With each new decade that goes by, the gaming industry shifts and changes to adapt to the consumer’s needs and demands. Just as Arcades used to be popular back in the 90s, nowadays most people game from the comforts of their own home, maybe even their own beds. As such, gaming companies are striving to make everything more portable than it ever was before. So why do people enjoy the look and feel of a retro game even today? There are quite a few reasons behind that.
Challenging the Norm
Nowadays people forget how ruthless old games used to be in terms of gameplay. And while games are trying to introduce more modes that make it easier for an average player to get through it, there is a certain appeal to old games in terms of their difficulty.
Most games did not allow you to save every few minutes so when you died, you had to restart the chapter or even the entire game. Let’s take Super Mario on the old NES for example. You were only allowed a limited amount of lives and once you ran out of them you were forced to restart. It was quite literally: Game Over.
8Bit Aspect
There is something nostalgic about the graphics and music that came with vintage games. Due to that, there are people who go back to repalying their favorite childhood game due to its visual and audio appeal.
But why would that be? Memories we have of our childhood tend to be colored pink and we often times remember things in a more positive light than they actually were. And when we want to relive those days, we try to retrace our footsteps and make the same choices: hence, we go back to playing old games.
Simplicity
As games nowadays have become riddled with subquests and optional objectives, one of the main features of a vintage game is its linear path and simplicity. You know exactly what you’re getting when you’re playing Tetris or Ocarina of Time.
So you get both the familiarity and its straightforwardness that cannot be replaced. In fact, due to this reason there are games that come out each year trying to replicate this exact feature.
Retro gaming
Whether you choose to play an old arcade game because you miss your childhood, or because you just enjoy the visuals, old games are here to stay. In fact, as years pass by, some old games might even get remastered onto a new console that makes it easier for the average player to get their hands on it.