Why exactly is retro gaming so much bigger then it used to be?

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

Everyone seems to blame the hipsters and the resellers, but I've been thinking abou this, and I think there's very real answers to this. One is, I think, there are far more consoles and games today that are considered to be classic or retro. Retro to me, is just a sliding scale term, the Colecovision is retro cuz 80s stuff is retro. Same with spandex and jerry curls. Retro. Now 90s stuff is considered retro as well. Ren & Stimpy, Mark E. Mark and Sega Genesis. Plus the Ps1, Dreamcast, and N64 are now retro as well. There's more considered classic.

I also believe it's cuz gaming is far different then it was, there was nostalgia for me in 2000, I remember my uncle giving me the NES and Genesis I had played as a kid around that time, and I held onto them ever since cuz to me there was a nostalgia element, and I felt there was some value to what I considered "classic" games at the time. But Ps1 was not retro at all, to me. Now we see tonsa genres that are long forgotten, only kept alive thru the indie game market. Games r obviously way different then they were. Obviously.

[badinsults]

Number of Atari 2600s sold worldwide: 30 million

Number of NES/Famicom systems sold worldwide: 62 million

People are now at the age where they grew up with the NES, and have enough money and freedom to buy things. Plus the Internet is much bigger than 15 years ago when the people who grew up with Atari were in the same mode. There are potentially twice as many people who enjoyed the NES era as the Atari era, so it is no wonder it seems bigger now. I'm sure in a few years, it will grow even more when people who grew up with the PS1 come of age.

[Flojomojo]

Every day that goes by adds more cool things to the "retro" catalog. Today's kids think PS2 and Dreamcast are "retro." Mobile devices can play many of these games now. The "retro" pool will always be growing.

PS2 and Dreamcast are about 15 years old. When they were new, the NES was about 15 years old. Stuff like NES and Genesis is closer in time to the Atari 2600, even though the gaming sensibilities are closer to what we have on modern systems.

Retro will never die!

[MaxWar]

Number of Atari 2600s sold worldwide: 30 million

Number of NES/Famicom systems sold worldwide: 62 million

People are now at the age where they grew up with the NES, and have enough money and freedom to buy things. Plus the Internet is much bigger than 15 years ago when the people who grew up with Atari were in the same mode. There are potentially twice as many people who enjoyed the NES era as the Atari era, so it is no wonder it seems bigger now. I'm sure in a few years, it will grow even more when people who grew up with the PS1 come of age.


^ That is pretty much what I think too. I am an example of that myself.

I grew up with the NES and sega genesis.
I started buying and collecting retro gaming stuff about 4 years ago.
I was always into retro gaming but before that I used emulators as I did not have the money to spare on that stuff.

[Tanooki]

I think the popularity is a combination of those who had or wanted as a kid and want it or it back. Then you have those who are kids of them or others who just see all the hype and hipster ravings about such things and go digging, get exposed, and end up preferring these challenging but easier to pick up and get right into them experiences. Those new are younger, not much dough, and you can get a lot of old games for the price of one $60 new one that will last a hell of a lot longer than your usual 4-6hour $60 title.

[bb_hood]

I think more and more people are waking up to the fact that just because a game is old does not mean that it is obsolete or outdated.

Also, as far as collecting 'retro' video games goes, retro games appeal to a much larger audience then other collectibles like sports cards and comic books.


Also, what the hell is a hipster? Ive heard the term mentioned on these forums with regard to high prices in games but I dont understand what type of people these are..

[PizzaKat]

I blame Youtube

[JSoup]

I'm sure in a few years, it will grow even more when people who grew up with the PS1 come of age.

Should have already happened or will have happen real soon. The PS1 was released in '94. Assuming someone got it when they were around 5, they'd be around 20 now.

