Why do we still play retro games?

[Redifer]

Age is no reason to dismiss anything.

I agree totally (especially since I am old). Unfortunately with many of today's younger Xbox 360 gamers, age is every reason to dismiss something. And although I like to see old games getting attention via DLC and whatnot on various modern consoles, the selection is very poor and to me, playing via emulation just isn't the same as playing the real thing. Call me a pompous elitist if you want.

[xan_racketBOY_fan]

Let's look at a few other simple games: Super Meat Boy, Terraria, Cave Story, and Desktop Dungeons. So I think we don't like these games just because, we have to have a reason, we just want simple games ...

Don't like Cave Story, wha? Surely this is some sort of typo.

[AmericanMuffin]

Let's look at a few other simple games: Super Meat Boy, Terraria, Cave Story, and Desktop Dungeons. So I think we don't like these games just because, we have to have a reason, we just want simple games ...

Don't like Cave Story, wha? Surely this is some sort of typo.

Yep,

[BoringSupreez]

I think every form of entertainment has gone down in quality in the past 10 years.

Hmm. Maybe some niche forms of entertainment haven't. I think TV animation is in a better state now than in 2001, from both sides of the Pacific.

The animation itself? Maybe. The overall quality of the shows? No.

Movie adaptations of comic books have improved greatly as well.

QFT.

Pop music is still worse than in the 1980s, but I'll take Lady Gaga over early Britney Spears any day of the week, if I have to listen to either.

I actually prefer that 90's stuff to modern music. IMO, pop music has never been as crap as it is today at any point in the last 50 years.

Age is no reason to dismiss anything.

I agree totally (especially since I am old). Unfortunately with many of today's younger Xbox 360 gamers, age is every reason to dismiss something.

Yep. I remember when I showed a friend of mine the N64 I had just bought, and asked him if he wanted to play. He said "naw, it's old." That was his only reason.

[Anthony817]

To return to an earlier time.

I game on Dreamcast because it transports me to the time when I was in High School, and I love the game Shenmue so much. Hell, only 2 other games came close gameplay mechanic wise, and that is Heavy Rain and L.A. Noire.

I also play MANY newer games, I don't just stop playing new things cause there are so many good old things, that would be absurd.

I also like having the best graphics and gameplay possible, so I also game on PC, but I do like playing the oldies on the Dreamcast from time to time.

Also, the reason simple games do so well on Xbox Live Arcade is because everybody who grew up playing similar style games immediately gets hooked into the simple gameplay style.

[pakopako]

I can't afford new systems let alone new games.
I can't sink as much time into MMORPGs or other "always-on" games.

And older games have a much for familiar feel; often it's the added dimension or perspective change that is quite dizzying to me. And by old, I mean pre-1997. I missed out on the 32-bit SONY age because I never bought a new console during that era. At that point I decided to pay for my own crap and found out the hard way how expensive things were. I did manage to find a Saturn (and I use the word "find" and not "bought") right before the DC was released, so I do have experience with post-2000 gaming. Just didn't get as much as a taste for it.

[ChooChooBot]

Like anthony817 said. I like to go back and play my old games because it reminds me of when I used to sit on my dad's lap and play Mechwarrior and MechCommander with him. One of us would control a certain amount of the game while the other would cover the rest of the controls. I usually just shot the weapon that the space bar controlled. I was 3 years old at the time lol.

[MrEco]

I think it's because many times the older games are the ones that help us define what we like about video games. So even if we find something that is objectively better we still can't help but hold it up to the older ones in order to determine if we think it's a good game.

Also nostalgia.

A lot of people won't admit it, but nostalgia is definitely a large factor in why retro gaming is popular.

EDIT:

Many retro games were made with this goal in mind:
"Lets make a good game!"

Compared to many modern games that are made with a different goal:
"Lets do anything we can to make as much money as possible, even if it reduces the quality of the game itself or fucks over our customers!"

So while retro games don't have graphics as technologically impressive as modern games, they are better games, plain and simple.

I think my favorite consoles are the Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64. Those games were more enjoyable than most of today's games.

Personally, I think that point is more attributed to the fact that game developers/publishers have gotten more savvy with ways at taking our money as time has passed. Not that they've gotten more greedy as time goes on.

More like " Lets make the crappiest single player story known to man and focus on all multiplayer!" I think put single player, aka THE STORY first

Well, that's really just a subjective point. Single player isn't better than multiplayer and multiplayer isn't better than single player. It's just whatever the individual gamer prefers. Someone can be a "hardcore" gamer whether they only play multiplayer FPS's, or huge open-world RPG's, or the newest MMO. Games are about fun, and there's no single entity that decides what is and isn't fun.

[flamepanther]

I think TV animation is in a better state now than in 2001, from both sides of the Pacific.

The animation itself? Maybe. The overall quality of the shows? No.

That's where I think it depends on which side of the Pacific you're talking about. Japanese anime? Yeah, the ratio of good stuff to crap is about the same, and the highs, lows, and the median in story quality are about the same. Nothing has really gotten worse though, so I'd say the current shows are better simply on the merits of the improved animation.

Western animation (maybe "Western" needs quotation marks)? Holy crap did we get better at writing and directing these shows! I think it was about 2000 or 2001 that we only just started to build momentum toward the quality we see now, especially in the action/adventure genre. We had a trickle of good stuff before then, but we were still mostly filling that genre with badly dubbed anime.

Is there still a lot of drivel compared to ten years ago? Sure, and some of it even seems to be the same drivel. But man, if we had shows like the new ThunderCats, Avatar, Ben 10, Venture Bros., Boondocks, TransFormers: Prime--hell, that's a good point of comparison right there. Check out the current TransFormers TV series and compare it to TransFormers: Armada from 2002. It's like the difference between the old and new Captain America movies. Anyway, the point is if we had all these shows over here about a decade ago, my head would have exploded.

A lot of people won't admit it, but nostalgia is definitely a large factor in why retro gaming is popular.

It's a factor for many people, but I think it's as easy to overestimate it as it is to dismiss it. There seems to be a startlingly large number of kids who are WAY too young to be nostalgic--you know, seeing as they're still kids right now--yet who still prefer the older games that you and I grew up with. They're also not old enough to fall in with the "deliberately ironic" hipster set just yet either. Nostalgia is definitely not a factor in their case, so there must be something else to these games.

Moreover, I'm better than many at peeping over my rose-colored glasses. I know crap when I see it, even if I loved it as a kid and still have fond memories. If the games weren't great I would remember them fondly, but I would not keep playing them. I suspect I'm not alone in that.

[flojocabron]

Back when I was younger I could never have a collection like I do now. So I guess there are many things I didn't get to play or own back then and I do now.

Same here. I grew up with an Atari 2600, (it was my brothers). He got it as a gift for his birthday. In the era when Nes were still very much expensive, atari's were the other alternative. I just wanted to play videogames.

My parents were too poor to afford to buy us videogames. When my brother sold his atari, I cried! We were too poor to afford anything else. He ended up buying a bike!

When I finally turned 15 I bought my first system, NES back in 1997. I still couldn't afford anything else. A year or two later I then got an Atari and Genesis. I then saved up my pennies to get a Playstation!

this was back in 1999! Damn I feel old

Then its new systems and next gen consoles! But I still love collecting games! No matter what the system and what I find I want one of each one day!

I coulnt afford it when I was young, but now I have the time and patience to collect all of the games I missed as a kid.