By Space Coast Daily // April 22, 2024
Every year, video game companies publish new titles, boasting shiny new graphics, the latest game engines, improved features, and a fresh storyline. In their marketing spiel, these new features are sold as upgrades on previous releases, making new games continually better than the ones that came before.
Yet, every major gaming platform and service offers a huge back catalog of content for players to enjoy popular titles of yesteryear. Load up the Nintendo eShop and you’ll find smash hits like older Mario and Zelda games, while searches on the PlayStation Store will yield pages and pages of titles from previous iterations of Sony’s consoles.
Why is this? If the new games are so much of a step forward in every direction, why do players continually flock to these older retro titles?
Nostalgia
No matter how old you are or what generation you belong to, things were always better “back in your day”.
Ask your parents and they’ll explain how the internet was a better place before the creation of smartphones. Meanwhile, your grandparents will tell you how life was much simpler and easier without any of the fancy electronics we use today.
It’s not because any of these eras were actually better or worse, it’s just that we all have an attachment to the familiar. Therefore, many people love the games that they enjoyed earlier in their gaming careers as they were exploring the medium and finding which genres they liked best.
Retro gaming, therefore, is the same as any other form of nostalgia business. Publishers have realised that their older IP carries a lot of sentiment for many people and, therefore, they can make plenty of money out of it.
Upgraded Features Breathing New Life Into Old Games
Many retro games have been rereleased with a wealth of new features and refreshed graphics, giving them a whole new lease of life and allowing new generations of gamers to enjoy them, as well as the players who bought them the first time around.
For example, Rockstar Games released the Definitive Editions of Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas in 2021. These titles used the same story, maps, and sounds but had upgraded graphics and were built on a modern game engine.
While the upgraded graphics didn’t make Vice City look like a photorealistic recreation of Miami, the new releases allowed players who enjoyed GTA games in the 2000s to reminisce and younger gamers to explore something new in a more accessible way.
Similarly, classic card games like blackjack have benefited from their recreation by online casinos. These sites offer a combination of convenience, upgraded graphics, and new features that create a new playing experience which retains the charm of the classic game but with a modern twist. Many do this by using side bets like blackjack insurance which adds an additional option to wager at 2:1 when the dealer has an ace upcard. These side bets create a new strategic challenge for players who can test their knowledge in different ways.
Dislike of Microtransactions
Another common factor driving people to play older video games is the fact that modern releases are almost always packed with microtransactions. These are opportunities for players to buy new content, character upgrades, and other features for the game. Some titles are given away for free in the hope that players will pay for these extras while other publishers still charge for their games and then double dip on revenue with microtransactions.
While many choose not to pay extra, there are also many that do, making it profitable for publishers.
However, there is a large group of gamers that detest nagging screens and “pay-to-win” mechanics. They, instead, prefer to play older titles that use a more traditional method of monetisation without microtransactions.
They can, of course, find newer games that don’t contain them, but most AAA titles contain some form of additional downloadable content. This leaves a choice between retro games and output from indie developers, with many players choosing a combination of both.