[Tanooki]

The hipster definition varies really. Originally it was like a look and style of a set of people. But in the gaming circles think of it as someone who sees popular sources in public deem something as cool and trendy, so they suddenly become aware or even pull a 180 from hater to lover and jump head in. They don't always think or do smart moves, they just want to be hip and part of the in group as long as whatever is IN is in, kind of like a fad. With games, it started to show up in modern ads and cartoons(like Gumball or Adventure Time on Cartoon Network) or an explosion of a game like Minecraft, and as more and more got into it, it was cool to be into it, but they don't just stay to the confines of a minecraft or a call of duty. They'll want to be the hippest cat of the bunch so they'll jump into the retro market to show how hip and hardcore they are. THey'll buy up all the sought after trendy expensive shit and not even try to find a deal or whatever, then propagate the problem further being show offs with lame fucking find videos on youtube and how to... this and that and try and be a trend setter and attention getter with a lot of likes. There's your gamer hipster type really, the sheep who can't just be cool on their own, but want to get total acceptance from a group and will buy into whatever the culture wants at the time without any regard to the crap they pull.

[Kevincal]

because new games suck. cookie cutter no variety in systems or games anymore like we had in the 80s and 90s. early 00s were ok but gaming became way too mainstream by mid 2000s and has just gotten worse since. I say the super epic time for gaming was when NES was still relevant (1991) until 2001 when ps2 gamecube and xbox came out. I say the 15 years from 1988 to 2003 were the pinnacle of video gaming. just my opinion. everything before and after just not as good. for me personally 1990 until 1998 were my hardcore gaming years when I was obsessed and in love with all things gaming. basically nes through n64

think of nes snes n64 like a pyramid. nes = awesome snes = the best ever = n64 = awesome I think its safe to say gaming peaked in the snes genesis war. it was like a world war of video games. Nintendo and sega the main enemies but also many other "countries" (companies) were involved like snk nec 3do Atari which just added to the excitement. not to mention arcade gaming was at its absolute peak at this time as well. not to mention computer gaming was finally coming into its own. the 1990s were just incredible.......... think of the sheer number of systems and games released in the 90s.

[Gentlegamer]

Also, what the hell is a hipster? Ive heard the term mentioned on these forums with regard to high prices in games but I dont understand what type of people these are..

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/500x/50631456.jpg

[Gameguy]

because new games suck.
You beat me to it. I know some people who aren't even into games at all but generally have some current consoles for their kids, mainly complaining about how they look and feel too realistic to be fun, almost like a regular movie but interactive in an annoying way. They're story driven but instead of just being able to watch it, you have to play through a crap level to keep the story going. Instead one these people told me he searched out for a Super Nintendo just to have something fun to play with, and a few Gameboy games like Metroid II or GBA games. This is from someone who isn't into game collecting.

[retroman]

Supply and demand have a lot to do with it also. A lot of people want the old games, but not a whole lot of product for sale.

[Rickstilwell1]

What surprises me is that hipsters aren't all going after Japanese releases instead due to them being the original worldwide releases in most cases for Nintendo, Sega and Sony and being cool for being out of the ordinary in the USA. Instead, the Japanese items remain cheaper.

The odd thing about Atari 2600 is that even though there were less units sold, less people tend to want the system than something like NES.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Today's kids think PS2 and Dreamcast are "retro."

...you say that as if it isn't true.

It's not a matter of what kids think, its just a simple matter of time.

Like it or not, the Dreamcast, PS2, GameCube, Xbox and GameBoy Advance are all at this point retro consoles. There's a huge amount of hypocrisy with retro gamers who refuse to consider anything made after 2000 as retro. That's not how it works. With the passage of time, everything that is current will eventually be retro, even the brand new PS4, Xbox One and WiiU. Those will all given time be retro consoles the same as the Atari 2600, NES and yes, PS2 and Dreamcast.

[A Black Falcon]

Number of Atari 2600s sold worldwide: 30 million

Number of NES/Famicom systems sold worldwide: 62 million

People are now at the age where they grew up with the NES, and have enough money and freedom to buy things. Plus the Internet is much bigger than 15 years ago when the people who grew up with Atari were in the same mode. There are potentially twice as many people who enjoyed the NES era as the Atari era, so it is no wonder it seems bigger now. I'm sure in a few years, it will grow even more when people who grew up with the PS1 come of age.

