Nostalgia Is Ruining Video Games

It's got more to do with inertia than nostalgia!!!

Remasters aren't lack of ideas but more risk free items that make us patiently wait till the launch of newer games.

Innovation on the other hand is seldom rewarded and is risky if it fails. which is often the case!!!

I say (in my own opinion of course) what a load of nonsense, you also failed to tell us exactly how nostalgia is "supposedly" killing the industry.

I would also say gaming is under far more threat from moden things like paying for multiplayer, the Usual milking of genres like fps games and survival games and the remakes of games that are barely a few years old like all the remasters the current gen consoles are getting and the clear dumbing down of game mechanics and claiming it as "streamlining" and charging almost full game price for season passes for DLC without even knowing what you will get for your money.......yet you ignore all that and claim nostalgia from decades ago and the possibility of bringing back amazing games with interesting and forgotten mechanics is a bad thing, and is what is actually killiing it....lol no just no.

If you as somebody who gamed in the 80's thinks that nostalgia is the biggest problem in gaming today then you need to reasses your thinkng because you seem to be ignoring all the major "real" problems gaming has today.

Oh and i personally do have fond memories of whittling down the hours moving that paddle playing the crap out of pong wth my sister, so with all due respect i suggest you only speak for yourself from now on and not for me or others ....thanks.

Your subjective opinon on nostalgia is noted but completely disagreed with

System Wars is a blog site now??

No, more so that this industries habit of going back to the well for sequels, remasters, and now remakes is a major problem. It's not that those old games are worse or better or any of that, it's that this medium is creatively bankrupt because it seems incapable of creating a new hit. Most of this forum can't fucking read.

To an extent nostalgia ends up doing more harm than good. When one of the biggest announcements of the year is a remake of a game released 18 years ago, you can't help but feel confused. We cry about the lack of fresh and original ideas but will easily gobble up we're literally already experienced because of how it made us feel when we were kids. Gamers really have no fucking clue as to what they want, and honestly they're partly responsible for why the industry's climate is how it is today, even if they refuse to believe it.

With that in mind, it's a collective effort of different aspects that are damaging the potential behind video games. Nostalgia isn't the sole entity.

The Atlantic is many things, a blog isn't one of them.

I didn't mention anything about difficulty... but okay.

I point you towards the Wii U social media board after Super Metroid on the Virtual Console was released to just show you how wrong you are. People couldn't figure anything out on their own without hand holding.

If it can still be enjoyed by someone new or someone going back to re-experience it, it hasn't "aged" all that much. Mechanically, games are definitely rougher the further you go back (at least in terms of 3D games) but a lot of elements stand up over time. Things like story, characters and art style.

No lie....that made me laugh.

Sequels are definitely a problem but those sequels had to start with a successful franchise (They have just been over done; Forza). I would say that sequels started recently but Mario would squash that argument. The creative problem is really at the heart of this issue, but video games are just a victim of the culture that lacks creativity as a whole.

One of the things that the article points out that I am in strong agreement with is the use of KickStarter for devs trying to cash in. The most recent and blatant example is Shenmue (Fans don't set me on fire). If there was true interest in this game it should have been funded by one of the bigs. Even worse it was trotted out on stage at a main gaming conference as if it was some amazing coupe. Gamers are now funding Beta projects for well known devs.

I am hoping next year to see some games that are fresh.

This many times. I was recently going through my PS2 collection and miss the diversity of games compared to today. And saw Battlefront II, how it has so much more content and none of the BS that the new one has.

@LJS9502_basic: I guess I'm not cool bc I don't still play or like 30 year old games....I'm not hipster enough.

One thing I wish developers and publishers would keep in mind is that at one point, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Mario, etc., ALL started out as new IPs. They wouldn't be successful multi-billion, long-running franchises had they not decided to take the risk.

One bad example the article sited was The Order: 1886. It wasn't a failed risk just because they spent so much money on it. It was a failed risk because that's all they did with it. They just dumped more money into the production value without having any kind of meaningful game beneath it. That's why it didn't get critical praise and that's why it failed to meet sales expectations. If that is your only equation to making a successful AAA title, the more you spend, the more you make, then of course you're fail and want to just rehash a previous game.

