How many people still love the old games?

[Colif]

Many people do find that older games were more engaging despite the simple graphics and technology. This may be because developers of older games often focused on innovative gameplay and clever design that encouraged players to think strategically or dive deep into the story. Games of the time had fewer technical options, but this pushed developers to come up with creative solutions.

The games in the past couldn't rely on pretty pictures to sell their games, they had to actually be fun, and have something engaging enough to keep people playing. And telling their friends. To sell more games.

The last 15 years or so they relied on pretty pictures and game play has been pushed aside to work on visuals so that the product can be released this decade. In AAA games anyway, Indie are like the old days still. For most part, they don't have the money to use the engines that explode development time. So at least their games, while not looking amazing, come out a lot faster... in some cases.

Consoles probably lead to this in a way, as easier to release a new version of an old game with updated graphics than to start from scratch. Stifles creativity. PS3 games became PS4 games and some also became PS5 games... (looks at Skyrim & TLOU). Graphics might look better but game is still the same.

 

[Zloth]

The games in the past couldn't rely on pretty pictures to sell their games, they had to actually be fun, and have something engaging enough to keep people playing. And telling their friends. To sell more games.

I don't agree at all. If that were true, Infocom and their pure-text games would have been a much, much bigger thing. EVERY time the graphics improved, it caused a lot of excitement! Green/amber screen became four colors, wow! Then 16! Then 256 - but not at the same time. CGA, EGA, VGA, Super-VGA... must get a new computer and monitor!!

 

[Colif]

Guess I mainly used consoles between 1984 and 1999 and may not have noticed the PC side of things. Consoles had to rely on tricks to get games to look better as the hardware remained the same.

Thats something lost on consoles now. They not behind curve enough . use X86, and get updated often enough that devs don't have to try to work out how to squeeze more performance out of the same old hardware each year. Except maybe Nintendo

 

[ExtraWildGames]

I Prefer a lot of older games, design and feel wise for the most part. I genuinely like how old games play. I feel new games are trying way too hard to be realistic or just try and take ideas from older games, as opposed to coming up with new game design concepts or expanding on said concepts they're taking from said games. I do find the shorter lengths of older games also good too, as I feel I get a lot of good gameplay from essentially a 4-5 hour campaign if you know what you're doing. Makes them a lot more replayable compared to newer, longer games that take longer to beat and generally I only go through once.

 

[DPSIIGames]

I think, the old games were more fun, now the new games might have good graphics and all, but old games were more fun to play? Do you agree?

Yes and no, this is why.
New games just try to make everything flashy, they end up losing continuity from that. Try out some indie games, you'll find those developers are more passionate about the content of their game. Graphics just means you got a big budget after all. Content means you got passionate developers who care. Mario and Zelda used to be great (and still are in many ways) but they were best when they were new and trying to become number one. I'm not saying they're completely jaded or anything, but they lost some perspective to what made them huge.

 

[OIPTHYGD]

I like old games but not too old like I puffer games from GameCube or PS2 not games from the NES or Gameboy do you understand

 

[ExtraWildGames]

I like old games but not too old like I puffer games from GameCube or PS2 not games from the NES or Gameboy do you understand

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRn5IMMlvfo

 

[isleepinabed]

Nostalgia I think is a big part of it. Plus, I might not be part of the target market these days. I have a 16 year old nephew and we tend to discuss games. He only plays the new stuff and I don't. I have seen this with some people who, for instance, can't watch black and white cinema, no matter how good it is.

Another part of the allure of older games is simplicity. Big productions are too cumbersome and designed too safe these days. When games were made by small teams there was more originality. If you need a palate cleanser, you need something fresh and original, not another 3rd person action game like a thousand others.

Another are the origins. If you go back and see an evolution of computer game design, from mainframe computers and electromechanical games you tend to enjoy the artistic and technological progress, from Zork, Black Onyx and Xevious to Disco Elysium, Baldur's Gate 3 and STALKER 2.

I used to think I mostly preferred older games. However, I recently tried to think of which were my favourite games, the ones I liked the most, and my favourites were usually made in the last ten years. That, in a way, is reassuring. Old games are limited because I can only play what has been made. But if I can still enjoy new games then I can still look forward to new games that haven't been made yet.
In the end though, while the ones that have enraptured me the most are recent, I tend to play, for fun, mostly older games.