Do young people like/care for old games ?

[The handsome tard]

Its something that I began to ask myself upon seeing what the youngsters around me are playing or rather, what they are not. Most of them seem to just stick with mobile games, Fortnite and the "trend game" at the moment. Quality of said games not withstanding, I dont see a lot of them caring about playing older games and not even discuss about them. When I was their age, I was all about the emulation scene with all these emulators for the classic consoles and it was a load of fun and real educational about the history of the medium. But it required me showing actual desire to experience these classics.

With all of that said tho, this could be a local thing that is only happening to me so I wanted to ask how younger gamers feel about older games (from around the Atari to the PS2 era perhaps). Do they care? Do they even want to play them? Or maybe they dont because its "old stuff" and new stuff is obviously better in their noodle brains?

 

[byuu]

All it takes is some big YouTubers to make videos about some old system that was released a decade before they were born and they suddenly become fans and experts of it.
You had some recent thing with pc gaming where suddenly every kid lusts for Voodoo cards to play a 20 year old 3d game with the best possible graphics of 20 years ago. And they get themselves CRT VGA monitors and wonder why they don't have scanlines.

 

[TheDarknessGrows]

Some do but generally they become more interested in older games as they get older.

 

[Patrice Lumumba]

I have played daggerfall, some gba games never got into psp do. You are right that these old games aren't popular with the yough they prefer games which give them instant gratifecation/ games they dont need to make their own fun. For example i recently played kenshi its a true open world game their no hand holding, this means there are not realy goals just a world for you to live in. The yought needs a game to hold their hand and tell them want fun should mean and are colerfull and have some sort of cosmetics in them. These cosmetics aren't a symbol of status like they are in other games no they are a symbol of how much money you have to blow of this game.

Imagine old school runescape where to release today. It would be dead no one in the current format of games could imagine spending 100-1000's of hours grind. They can how ever spend god know how much time and money to play fortnite/ valorant the later of which is just a colerfull, micro transaction filled version of csgo which still is just better.

This will never change because its not profitable for the big company's to make a game like elden ring which takes hard work and care when they can make a overwatch 2 or a fortnite. Nothing new just a load of skins and micro transactions and ofc plenty of colors.

Edit: I am talking about 14-10 year olds here just a note.

 

[ChucklesTheJester]

Another way to look at it is amount of effort required.

First, they have to bother to even look up a list of greatest old games and pick one they want.

Second track down a copy of said game's rom image, or ISO.

Third is setting up a emulator Including tracking down BIOs for later systems. Or setting up PCEM.

None of this is that hard but then you factor in attention span of newer generation of kids.

My bet is most people under 16 stop a quarter of the way through step 1, because they have a attention span shorter then the Fortnite default dance.

 

[Slav Power]

I think it depends on how zoomer we are talking about. If we're talking about very zoomer, like early 2010's zoomer, then they probably think that old games are bad because they look like shit, or that the game looks like shit in general. Gen A's probably never even touched a PC, if anything they've touched a modern console, otherwise their entire world is in a smartphone and all the games they know are mobile games.

Personally, I like older games if they are good, and I don't really care about the graphics as long as the game is fun. Maybe the fact that I grew up on PC gaming, playing 2000's hits like GTA: San Andreas and Need for Speed: Most Wanted on weak PC's adjusted me to not getting picky about the graphics in games and rather appreciate them from the gameplay standpoint. Then again, I am a Y2K kid and I grew up without any modern consoles or a good access to new games, so I may be an exception.

I definitely developed an interest for things older than me, or older than what I remember them to be. For example even though I discovered Minecraft back when it was in Beta in 2011, I had an interest in the versions before that, like the very early builds from 2009, and it genuinely fascinated me. Nowadays kids probably don't even know what Minecraft looked like before Adventure Update.

 

[Green Kitbash]

This isnt a big sample size, but I'll just show the contrast.

One of my friends was never into videogames that big. He has a son and just let's him go what he pleases. He has a phone, a tablet you name it. His kid tends to only play phone shit.

My other friend has a kid the same age, but he is a gamer. So as his kid has grown up he has played games with him. Games like Borderlands, EDF, all those old Star Wars games like Battlefront or those RTS games from the early 90s. His kid then got interested in old games and plays snes and n64 ones.

In reality it's not that different from other gens. How many growing up only played Playstation and ignored the NES or arcade games? How many only played the 360?

There will be a subset that get into gaming proper, but then there are those who are only attracted by the new shit. I mean, why else would you want to play PS5 over practically anything else.

 

[Judge Dredd]

I see a lot of boomerism in this thread.

I have a 17 year old nephew and a niece in their low teens. They like old games like Mario 3, Timesplitters 2, and Streets of Rage 2 just fine. They aren't into PC games because all their friends are on console and their parents were console gamers.

