“It’s the year 20XX and a great evil has emerged and the world is in chaos, but a hero has risen to save us all”, it’s the typical introduction most gamers would get in the 80’s and 90’s era. Games would take us into a journey imagining how the future in the 2000’s would be like, yearning to be in that magical era! Now that we’re living in that era, (not so magical) we’re wanting to go back to the games of the past. But why is that? What’s so special about that era? Why are there communities forming around it? How has Retro Gaming become part of the gamer culture?
Gaming has become so diversified and even complicated, that many miss the days of old when gaming was simple. All you needed were about two or so button presses and run from left to right overcoming obstacles and defeating enemies for most games and you could be done in a few hours. Now there’s dozens of genres that have you memorizing a dozen buttons and layouts and gameplay styles that take hours if not days to get used to. Others want their family or friends to experience how it was for them in their childhood. These are examples of Nostalgia, which is a major factor in retro gaming.
As gaming technology has advanced, the means to play in these grand virtual adventures and detailed worlds has become very intricate. This has turned off some old school gamers, in my case one of my older brothers grew up playing NES and SNES, but now he can’t get the hang of controlling two analogue sticks, shoulder triggers and other buttons simultaneously. While for others gaming has become too easy, because eventhough there’s more button layouts, the difficulty of most games are adapted to be playable for both core and casual gamers to reach a mainstream audience. As a result, many hardcore gamers have been looking for ways to back in time. This has reopened a market for Retro Gaming.
With the strong influence of Nostalgia, the golden age of gaming is back in full force. It truly gained momentum when Nintendo took a swing at it, but at first it was more of an experiment, they had no idea what was going to happen. As they released their first mini classic, the NES classic in November of 2016, it sold out immediately and became the most sought after gaming product of that holiday season, even more than modern consoles. They repeated their successful run with the release of the SNES classic the following year and they went on to sell a total combined 10 million mini consoles! This caused Sega to announce an official mini console of their own and Konami is releasing a Turbo Grafx 16 mini early next year.
However, this trend was not a successful story for everyone as was the case for Sony PlayStation. They released their own “PS1 classic” late last year hoping to benefit from the retro gaming fever, but with a lackluster lineup of games in the mini console with only a handful of true classic games, they ended up failing badly in sales. The gaming community jumped for joy for Nintendo‘s classic offerings because they included most of their favorite retro games at a good price, whereas Sony offered theirs more expensively and with mediocre games. The Retro Gaming community wants to re-experience their childhood with the games that defined that era for them such as Super Mario, Metroid, Contra, Final Fantasy among many others. Will Sega and Konami capitalize on the success of Nintendo when they release their classics? Only time will tell.
The retro gaming community has existed since long ago, but it was more of a cult following until now. With the success of the mini classic consoles, it has grown exponentially and has given way to YouTube celebrities centered on retro gaming such as the “Retro Replay” YouTube channel starring Nolan North and Troy Baker. They’re known for their award winning roles in games such as Uncharted, Batman Arkham, The Last Of Us and the upcoming Avengers game. A few years ago, being gamers themselves, they started the Retro Replay show on YouTube in which they play many fan favorite classic games and set challenges for themselves, it is very fun and nostalgic to watch. It has become very popular and successful, you can follow them on twitter @retroreplayshow, and YouTube Retro Replay.
Another great example is the fan favorite IGN podcast/YouTube channel Game Scoop! They talk about gaming in general, all consoles, but they dedicate parts of each episode to retro gaming. It hosted by Daemon Hatfield and he’s joined weekly by Justin Davis and many others guests. They go into fun talks about the history of retro games, which ones are the best, which we should play and how they compare to modern games. They also have a unique, fun trivia game at the end of every show called “Video Game 20 questions“ in which their panel has to guess a classic game by asking up to 20 questions about it thus getting hints on year, publisher, genre and so on. Give them a follow on you’re podcast of choice as Game Scoop or on YouTube also as Game Scoop. There are many more retro gaming channels and podcasts such as these in this era of retro revival!
In conclusion, gaming culture is more rich than ever. There’s a place for every type of gamer. If you want to travel back to the good old 80’s and 90’s you can do so now, even without having to do shady illegal activity. You can party like it’s 1987, 1995, or 2019 without an actual time machine, ha ha. What‘s your favorite retro game, retro console or retro game you never experienced? I never got to beat Contra, never played Earthbound, and never beat Super Metroid, so let me get back to playing these amazing classics!