That is definitely part of it, but that's not the whole answer. Sure, many people have gotten in to retro gaming because of nostalgia, but also NES and newer games are generally regarded better today than 2nd gen stuff is. Even among many gamers who didn't grow up with the NES, I think that stuff from the 3rd gen and beyond has good enough gameplay and graphics to get peoples' interest now... but 2nd gen games? They're very short and simple. They are good too, but I can see why they're less popular.

So what I'm saying is, I don't expect there to be a big price crash like there was with Atari stuff after the Atari nostalgia bubble popped. There are too many people getting in to the 3rd gen and beyond classic markets who DIDN'T play the games back then for that to happen. That wasn't nearly as true with Atari.

[Tanooki]

What surprises me is that hipsters aren't all going after Japanese releases instead due to them being the original worldwide releases in most cases for Nintendo, Sega and Sony and being cool for being out of the ordinary in the USA. Instead, the Japanese items remain cheaper.

The odd thing about Atari 2600 is that even though there were less units sold, less people tend to want the system than something like NES.

That's a GOOD thing. I got fed up with US prices so I bought up around 20 famicom games and for the very few that were over the $30~ range I got famiclones which were priced quite nicely. :D I think the hipsters don't want things hard, they want it easy to be cool, so putting up with crazy symbol print Japanese is probably a headache.

[7th lutz]

The odd thing about Atari 2600 is that even though there were less units sold, less people tend to want the system than something like NES.
That is not odd based on what I read on Nintendo Life a few years ago. What is really happening is people got their start start on the NES or the 16 bit era has a very difficult time with the graphics of the depth of Atari 2600 games.

While I grew up with Atari 2600 and Atari 7800 before getting a Nes in 1991, Atari wasn't looked upon as a cool company by gamers that got their Start with the Nes. The video game media for years mentioned the crash was caused by Atari because of Pac-man and ET. I am saying this as a person in his mid 30's that my parents gave me an Intellivision II during the video game crash as a Christmas gift.

[Edmond Dantes]

The real reason retro gaming got bigger?

To piss me off.

"I suddenly wanna play Contra III. Bet I can find it easily..."

*Finds out that all the stores that have it have ridiculously inflated prices on it, along with signs underneath that say "Fuck you Edmond"*

"CURSE YOU ALL!"

[postulio]

It's not even as popular now as it was 10 years ago, thats when retro gaming was really at the top of its game, with collectors popping up everywhere, insane prices for even PS1 games and everyone and their mother was looking for a top loader NES. That was when this website really blew up in popularity too (it is a shell of its former self). With that boom a lot more collectors and old testers came out of the woodwork and a lot of really rare stuff was pretty easy to find and cheap, until the stock ran out of course (Playstation dev units were rather easy to find for ~50$ if you were on the right forums; even U64 & Dolphin dev units were popping up). While I personally would never consider PS1 and anything that came out after it as 'retro' that is obviously more a factor of my age than anything. To me, the Sony Playstation will always be the turning point towards "modern gaming". To me retro will always be before the modern age of 3d gaming, when sprites were the standard, not polygons.
But I suspect that OP is right, that 'retro' will be a sliding scale, no matter how inaccurate the scale is, being tipped by newcomers who refer to the games they played when they were 8 as retro. Which reminds me of a comic i once saw on dorkly:

http://0.media.dorkly.cvcdn.com/97/87/088a6f8826038882e09b20ca92144e9b.jpg



While "retro" gaming is currently popular, its not actually the old games themselves (at least not as much as it was 10 years ago), but games that are reminisce of old games that are gaining more momentum (mobile games like Knights of Pen & Paper, 10000000, Organ Trail, Star Command; PC games like Hotline Miami, Monkey Island Special Edition, To the Moon...) even GoG has really took off. On the other hand, almost all old games have dropped in price significantly, some by 50%! mostly due to ports and remakes to all modern consoles as well as mobile.