There's a tag line that would help companies too. "From the makers of". If you start a new franchise with a successful one under your belt and you start it with "From the makers of", you're going to get people's interest already. They know what you bring to the table. That's why there was interest in Destiny. I don't think anyone would really care that much about Destiny if we all didn't know Bungie was behind it.

mmhmm, especially with the annoyance that there are rather creative pitches on Kickstarter, but they simply don't draw attention since well the audience has no context for them. Meanwhile pitching Planescape, Star Citizen, Broken Age, etc has context. People want 90s PC games by experiences 90s PC devs.

It's the nature of everything being overproduces, and becoming formulaic, it's also sort of the problem with marketing teams being really good. They can sell a lot of the same safe shit through sheer volume, and the era of twitch/youtube has given more stale ideas new life on some level. Film has been in that place where their big expensive projects have become vapid spectacle, but that's fine for film. All you need is a quality director, writing team, and some good actors. Be a little creative with props n shit, and talent overrules pure production value.

Gaming, however that production value while at times given way too much credit, can also improve the things that are absolutely important to gaming: the gameplay, as in the substance. The independent scene is great, and only like the most ignorant of stupid fucks would ignore the sheer variety in the indie space, the amount of games that actually have depth to them, nevermind that a lot of the better stories in gaming are actually being told in that space to boot, especially given the adventure games. But since not enough of them have produced enough money to do 3d stuff, we've got an entire style of game (3D games) that have more or less become stagnant. Eventually the indie/middle tier space will produce the next big 3d hit, that I'm sure, but there is going to be a whole lot of waiting for that time.

Yea, it's like after I've been playing games all these years the LAST thing I want is all this hand holding and automation.

That might be well and fine for some new to gaming (not that I needed it back in the day), but it's just a massive turn off to me.

BUT, people who owned a 360 and not PS3 or vice versa have a chance to play games they missed out on. Not everybody owned all consoles.

Nostalgia isnt ruining video games, the generation that were kids (like 8-12) in the NES era are. They are the same ones making horrible reboots of all the great 80s and 90s movies.

@Heil68: Yeah, BUT, that doesn't make it good for the video games industry, if we're constantly getting remakes of games that came out 2 or 3 years ago we won't get anything new, and that could get pretty repetitive.

In this case, the "good" you're speaking of is outweighed by its consequences. If people really want to play last gen games, play it on a last gen console. Simple as that. Both the PS3 and XBOX 360 is currently priced at $80. lol

We have got plenty of new games in the past 2 years. I dont buy/play all remasters, but I do play some of them. They will always makes them, nothing is going to stop that.

@Heil68: Lol what does that have to do with rather or not it's good for the industry?

You stated there might not be any new games made due to so many remasters and that's not the case. How is it bad for making games that people are willing to buy? My whole point is that they are here to stay and remasters are going to be prevalent in every generation.

There have always been remakes. Every time Atari made a new system many of the same games were on it but upgraded. The Super Nintendo had Mario Allstars and Tetris and Dr Mario. Sequels have been a thing since the very beginning. People used to like it and now they hate it. I'm pretty indifferent to it myself. Games are a lot more complicated and time consuming and expensive to make these days. We will probably never see the quantity of games we used to get. When games were a new thing ideas from all over the place were to be expected. As time goes on they are getting an idea of what works and repeating it. There will be new revolutionary games coming I'm sure but they will probably be fewer and farther between. It doesn't help that people claim if a game doesn't have state of the art graphics and huge completely bug free polished 3D worlds it's only worth like 5 dollars to them.

@Heil68: It's bad because it oversaturates the market.. Just because it's profitable doesn't make it a good thing.. and the fact that these remakes are preventing new games from being made IS the case.. I bet you couldn't show me 10 NEW video games series, each, on the PS4 & XBOX ONE from big developers.. Could you? lol

Nostalgia is hardly ruining anything.. This Call of Duty generation of gamers most definitely is though. It's like every developer just has to westernise and CODify every single game in the hopes of getting some of that CoD pie. FF7 remake actually will be something new and fresh. Prerendered backgrounds bought to life by actual 3D environments, characters that don't look like legos, a completely overhauled and unique combat system, story changes, soundtrack changes. You can't honestly say this remake wont be a completely different experience.

