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A New Generation of Retro Gamers?


Solister

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Hi guys! I'm Solister, and today I want to talk about something that really is surrounding me during the last times. I don't know how exactly I can explain that, but I'll try. Anyway, you can ask me something and I'll try to answer.

So, how you describe a retro gamer? Certainly you will say a guy who lived in the 80/90's and it's fanatic by games from that ages, and still playing these types of games on actual days (By buying Retro Consoles, Retro Games Collections for newer consoles, or even a simple emulator). Yeah, this isn't so unconventional, there's a lot of this type of people, even here in SSMB.

But if we change the year of these people who lived from 80/90's to 2000's? It would be the same thing?

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That is my situation, as I said some times here in SSMB I have only 14 years old but I feel like if I born during the 90's. I saw many new games releasing every day, but being very sincerely none of those game makes me fell so exited to play it. Nothing "Wow, I really need to play that game".

It's a bit sad to say that but these two situations are purely true: (They are fictional, but may happen someday)

Situation 1:

Someone: - Hey Solister, I bought a new PS4 let's go to my home and play it.

Solister: - No, I'm fine, I need to do my homework (Say something to try avoid that).

Situation 2:

Someone: - Hey Solister, I have an Sega Genesis on my home, do you want to play it this afternoon?

Solister: - Sure, I just need to leave this junk things of school and I'm going to there. (Can't wait to play a Retro Game).

Sega-Genesis.jpg

But, for me this second situation looks like impossible. No one at my school will have a 16-bit generation console in 2017. And yeah, they are right, it must be an actual console for our generation, but that doesn't makes me happy, I feel better playing Doom in a old MS-DOS computer (Or Dos-Box) than playing GTA V in a ultra advanced PC or console.

But why this happens only to me?

I don't know, but I think is because I grow up playing old games. I never had an ultra advanced PC or Console. If someone asks games I played in my childhood I would answer Doom, Sonic 2, Alex Kidd, SimCity 2000, SkiFree, only games from the 90's. With a bad PC certainly I never would play games better than these, and in my PS2 I had Sega Genesis Collection which introduced Sonic to me and a lot of other Retro Games (This also explain why SEGA is my favorite game developer).

This also takes me to another situation.

You certainly remember NFSU2, right?

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Oh yeah, the good days... But wait, I played it this morning!

Yes, Need for Speed Underground 2 is the type of game that I can say "This was the game I played in my childhood", but I was only 1 year old when the game was released, how this can be possible? Yes you read it right. For a guy with 14 years old in 2017 this isn't the most popular game for someone play, but not for me. I remember very well these times. The PS2 became popular here in Brazil during 2008/2009 and NFSU2 was one of the first fevers of the console here. I remember, it doesn't matter the side I look everyone was talking about it. And who played the game had 12-19 years old, so the only thing I can say is: " It's my time to play it".

About one week ago, I was searching musics of the game on YouTube and in the comments I saw many people talking about the good times of playing this game, and I fell the same, when the game was a fever here, and now playing the game 13 years after it was released. If I say something about NFSU2 to someone at my school the least that will happen is they laugh out my face, no one know about NFSU2 and they don't have idea how this game innovated the racing genre on that time. Here is just something to re-alive your memory:

And Need for Speed Underground 2 was just an example, the same happen with other titles and franchises. For example, Unreal Tournament 2004 still being my favorite FPS, as NFSU2 was my favorite racing game; SimCity 4 my favorite simulation game, SADX my favorite Action/Plataform game, and a lot of others. These are the games I can say I played in my  childhood.

And at least this have a good point, while listening to NFSU2 musics I found a comment where a guy said something like that:

"Our generation had a lot of cool music like that, when the newer generation just have crappy Minecraft Music".

Nothing against who play Minecraft, but when I read this I totally agree it.

And I think that also influence in which type of music I listen, which is something like 80's Synth Rock, this is my type of music, it says what I live every day. Meanwhile the popular Brazilian Music is a very very crappy type of music, honestly (I don't know what type of Brazilian Music they spent outside Brazil, but if is what I'm think, it's terrible).

