The Nostalgia Factor

[Yahtzee Croshaw]

The Nostalgia Factor

The various things I've said about the new console generation and their respective hardware gimmicks might have given you the impression that I'm some kind of stubborn ageing neophobe who insists that everything stay exactly the way I like it forever. Nothing could be further from the truth

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[Grach]

I honestly never thought of the Mighty No. 9 thing that way. It was dumb though.

 

[mitchell271]

I like how the column usually ties in with some of the banter you share with Gabe in your "Let's Drown Out" series. One week you'll end up talking about nostalgia with him, get a different opinion, and then throughly discuss and expand your own viewpoint.

As always, good article. The current state isn't helpful to people like me who didn't grow up playing old NES/SNES games and discovered them on their own later, we don't get every single in-joke or reason to have these throwback mechanics. Yes, those old games were fun and they're choc full of things we can learn from them, but enough is enough. Time for some change.

 

[Covarr]

I do miss the days of real games for real gamers, like Action 52 and Rambo on the NES. Now, instead of imaginative new games like that, all we get are Zelda sequels.

P.S. Thanks

 

[whycantijustdeletemyaccount]

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[GonzoGamer]

Yes, in the US we have a large amount of people (many of them influenced by a huge Australian media conglomerate) who are dead set against progress. And yet, things still progress. So, let them speak loudly and carry a small stick.
What really cracks me up however are the fresh immigrants to this country (people who still have thick accents) who complain that there are too many immigrants...wtf. It's bad enough we have people who's grandparents immigrated here whining about immigrants.

But, oh yea, games. If you want to "blame" something, I think Braid posers should get a 'wag of the finger.' We get a good side scroller and all of a sudden all the dev studios that aren't working on AAA FPSs are making retro side scrollers. The other part of it is economics, a publisher is more likely to make its money back from a cheap retro style game than something with the production value of a God of War game. The way I see it, these devs would probably be making shovelware in either regard, at least now they're making shovelware that wont bankrupt anybody. See? Progress.

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

They refer to themselves as Irish or Italian despite having spent less time in Europe than a fucking Canadian moose.

I'll have you know that Canadian moose are in the 70th percentile economic bracket, and regularly take trips to Europe for honeymoons and other coitus-inducing reasons.

 

[castlewise]

I wonder where Pillars of Eternity fits in this. We'll probably have to wait to see.

 

[Evonisia]

It's depressing to have not grown up in the time when the games people are remaking now were being made. Playing them will just give me a sour opinion on the original games. Nostalgia is quite the toxic substance, yet it tastes so sweet, like doughnuts.

 

[Thanatos2k]

See the problem is we've seen what's outside the comfort zone. We've been seeing what's outside the comfort zone for years.

With absolute garbage like Dungeon Keeper Mobile showing us what happens when "progress" is made, maybe the notion that things used to be better isn't so far fetched after all.

 

[Tastum]

I get the feeling that this got written because Yahtzee just reviewed an example of the bad sort of nostalgia, Might & Magic X. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying the game immensely, but when I find out I can't train Endurance to Expert at the starting town because the trainer there only teaches at the Master level (what??) it's obvious they only build things like this because that's how the older games did it. It's especially galling since I've recently played the Etrian Odyssey series which apes a similar style of game but goes on to streamline the experience significantly without sacrificing challenge.

Still, nostalgia has brought us a lot of excellent things like Bastion and XCOM, so it's not nearly all bad.

 

[Sticky]

See the problem is we've seen what's outside the comfort zone. We've been seeing what's outside the comfort zone for years.

With absolute garbage like Dungeon Keeper Mobile showing us what happens when "progress" is made, maybe the notion that things used to be better isn't so far fetched after all.

I had a lengthy post typed up but you mostly said what I was thinking in fewer words.

One never knows what they have until they lose it. A large amount of staples we at one time took for granted are fading away and in its place we get an array of games and business practices which are clearly a case of publishers stacking the deck against consumers.

Which is where I believe most of our nostalgia comes from; not from the desire to not progress things, but from a desire to have more of what we had that we can objectively quantify as good. A desire to simply bring more good into an industry which is thriving off a negative cycle of bad sportsmanship and greedy tactics.