As for new games.. Honestly they haven't been all that great. MGS5? Dragon Age Inquisition? Fallout 4? Final Fantasy XIII? All considerably worse and more dumbed than their predecessors. Nobody is going to look at these games in the future and demand a remake or even bother replaying them. They have zero lasting appeal. People are already starting to forget about those games. A game like FF7 though? We've went through 10+ years of people asking for this.

10 exclusives or multi plats?

Remasters has nothing to do with that when we would see COD 12, FF 14, Gears 4, Uncharted 4, Mas Effect 4, Witcher 3, ect ect even without them.

@Heil68: Yes it does.. If devs are working on remastered games.. Guess what they aren't working on... new games... that's common sense, lol

I do agree to an extent though, milked to death sequels are a bigger issue than premature remakes.. lol, but like I've said before, they still get in the way of quality game production

"10 exclusives or multi plats?" Just name 20 games, doesn't matter if their multiplats or not..

Well, Gears remaster came out and they are still working on Gears 4, Uncharted remaster came out, they are working on Uncharted 4 are they not? I dont know if the God of War guys are working on something new or not.

Well I got 30 some X1/PS4 discs and they aren't all remasters.

Are you saying we havne't seen 20 new games this gen? Or are you talking new IPS? New ips probably not, new games, yes for sure.

@Heil68: New IPs

I rest my case, lol

Well Watch Dogs, Blood Borne, Shadows of Mordor, Dying Light, Mario Maker, Splatoon, Knack(lol), Ryse(lol), Deep Down, Hell divers. Rocket League, Quantum Break, Recor, DriveClub, Zero Dawn are what I can think of. I'm sure there are others?

I guess, for me, I'm very satisfied between the amount of new ips and new games in the series available this gen.

@Heil68: How do leave off SSOD? So sad.

Those 2 are not new ips.

hmmm?

Shadows of Mordor isn't? Isn't it the first game of the series? We could go with Captain Toad then. There's Destiny too.

ahh yes, my 2014 GOTY.

I guess I'm not too critical of this gen, in my opinion we've seen plenty of new IPs only 2 years in and I dont think remasters have hampered the output of them.

I'm 37, and I'm mad in love with my gaming experiences as a kid... But i dont think the article is framing my mindset in terms of nostalgia...

I think that even when stacked against today's games, there are 25 year old games that stack up in terms of gameplay... In fact I think the argument can be made that we have yet to eclipse the satisfaction of playing a game like, say, the legend of Zelda, or the feeling of beating mega man 2 as a pure gaming achievement compared to going through the motions in a games like bioshock or Uncharted.... But all that aside...

... I don't think the games industry is tapping into my idea of nostalgia... In fact I don't think the majority of the gaming industry has a f***ing clue how to do nostalgia in gaming... And I think the idea that I don't have the intellectual investment to accept a new franchise because of my life's responsibilities is just lame. I don't have the time to sink into every game, true, but when I do I sit down with the same open mind I have sing I was 4 years old playing my Atari 2600. I want to win at whatever I'm playing.

Progressive Nostalgia in gaming done correctly is happening under our nose and in some cases it's being done exceptionally well. Games like Shovel Knight, which takes deeply entrenched nostalgic franchises, like mega man, duck tales, bionic commando, Castlevania and Zelda 2, and play our nostalgic heart strings like a fiddle, while giving us new characters to love, remind us that what we loved as children is still as relevant as the most expensive modern experiences. That's what I call legitimizing nostalgia.

Super meat boy, Olli Olli, shadow complex, rogue legacy, Castle crashers, Titan souls... All new games, all calling upon my past motor skills, past approaches and my past satisfactions without relying on the past stories and characters I once knew ... Nostalgic gaming done right.

Nostalgia can live on in the games we play today without having to return to the same franchise... To not crave the next new story, character or gameplay mechanic innovation in this hobby is a mistake... Period.

@TheEroica: That was very well said!

