Game Articles and Videos Thread
- Thread starter hanselthecaretaker
- Start date
Noah talks about Diablo. As someone who has never played any of the Diablo games, I appreciated it. Granted, I still don't want to play any diablo games(I can't really get into looter games) but I may watch the cutscenes on youtube since they are very pretty and well produced. Also some interesting discussion of slot machines and skinner boxes vis a vis the MTX/Battlepass mechanics in the later games.
60 Percent Of Playtime In 2023 Went To 6-Year-Old Or Older Games, New Data Shows
A report shows that while the industry is growing, its biggest competition is Fortnite, GTA, Call of Duty, and Roblox
kotaku.com
Yeh gods, four hours. I'm down, but it'll be a journey
New study reveals some people can actually see more FPS - Dexerto
A new scientific study claims that some people can be predisposed to being more sensitive to higher framerates and refresh rates.
Everybody check this out!
www.theguardian.com
Why are younger generations embracing the retro game revival?
Retro video games and aesthetics are having a moment, but it’s not just gen X and older millennials reliving their heyday: younger millennials and gen Z are getting in on the nostalgia too
www.theguardian.com
It goes to show that the whole "nobody plays old games anymore" mantra will always be full of shit. Said by those who are either greedy fools, corporate boot lickers, or those who hate old games of almost any style.Retro video games and aesthetics are having a moment, but it’s not just gen X and older millennials reliving their heyday: younger millennials and gen Z are getting in on the nostalgia too.
Why are younger generations embracing the retro game revival?
Retro video games and aesthetics are having a moment, but it’s not just gen X and older millennials reliving their heyday: younger millennials and gen Z are getting in on the nostalgia too
Harriet Shepherd
Tue 2 Apr 2024 07.13 EDT
Share
The bouncy, midi melody of Nintendo’s Wii theme descends into a drill beat. A Game Boy Colour opens up into a lip gloss case. A$AP Rocky goes “full Minecraft” in a pixelated hoodie, and a panting man bobs up and down with his arm stuck in a bush. This is not a glitch. Both online and IRL, pop culture is embracing the sounds, visuals and experience of retro gaming.
On TikTok, #retrogaming videos have amassed over 6bn views. On YouTube, uploads have increased 1,000-fold. Spotify users are creating 50% more retro-gaming-themed playlists than they were at this time last year, and live streamers are cashing in on the repetitive catchphrases and mechanical movements of NPCs (non-player characters). So why, in this age of hyperrealistic graphics and ever-expanding technological possibility, are younger generations captivated by an era of technological limitation?
For Kingsley Ellis, a millennial raised on the bleeps and bloops of Sega Mega Drives and N64 cartridges, the allure of retro gaming is simple. “It’s all about the nostalgia,” says Ellis, whose TikTok account, UnPacked, has 1.5 million followers. He says his interest lies mostly in old gaming hardware. His most-watched videos revisit the gloriously bizarre world of retro peripherals – those often ridiculous attachments designed to enhance (or overengineer) the gaming experience, such as screen magnifiers and foldout speakers clipped on to consoles.
View image in fullscreen
Younger gamers are discovering retro accessories such as the Wii Fit Balance Board through TikTok. Photograph: Itsuo Inouye/Associated Press
“Some of the attachments I wasn’t even aware of as a child blow my mind,” he says – for example the PediSedate snorkel, which allowed paediatric dentists to deliver doses of nitrous oxide to their patients while they played games, or the Game Boy-controlled sewing machine. Ellis’s content offers a winning combination of innovation, discovery, novelty and nostalgia. “I think the current wave of tech will almost be disregarded in the future,” he says. “I don’t feel the nostalgic properties are there.”
This sentiment seems to resonate with a growing segment of gen Z and gen Alpha, too. The popularity of channels such as Ellis’s reflect a broader fascination with retro tech that’s evident in the rise of reaction videos, the resurgence of web 1.0-era Frutiger Aero aesthetics (think futuristic optimism, glossy buttons, gradients and Windows XP screensavers), a filter transforming people into PS2 characters, and the increasing adoption of Y2K-era devices by young consumers. Last year, Urban Outfitters sold out stock of refurbished iPod Minis, and a 20-year-old Olympus digital camera was dubbed the “hottest gen Z gadget”. Among the ubiquity and instant gratification of tech today, Ellis suggests that the charming limitations of retro devices foster a “hack and discover” mentality that leads to a longer-term satisfaction.
