20 year olds that are into 16-bit gaming.... Why ?

[WCP]

Ok, this might come off as a bit of an asshole post. I mean, why should I give a fuh about what 20 somethings are into these days ? Still, this is more just a curiosity on my part rather than trying to talk smack or anything like that...


So, I sell some various retro items on my local craigslist. Extra SNES or Genesis carts that I have, etc, etc. 90 percent of the time, the people buying the stuff from me are aged between like 20 and 29 years old. Many of them are like 22, 23 or 24 years old it seems. It just makes me scratch my head a bit, when people that young are buying these 16-bit items from me.

These people were born after these systems had mostly died and been buried. Why would they care about something they never experienced first hand ? How do you have nostalgia for something you never originally experienced ?


Now, I know that with some of these people, maybe when they were 6 or 7 years old, their mom or dad saw a Super Nintendo at a Garage sale, and decided to get them one, instead of getting them a PS2 or GameCube or something. So, I can understand that. But still, I seriously doubt that every single one of them had a situation like that.


It just seems kinda weird to me. For example, I was born in 1970, and I don't really know jack squat about the Beatles or Elvis Presley. So, imagine a 20 year old me in 1990, being really into the Beatles or Elvis Pressley, when I really didn't experience either in my lifetime, and they were both before my time. I don't know, it just seems kinda weird to me. But hey, whatever floats your boat I guess...

[sfchakan]

I'm waiting for Baloo's response...

[PreZZ]

I guess it's even better for them, playing amazing games for the first time like super metroid, sonic 2, link to the past, jrpgs etc. I still love these games but finished them many times for the past 20 years, first time is the best experience!

[Satoshi_Matrix]

OP, have you ever imported a Japanese system and experienced it retroactively? If so, then it's the same deal with younger generations who are interested in older tech. to them, getting an SNES and a copy of Super Mario World is as exotic as getting an MSX2 and Metal Gear Solid Snake for someone like us.

[Niku-Sama]

Being in their 20s it's possible they are getting games for the console the had in their childhood.

I mean it's within the realm of possibility that these systems were out new when they were kids. Snes is 23 years old now and was available as a new unit for 8 years

[sfchakan]

It's also possible those systems were just "around" when they were growing up. Pitfall came out the year I was born, but I'll be damned if it wasn't in every third house during my childhood.

[Tupin]

Or maybe it's just because the games are good.

[Rickstilwell1]

This one is easy for me to answer as I have a 20 year old cousin. Family couldn't afford to buy a $250-$400 Nintendo 64/Playstation/Saturn when it was new. Family kept the Super Nintendo as Nintendo Power even encouraged people to keep the old systems all the time in articles. Family kept buying used games for SNES and Genesis cheap at FuncoLand, Game Crazy, EB Games and Gamestop till they were gone. People that age were still playing Super Nintendo and Genesis with their older siblings and parents.

Your question is like asking me why I like the NES when I'm 27. Because games were used, cheap, and I got a shit ton of them when I was a kid because of yard sales. They were much more frequent gifts than the 16 bit games of the time.

I like Atari 2600 because when I was in 5th grade my half sister's dad gave me a whole box containing 43 carts and Jr. system that he once picked up at a yard sale for $10 and just kept unused in a closet at his parents' house. That gave me something to learn and be excited about all summer and into the future.

It's something you might not understand if you come from a more wealthy family of upper middle class or higher, but if you came from the center of the middle class or under used games were all the rage for us kids.

I recently paid a ton of money to get an RCA woodgrain console TV from 1984 shipped to Seattle from Chicago. Because it was nearly the exact same model I had growing up with my grandparents. Just a different shaped wood cut (a little less wide) but same color and same electronics. With all the nostalgia this similar TV gives me, I believe as crappy as not having RCA jacks on the TV itself is, the VCR's do a good job of brightening up the picture and allowing VHS playback/recording.

[WCP]

OP, have you ever imported a Japanese system and experienced it retroactively? If so, then it's the same deal with younger generations who are interested in older tech. to them, getting an SNES and a copy of Super Mario World is as exotic as getting an MSX2 and Metal Gear Solid Snake for someone like us.

