I only play retro games. Since 2009-2018
I came to the conclusion I prefer arcade-oriented video game software.
Although more recently I purchased my first ‘indie’ game inspired by old-school gameplay Rival Megagun on Steam.
I’m predominantly retro because I feel there are many more potentially enjoyable games for me to find in the past rather than in the present/future. Though I still do buy a few current games, but I’m very discerning.
I’m an old fart. When these games were new I was a kid. My first console was a Master System in 1987\8. I was 12 or 13 at that time.
Of course I also play modern games. I don’t beleive in limiting myself to new or Retro. If it’s fun I’ll play it.
I really wish people would stop calling it retro, cause like the rest of you guys I never quit playing these games to begin with.
Only kids these days would believe in having a tagline attached.
Im a few years your junior and yet still an old fart. I grew up in the 80s and 90s and I somehow forgot that old game were still fun. I never could bring myself to get rid of my Gameboy stuff and when I revisited gba years later I had a blast and that made me wonder about other systems I had long forgot. It’s been a great few years rediscovering old games and games I wish I knew about back when.
I do enjoy modern games but my tastes are clearly in the past. But when a game is fun, it’s fun. I go through periods where I do t want to play old stuff and periods where I couldn’t bring myself to turn on any of my current gen consoles.
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Never stopped gaming, though I didn’t collect games until the PS3 era. I’ve spent the last 5 years getting older systems and games. Started with games I had as a kid and… well… now I’m looking for anything interesting.
I skipped the PS2/Xbox/GC era due to a pretty unhealthy MMO obsession but I cold turkey’d out of that when I moved in with my now wife and got a PS3. I try and stick to single player games that actually end, though I do love Destiny and Monster Hunter.
Anyways, these days I tend to buy more older games than newer ones, only because in Canada we pay 90 bucks for new releases. I used to buy every new game that interested me but these days I really only pick up a new release when there’s a limited edition that I don’t want to miss out on.
I don’t really consider myself a retro vs modern gamer, I just consider myself a gamer. I started young, my parents have a picture of my with a baby bottle in one hand and the Atari controller in the other, I think I was like 3 or 4. While technically my first system was my family’s Atari 2600, the first console I got that was mine was the NES. Which I used the money I got from my first communion to pay for it, at about age 7. I still have that Atari and NES. I basically never fell out of gaming. So my retro library if you will is something I’ve been building since I was 7 years old. There’s also just so many games that came out that I missed that I don’t think I could possibly ever run out of things to play. Specially with people now doing English translations of so many Japanese games that never came to our shore. I’ve been getting a ton of SNES titles that I used to drool over in magazines back in the day that just never came here. There are also a ton of awesome modern games coming out every day it seems. So I think of myself as just a gamer. Although I kind of don’t use that term much any more, mostly because of the very vocal, negative assholes out there that have latched onto that. With things like gamersgate, all the people angry at EA for having female characters playable in WW1 game, just alot of the misogynistic and racist shit going on with people claiming to be “gamers” I have a hard time using that term lately.
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I think it boils down to two factors for me:
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Limited income to spend on games growing up. Most people will miss out on a lot of video games while growing up for obvious reasons - time, money, not having access to all the games (regional factors) or consoles (good parenting). Being older I can check out some of the games I wasn’t able to play, or never even discovered when I was younger. For example today I finally played Thrill Drive, which is clearly the inspiration for the Burnout games I played when I was a teenager. Had no idea back then of course!
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The games market today is pretty fragmented thanks to low barriers to entry and very segmented but established groups of audiences (eg mobile, PC, console). The business models and circumstances of releasing a game today tends to drive developers towards standardised control inputs (both in software and hardware) and standardised modern business models. Despite a wider availability of video games it definitely feels like the above factors have made it harder for developers to take risks in sustainably releasing new games. So I often find titles of the past to be even more interesting than upcoming games.
I play all sorts of games regardless of their era but the two reasons above certainly explain why I’ve been favouring seeking out more and more retro titles as the years pass.
Well said. I agree, especially with regard to the standard control schemes of modern games. I don’t think people realize how much that is holding back modern game design. Fortunately, VR is here to present some fresh input challenges to devs and really feels like early 3D in an experimental sense. I hope new controls continue.
As for me, I’d say I’m not so much a retro gamer. It’s more that I like to play games equally from all generations, and there just happens to be more retro generations than non-retro ones by my rubric. So I spend a lot of time on non-current hardware playing games that I enjoy or that are new to me.
Because I grew up with video games and I enjoy replaying games that I loved when I was younger. I also enjoy finding new games that I always wanted to play, but never had the money or the time to play.
Wouldn’t really call myself a retro gamer, as I bounce around from modern to retro on a whim. I play retro games because they’re still fun.
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