Some days ago I was organizing my digital emulation library, simple things, putting a frontend, downloading some games, deleting others, and I stopped to think something, at what point does something stop being a retro-game, like in the AVGN golden era (2010-2012) the SNES was 22 years old, today the PS2 is 22 years old +/-, but for me the PS2 don't feel like a retro-era console. Thinking for more time I started to try and understand what makes a retro, it isn't the age because if it was 3DS would be known as a retro-console, but it is just frozen in "old console", I think the main thing that creates the Retro Spirit is something we will not see now, the rapid advancements of graphics.
If you would put an image of a NES game with an N64 (a console with 20 years of difference) it would feel like eons a part, one have simple colors, an 2D representation of a 3D world made by our minds, illusion was the name of the game, you wouldn't really create a 3D world because that only would be possible 6 years later with Star Fox, but you would try to make this illusion. But the N64 could represent a 3D world, could represent vibrant colors with no limitations with "how many colors this thing can have" the NES and SNES had, the illusion was broken, the norm now was creating this worlds and if you wanted, you would want to present the illusion of realism.
But now, if you put an image of a Switch 2 game with an Wii game (same 20 years difference) the infinite gap is no more, the distance between the graphics is just a detail, we didn't break any new barriers, we didn't advance any new ULTRA INOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY, we just sharpned our tools, now we can show faces with more depth, but like we already could show a "realistic" face, it was palpable just not so much detailed. The emphasis of detalistic upgrades through the generations is one of the things that I think made this "retro iceberg", we don't understand retro as just a year thing "When X console makes 20 years it will enter the zeitgeist as a retro console", I think that the retro sentiment is much more subjeticve.
Trying to understand how this term is settled is interesting, how can I put the retro stamp in something? Like can I say that minecraft is a retro game? No because it evolved with the time, but can I say that minecraft 1.2.5 is a retro game? Can I say that WOW Classic is a retro game? We now have this other thing that we didn't had, games 20 years old that are still alive and changing, does the game need to be dead/frozen so we can call it retro? Runescape OS is kinda of a retro game, it still recieves updates but the felling is the same, its a world apart from FFXIV, but WoW that is just 3 years younger than RSOS it can't be said to be retro, not because of age, but because the leap isn't big enoug. The more we advance the slower the retro tag will catch up, we could be saying that ps2/gc/dc games are retro, but we aren't the difference in gameplay, graphics and whatnots between an MGS2 and an MGSV it isn't big, its just details, one has more QoL and better textures and lightning, we plateaud, now we won't be surprised, the new games don't have the "waow" factor that it used to have, the GTA VI trailer didn't make the splash that GTA V had, GTA V being a game that now has around the same age GTA 2 had when it came out, can we call GTA V retro?
I don't know if I'm making sense, but this whirlpool of thought is so fun, noticing that a term created in the last era of great advancements in this art is so fun, if you compare to other art form you start to see that older the medium less of an idea retro is, nobody calls the Mona Lisa a "retro classic", nobody calls The Beatles retro, but we call older games retro, we call older comics retro, I think we can say that retro was something for movies too. But it is actually lifespan of art? I wouldn't say that, it's important to understand what made the term, and like an idiotic video essay now I show the real meat of what I want to say, this is just a market term. Yeah I know, but even if your eyes rolled stay with me please, I have a point, this term wasn't a "thing" until the early 2000's, what happened there? The second generation of 3D consoles, it important for a corporation to say that the new technology is better and the old is dated, "you have to change for the newest version" so enters the retro term, before we would have re-releases, fan-projects, without the term, but coining the term will make it a clear destinction between the new and the old. This doesn't only increases the interest on the new, but increases the interest on the old, creating a word for it creates a community, creating a word for it creates an interest that before would be harder, who wants something that is called old? But oh boy do people like things that are called retro, Nintendo and Sony even made a market with this, the Virtual Consoles and the PSP E-Boots, people were thirsting for retro games. It isn't surprising that this word gained an abysmal popularity (google trends data) in the early 2010, the same era that the hipster aesthetic was at its peak, the same age that nostalgia was one of the main topics of chats, the age that started a thing that plagues the market until today. Do you like this old ass game? Do you remember in your childhood playing as Scrooge McDuck? Mickey? Oh does disney have a thing for you it is the game you love REMADE, Remakes started to flock the digital stores, you had companies making remakes and remasters of games that weren't even that popular, who remembers the 2016 Wonderboy remake? Who remembers the 2013 Castle Of Illusion remake? Today we roll our eyes when we see remakes, but people were intrigued. But if it is a market term why don't they use this to sell PS3/3DS games? Well you can't sell your new console when you show a game that don't look much different, it isn't a good market strategy to show that you didn't progress much in the last 20 years, so the best strategy is showing numbers that most people don't understand and showing futile things like Ray-tracing, Frame-gen, etc. Retro isn't stagnated because of the lack of evolution, well it is, but not naturally, it is stagnated because you can't sell the lack of evolution
I wanted to talk about how this term was adopted by the indie market, but the text was already to big lmao so will talk about this another time <3
If you would put an image of a NES game with an N64 (a console with 20 years of difference) it would feel like eons a part, one have simple colors, an 2D representation of a 3D world made by our minds, illusion was the name of the game, you wouldn't really create a 3D world because that only would be possible 6 years later with Star Fox, but you would try to make this illusion. But the N64 could represent a 3D world, could represent vibrant colors with no limitations with "how many colors this thing can have" the NES and SNES had, the illusion was broken, the norm now was creating this worlds and if you wanted, you would want to present the illusion of realism.