As for *WHY*, I'd reckon it is for two major reasons:
1)80s to early 90s gamers grew up into functioning adults with well paying jobs and reminisce about the simpler times (or whatever emotion it elicits). Some are playing catch up, collecting and playing what they didn't have an opportunity to as a child and
2)Since gaming is mainstream now (thanks largely to the people in the above group) more and more kids are getting into it and are looking to explore "what came before". It helps things that most genres and franchises got their rise in the 80s and early 90s and since they are still around, you get instant brand recognition going backwards. (not to mention that most of the game industry folk, also mostly belong to group 1, further advertising retro games, even if it is implicit).


Anyone who says modern games suck is just a hater and/or fanboy and/or attention craving hipster (being from Brooklyn, where the modern hipster was more or less born, we have a different definition of the term: someone who is counter popular culture, in everything from film to clothing). There are more games coming out now than ever before, across far more genres and topics. You have self taught basement coders and multi billion dollar companies churning out great games (and literally everything in between). Old games have been preserved (and remade), and developers are pushing further and further.

There is a lot of people talking about old games being better, but take all that with a grain of salt. Nostalgia has a way of clouding one's vision. There were great games then and great games now. More so now, so much so that it is impossible to keep track of everything that is coming out (consoles are easy to keep track, but if you limit yourself to only playing console games you're playing Solitaire with a deck of 28).

Every generation will have people coming out of it saying games 'back then' were better, and yet the industry is growing, gaming is a major part of our culture, more games are coming out than ever. Better than ever. Games like GTA V, Skyrim... hell, even WoW are things that the devs 20+ years ago could barely dream of... and thats why each of those has a retro seed which bloomed into the awesomeness we have today.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/500x/50631456.jpg

Idk, who cares about all this "poser" crap? We're not in high school. I'm 27, i just love video games. This kid the other day at a Mariokart 8 party told me the fact that I owned a Dreamcast was 500% hipster. Then my hipsterness was completely cancelled out that I also own a PS4. Then he said it was just plain punk rock that I own a Colecovision.

I don't get it.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

It's not even as popular now as it was 10 years ago, thats when retro gaming was really at the top of its game, with collectors popping up everywhere, insane prices for even PS1 games and everyone and their mother was looking for a top loader NES. That was when this website really blew up in popularity too (it is a shell of its former self). With that boom a lot more collectors and old testers came out of the woodwork and a lot of really rare stuff was pretty easy to find and cheap, until the stock ran out of course (Playstation dev units were rather easy to find for ~50$ if you were on the right forums; even U64 & Dolphin dev units were popping up). While I personally would never consider PS1 and anything that came out after it as 'retro' that is obviously more a factor of my age than anything. To me, the Sony Playstation will always be the turning point towards "modern gaming". To me retro will always be before the modern age of 3d gaming, when sprites were the standard, not polygons.
But I suspect that OP is right, that 'retro' will be a sliding scale, no matter how inaccurate the scale is, being tipped by newcomers who refer to the games they played when they were 8 as retro. Which reminds me of a comic i once saw on dorkly:

http://0.media.dorkly.cvcdn.com/97/87/088a6f8826038882e09b20ca92144e9b.jpg



While "retro" gaming is currently popular, its not actually the old games themselves (at least not as much as it was 10 years ago), but games that are reminisce of old games that are gaining more momentum (mobile games like Knights of Pen & Paper, 10000000, Organ Trail, Star Command; PC games like Hotline Miami, Monkey Island Special Edition, To the Moon...) even GoG has really took off. On the other hand, almost all old games have dropped in price significantly, some by 50%! mostly due to ports and remakes to all modern consoles as well as mobile.


