The Criterion Channel is the best streaming service available today. It doesn't have many new movies, like Netflix, nor does it have much quality TV, like HBO Max. What's notable about the Criterion Channel isn't just the quality of its selections, but how it presents those selections so that viewers who enjoy what they watch can learn more about the context that produced it and other movies like it.
The streaming service, which launched in 2019, is an offshoot of the Criterion Collection, a distribution company devoted to restoring and releasing noteworthy films. The Channel serves a similar purpose in streaming form. Criterion puts together curated playlists like the current "Michelle Yeoh Kicks Ass" collection which gathers much of the Everything Everywhere All At Once star's work in Hong Kong from the mid '80s through 2000's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Another playlist that is currently featured assembles Paramount films from the early 1930s, before the enforcement of the Hays Code — Hollywood's self-imposed guidelines that severely limited what could be shown in commercial films. Often these playlists include introductions by critics which offer historical context on key figures in the movements those films emerged from.
There are many different storefronts and streaming services where players can find games, but none offer this level of curation. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Xbox Game Pass sorts its games by genre, like ‘Point and click’ or ‘Dungeon crawlers’ and PC Game Pass is currently offering a curated list called ‘Powerful Women of Game Pass’, which features picks chosen by women working at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Microsoft. Steam, too, allows curators to publish lists of their ൩favorite🦩s with text explaining the reasons they love them. But nowhere I play games arranges them with an eye to giving players a sense of the cultural context the games were created in.
The Criterion Collection's physical releases are the best in the business, with each transfer supervised by someone involved with the creation of the film or otherwise knowledgeable about how it was originally intended to look, ample special features, and an included booklet usually featuring one or more critical essays on the film. Though not every Criterion release is available to stream, Criterion often gathers all the bonus material from a physical release in a collection on the Channel. So, if you want to approximate the experience of watching the Criterion edition of David Lynch's Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, you can head to the Channel, watch the film, then check out the feature-length Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces, which collects all FWWM's deleted scenes, then watch interviews with star Sheryl Lee and composer Angelo Badalamenti, and more.
Gaming doesn't have anything quite like the Criterion Collection, but it does have companies and organizations doing similar work on a smaller scale. The Video Game History Foundation works to preserve the history of video games through its archival of important materials from throughout the history of video games. Frank Cifaldi, who founded the VGHF, works with developer Digital Eclipse (for which he formerly served as Head of Restoration) as Historical Consultant, helping the company give classic games better treatment than they have typically received. Digital Eclipse's past collections, like Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, and SNK 40th Anniversary Collection, include high quality versions of the games, but also extensive Museum sections where players can explore treasure troves of historical documents about the games' creation.
Digital Eclipse operates at a smaller scale than the Criterion Collection, creating far fewer physical releases. But its goal is similar, and points to how gaming could better present its history for players. A platform like Xbox Game Pass, for example, could bring on someone like David Craddock, who literally wrote on Diablo, to give an unvarnished look at the series' history and mechanical evolution attached to a Diablo playlist in prepar💞ation for the upcoming fourth game. Or for S𒅌ony to partner with Noclip to put its on a future physical release of the game.
Players who want to learn more about gaming's history, the developers who create the games they love, or what thoughtful critics have found worth analyzing in them typically haven't found that information in the same places where they play games. But, Xbox Game Pass' recent integration of HowLongToBeat.com into the app itself shows that publishers can work with outside forces to give players a better experience. Adding contextual information that will allow players to learn more about how games are made and how they change over time benefits everyone.