Thanks to the memetic nature of the modern internet, this thrill of discovery extends beyond gameplay, as video game soundtracks and graphics increasingly find life in new contexts. Gaming has long been a source of inspiration for artists – think Jay-Z’s Golden Axe sample on Money, Cash, Hoes; Lil B’s use of Masashi Hamauzu’s Final Fantasy score; and D Double E’s Street Fighter Riddim. On the independent online radio platform NTS, which boasts a dedicated audience of millions, video game music is part of regular programming. NTS’s monthly Otaku show dives into specific games or themes, from iconic franchises such as The Legend of Zelda to the history of video game sampling in rap.
The show’s curator, Thierry Phung, says: “Our passion stems from the belief that video game and anime music often doesn’t receive the recognition it deserves.” For him, and other children of the 90s, video games were a gateway to musical discovery. Genres such as jungle and breakbeat were first encountered by many kids while battling virtual foes. PinkPantheress’s viral hit Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2, Phung suggests, sounds like something straight out of a PlayStation ad, and Charli XCX soundtracked a commercial for Universal Studios’s Super Nintendo World with producer Galantis.
Earlier gaming electronica is also experiencing a revival via YouTube DJs such as Ryland Kurshenoff – whose PlayStation jungle mix has garnered over 2.4m plays in the past year – and Slowerpace 音楽 (Slowerpace Music), who imagines vaporjazz soundtracks to fictional games. Through these kinds of creative retrospectives, gaming – an activity often dismissed as a frivolous waste of time by boomer parents – is being positively recontextualised and appreciated.
And plenty of artists and content creators are taking familiar retro game elements and spinning them into something new. On TikTok, the whistle synths of the G-funk-inspired Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas theme and the whimsical Mii Channel music now soundtrack thousands of videos – some gaming related, but many not.
There’s also been an uptick in actors and dancers behaving like NPCs, such as Pinkydoll, with her 1.7 million followers, and gen Z choreographers @dem_bruddaz, who take this trend and transform it into a kind of urban cosplay, acting as NPCs in streets, carparks and other public spaces. “They take slow-moving, superfluous and unimportant [pedestrians] that no one’s paying attention to, and transform them into front-and-centre characters,” says gamer and esports talent agent Britt Rivera, who works for Pinkydoll’s agency. “She’s on this futuristic platform, acting like she’s in the past, and it’s such an unexpected marriage … it has a really strong foothold because it’s the pioneer style of gaming. There’s something cool about this world being brought into a contemporary context.”
View image in fullscreen
‘It’s like comfort food’ … TikTok star Babesgabe regularly plays the Game Boy Advance, first launched in 2001. Photograph: Martin Godwin/the Guardian
But for Gabi, 27, (known on TikTok as @babesgabe), and a growing community of so-called cosy gamers, the appeal of older games lies not in their modern interpretations, but the comfort and simplicity of the past. Though cosy gaming can encompass recent titles too (“It’s like comfort food – different for everyone,” Gabi says), the crossover is common. “I game for nostalgia,” she says. “[It] eases my mind and lets me escape into a different world. [It’s] an excellent stress and anxiety-reliever.” A 2022 study revealed that half of gen Z said gaming improves their mental healthg.
In a world of relentless technological advances and increasing AI anxiety, Rivera wonders whether gen Z’s affinity for retro gaming is connected to its stability. “It provides a constant – it’s not going to morph into something else tomorrow,” she says. Given the continually disrupted times that this generation has grown up in, it’s not hard to see why younger players might find something comforting and unthreatening in pixelated graphics, the janky character animations of an early Grand Theft Auto, or ever-predictable NPC soundbites.