As for *WHY*, I'd reckon it is for two major reasons:
1)80s to early 90s gamers grew up into functioning adults with well paying jobs and reminisce about the simpler times (or whatever emotion it elicits). Some are playing catch up, collecting and playing what they didn't have an opportunity to as a child and
2)Since gaming is mainstream now (thanks largely to the people in the above group) more and more kids are getting into it and are looking to explore "what came before". It helps things that most genres and franchises got their rise in the 80s and early 90s and since they are still around, you get instant brand recognition going backwards. (not to mention that most of the game industry folk, also mostly belong to group 1, further advertising retro games, even if it is implicit).


Anyone who says modern games suck is just a hater and/or fanboy and/or attention craving hipster (being from Brooklyn, where the modern hipster was more or less born, we have a different definition of the term: someone who is counter popular culture, in everything from film to clothing). There are more games coming out now than ever before, across far more genres and topics. You have self taught basement coders and multi billion dollar companies churning out great games (and literally everything in between). Old games have been preserved (and remade), and developers are pushing further and further.

There is a lot of people talking about old games being better, but take all that with a grain of salt. Nostalgia has a way of clouding one's vision. There were great games then and great games now. More so now, so much so that it is impossible to keep track of everything that is coming out (consoles are easy to keep track, but if you limit yourself to only playing console games you're playing Solitaire with a deck of 28).

Every generation will have people coming out of it saying games 'back then' were better, and yet the industry is growing, gaming is a major part of our culture, more games are coming out than ever. Better than ever. Games like GTA V, Skyrim... hell, even WoW are things that the devs 20+ years ago could barely dream of... and thats why each of those has a retro seed which bloomed into the awesomeness we have today.

It's hilarious cuz people I know have that exact same arguement about Zelda. My mid-20s friends can't understand how my roommate whose in his mid-30s preferred Link to the Past to Ocarina of Time. And vice versa. People just have nostalgia for what they grew up with. They're both great tho, obviously. How bout Turmoil on Atari 2600??

Seriously, theres so much good stuff being made today, way more then 20 years ago. Its insane. I dont buy it when ppl say theres nothing good coming out. My roommate isn't interested in big time games anymore, but he's constantly playing indie sidescrollers on his gaming PC. I just finished Forza Horizon, then moved onto Tomba! 2 on Ps1, and now some Mega Man. Or a 2nd play thru of Catherine. Idc, I'll play it all.

I've been playing games since the NES, and have enjoyed every generation ever since. I just don't discriminate.

[Kevincal]

while many new games might have great graphics, story, control, etc etc etc. The fact remains the game industry has become way too much like Hollywood and way too mainstream and gaming in general has just become too popular. Not to mention I never cared for playing video games online with other people. I highly prefer to play alone or with friends in real life, like arcades back in the 90's and N64 4 player gaming. 1990s gaming will never be touched for how awesome it was. You can have your perfect graphics and online achievements etc etc. Also, I hate war related games, and zombie games, that seems to be what most games are these days. Also how many rehashed car racing games and fighting games are there? Sequels were already getting ridiculous by the mid to late 90s. I dunno, I just don't FEEL new games at all. They are like a beautiful girl, but with no heart or soul. Something shallow about new games and systems and the industry in general. Gaming has become way too commercialized and corporatized and, ya. I never liked anything Microsoft or xbox. Except for my modded xbox with thousands of classic games on it. Its great for that. I never saw the draw about Halo etc. Also, video game packaging used to be way cooler in the 90's. And the economy in general was just a hell of a lot better and people in general were cooler than now. Ya.

[Little Miss Gloom]

You beat me to it. I know some people who aren't even into games at all but generally have some current consoles for their kids, mainly complaining about how they look and feel too realistic to be fun, almost like a regular movie but interactive in an annoying way. They're story driven but instead of just being able to watch it, you have to play through a crap level to keep the story going. Instead one these people told me he searched out for a Super Nintendo just to have something fun to play with, and a few Gameboy games like Metroid II or GBA games. This is from someone who isn't into game collecting.

