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What is your criteria for what counts as a "retro" video game?
Do you base it solely on age? On the year/console of release? Graphical style? Vibes? Divination?
Additionally: based on your criteria, what are some complicated edge cases?
For example: is DOOM 3 "retro" because it's over 20 years old and its series was rebooted, or is it modern because it's got nice 3D graphics and lighting and whatnot? Is Crow Country retro even though it came out last year?
The point of this isn't to find the hard line of what is/isn't retro -- it's to play around in the gray areas for what "retro" potentially does or doesn't describe.
This is going to be controversial, but PS3/PS2/360/Wii(+U) are all retro now, they're over fifteen, twenty years old now. That's retro.
GameCube, PS1, Xbox, those are now vintage. Something you may be able to still find in working, decent, conditions at a thrift shop fairly easy in any city.
And anything before that? That's antique tech. Rarer, especially in good and complete condition, to find in a thrift shop. These are collector items.
I specify by the intersection of "how easy it to get one in near mint condition" and "rarity of finding in a general thrift shop".
This becomes a bit harder to define in the PC world because with consoles there's (usually) a definitive and hard line between one generation and the next, but how do you define those generations from a PC standpoint? Or games that just go on indefinitely and change and evolve over time?
Like Europa Universalis 4 is still the latest game in that series, receiving regular updates to this day, and it released mid 2013, when Xbox 360s and PS3s were still roaming the planet (Xbox One and PS4 would be released later that year). DOTA 2 also came out mid 2013 and is still around. And games like WoW and Runescape are even older and still have active development.
I'd probably say a good marker is when it no longer runs stock. That mods + emulation are required to provide dead APIs or hardware (I.e. Tom Clancy splinter cell shadow buffers, Thief EAX sound effects).
Left a comment here that sort of touches on this.
Tech and software are the same as houses, furniture, magazines, albums, etc.
You can still play vinyl from the 40s on a modern sound system, or rip a 80s hair metal cassette tape and play it on youtube, but it's still retro music.
My Supernintendo is over 30 years old, but it’s hard to call it an antique since it is still fairly easy to use it. In the 2000s, electronics from the 70s weren’t antiques.
My Game Boy Advance is over 20 years old and is also easily maintained. I don’t see a demarcation line between the two consoles.
I think I would set the antique label at around 50 years for electronics. Something from the 70s is not easy to integrate into modern electronics. Of course this is all subjective. The Magnavox Odyssey is an antique.
Would you then consider systems like the Atari 2600 antique? Considering technology "years" runs faster than a normal rotation around the sun year.
Should we come up with new words for the aging of technology or will we still use "retro", "vintage" and "antique".
We could say that the Sega Mega Drive is obsolete, but I feel that’s incorrect.
Just because that system isn’t on par with the modern generation of systems does not mean that it’s invalidated! It has a heart of its own, some people have nostalgia for it and some want to discover what their parent’s childhood was like by taking part of it in some small way.
I don’t think technology ever become obsolete, it just become antiquated.
Retro also kind of goes out the window now that new games are being made for old systems... Like, yeah, they're old but they've still got in print games!
An argument can be made that since a lot of the older consoles require adapters to work with modern TVs, those can still be considered retro.
I think those categories are going to get broader and broader as time goes on. Video games aren't 100 years old yet, but we're getting there.
Tennis for two, generally considered the first video game ever made. That's almost 70 years of video game history.
Furniture is generally considered antique when it's over 100 years old. I think eventually, when the video game industry gets to the place that there were widespread, commercially available games that are over 100 years old, that label will apply to games too. As time goes on though, the windows of time we consider all of these labels to apply to will get broader and broader. It will be weird when people are booting up games older than any human on earth at that time, but it'll happen eventually.
Do you know what we call homes around a century old? Century homes!
Retro, Vintage, Antique, those are terms for modern relevancy that is always rolling, once they reach vintage they start being defined by generational/era names, as you can't name epochs easily when living directly in or around, (Is the PS6 really next gen compared to current gen? Hard to say, as time hasn't progressed enough to compare or define), eventually they become rolled into being classified as Antiques, and become sub-defined by their epochal/era/generational names.
An Elizabathan, Victorian, or Georgian era antique is still an antique even if they are hundreds of years apart. So, eventually it will just be defined by their generation name under the umbrella of "antique".
You, shut your pie hole! Stop making me feel old.
To me, retro requires being actually old and substantially different from what we have now in either graphics or gameplay. In other words, a game that is different due to the constraints of the time.
Crow Country is retro-styled to me, but not retro for sure.
I do think that GameCube and PS2 can probably be considered retro now (so I guess I'll expect my AARP info packet soon).