And as technology fixates on the latest and greatest, retro gaming offers a refreshing break, perhaps a comforting idealisation of simpler times. But more than that, the games of the 80s and 90s are the foundation on which the gaming giants of today were built. “The music, the graphics, the dialogue, the clothes – it’s a whole experience,” says Gabi. “There is a deeper cultural significance. It’s a piece of history.”
Last edited:
Any Mirror's Edge fans here. I never really got into the game, but I know there's fans here on this site.
It's an interesting game that has all the ingredient to work but doesn't quite get there.
The parkour is pretty fun, but the level are so linear that it feel more like a puzzle game than a platformer/adventure game, and it inevitably end up stopping at some point for your to figure out where to go next, killing all momentum. And then you get in a fight and its just terrible.
The story is really weird, its like the dev forgot that they were supposed to show that the bad guys are bad guys. So you play as someone smuggling stuff but you never find out what the stuff is. Its obvious you're supposed to think your smuggling stuff for some sort of rebellion against an evil government, but there's no sign of a rebellion nor is there any sign of the governement being evil. Society looks free and prosperous from all sign. So it seems more likely that your smuggling something like drugs or maybe industrial/state secret or something. You eventually find out the government has some sort of super secret evil plan which turn out to be... that they're training parkour cops to stop people smuggling. On the other side, most player are probably going to go trough the game killing 50-100 people, I don't even think its possible to get a fully pacifist playtrough. And yet the main character never really comment on this, she seem just fine with killing people. So as a results, it just feel like you're playing as the bad guy.
I think its most lasting legacy is that it introduced the idea of colour coding what you can interact with in the environment. I haven't played the sequel but I should try at some point, it just has EA online bullshit DRM attached to it so who know if it'll work.
Life is Strange studio Deck Nine accused of toxic workplace culture in new report
A new investigation into developer Deck Nine - best known as the current steward of Life is Strange, a series celebrate…
www.eurogamer.net
Last edited:
- SF6 Akuma talk.
- Brief over view of A.B.A
- You can't learn to fight against Eddie, if you didn't purchase him. No ones if that is intentional or a bug.
- 2XKO getting updates, progressing far, and actually appealing to the FGC community and not the e-Sports crowd. Becoming an actual fighting game and not a fighting game that's just happens to take place in the LoL universe.
- Killer Instinct Bonus updates.
- Everything afterward is about City of Wolves and it's new and easier combat mechanics, moves, and overall aesthetics.
I'm not trying to take away from anyone's genuine enjoyment of anything but the article is using TikTok to discuss a trend- the platform of short attention-grabbing videos. Things with lots of moving like Wii Fit and peripherals would be more appealing to grab attention.Everybody check this out!
Why are younger generations embracing the retro game revival?
Retro video games and aesthetics are having a moment, but it’s not just gen X and older millennials reliving their heyday: younger millennials and gen Z are getting in on the nostalgia too
It goes to show that the whole "nobody plays old games anymore" mantra will always be full of shit. Said by those who are either greedy fools, corporate boot lickers, or those who hate old games of almost any style.
I'm not dismissing the appeal of retro in fact I do see it- the fact is with entertainment, convenience matters and retro games invite simplicity and immediacy.
So what if it is TikTok? Lots of younger people, and people in my age range use it, so it shouldn't be that surprising. It's no different from a YouTube video highlighting old games. The same would apply if it were videos on Facebook, Instagram, etc. The good news is that younger generations are either interested in the older games or even more interested than before.
Exactly what the article pointed out on why many of Gen Z are playing. The fact they're not being screwed over nor overwhelmed crappy MTXs and DLCs helps a lot.
Plus there was this stat that came out of some recent GDC panel I've seen referenced that said 60% of games played are more than 6 years old or something like that and people were surprised it was that high- honestly I'm surprised it's only 60%! I mean... Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft, and WOW alone I figured would be like most non-mobile gaming.
Not that surprising; especially with easier availability compared to the 90s and early 2000s. Those statistics only further prove the whole "No one plays old games" narrative was and is a load shit started by greed publishers themselves and bootlicking game journalists on the favorite pet list.