This is pretty much me, why I retro game. A lot of it has to do with industry politics, the direction games are going in terms of realism/"maturity"/story-telling (which I disagree with), and I really really really really hate how whiny and entitled many modern gamers are. And don't even get me started about online multiplayer.

[MeTmKnice]

I will +1 about current generation mass of crap games. I do appreciate where technology has brought up to a point. However, like movies, awesome CG/graphics do not make a terrible movie good. For me, gameplay is where it's at. I would rather have amazing gameplay and lesser quality graphics, than real-looking graphics with a crappy story/plot.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

while many new games might have great graphics, story, control, etc etc etc. The fact remains the game industry has become way too much like Hollywood and way too mainstream and gaming in general has just become too popular. Not to mention I never cared for playing video games online with other people. I highly prefer to play alone or with friends in real life, like arcades back in the 90's and N64 4 player gaming. 1990s gaming will never be touched for how awesome it was. You can have your perfect graphics and online achievements etc etc. Also, I hate war related games, and zombie games, that seems to be what most games are these days. Also how many rehashed car racing games and fighting games are there? Sequels were already getting ridiculous by the mid to late 90s. I dunno, I just don't FEEL new games at all. They are like a beautiful girl, but with no heart or soul. Something shallow about new games and systems and the industry in general. Gaming has become way too commercialized and corporatized and, ya. I never liked anything Microsoft or xbox. Except for my modded xbox with thousands of classic games on it. Its great for that. I never saw the draw about Halo etc. Also, video game packaging used to be way cooler in the 90's. And the economy in general was just a hell of a lot better and people in general were cooler than now. Ya.


I agree with most of this. I much prefer to play with friends who are over, rather then online, I had a period where I played a lot of Halo online, but really it's nothin like playing with friends. That's why I have people over all the time to play stuff outta my collection. I will say there was a lot of crap to come out of the 90s for games tho lol. There definately was the Maddens and the mediocre movie based games, plenty of shovelware then, also, but games invited u to play with other people together, not just online. I don't play online anymore, either. I love my retro games the most, I love my NES games, my PS1, N64, Genesis, SNES... but I'd be completely lying if I said I don't fully enjoy modern games, too. The difference being I love the "mainstream" games of the 90s like Sonic 3 and Crash Bandicoot, but today I gravitate towards the lesser-known titles, they tend to be the gems. El Shaddai, Catherine, Sonic Generations, SSX, Street Fighter 4, Katamari, all the great indie games... I think to really say theres nothing good out today is just total ignorance. Just ignore the latest Halo's and CoD Blop's and Maddens and all those generic games, dig a little deeper theres tonsa fantastic titles.

I do disagree tho that packaging was way better in the 90s, sure, everythings in DVD or Blu-ray boxes now, but games still have great artwork. My primary agruement to the packaging thing is this new thing called special editions. This didn't exist 20 years ago.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

I do agree that gaming has gotten too corporatized and Hollywood, I do own a PS4, but that's cuz I got a ridiculous deal, and I know I will play it. Little Big Planet 3, people.

I say thank God for Nintendo. People seem to ignore the Wii U, it's sad, I will be buying one cuz they're really the only company keeping the heart of gaming alive, imo. People don't realize how significant their influence on modern gaming really is. There'd be no cameras on the new systems, or motion control, and Sony is following in Nintendo's footsteps by making the PS Vita compatible with the PS4.

They do need to create some new franchises that are super hardcore awesome, but I love how they keep platformers alive, a dying genre. Microsoft's big franchise is Halo, Sony's, i dont even kno, maybe uncharted, but Nintendo's is Mario. A classic platformer. I haven't played a lot of Wii or Gamecube, but I'm playing Super Mario Galaxy rite now and catching up on my Wii games, and holy god it's good. A platformer with a big budget. When's the last time a game like this has been made??

Say wat u want about Nintendo being lost in space somewhere, not knowing wat theyre doing, whatever, they're the only ones keeping creativity as #1. And I will be buying a Wii U, proudly.