ABSTRACT
Perhaps the key question in this chapter is simply what constitutes a modern game. Is it the year it was released, say, any new game published in the past fi ve years? While such a qualifi cation might simplify the question, I take a broader view, looking more at trends than specifi c dates. After all, developers may choose to purposefully create a retro game, and there are countless such projects in the shareware and freeware sectors-take any of the recent roguelikes, for instance. On the other hand, we’ve already seen how games can be ahead of their time, appearing in retrospect to be more modern than games released years afterward. Dungeon Master and Ultima Underworld spring to mind here, but there are many others.
