How do young(er) people feel about 8 and 16 bit games?

[Exhuminator]

The lack of audible dialog forces the actors to gesticulate in a sweeping, exaggerated way, giving it a somewhat otherworldly and surreal feeling.

This is exactly what I was enjoying about those silent era horror films I was watching back in October. I wouldn't have thought 1890s films would be as interesting as they remained.

surely it couldn't have only been us crusty old nostalgia codgers that were scooping up systems?

The only people I know personally who bought a NES or SNES Classic, were either older nostalgic gamers, or older nostalgic gamers who bought the systems for their kids, in hopes said kids would enjoy the games their nostalgic parents did in their own youth.

If something is good popular enough to stand the test of time it will.

I think that's a little more accurate.

They'd love to play a lot more, but don't actually have as much time to with other obligations, much less spend a ton of time on message boards. That just cuts into that valuable gaming time, amirite?

Eh. I think if someone truly loves gaming enough, they'll make time. They still find time to watch ludicrous amounts of TV, play golf, spend hours on social media, watch sports, whatever. As for talking about it, maybe not so much. Not everyone enjoys gaming discussion as much as they do gaming, I concur.

Anyway, here's hoping some more sub-25 year olds show up and offer their opinions. Although if they don't, I guess that counts too.

[Xeogred]

I think this is both simple and complex. The reason why you are all here on RB is because you probably did one big thing, research. You had a spark for something retro gaming related and found your way here. That's how it worked out for me. Unfortunately the vast majority of people out there in the world can't be bothered to put in the work to discover new hobbies or interests and just go day to day aimlessly following what their closest interactions might be into or what the mainstream wants them to be into, like a drone. This is very cynical but basically how I see it in ways. I always like to say that time should not dictate quality. But this goes far beyond just retro gaming. I think this applies to some of the discussion going on here in ways.

Most humans are very boring people. In ways it kind of stinks that I'm not into these Marvel movies or the ten thousand super hero action shows going on right now, or Star Wars Battlefront 2, etc many things that a lot of my local friends are into. But I don't want to be false to myself and would rather explore hobbies on my own and it generally works out. I've made friends here with similar interests, met some friends elsewhere when it comes to heavy metal music and bands old and new, same with anime and even Asian drama, both of which I give my time instead of American TV. When you do the research chances are there's some others out there doing it too and your paths cross, but this is a minority type of person. I don't know if it's an age related thing, but I think if you ask anyone 99.9% of the time we can all make fun of how we were in the teens or early 20's. With some maturity and age comes introspection and hopefully that paves the way for others to discover cool things on their own.

Time, nostalgia, and influences are strange things.

[Exhuminator]

Most humans are very boring people. In ways it kind of stinks that I'm not into these Marvel movies or the ten thousand super hero action shows going on right now, or Star Wars Battlefront 2, etc many things that a lot of my local friends are into. But I don't want to be false to myself and would rather explore hobbies on my own and it generally works out.

Most people tend to take the path of least resistance, in any aspect concerning their life, not just entertainment. But then again, it's not like counterculture is a new thing either. Some of us are simply hardwired to avoid the direction the oblivious lemmings are marching, for better or worse. Some of us are just disillusioned misanthropes who like to wallow in chunky pixels and FM synths, instead of hard liquor or group therapy. Not that I'm talking about me.

[laurenhiya21]

I'm 24... Do I count as "younger people"?

Honestly I have no clue what other people in my age group or younger think about retro games, since I don't interact with a lot of people outside the forums.

Speaking from personal experience though, I do have a bit of trouble getting into them sometimes. I do like the look of a lot of retro games, but I have a hard time finding ones that I enjoy playing. Not quite sure if I've just been unlucky and I've been picking the wrong games to play, or if modern games just tend to do things that I like more often (like not a lot of grinding for example). Either way it can be a bit frustrating at times, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a common problem with people my age or younger.

Probably not at all what you're looking for but I tried

[MrPopo]

Some of us are just disillusioned misanthropes who like to wallow in chunky pixels and FM synths, instead of hard liquor or group therapy. Not that I'm talking about me.

It's not an either/or choice. Vodka pairs quite well with PC88 music.

[Gunstar Green]

If something is good popular enough to stand the test of time it will.

I think that's a little more accurate.