Well, I bought a Sega Master System a number of years back, and I was pretty excited to try it out, even though I never owned or played a Master System originally. However, after playing a few games here and there, I just didn't really have any real connection to any of it, and I sold off the Master System and games to somebody else. I just couldn't really get into it, having never experienced it before.

Sure, I totally understand that good games are good games. Super Mario World is an absolute classic, that anybody should experience.


I'm not really trying to talk smack about these 20 somethings...


I think it's great that they are trying some of these classics, I'm just curious about the motivation.


Like I did say in my original post, I totally understand that some of these 23 year olds, could have received a Super Nintendo at the age of 7, via a Garage sale or flea market purchase or something. Or maybe their Dad had a Genesis in the closet for 18 years, and brought it out for their 5 year old to have a starter system to work with.

I totally understand that.

[Rickstilwell1]

Yeah I think it comes down to there just being more thrifty people out there than imagined. Super Smash Bros. was also a game that interested people in learning the history of their new favorite Nintendo characters. Oh also the Game Boy & Game Boy Color still being out in the late 90s would make it so those generation are prone to tolerate even 8-bit. They would play Pokémon then try NES and go oh this is basically like my Game Boy except on the TV. Oh and the SNES and Genesis looks better than that?

The Master System is a harder system to like at first too and takes a lot of game play to get into and appreciate it when you didn't have one. I wasn't really hooked on it till I beat 5 RPGs/Action Adventures on it. A Neo Geo is much easier to like whether you had one or not in contrast to that due to the quality of the games being so high and polished looking.

[Flojomojo]

I think others have explained it well. I have a big affinity for classic era stuff because I was a crash-era teenager, able to pick up a lot of good stuff for next to nothing. It's the same way for these kids and the 16-bit stuff. There's also a lot of lore around these games. They've grown up around these and have seen years of "top 100 games ever" lists. It's natural that they go try out some of them. Outlets like GOG giving away old-but-still-fun DOS games, Virtual Console releases, and the general availability of emulation and reproductions help as well.

I think it's weird for young people to prefer cartridges to ROM files, but that's their prerogative and is certainly not harming anyone.

When I discovered my grandparents' old record collection, it was pretty awesome. Some of that might be going on with parental collections, too. I know my 7yo daughter is a big fan of Sonic the Hedgehog.

[Manhattan Sports Club]

When I was young (I was born in the late 80's) people questioned why I was so interested in Atari. I grew up with SNES, NES, Genesis and N64 so they thought it would be too outdated. Eventually I got one and the games were still enjoyed. I also like stuff that was way before my time or I have no nostalgic connection to like Commodore, MSX, but recall enough of the things I grew up with to merit my favor. So, nostalgia is not much of a factor in this case. Like it was said, notice how a lot of younger kids enjoy classic rock or some retro clothing these days.

[goldenband]

It just seems kinda weird to me. For example, I was born in 1970, and I don't really know jack squat about the Beatles or Elvis Presley. So, imagine a 20 year old me in 1990, being really into the Beatles or Elvis Pressley, when I really didn't experience either in my lifetime, and they were both before my time. I don't know, it just seems kinda weird to me. But hey, whatever floats your boat I guess...

I know tons of younger people who are really into bands that stopped recording before they were born! Hell, more than half of my favorite music fits the bill. And plenty of people are fascinated by history, as Civil War re-enactment and Renaissance fairs demonstrate (to an extreme).

It's strange to me to define an interest in the past as nostalgia. Admittedly, we think of video games as a form of entertainment that's "progressed", but I don't think that's any more true than it is of music. Musical techniques and resources have increased enormously since the Beatles and Elvis, let alone Bach and Beethoven, but people still listen to that music even though Beethoven et al. were before everyone's time. And I know a lot of younger kids (12-18) who think current music is mostly crap, and who find a breath of fresh air in the music of the past.

So why should video games be any different? The best games of the 16-bit era are still fun as hell.

[genesisguy]

It just seems kinda weird to me. For example, I was born in 1970, and I don't really know jack squat about the Beatles or Elvis Presley. So, imagine a 20 year old me in 1990, being really into the Beatles or Elvis Pressley, when I really didn't experience either in my lifetime, and they were both before my time. I don't know, it just seems kinda weird to me. But hey, whatever floats your boat I guess...