 

[themilo504]

I agree that conservatism is bad but I do think your overreacting, even if they are popular old school games are still nowhere near as popular as normal games (besides Nintendo).

Also artist are just as responsible for the rise of old school games as the audience if not more so, or do you think that artist are immune to nostalgia?

Also most people don?t want a new tim Schafer adventure game because of nostalgia, they want it because they like Tim Schafer adventure games and would like to see a new one, if they did just want monkey island again they would ask for a remake.

 

[shiajun]

See the problem is we've seen what's outside the comfort zone. We've been seeing what's outside the comfort zone for years.

With absolute garbage like Dungeon Keeper Mobile showing us what happens when "progress" is made, maybe the notion that things used to be better isn't so far fetched after all.

I had a lengthy post typed up but you mostly said what I was thinking in fewer words.

One never knows what they have until they lose it. A large amount of staples we at one time took for granted are fading away and in its place we get an array of games and business practices which are clearly a case of publishers stacking the deck against consumers.

Which is where I believe most of our nostalgia comes from; not from the desire to not progress things, but from a desire to have more of what we had that we can objectively quantify as good. A desire to simply bring more good into an industry which is thriving off a negative cycle of bad sportsmanship and greedy tactics.

I concur with your opinion. The awful, awful, awful business practices publishers and devs are getting into these days make one think of the time were games weren't squeezed to the bone and sold piecemeal all over the place. Or at least it wasn't done as publicly and with such cinicism.

 

[Xman490]

"And through that process you can see microcosmic examples of nostalgia becoming a conduit for conservatism and mistrust of the outsider. Look at all that retardation that surrounded Mighty No. 9 when the community of backers threw a collective shit-fit over the controversial hiring of a community manager who - through either being a woman, a feminist or a non-Megaman fan, depending on who you ask - committed the sin of being NOT ONE OF US."

Another example is Sonic Boom, of which instead of the doubts that we have all developed over the late 2000s, some people are most concerned about the characters wearing bandages and having exaggerated muscles, bones, and attitudes. If you ask me, Sonic has been through so much abuse that regardless of whether it will be a good game (probably will be, as it has the gameplay of Sonic Adventure and the multiplayer of Super Mario 3D World), it stands as an appropriately hilarious concept between its characters and Skrillex-dubstep soundtrack so far.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

There's a famous saying from Henry Ford: "If I'd asked the public what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse." The only difference between the latest Call of Duty being a carbon copy of its predecessor and the latest Legend of Zelda being a carbon copy of a game made 20-some-odd years ago is time.

See the problem is we've seen what's outside the comfort zone. We've been seeing what's outside the comfort zone for years.

With absolute garbage like Dungeon Keeper Mobile showing us what happens when "progress" is made, maybe the notion that things used to be better isn't so far fetched after all.

I hope you're attempting to explain the obsession with nostalgia rather than excuse it. Yahtzee could probably write a whole column on this stupid false dichotomy alone, and I'd quite appreciate if he did. Just because the mainstream gaming industry refuses to come up with new ideas that don't suck doesn't mean everyone else has to.

 

[Fox12]

"Bad nostalgia sometimes goes by other names, such as "conservatism". The desire for things to stay the same, unmixed with people and concepts from outside our comfort zone. Nostalgia is a string to the bow of everyone with an anti-progressive agenda. They can use phrases like "Traditional values" to add a facade of quaint, down-homey charm to their knee-jerk hatred of the outsider."

Yeah, progressives are always right! Like when they advocated for eugenics, so that we could purge society of undesirables! Too bad those pesky conservatives had to complain about things like "human rights" and "crimes against nature."

Honestly, I'm NOT a conservative, but to make blanket terms like that are somewhat ignorant. Progressives are just as bad as Conservatives, maybe even worse. They're just bad in different ways. It's easy to pretend the progressives are better because all the bad ideas get weeded out. This is the mindset that leads to blind party loyalties... think for yourself Yahtzee.

 

[isdestroyer]

I feel that people are fundamentally misunderstanding what conservatism is.

Conservatism, at it's most fundamental ideals is about personal responsibility. A conservative believes in the power of the individual, and that individual's ability to take care of themselves and those they care about. A conservative believes in hard work, and living within one's means. This is what we mean when we talk about "traditional values".