However, I'm not sure if PS4 (or even PS3) will ever be retro, given that PS5 is just "faster PS4"; to my eye there isn't a fundamental change between these, rather just a bump to texture quality. It looks significantly better, but doesn't seem to have fundamentally changed the games. In that sense, modern games may only ever become "old" unless there's a major breakthrough in video game graphics like PS1 -> PS2 -> PS3.
I like the inclusion of a qualitative difference. Games like Zork, Descent, Jones in the fast lane, hexen, Odell down under, etc have a very different feel from a lot of what we have today, even when mechanics appear similar.
I wouldn't die on this hill but, any old game with pixel art or low poly 3D graphics. Just that.
I say this because if we go by age, then by all accounts PS3 or PS2 era games should be considered retro. But tell me the last time - if any - that you heard about a new game that looks retro, and the looks are similar to PS3/PS2 games?
Every time I hear "retro style", it's always about a game, image, video, whatever, that uses pixel art, or has a low-poly design, reminiscent of 70-80-90's games. If I google "retro style game", all screenshots that appear are games with pixel art, except for a few that are 3D but look like PS1 games.
Therefore, in my view, it's not worth it to fight against convention and just embrace that retro games became a synonym with pixel art and low-poly designs.
Also because, in this media, categories not having clear definitions is par for the course. RPG is another can of worms for example.
Systems designed for CRT televisions. Additionally, requiring physical media (bonus points for a cartridge). Limited-to-no form of online interactivity. Limited-to-no operating system. No corresponding release on PC when the game was released. Not all of those are essential, but they all take some form for what feels retro to me.
A system where I can download games from an online shop such as the Xbox 360 and Xbox One will never feel retro to me. Whereas the SNES, PSX, and GBA all feel retro to me. GameCube is sort of the last system that feels retro to me, which is funny because I’ve been using a GameCube controller via a Wii U adapter everyday on my Nintendo switch 2.
Like Sega Channel on the Genesis? :^)
(Or Satellaview! Or the, uh, totally not furiously searching here, Intellivision Playcable! Betcha didn't think of THAT, huh?? /s)
Honestly though, I'm curious - would you put the Dreamcast as retro or modern? A robust feature-forward online service, digital 480p over VGA, and (weirdo) Windows CE implementation, but I still consider it retro from how it was just too early to the market for all it did.
Retronauts put it well - the Dreamcast is the last of the retro generation. The way games were developed, the audiences they chased, and the purpose of the console in the living room all changed in the next generation.
The Dreamcast was the last console that was invented as a 'purely games' system.
Some could give that nod to the GameCube, but in addition to benefiting from the changing mass market oriented industry, Nintendo's calculus has always been more business-oriented than Sega. Very conservative, less risk taking.
That’s an interesting statement. I agree that Nintendo as a whole is old-school Japanese business, very calculated in a lot of ways. And Sega clearly overplayed their hand repeatedly in the ‘90s.
But when I look specifically at Nintendo’s hardware offerings over the years, I see a ton of high-risk decision making. It goes all the way back to weird experimental products like the Game and Watch, R.O.B., Power Glove, Virtual Boy, the 3-pronged N64 controller, the shape of the GameCube and its tiny disc format, the 2-screen touch-focused DS, the motion-focused Wii, [probably the Wii U also but I don’t know enough about that one to say], and the hybrid convertibility of the Switch. Some of these were failures but others were huge successes. That seems like a pattern of high risk tolerance to me. Sega’s consoles (at least on the hardware side) were downright conventional in comparison.
Yeah, that's a true statement.
Maybe I'd have done better to say that Sega took the 'throw spaghetti' at the wall approach (and finally got it right with the Dreamcast) whereas I think it's fair to say that Nintendo's vision for wild hardware was always underwritten by dependable software offerings.
Since SNES, we've always known that wild hardware was just another way to realize Mario, Zelda, DK and everyone else.
Sega on the other hand had new IP for each generation outside of Sonic. Their arcade commitment to new experiences meant that each generation, they were going in with fresh eyes.
Also, I'd say that the Nintendo DS, the Wii and their other innovations started when that sort of thing was possible. Until the Dreamcast, everybody was just releasing fancier boxes
Great point. I added the comment about how a retro console needs some blend of the ideas I presented because I knew Sega sort of breaks the mold! For me, the most unifying concept is if I can play the game on my CRT, and that ultimately comes down to one shared (but not always present) trait: 240p. However, I’d still put the Dreamcast as retro based on gut feeling.
My general rule of thumb is if a MiSTer FPGA has a core for the console, then it’s retro. I think after that, graphics, memory, and CPUs made a large leap that redefined how games were made. I view the N64 and PSX as bridge consoles. The GameCube and PS2 are on the other side. Perhaps I’ll need a new name for that generation. Emulation gaming? Where it’s more worthwhile to fully emulate the console rather than write an FPGA core because the systems are so complex.