Recently, I bought a Notebook where I saw clearly this side of Retro Gamer in me. First I search for new games that I would like, but no game impressed me. Only new games from older franchises like Sonic Generations, Unreal Tournament Pre-Alpha and LEGO City Undercover.

And well, Sonic makes his appearance here too, I think that Sonic Mania and Sonic Forces try to represent what I say, that Retro Gamers want their space on the video game industry.

Sonic-Mania-05.jpg

I saw other people with some age like me who play and love these types of game but don't have age to play it on the time they was released. This would be a new generation of retro gamers? If not, what we should be? I don't know. Or I'm just a little guy who born in the wrong year or I'm just lost in the time?

 

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A retro gamer, as far as English colloquialism is concerned, is simply a person who enjoys playing games from a very specific (and previous) era for one reason or the next.  It hasn't anything to do with when you were born, though I imagine being born later may change your perception of what is considered "retro."  To someone who grew up in the 90's like me, anything beyond the Nintendo 64 is too modern for me to consider retro, but we're currently reaching an age where the GameCube/Xbox/PS2 era are being regarded as retro, with their direct successors being not too far behind them.  So someone born later might find those games retro.

In any case, no matter when you were born, it is the nature of the world to change.  Fads come and go, and young people consume them.  That has the unfortunate implication of meaning that those who preferred the previous system are going to suffer a bit for it.  This applies not just to games, but to music as well.  Think about what it's like being a classical musician at any decade after the 1890's.  Despite the fact that this genre continues to be an enduring influence on the compositional makeup of modern music of all genres, our tastes are still dismissed as bland, boring, and pretentious.  Despite the fact that our tastes continue to be staples of cinematic scores and associated with some of the most grandiose and world-shaping events in history, our interests are still dismissed as being "too old."

But the thing is, they're not entirely wrong.  I do believe everyone should have an appreciation for the past that helped shape our present, but art is meant to reflect its period.  Because time doesn't stand still, neither does art.  Rather it's games, music, painting, television, whatever.  We live in a world of constant change, and I think it's perfectly fair and great when people are willing to embrace new ideas, even if sometimes they're not always good ideas.  All this to say that I do empathize with your struggle.  While I don't consider myself a purely retro player, I do find retro games to be more fun and easy to appreciate.  But I also recognize that it's not for everyone.  It's very much an acquired taste.  While it is always nice to see younger people who can appreciate things older than them, there will always be a slight disconnect.  Retro gamers of your era will never understand what it's like to adjust to asinine design choices and substandard quality control in a decade when there was nothing else to choose from.  They will never be able to look at a game from this era and remember seeing it as anything other than old.  Just like, being born in the era of computers, I will never be able to see a typewriter as anything but a relic of a time when no other options existed.

I'm not saying this to be pretentious.  Rather, I'm simply explaining that this problem is cyclic in nature.  One could consider your generation a "new generation of retro gamers" in that technically it is a new generation and that they are retro gamers.  But there's nothing exactly novel about that idea.  For as long as we've been recording history, we've always had people who have preferred the old way of doing things, even if they weren't born to that generation.  It's unfortunate that it makes it harder to relate to people, don't get me wrong.  I've been there plenty of times.  It's just... not an unusual occurrence I guess is what I'm saying.  We all have that one thing that other people might think is strange or might be difficult to talk to others about.  So all I can say is enjoy your old games.  There's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing exceptional about it, either.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding your intent here!

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I know what you mean. The current Generation of games doesnt really bother me at all. dlc, always online, all that shit ruined gaming. I rather fire up my raspberry pi with recalbox OS and play the shit out of the classic games then play any AAA title.. Even new IPs dont interest me. I played horizon and never finished it, but i played the shit out of nsanity trilogy. I have a high end computer (2500€, built it in june) and mainly use it for emulation.. There absolutely is nothing better then retro games. Mainly genesis, saturn and psx. And I wish i could somehow return to the 90s, back when developers still tried stuff.. 

