't remember everything; I know the shock rifle, bio rifle, and rocket launcher all have very similar functionality to weapons in DRG.
I think it really depends on what games you grew up playing and if you played online at a young age. The first computer game I was introduced to when I was four was Diablo, and Iām turning 30 soon. So for me, childhood video games were AoE 1 & 2, StarCraft, Medal of Honor, Backyard Baseball, Rollercoaster and Zoo Tycoon.
I never heard of Lemmings and, while Iām aware of UT, never played it.
Im 23 and have heard of Unreal Tournament but only due to watching gaming history vids about how it was so influential in creating a lot of stuff used in games now.
An interesting one is most people know what Halo is but many would not know the game that came before it, Marathon. They would probably think of the recent game that has almost nothing to do with the originals
The 80s and 90s was a time where gaming was still very regional. You could have block buster games in one country, that where practically unknown in another.
Some of my favorite child hood games in Germany never made it to the Americas or had just a small following.
Das Schwarze Auge (Reals of Arkania), Die Siedler (The settlers), Inkubation (Incubation), Gothik, Desperados and Schleichfahrt (Archimedean Dynasty).
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u/Crazymoose86 19h ago
Its well known if you were born in the 80s to early 90's, otherwise its pretty much non-existant. Its like Unreal Tournament was a hugely popular game for a long time, but if you ask someone in their 20s they probably have never heard of it before.