All forms of art age in some way, shape, or form. That's not necessarily an indictment against said art, it's just the reality of living in an ever changing world with rapidly changing customs and technology. With films you can see the progress of culture, as well as the progress of camera technology, throughout the decades. However, one form of art tends to age worse than the others and that's video games. A large amount of games that are barely ten years old start to show cracks in their design and structure, but why? Why do video games age faster than almost any other artistic medium?

One of the biggest reasons for this is technology. More than any other artistic medium, video games rely on technology for almost everything from graphics, sound, and the core game mechanics. Over the past few decades, technology has been changing and improving at an ever faster rate. Things that are barely a year old are now obsolete. Because of this, game mechanics that were once revolutionary and advanced are now antiquated and hard to play after several years of additional advancements. For example, the game 007: Golden Eye for the N64 was praised for its controls and for bringing the FPS genre to consoles. However, after two decades of several console shooters, the game feels rather janky and difficult to control.

The tendency for video games to emphasize realistic graphics over stylization also ages games rather quickly. Video Games keep trying to push for realistic faces, textures, and locations in game graphics which, while admirable, doesn't really hold up well through the years. As technology advances, so do the standards for "realistic graphics". This is why some of the best video games put more emphasis on stylization over realism. When you aren't even attempting realism, the graphics tend to have a more timeless feel. This is why the cartoony character design of Super Mario 64 has aged better than the aged attempt at realistic humans in game like Tomb Raider or Metal Gear Solid on the PS1.

Speed is the key when it comes to aging. In 1995 the gaming world was still in shock by the transition from the 16-Bit gaming of the SNES/Genesis to the 32-Bit of the Playstation; one year later the 64-Bit Nintendo 64 would be released. Just ten years later, the gaming world was entering High Definition gaming witch the XBox 360/Playstation 3. Other artistic mediums don't rely on technology the same way as games do. Yes, film has transitioned from sound, to color, to high definition but that transition happened over the span of 100 years. Even after all those changes, most older films still hold up. The characters, story, and cinematography are still excellent in the movies the stood the test of time. The same could be said about video games. The games that aged better than most emphasized a beautiful art style, enjoyable characters, an engrossing story, and gameplay that set the standard for future games to build upon. Those are the games that leave an impact to this day.