The Next Generation of Retro Gamers

[BoringSupreez]

Why I hate collecting out on the field:

I have been scavenging thrift shops for longer than I can remember looking for pieces to add to my collection. Today, i decided to visit a brand new store that had a Genesis and a Dreamcast in the window. Some 12 year old kid grabbed the Dreamcast and was like, "What the hell is this?" "It's a Dreamcast, son." He glanced it over, "Never heard of it. I know what a Nintendo is, but this is old."

I cant believe that that is "old". I mean, I had some kid a few years back try to tell me he was a venerable expert on video games only to look at a Genesis and start asking annoying questions. "Whats that? Whats 16 bit mean?" According to kids, there were only 4 video game systems: Atari, Nintendo, 360, PS3....

My poor collection.....

Today's kids are going to consider anything (games, movies, tv shows, books, historical events, etc) from the late 90's to early 2000's "old". Yes, the Lord of the Rings Movies and 9/11 are old. But think about it, most of them weren't born or were only babies back then. I know it stinks, but that's the way it is. And it's only going to get worse, so we might as well get used to this.

[Hatta]

If you think about it, the Wii, PS3 and 360 will become "retro games" for the kids of today.

That's actually going to be a big difference. We got to live through the birth and maturation of the video game industry. Think of how different gaming was at the beginning of the 80s and the end of the 80s. It started with the 2600 and ended with the Genesis. That's a pretty huge jump in hardware power and software complexity. Give a 10 year old kid today a Dreamcast, and they might not even notice that the platform is older than they are.

Will modern games ever be retro in the same way 8-bit games are? I kind of doubt it.

[MrPopo]

Why I hate collecting out on the field:

I have been scavenging thrift shops for longer than I can remember looking for pieces to add to my collection. Today, i decided to visit a brand new store that had a Genesis and a Dreamcast in the window. Some 12 year old kid grabbed the Dreamcast and was like, "What the hell is this?" "It's a Dreamcast, son." He glanced it over, "Never heard of it. I know what a Nintendo is, but this is old."

I cant believe that that is "old". I mean, I had some kid a few years back try to tell me he was a venerable expert on video games only to look at a Genesis and start asking annoying questions. "Whats that? Whats 16 bit mean?" According to kids, there were only 4 video game systems: Atari, Nintendo, 360, PS3....

My poor collection.....

Today's kids are going to consider anything (games, movies, tv shows, books, historical events, etc) from the late 90's to early 2000's "old". Yes, the Lord of the Rings Movies and 9/11 are old. But think about it, most of them weren't born or were only babies back then. I know it stinks, but that's the way it is. And it's only going to get worse, so we might as well get used to this.

[BoringSupreez]

^^^
Ha ha, that's perfect. Only problem is, now I feel old. Toy Story is really that old now, huh. And to think I saw it in the theaters.

[Inazuma]

The true hardcore gamers will seek out and play the old stuff too. I didn't get into anime until the late 90's, but I regularly watch the classics. I have watched the entire series for Urusei Yatsura, Kimagure Orange Road and many others.

When I was younger (age 10 to 12 or so), I got into Archie comics. Why, I have no fucking idea. But I would collect and read really old Archie comics as well as the new ones. I read comics from the 40's and 50's even.

For video games, I started with the NES. I never saw or played a Master System until I bought one myself a few years ago. Even if I started gaming with the PS2, I know I would have a big interest in systems like the Master System and Mega Drive. I should add that I was never into American video games that much. The only American system I have is the Xbox, which I bought for the small amount of cool Japanese games it has such as Panzer Dragoon Orta, Otogi and Dead or Alive.

[SpaceBooger]

I use the NES and the original Super Mario Bros to teach the Scientific Method on the 2nd day of school.

How exactly do you pull that off?

I play dumb and boot up the game that is projected onto my smartboard.
I observe that the d-pad moves Mario and one button makes him jump.
I see the goomba and say "he is cute" and walk towards him.
I observe that he kills Mario.
I make a hypothesis that I will jump over him.
The level starts over again and I try to jump over him while under the ? block.
I "accidently" hit the block releasing the mushroom and land on the goomba. I pause the game.
I then state that I observe that if I land on the creature he disappears, then I observe the mushroom. I infer that since the goomba killed Mario and many mushrooms in the wild are poisonous I form a hypothesis to jump on the mushroom like the goomba to remove it from the screen.

I continue this pattern for a couple of minutes the kids think either I am A) a video game idiot or B) hilarious. The lessons ends with us putting all of my observations, hypothesis, inferences, and "experiments" on the smartboard as a flow char that similar to the one below:

The next day we do a real lab that is less silly and more on the 7th grade level.
The lesson works as a good fun introduction that is a break from the normal rules and such of the first couple days of school.

[Golgo 14]

There will be fewer retrogamers interested in the systems we think of as retro because younger people will not be nostalgically attached to them, but some people will find the old games and systems because they will still be fun to play.

It'll be a little like old movies are now. Most people aren't terribly interested in classic films, but there is enough of an interest to support DVDs, a full-time cable channel (TCM) and theater screenings in a lot of cities. Older films have qualities that you can't get in today's movies and the same is true with old games.

[J T]

I think games will be like anything else. The classics will remain, others will die off except amongst the most die hard. I listen to a lot of music that was before my time. I also watch a fair amount of film from before my time. I do find it hard to get into things from the silent era of film, or the phonograph era recordings of music because the technology was limited back then. Likewise, the gaming enthusiast youth of today and tomorrow will probably find it hard to get into games from the Atari age on back, but will still appreciate classic games from 8-bit on.

[jfrost]

I didn't hear anything about retrogaming until five years ago. Now all the main gaming sites and forums talk about old stuff regularly.

If anything, retrogaming seems to be going more and more mainstream.

[brunoafh]

I didn't hear anything about retrogaming until five years ago. Now all the main gaming sites and forums talk about old stuff regularly.

If anything, retrogaming seems to be going more and more mainstream.

I've noticed this too. The prices on retro gaming hardware have risen too. It's bizarre to me.

I also share Hatta's sentiments that current gen will probably never be considered "retro".