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20 hours ago, Tara said:

A retro gamer, as far as English colloquialism is concerned, is simply a person who enjoys playing games from a very specific (and previous) era for one reason or the next.  It hasn't anything to do with when you were born, though I imagine being born later may change your perception of what is considered "retro."  To someone who grew up in the 90's like me, anything beyond the Nintendo 64 is too modern for me to consider retro, but we're currently reaching an age where the GameCube/Xbox/PS2 era are being regarded as retro, with their direct successors being not too far behind them.  So someone born later might find those games retro.

In any case, no matter when you were born, it is the nature of the world to change.  Fads come and go, and young people consume them.  That has the unfortunate implication of meaning that those who preferred the previous system are going to suffer a bit for it.  This applies not just to games, but to music as well.  Think about what it's like being a classical musician at any decade after the 1890's.  Despite the fact that this genre continues to be an enduring influence on the compositional makeup of modern music of all genres, our tastes are still dismissed as bland, boring, and pretentious.  Despite the fact that our tastes continue to be staples of cinematic scores and associated with some of the most grandiose and world-shaping events in history, our interests are still dismissed as being "too old."

But the thing is, they're not entirely wrong.  I do believe everyone should have an appreciation for the past that helped shape our present, but art is meant to reflect its period.  Because time doesn't stand still, neither does art.  Rather it's games, music, painting, television, whatever.  We live in a world of constant change, and I think it's perfectly fair and great when people are willing to embrace new ideas, even if sometimes they're not always good ideas.  All this to say that I do empathize with your struggle.  While I don't consider myself a purely retro player, I do find retro games to be more fun and easy to appreciate.  But I also recognize that it's not for everyone.  It's very much an acquired taste.  While it is always nice to see younger people who can appreciate things older than them, there will always be a slight disconnect.  Retro gamers of your era will never understand what it's like to adjust to asinine design choices and substandard quality control in a decade when there was nothing else to choose from.  They will never be able to look at a game from this era and remember seeing it as anything other than old.  Just like, being born in the era of computers, I will never be able to see a typewriter as anything but a relic of a time when no other options existed.

I'm not saying this to be pretentious.  Rather, I'm simply explaining that this problem is cyclic in nature.  One could consider your generation a "new generation of retro gamers" in that technically it is a new generation and that they are retro gamers.  But there's nothing exactly novel about that idea.  For as long as we've been recording history, we've always had people who have preferred the old way of doing things, even if they weren't born to that generation.  It's unfortunate that it makes it harder to relate to people, don't get me wrong.  I've been there plenty of times.  It's just... not an unusual occurrence I guess is what I'm saying.  We all have that one thing that other people might think is strange or might be difficult to talk to others about.  So all I can say is enjoy your old games.  There's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing exceptional about it, either.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding your intent here!

First you say about how I see Retro Games/Console, but well, as I grow up searching these types of Old Games in the web, I generally use to talk Retro Games from the start of the 90's (Master System, Genesis, Saturn, NES, SNES, N64, all of these enter here), because they was wrote by people who lived in that era, like you, so it's something like I "took" this vocabulary. Looking a bit forward, approximately less than 5 years, PS2 will be a Retro Console, it's just remember that our good friend have 17 years old today.

I understand they are old games, and not be so likely by the most people of my age, but I like these games, is an unique characteristic I would say. In some way I like to be isolated from everyone and enjoy a good old game, same doesn't being of my era, one of the coolest things about old games are they are playable in any piece of electronic, and it's a bit curious see the reaction of the people of my school when I'm playing a 20 years old game, like when I used my tablet with Dos Box to use Windows 3.1, or when I just open a simple cmd shell during the computer science class and they starting to think it's a full complex thing...