I actually had that retort and used comics as my example again. There's way more forgotten titles and characters than well known ones. People who are comic book fans still go back and read old comics... but they're old comics of the characters that are still around and still popular today. There are still people who will dive deeper, but they're far, far fewer.

[Anapan]

My Niece I've known since she was 5 years old has grown up with NES and SNES games - Megaman, Mario, Kirby and the other best franchises. Since she started gaming, I tried to teach her how to win without cheating. Nope - Game Genie and Game Shark for any games past ~Level 4. Too Hard.
She did champion through 3/4 of Undertale, but despite her obsession never made it to the end. It's a RPG and she doesn't have the patience for that type of game. Me and my brother talked to her about the hours we spent on Final Fantasy (1-10), Dragon Warrior (various), Lunar(all 4), Lufia, etc, and she just said it was tiring to try and spend that much time on a game when the fandom kept on reinforcing her artistic talent and embraced her fandom of "Blueberry Sans".
She's since tired of that brick wall (RPG wise), and chosen a friend from her school that she can win CupHead with (I tried and failed) and has been chipping away at it.
She already told me that it's the fandom she craves - she's improving her fanart and using the game's challenge to focus her artistic skill.
That's kind of cool in that the 30's rubber hose animation style and pac-man eyes are her focus.
I have a nephew, but he's been spoiled - there is no love or consideration for anything but free roaming sandbox no-challenge un-games. If you try a co-op game with him he will throw you under a/the bus. He only has attitude for gains.

[Exhuminator]

Something I've noticed with many younger gamers I know IRL, they do not appreciate or enjoy legit challenge in games. They tend to get pissed off if a game becomes "too hard", and they'll either cheat to get past it, or just stop playing altogether. I find that attitude disheartening, but I don't know if I can judge it fairly. My generation grew up with hard ass games, and we didn't have any choice but to overcome their challenge. This is for a few reasons.

Firstly, we only got new games rarely, so we were often stuck with a hard game, because it was the only new game we had for weeks or months. In that regard, you had to git gud at the game, because that was your only choice. Secondly, games back in the 80s (early 90s to extent) were hard on purpose, to prolong the amount of time they took to beat them. This was done to discourage people from beating a game too quickly, thus returning said game the day after they bought it. And also to discourage simply renting and beating games in a weekend, rather than buying them. Lastly, there was a zeitgeist in gaming for a long time, where harder = better, and it was cool to be a skilled reflex-addled gamer who wowed their friends taking down difficult games.

But that was then. Today we have games everywhere on everything, so it's very easy to put a game away and start a new one, if someone becomes discouraged at the prior's difficulty. Also gaming's bar of difficulty in general has greatly lowered since when I was a kid, with the average difficulty being straight up easy. So when a game dares to be challenging, that's not a popular attraction for most folks. I get that. So I can understand why younger gamers would be turned off by legitimately challenging video games. Especially hard old video games. Not that I agree with them mind.

[isiolia]

Could be less about challenge and more about larger trends. We're well past the point now where kids have grown up online, and that's going to be a factor with games they play too. From the more creative, free-form side of things with Minecraft and similar (which have been the kinds of things I've seen kids actually interested in), to the far, far more pervasive online play and eSports type stuff.

A lot of that stuff takes a lot of dedication to really succeed in, and maybe it's just more that players would rather maintain social aspects of gaming that older games largely lack (outside of watching them being played on Twitch, etc).

I've seen a lot more skewing towards the "just go with Easy mode" kind of mentality from the older crowd than the younger, to be fair.

[Gunstar Green]

I don't know if I agree with "younger gamers don't like a challenge" 100% and I think it's a separate argument in any case. Like mentioned above I think a lot of older gamers are more likely to turn down the difficulty because they've got limited time.

I think general audiences have always preferred accessibility. Back in the day you weren't always expected to beat games either and the most popular games like Mario were still games anyone could pick up and play even if not everyone was going to master it.

Difficult games still have a very large niche and it's still touted as a selling point frequently and I don't think it's entirely because of us old fogeys. Dark Souls was a big hit and Bloodborne was one of the PS4's killer app exclusives.

Cuphead is also immensely popular and has spawned a weird fandom, weird fandoms are usually spawned by weird teenagers. Now you can chalk a lot of that up to the art style but I don't think it would have nearly as much attention if people also hated the game.

I don't think it's fair to put all younger gamers under the same umbrella. There's plenty of them that crave that dopamine hit from clearing a difficult challenge.