Conservatives are not against progress. But progress for progress' sake, however, is bad. Progress needs to be tempered with perspective, not idealism. Good progress must be slow, because if we start progressing faster and faster without restraint, we end up creating a lot of waste that buries us and prevents us from seeing where we came from and where we are going. We end up directionless.

I do not want this to become a political debate, because this is not the forum for that. I'm just trying to clear up the misconception. I would also encourage everyone to educate themselves about conservatism so they can make up their own minds about the issue as well.

Now, as to the main point of the article, I agree that video games, and the pop culture industry in general, are relying on nostalgia too much. Nostalgia is not perspective, and it has diminishing returns. The game industry is going to shoot itself in the foot if they're still mining the 80's and 90's after everyone who lived in those years have passed on.

 

[Gezzer]

I agree that nostalgia for nostalgia's sake alone is wrong.
And yes many developers and publishers are taking advantage of the "rose coloured glasses" phenomenon by releasing half baked attempts to cash in on nostalgia. But acting like this is something new to our present time is foolhardy. Ever hear the term "the greatest generation"?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greatest_Generation
I'd suggest there was just a bit of nostalgia for a better time involved in that moniker. We are constantly comparing today to our past, it's normal and to be expected.
But I find it really funny that someone who's ranting against nostalgia is also an admitted proponent of one of the oldest if not the oldest game form in gaming, the adventure game. Or as I like to call them "hunt the pixel".
There are two things I think should be kept in mind here "there is nothing new under the sun" and "everything is built upon the past".
I as well played the earlier M&M games and loved them. But one thing I've noticed by about 85-90% of the people who complain about some aspect of M&M X, they also say they're really enjoying it. Funny that eh?
In a previous post I tried to explain the design philosophy behind the game. You need to be thinking and planning constantly. Placing all the trainers in one place would simplify the game, but you wouldn't have to pay attention to everything in case it was important later.
Ultimately for me I could care less about nostalgia either way. If a game is fun I'm in. For example I love tower defense which is a relatively new genre'. In fact my favorite right now is Prime World: Defenders. Both a TD and a collectible card game, and I've never played a collectable card game before. I think my problem is when someone tries to be new and different for that reason and no other. I've played and abandoned so many games because they try to reinvent the wheel, and end up with a complete monstrosity that can't roll more than two feet. As the saying goes "Gameplay is king" (okay the guy was a bit of douche but he was still right). There is a current game in beta on steam called War for the Overworld Bedrock, and I swear it's the first promised "spiritual successor" to Dungeon Keeper that actually feels like it. SO is that a bad thing? A game that was fun in the past being recreated to be fun today?
For me? not a chance.
Gamers just want to have fun, not get bogged down in philosophical discussions on the subject of if this or that current trend in gaming is a good thing. Well that's all this gamer wants, to have fun. Is that too much to ask?

 

[hexFrank202]

Oh Christ. *ughhhh*

I was like,
"Oh hey, Moviebob already did a video about this topic a few years ago. I'm glad that Yahtzee is going to say something new about it, and isn't going to summon the horrifically asinine, reprehensibly not-thought-out accusation that people whose main political platform centers around the maintenance or restoration of the past are doing it because they're 'nostalgic' about it."

But then no, good shit, Ben just blabs out the same lazy, poorly-thought-out statement.

Because yeah, people supporting 1890's States Rights models are just doing it because they're nostalgic, and 130 years old.

Okay, now to read the rest of the article to see if you EVENTUALLY get to something of substance.

Oh nice, there's actually more inane nonsense.

"I shall now talk about Americans by using the word 'they'. The number of Americans I've talked to and known in my life is well enough to be able to accurately represent the entire nation. Or, the amount of emotional, biased TV coverage I've watched about Americans in my den is enough to know what the whole country is like."

To be honest, xenophobia and hostility against other cultures is something I've almost never come across in my life as a Missourian.

I'm glad you don't immediately accuse anyone who had a beef with whats-her-face of just hating her for being a woman. Like Moviebob, who's recent Sarkeesian article implied that those who disagree with her and those who are anti-strong-female-character misogynists are one and the same.