But also, there isn't an exclusive thing about Old Games or Music Style, I just used it because this is a Gaming Message Board and it explains the whole thing, but if we look in details there's also a lot of other things that difference me from the others, my lifestyle, things I do every day, school subjects, and many other things that I'm different. I'm also a great believer that the music style you like represent your life style. The type of music I listen, talk about this solitaire life, searching for a girlfriend (And yeah, same the music being sung by mans, there's a lot of girls who listen too), and trying to survive daily when all looks like to face against you.

And well, thanks to make me fell less exclusive, you made me remember great situations that my generation will never understand as how cool is play your favorite game in a piece of electronic when the modern games requires a full tech video card, how good is listen to the EA's Racing Games Soundtracks (Like when I was reading a text which said that Snoopy Dogg was Grandfather and no one at my school knew who was Snopp Dogg), or even pick tons of Diskettes just to install a game, when now the games are just digital, or the expectancy to buy a game and just can play it on holidays or vacations when your mom/dad can buy it. I just keep thinking when I became older and start to play Sonic Heroes, Sonic Unleashed, NFSU2, or even a SEGA Genesis game and say "Son, that was the game I played when I was in your age".

12 hours ago, FReaK said:

I know what you mean. The current Generation of games doesnt really bother me at all. dlc, always online, all that shit ruined gaming. I rather fire up my raspberry pi with recalbox OS and play the shit out of the classic games then play any AAA title.. Even new IPs dont interest me. I played horizon and never finished it, but i played the shit out of nsanity trilogy. I have a high end computer (2500€, built it in june) and mainly use it for emulation.. There absolutely is nothing better then retro games. Mainly genesis, saturn and psx. And I wish i could somehow return to the 90s, back when developers still tried stuff.. 

You describe perfectly my situation, I never liked DLCs, they makes you buy a game and than buy tons of DLCs just to see how the game end, I like very more the old Expansion Packs which was less expansive and came with a bunch of content, did someone forgot expressions like that? (Expansions Packs, Offline Multiplayer, Single Player, Bots/NPCs). And when you say you bought a high end computer, I felt the same with my notebook which I bought in February (A Lenovo ideapad 310 Intel Core i7, HD Graphics 520 1TB), the Notebook is good it enter in a Gaming Class but I just use it majority for emulator or multiplataform games from the start of 2000's, they don't made games like in that period.

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I've been getting my 5/6 year old nieces to play old Pokemon and Mario games. With the NES and now SNES classic consoles, parents are introducing their kids to retro games in a big way (as the Virtual Console was already doing). So Retro Games are going to be around going forward, no question about it.

They are becoming way more accessible thanks to the ever advancing power of technology.

A Retro Gamer is basically any gamer who's interested in the history of video games. I never had an NES (though I did play it at the time it was current), but I certainly went back and played the mario games on All-Stars for my SNES. When you become a fan of a gaming series, it's very common to go back and play the originals, I think.

Plus, with the internet, it's very easy to learn about an entire video game series: its complete history. It's a good time to be a video gamer!

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1 hour ago, Xander said:

I've been getting my 5/6 year old nieces to play old Pokemon and Mario games. With the NES and now SNES classic consoles, parents are introducing their kids to retro games in a big way (as the Virtual Console was already doing). So Retro Games are going to be around going forward, no question about it.

They are becoming way more accessible thanks to the ever advancing power of technology.

A Retro Gamer is basically any gamer who's interested in the history of video games. I never had an NES (though I did play it at the time it was current), but I certainly went back and played the mario games on All-Stars for my SNES. When you become a fan of a gaming series, it's very common to go back and play the originals, I think.

Plus, with the internet, it's very easy to learn about an entire video game series: its complete history. It's a good time to be a video gamer!

You said right, just forgot to say about indie games that are growing up with the classic 8-bit/NES style and of course, the chiptune/keygen music that are becoming very popular around the web.

I just want that these types of people (Like me) receives some respect, these games have their potential and in some way changed the world of video games, but we are treat like sh*t  by some people (With some exception)

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