Whats ruining gaming are mindless shooters, if devs wanna make a shooter, at least add some depth to the gameplay other than just shooting from start to finish.

I thought nostalgia was ruining gaming for me at least,... and then I played demons souls, valkyria chronicles and mgs 4 & 5, then I thought theres still hope for gaming, devs can still create challenging and creative games if they still have the passion.

+1, and hilariously true.

@Heil68: Well, after I had delved deeper into the subject, I've come to the conclusion that this generation really isn't doing that bad for it's first two years

When does a series or franchise become old enough to be considered 'nostalgic'?

@mark1974: thanks brah... Just not a big fan of watching our hobby stagnate over remakes and samezy gameplay. Video games don't earn the right to be revisited ad nauseum because of who the protagonist is or because the franchise once sold well... Movies and music can handle that approach... Video games are intended to, since I've been a kid, to be the medium that's always looking forward, because ultimately at the end of the day, we cheat the very concept of advancing gameplay the moment we put some company mascot above our expectations of new ideas and innovations that could further our interactions with the medium....

When you have one of the best and talented development teams in the world , Nintendo wise that is , and all you making is Zelda/Kart/Smash/Mario and 2D indie like platforms because you know all those titles will gonna sale from nostalgia and iconic appeal alone ...then you "killing" it.

Thank god Mario main series always pushing platforming on another level because every other title ... its either worse than prequels or feels one of the same at best.

Now imagine if this team was trying NEW AAA Caliber IPs every generation aside everything else and they were trying to push many new games to masses. Way better !

That doesn't detract from anything. It's a way for devs/pubs to get some cash without spending a lot of money....which should mean they are solvent and can make new IPs. Games cost too much now for the risks. So you have to mix in sure things with said risks. They don't hurt the industry. No one buying new IPs does.

Nostalgia is one of the things I don't understand, especially when people are talking about crappy generic games.

But saying all that there are some old games that have stood the test of time, for example UFO/Xcom, Settlers and Civilization and a few others. The core gameplay is still fun and some of those games are in dire need of a proper remake because the graphics, well suck.

I don't get stuff like Mario, I played the original close to when it came out and still didn't get it.

FF7 was a great game because of it's epic length, and I liked the turn based battle system, I also like the others through to 10. My favourite was actually FF9.

I just like good games, and am sad when developers frequently **** it up and change things that made it good, FF, The Settlers, Xcom have all been fucked with to it's detriment, at least Civ got made into a better game I suppose.

Nice read. However, nostalgia isn't the problem. Remasters and lazy devs are. There is no reason to release so many remasters of games that released last gen. It is way too soon for that. This has never happened so much in the industry before. It's kind of concerning.

Also, I see some are saying games were better back in the day than they are now. That is simply not true and that is your fond memory shades confusing you. We've never had as much depth and variety as we do now. Just because you loved some games when you were a child does not make it better than games of today. You were a kid back then. It's more difficult to please as we get older. The only thing that was truly better was the lack of DLC/Season Passes/Microtransactions.

The video game industry is Doomed, and each day the lives of 10’s of millions of gamers are Ruined due to nostalgia and improved graphics. If only gamers would get unstuck from the past and present, we could all have a better future if everyone agreed that (insert favorite game/genre here) is the best.

@AzatiS: OK makes sense but to be fair it is sometimes refreshing to get new games in the vain of classics. If I'm not mistaken people were very pleased when Megaman went back to 8-bit.

Nothing wrong to nostalgia like games , nothing wrong to repeated sequels over and over ... But aside those NEW AAA caliber IPs from so talented development team like Nintendos are a must imho.

It's lord of the rings, by definition it isn't a new ip. Same with Toad, an adaptation (a poor one in the case of how mordor handles that lore) and a spinoff man. this the type of shit Blackbond used to make that um Square bashing image, **** remember that? He'd post how for a good while all Square was doing was making spinoffs for FF, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts? lol, now Square might not even be the worst offender of this type of shit.

Come on Thursday at 9pm EST and lets chat about this if you can. @TheEroica, doesn't this seem to be like a good issue to discuss? (The OP)

You also forget generic JRPG's as well!