Sometimes people are just old souls. I was born in 1982 and grew up listening to Elvis and the Beatles. I play guitar and collect instruments from the 1960s. I'll be playing with a band tomorrow night of guys my age into the same type of music at a crowded bar in the suburbs of Chicago. God am I glad I didn't grow up listening to music of my generation.

Vinyl records were all but a dead format when I was growing up and have more records than video games combined.

But I think the music analogy is BS. People today are listening to classical music that's hundreds of years old. So that kind of throws that analogy out the window.

As far as games go? I dunno I'm not interested in anything much before the NES, but things were VERY different then. Someone today could stumble across 2d retro inspired games and be inspired to pick up the games or console that influenced that.

[Tanooki]

Well I think there's a lot of motivations to it, but it just depends. One is the whole 'hipster' factor the last couple years where it has been very trendy to be into 8 and 16bit art, games and style and it has bled out from the indie games and random stuff into clothes, art, mugs, etc. Another if you're not in a blood sucking crook area is the money factor. You can buy some modern eye candy art piece for $60 in most cases, and almost all of them these days are a one shot affair and designed really as such so you're sinking big bucks into a one shit return. Or, you can take that $60 and get maybe 3 games or 6 games out of it for a system or more that's like 10-25 years old. Those games couldn't live off eye and ear candy whoring, they had limited space, teams and budgets and had to work in some small confinements so key to those games was play and definitely replay value. You'll find infinitely more 2D games from the 80s through the GBA period in the 00s you can beat the hell out of repeatedly and not tire of, can't say that so much even for some of the finest works today like a Mario Galaxy or an Uncharted game as they just are what they are...one and done for years until you may come back to it.

I'm thinking these teens and 20 year olds are on a budget around allowances or part time jobs with school or what not, and $60 is a bitch, but if you can find a used NES or a GBA for like say $20 or so, and then a stack of games for a few bucks a pop occasionally splurging on a $10-20+ game you can get more value for your time and effort. I did it just that way around 1995-2002 between ending HS through college and working at Midway for a couple years. I bought far more classic games as I could pick off many things for like $5 a piece versus $50 at retail(or $30-35 for handheld) and I'd play that stuff for more hours than the new things. It's all about money, accessibility, and also the gamer culture hipster fad thing going on with it right now too as it keeps drawing more people in.

[Tanooki]

Sometimes people are just old souls. I was born in 1982 and grew up listening to Elvis and the Beatles. I play guitar and collect instruments from the 1960s. I'll be playing with a band tomorrow night of guys my age into the same type of music at a crowded bar in the suburbs of Chicago. God am I glad I didn't grow up listening to music of my generation.

Double post, I fall into this. I don't own many CDs, but the stuff I do all of them more or less were in their prime before my time. I like the 60-80s rock stations. I've got Beatles, Journey, Queen, Johnny Cash, Weird Al, Brian Setzer(swing), Steve Miller Band, Nirvana, Michael Jackson and stuff like that. I find most the stuff out now is not really awful, but I don't find much I like in it either worth my time.

[buzz_n64]

Retro gaming is not to be enjoyed solely for those who have nostalgia over it. I was born in '83 but the first systems I played on were a Pong clone system from the 70's and an Atari 5200 released in 1982, a year before I was born. The 5200 remains one of my childhood favorites, and I still own and play on that system to this day. My favorite era of music is 80's although I have almost no memory of it except for some late 80's stuff. I think someone is most likely to be into something if they grew up with it or enjoyed it in their youth, but there are always exceptions.

[RARusk]

I think another reason may be that some are getting tired of the current trends of modern gaming and are looking back to find gems that either passed them by when they were very young or made before they were born.

[Daria]

I enjoy movies from the 40's and I'm certainly not that old. So yeah...

Edit: Also someone in their early to mid 20s could have had older siblings now in their early 30s who would have grown up with 16 bit systems. So nostalgia could easily be a factor.

[Leo_A]

1939-1949 or so is the best era for movies. American and British studios were at the top of their game back then.

I could see how someone younger could appreciate classic gaming. They're definitely not representative of the norm, but it doesn't puzzle me in the least.

Where tv, movies, and music is concerned, my entertainment taste almost completely predates me.