Have some of the usual members left Racketboy forums ?

[PartridgeSenpai]

I like that I can come here and talk about how I just finished Ninja Gaiden 2 and people both expect the NES version and can appreciate the achievement. But at the same time we can talk about the latest games coming out. We're all gamers who started when we were young, maybe dipped further into the past as we learned more of the history (or that starting young was the early generations) but we still keep up with new games that come out (except Bone).

This is a hella old post, but I totally agree with it. I'm one of the younger members of the site, and there's TONS of old stuff I've never gotten to, and it's really cool that basically any time I wanna try some game there's someone around here who's played it before and can give me some advice or comment on it. At the same time, it's really nice to be able to geek out about new stuff with folks on here too. I generally get around to playing stuff later, so there's often people who've already played what I'm about to go through, just like with the retro stuff~

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Reading through this thread, I saw someone mention how people are likely starting to get priced out of retro gaming, and that got me thinking. That was five years ago and getting priced out of retro gaming was already becoming a problem. It's not exactly like prices have gone down, even if some have stopped climbing quite so much. I grew up with a SNES and an N64, so a good reason I like retro games is because they're so familiar to me, but another reason I was so into them through my teens is because they were such a cheap alternative.

Could the rise in retro game prices combined with the rise in digital distribution (not to mention lots of cheap, good quality or even free games) be at least partially to blame for the slump in activity in sites like ours? :O

[marurun]

I think people are getting priced out of collecting original hardware and games, but not out of retro gaming. I mean, even during the Wii era there was the Virtual Console. There are more ways now to legitimately consumer older games than there ever were. I think it's just that older games are now becoming a constant part of the ongoing game landscape. TV and movies have always had access to popular older works, but video games change not just formats (cartridge to CD) but also core underlying hardware, meaning you have to do more than simply do a video transfer. Frank Cifaldi actually has a great GDC talk on this topic. He sees emulation as freeing older games from the curse of complicated porting, making them more like movies and music, where you just update the "format" of the game and use an emulator to do the heavy lifting. I mean, hell, all those Classic Mini consoles demonstrate that good older games still have cultural cachet and the power to sell. Our hobby has become far less exclusive. And you'll notice that there's as much talk about current games here as ever. Sure, we have a bit of a focus on older games, but most of us are simply playing a little of everything. That we still exist as a discreet community speaks more about us as, well, a community of people, than necessarily as a topical forum.

[PretentiousHipster]

Yea accessibility is a big issue. It's especially apparent with PC Games. Even stuff from GOG can be riddled with tons and tons of issues on newer Windows.

There are two websites that do emulation for older pc games, and although it's all abandonware, I'm still not sure if I should link them (if you want to know PM me I guess?)

Some of them were simply masterpieces like when I played Moonstone (which I should review in a week or two), and some that have peaked my morbid curiousity, like Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child, a shooter starring the rock band Kiss, and Queen: The eYe, an action adventure game with what I assume is the tomb raider engine and survival horror style fixed camera angles while the music of Queen plays.

[8bit]

I know for me the rise in youtube content and facebook groups has led me to be less and less active on the forums - simply because those other platforms give me a voice to share and interact with fellow retro gamers. So if I've got say 4 hours a week to spend on this hobby, what use to be 3 hours of being on racketboy, is now probably less than an hour with those other sites capturing more of my time.

Across the board, I think that retro collecting is slowing down considerably. It took off heavily around 2011, had a lot of steam for about 5 years, and is now its in period of recession. Another indicator for me that this is true is that ~7-8 local retro game stores in Houston have closed down the past two years. These store built around both collectors and new casual players isn't what it used to be so they are unable to keep the doors open any longer. The same type of trends IMHO are showing here on the forums.

[Hazerd]

I was really active when i first found these forums, but my game collecting has come to a crawl and just pop in now and then, mostly lurk.

[samsonlonghair]

Yeah, I don't think I've bought a new (to me) retro game in a long time. The only retro-gaming purchase I've made in the last year is the Sega Genesis Mini.

I don't want to call my retro collection complete. It's just that I'm priced out of the market for buying any more Genesis, SNES, or NES games that I don't already own. The ones I still want, like Adventures of Batman & Robin are a little too expensive to pick up in the box at a reasonable price.

Needles to say, we're all getting a little bit older too. Home ownership is starting to look more attractive than owning hundreds of CiB video games.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Once you achieve hone ownersip, and have some space to fill, those CIB video games start looking really good again! (That might just be me, though.)

[MrPopo]

Once you achieve hone ownersip, and have some space to fill, those CIB video games start looking really good again! (That might just be me, though.)

CIB I mostly care about getting the manual (because old manuals were great). But I transfer them to UGCs for a consistent shelf look anyway.

[Ack]

Space limitations certainly slowed me down, and for me, the appetite to collect like I used to just isn't there. I'm mainly playing PC games I missed out on these days because of the ease of access via GOG and Steam. They're not perfect, as PretentiousHipster mentioned, and I do sometimes have to put in work to get something to run, but even that can feel rewarding.

My favorite so far? Finding a patch that mods the US release of Realms of the Haunting into the European release, because the European one featured modifiable controls.

[CD AGES]

Life just gets in the way. Video games are still a very important part of my life (it's even my Full time Job, which could also be the problem lol!), but honestly I rarely have a desire to have a discussion about em, let alone have time to play em. It's not just this site, I'm just not active at any of the other old forum I used to constantly frequent (Assembler Games, DC-Talk, etc). As a matter of fact, I probably wouldn't be playing as much these days if it wasn't for our weekly local meetups where we compete and practice in area.
Twitch, FB, Twitter are certainly not helping things either.