But now, if you put an image of a Switch 2 game with an Wii game (same 20 years difference) the infinite gap is no more, the distance between the graphics is just a detail, we didn't break any new barriers, we didn't advance any new ULTRA INOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY, we just sharpned our tools, now we can show faces with more depth, but like we already could show a "realistic" face, it was palpable just not so much detailed. The emphasis of detalistic upgrades through the generations is one of the things that I think made this "retro iceberg", we don't understand retro as just a year thing "When X console makes 20 years it will enter the zeitgeist as a retro console", I think that the retro sentiment is much more subjeticve.
Trying to understand how this term is settled is interesting, how can I put the retro stamp in something? Like can I say that minecraft is a retro game? No because it evolved with the time, but can I say that minecraft 1.2.5 is a retro game? Can I say that WOW Classic is a retro game? We now have this other thing that we didn't had, games 20 years old that are still alive and changing, does the game need to be dead/frozen so we can call it retro? Runescape OS is kinda of a retro game, it still recieves updates but the felling is the same, its a world apart from FFXIV, but WoW that is just 3 years younger than RSOS it can't be said to be retro, not because of age, but because the leap isn't big enoug. The more we advance the slower the retro tag will catch up, we could be saying that ps2/gc/dc games are retro, but we aren't the difference in gameplay, graphics and whatnots between an MGS2 and an MGSV it isn't big, its just details, one has more QoL and better textures and lightning, we plateaud, now we won't be surprised, the new games don't have the "waow" factor that it used to have, the GTA VI trailer didn't make the splash that GTA V had, GTA V being a game that now has around the same age GTA 2 had when it came out, can we call GTA V retro?
I don't know if I'm making sense, but this whirlpool of thought is so fun, noticing that a term created in the last era of great advancements in this art is so fun, if you compare to other art form you start to see that older the medium less of an idea retro is, nobody calls the Mona Lisa a "retro classic", nobody calls The Beatles retro, but we call older games retro, we call older comics retro, I think we can say that retro was something for movies too. But it is actually lifespan of art? I wouldn't say that, it's important to understand what made the term, and like an idiotic video essay now I show the real meat of what I want to say, this is just a market term. Yeah I know, but even if your eyes rolled stay with me please, I have a point, this term wasn't a "thing" until the early 2000's, what happened there? The second generation of 3D consoles, it important for a corporation to say that the new technology is better and the old is dated, "you have to change for the newest version" so enters the retro term, before we would have re-releases, fan-projects, without the term, but coining the term will make it a clear destinction between the new and the old. This doesn't only increases the interest on the new, but increases the interest on the old, creating a word for it creates a community, creating a word for it creates an interest that before would be harder, who wants something that is called old? But oh boy do people like things that are called retro, Nintendo and Sony even made a market with this, the Virtual Consoles and the PSP E-Boots, people were thirsting for retro games. It isn't surprising that this word gained an abysmal popularity (google trends data) in the early 2010, the same era that the hipster aesthetic was at its peak, the same age that nostalgia was one of the main topics of chats, the age that started a thing that plagues the market until today. Do you like this old ass game? Do you remember in your childhood playing as Scrooge McDuck? Mickey? Oh does disney have a thing for you it is the game you love REMADE, Remakes started to flock the digital stores, you had companies making remakes and remasters of games that weren't even that popular, who remembers the 2016 Wonderboy remake? Who remembers the 2013 Castle Of Illusion remake? Today we roll our eyes when we see remakes, but people were intrigued. But if it is a market term why don't they use this to sell PS3/3DS games? Well you can't sell your new console when you show a game that don't look much different, it isn't a good market strategy to show that you didn't progress much in the last 20 years, so the best strategy is showing numbers that most people don't understand and showing futile things like Ray-tracing, Frame-gen, etc. Retro isn't stagnated because of the lack of evolution, well it is, but not naturally, it is stagnated because you can't sell the lack of evolution
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I wanted to talk about how this term was adopted by the indie market, but the text was already to big lmao so will talk about this another time <3
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