Retro is marketing to nostalgia regardless of timeframe, and similar to how Modern Art was in the 1920s, I think retro gaming is tied to the eras between pixels and low polygon count and the games that evoke that era. Maybe the PS3 is an older console, and I'll concede that it has elements of retro at this point in time, but I don't see it as trying to do the same things in games as an SNES or the original PlayStation.
Maybe retro is a spectrum?
Maybe it's my age, or the fact that I'm a graphics person who now does GPU design for a living, but I'd probably draw the line at whether it relies on (even if not fully exercising) a graphics accelerator capable of fully-perspective correct 3D with texture maps above 64x64. Basically, post-N64 and PS1 on console, or requiring OpenGL/D3D/Vulkan on PC.
My criteria used to be "when GameStop stops accepting trade-ins and puts all their inventory for the platform on clearance".
I haven't been to a GameStop in years though so I have no idea how they sunset old platforms now.
I would definitely qualify Doom 3 as "retro".
For Nintendo, that would be anything released before the Switch for me. I would have excluded the WiiU and the 3DS from this category, but Nintendo killed all their e-shops and online services, so unless you’re willing to pay a premium for used copies of old games or sail the digital high sees, then those console’s libraries are off the market, and therefore, retro.
I feel like a pedant when I refer to dictionary meanings, but ah well.
MW defines retro as "relating to, reviving, or being the styles and especially the fashions of the past : fashionably nostalgic or old-fashioned". I like the broadness of that, but I understand wanting to be more specific, such as with @macleod's in depth definition.
I don't necessarily disagree with the more rigorous definition, but for me I think anything that is evocative of, or straight -up from the past would be retro. So playing on a PS3 is retro, but also new games in a retro style are retro gaming. It's kind of an overloaded term, but I think that's ok.
I think everyone will consider retro on their own age and when they started gaming.
For me retro games are say... kinda pre-Doom era (Wolfenstein 3D, Commander Keen etc. are not retro yet), say NES and everything before.
But for today's teenager Oblivion is retro (probably even prehistoric) and I understand their point of view.
I'd argue that the 6th video game generation, most notably the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox, marks a key dividing line between retro and modern gaming.
Why? That generation saw a huge leap in hardware power and memory, which enabled developers to create larger, more complex 3D worlds and refine gameplay in ways that laid the foundation for today’s gaming landscape. Many modern blockbusters, like Grand Theft Auto V, can still trace their core design principles back to groundwork laid in the 6th gen. Everything since then has mostly been about expanding on those ideas, not radically redefining them.
Another big shift was the start of true cross-platform design. Once the hardware differences between consoles shrank (starting with the Xbox, PS2, and GameCube), it became much easier to make the same game run on multiple systems with only minor changes, and unless you're closely inspecting performance details, most players can't even tell the difference between versions.
From a technology standpoint, everything after the 6th gen has delivered more graphical power, but with diminishing returns: asset creation has become more expensive and time-consuming, and higher resolutions demand more work just to meet expectations of visual fidelity. This escalation has driven up AAA development costs over the last twenty years without fundamentally changing much how games play.
On the storage front, early consoles relied on ultra-fast Mask ROM chips in their cartridges, a technology that’s now cost-prohibitive at modern capacities. From the 6th gen onward, every manufacturer, even Nintendo, had to switch to slower disc-based or flash storage, making loading times unavoidable even today.
Finally, the 6th generation was the tipping point for online connectivity: the original Xbox in particular brought fast, built-in Internet that enabled online multiplayer, downloadable content and patches that would go on to become standard features in modern gaming.
In short: the 6th generation was the moment gaming crossed from classic or retro into the truly modern era, both in how games were made and experienced.
Purely age. I cringed when GameCube was retro a decade ago, but it was two gens out of date. The NES was retro in the 00s and it was two gens out of date so it's fair. It makes my knees ache but there's no need to argue just to soothe my fragile ego.
Up to the sixth generation. So anything up to the PS2.
The issue is not just time, but time as well as how ancient something looks and feels.
PS3 and Xbox 360 games are often like current games with fewer polygons. I would say that we are still very much under the same paradigm of gaming since then. Games are bigger, they have more assets, textures are larger, loading times are shorter, and physical media is less relevant. That's about it in terms of changes. Nothing substantial.
GTA V was on 360 and PS3. The Last of Us was a PS3 exclusive. Do they feel retro to anyone? Even on those consoles?
"Retro" is a subjective idea. There's something logical about it, but trying to turn these concepts into some kind of math kinda misses the point.
So how do you categorize World of Warcraft? It was released over 20 years ago, but it still gets updates and new DLC.
