Relive, retry, repose. The three reasons for saving.

Once games became larger than a normal human’s reasonable play time frame (and I said normal. People who can finish Resident Evil in Insane mode three times in a row just with the pistol need not apply), the save feature became a must — mostly because it wasn’t feasible to wrap the game up in a single seating.

That is repose. That’s when you save the game because it’s time to go. Because you’re tired. Because you’re bored, even, but just in case you want to try some more… This is the rationale behind games like Legend of Zelda or Nethack – games where saving is merely a method to ensure you can continue some other time.

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We didn’t always have savegames. In times gone by, there was no such thing as keeping context between play sessions. Galaga, Asteroids, Space Invaders (hmm, lots os space games back then), River Raid, and even Pitfall — a game that required exploring many levels collecting precious stuff, and therefore naturally prone to saving — did not require or provide the means to save more than your highscores, if that. Technology was more limited and, anyway, games were simpler as far as videogames were concerned.

Computer games, of course, were far quicker to break this barrier. Even the Infocom adventure games would let you save your progress. Text-based interfaces allowed people to make far more complex games — requiring way more play time — and saving was easy anyway, once you had a hard disk or even a floppy ready.

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