The problem is a lot of old games that are held up as classics are garbage. Let's be brutally honest here. Morrowind and Daggerfall are shit to anyone who hasn't spent years learning the game inside out. Goldeneye is fun and all, but without the ubiquity of the multiplayer and playground rumour mill, that game loses a lot. Even games like Call of Duty 4 aren't the revelation they were since we've had decades of knock offs, and the only people still playing the multiplayer are hackers and people who've been playing the game for 15 years.

 

[TATE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODE!!]

Put your toys away, you're grown adults.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Well that's a stupid question, of course they do. Are you talking young as in young adults and teens or tweens and children? The latter have the same unrefined taste in vidya as they have in everything.

 

[Kheapathic]

It depends on how old; if the game is old but was part of their childhood, they'll probably have an authentic fondness for it, even if it doesn't hit the same as when they're grown up. There are of course classics that most people can identify as good or great, whose only real problem is it's dated. But, when I go on twitch; most of the people playing older games are either sped-runners or people using cheats and other shit, because they can't just say certain things are dated, they need work arounds because those outdated things drive them up a wall. Like last night I saw someone playing Parasite Eve 2, oh, let's see... using infinite MP and constantly complaining about how making phones the only way to save is stupid and completely unnecessary. Because he's been sucking on the tit of auto-saves and other shit way too long.

 

[byuu]

let's see... using infinite MP and constantly complaining about how making phones the only way to save is stupid and completely unnecessary. Because he's been sucking on the tit of auto-saves and other shit way too long.

I don't understand why retro purists are so upset about cheating and save states.
As if no one ever owned an Action Replay or Game Genie.

 

[Becomemysoulreaver12]

I can saftely say that most people under 20 are retarded and can't tell when something has actual quality unless they see a video about it, so yes and no, they only like em if someone else told them to like it.
Source: my little brother and cousin.

 

[Kheapathic]

I don't understand why retro purists are so upset about cheating and save states.
As if no one ever owned an Action Replay or Game Genie.

I don't care about save states; but if you're gonna have a "this is my first time through" and then you cheesedick your way through with cheats and then bitch constantly because the game is a product of its time which was before the person's dick could get hard, then shut the fuck up or play something else.

I can saftely say that most people under 20 are retarded and can't tell when something has actual quality unless they see a video about it, so yes and no, they only like em if someone else told them to like it.
Source: my little brother and cousin.

I blame Spyro; something about that dragon has me see him as the millenial Sonic.

 

[DinnerDates]

When I was a kid I don't have a console gaming, I used to play games on my shitty old PC. So right now I'm playing a lot of PS1, PS2, and PSP games through emulator to see what I'm missing out back then. Also I've been trying SNES and Genesis games mostly JRPG and Castlevania.

 

[Raging Capybara]

One of the top speedrunners for Super Mario Bros is 18 or something I think.

 

[Dojima's Dragon]

In my case i was a massive retard who didnt know that the ps2 could play ps1 titles so i missed out on playing alot of ps1 titles by burning them. I used to be that kid who never played old games since i thought they looked ugly now thats changed however.

The problem is a lot of old games that are held up as classics are garbage. Let's be brutally honest here. Morrowind and Daggerfall are shit to anyone who hasn't spent years learning the game inside out. Goldeneye is fun and all, but without the ubiquity of the multiplayer and playground rumour mill, that game loses a lot. Even games like Call of Duty 4 aren't the revelation they were since we've had decades of knock offs, and the only people still playing the multiplayer are hackers and people who've been playing the game for 15 years.

I mean given the state of modern vidya cant blame them really also what games would you consider to be "overrated".

 

[Rebel Wilson]

Guess it depends on what an old game is to you. My kids enjoy super nintendo and the occasional nes game. But if i put them in front of an intellevision like i grew up with, they don't have the ability to enjoy it and they hate the sound effects.

 

[fatcock burgerking]

In my family, personally, anyone younger than 25 has little to no interest in older games, citing the visuals. They seem to show more preference for the 16-bit era, and won't even touch the N64 or PS1. They're exceptionally susceptible to jaggies, which is a little ironic, because it almost felt like, to me, that the older blockier models were easier to process visually because of their distinctive silhouettes.

 

[Pissmaster]

Some do but generally they become more interested in older games as they get older.

I have had this exact same feeling about TV. I never appreciated most TV shows older than I am until just recently.

A lot of old games did age very poorly, and as much as I love the NES, I really can't recommend more than a handful of games to someone who has never played one before. I will relish the chance to get to sperg out about StarTropics, but I absolutely would not recommend it to anyone, due to the clunky controls and obscene difficulty. As for a kid, if I had a 10 year old in my family that eagerly wanted to see the NES, I'd stick to Super Mario Bros. 3, Mega Man 2, and Duck Hunt. If they found those palatable, I might graduate them to Lode Runner, Contra, and Mike Tyson's Punch-Out.