Current Retail WoW and 2004 WoW are hardly the same game. Classic WoW is another story, though.
Classic WoW and Old School RuneScape are like a form of retro gaming in the MMO genre, to my eye.
In the case of OSRS specifically (though also perhaps applicable to Classic WoW's Season of Discovery) I don't really find releasing new content in the style of RuneScape 2 (the 2007ish era OSRS is based on) to put it at odds with my idea of a retro game. I find it to be similar to playing something like ALttP Randomizer or SMW romhacks. I'm still playing ALttP or SMW, so it's still playing a retro game, it's just a new approach or new content inside the framework of that retro game. The roots of the experience are still in that old game. So back to OSRS, as long as the devs keep meaningfully sticking to the old school style, new content in the game usually doesn't rub me the wrong way.
Incidentally, this is why the OSRS community pushes back on items/equipment/content aesthetics that are off the mark, and why it's important to that community to do so. It's why you'll see at the bottom of articles like Torva armor and many other equipment pages showing significant redesigns, as well as articles like Great Kourend has a huge development history section including documenting a reddit user literally redesigning a section of world map and having it become the basis for an official redesign. In a way, the OSRS community is preserving a sense of immersion that isn't necessarily just the usual game world type of immersion but also immersion in the feeling of nostalgia itself.
Honestly, for me it is very loose. It's pretty much anything that feels kinda nostalgic, and so naturally this is going to change over time, which I think is great because it should.
Of course, that idea comes with some interference, like becoming nostalgic for something a bit too early but for the most part, my brain seems to handle this in a way where I haven't often called something retro to too much disdain for my opinion from others, so it seems to be steering me alright.
It seems to be in the ballpark of about 20 years, give or take, so currently the wii and the early HD era are retro, while the tail end cross gen titles of the era / the subsequent gen are not. We'll see how diminishing returns in the evolution of tech after this gen affects my perceptions, because I suspect it might.
We're at a point in the generation cycle of video games where a term like "retro" means something different to GenX, Millenials and GenZ, and even sub categories of those.
If this post is meant to fish for how to begin our sweet ass 'book club', then I'd like to start the conversation period defining categories. Forgive my hammy titles.
I would argue that retro is a definition that's best applied broadly. I would suggest a useful definition as being media that was not designed and is not natively compatible with current generation technology. There is a bit of wiggle room for long-term support updates "breaking" the definition, but we could argue that this is a life enhancement to the game and focus more on the "not designed for" part of the definition.
For example, there are games that I remember from childhood, games that are optimized for performance on Windows XP or earlier. Some of those games do not play well with Windows 7, 10, or 11. That is why, I have a Windows Vista machine that I just built. It can play pre-2000 games without issues, but my infinitely more powerful Win10/11 system cannot handle it properly.
Which games, out of curiosity?
I love the idea of building a Retro Computer, but everything I've wanted to play from DOS to Windows 7 works fine for me, with a bit of tinkering sometimes.
I haven't found anything yet that I've had issues getting going, so I'm curious what's out there.
The one that came to mind immediately was Jane's F/A-18. I am BIG into flight simulators, and this was the first/only combat flight simulator I had as a kid. It's detailed, challenging, and fun, and hates to run on new software. I even had to dual boot Vista 32-bit to get it to run! There's also a melange of older games that I remember but haven't particularly played recently, like a CD full of freeware/shareware games that had a few exemplars, or Age of Empires III - which I own on disk but wanted me to rebuy on steam. Then there are games like Dragon Age Origins, which I never played but my wife wanted...and yes I know it can be played on newer hardware with minimal fiddling, but she wanted it on the computer so she got it.
Anything from the golden age of video arcades. Your Galagas, Dig Dugs, Mr. Do!, Astro Blaster, Phoenix, Lunar Lander, etc. And anything in "The Invasion Of The Space Invaders" by Martin Amis.
Honestly? Whatever was "a thing" before my time is retro in my head.
Starting with the GameCube and GBA. Sorry, oldheads, I'm a young boye. Though I do feel a certain something when I realize the games and consoles I grew up with are now more than a decade old and could objectively be called retro. Part "oh god the neverending march of time will eventually consume me, too", part pride that I was there for it.
I think anything roughly 20 years old or more counts as retro. Even looking at many PS3/Xbox 360 games now, they feel very different to modern games. There were certainly standout games on those platforms that advanced the medium towards what we have now, but the vast majority of games were not like that.
A few months ago I played through a bunch of old PC FPS games from roughly that time period - on also fairly period-correct hardware and software - and the differences were stark. Most of those games felt old (like Medal of Honor: Allied Assault), but some, like Call of Duty 2 genuinely still felt quite modern and were leaps and bounds ahead of many of their competitors of the time.