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In the previous post, I concluded on the point that whilst previously the prevailing wisdom was that “old things don’t sell” in the context of technology (and by extension videogames), today the narrative has changed.
This time I aim to examine this shift. How can we (players of videogames) be nostalgic for videogames that aren’t lost? I realise I am oversimplifying the issue here. As for many, there are certain videogames which may as well be lost for them due to the difficulty in obtaining not only the videogames themselves but also the hardware required to play them. In addition, videogame preservation is a real concern (I briefly mentioned last time how publishers have done a poor job of preserving videogames). However, we are currently in a time where access to past videogames (in some form) is greater than ever before.
Want to play The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past? If you’re a Nintendo Switch owner with the Nintendo Online subscription then you can play it right now, along with a range of other videogames from the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Then we have the current Xbox Series (Series X and Series S) consoles, which are able to play videogames from across the platform’s history going back to the very first Xbox in 2001. If you have a console with a disc drive you can even use the original discs (albeit to verify “ownership”, a version of the game still has to be downloaded).
This is in relation to accessing past videogames, but another part of nostalgia is the aesthetics from past videogames. Whether that be the iconic pixels, the chiptune beeps, bleeps, and bloops, or more recent low-polygonal 3D graphics and MIDI scores. These aesthetics for a short time had for the most part been replaced with “better” graphics and sounds. Yet, today, these are remarkably present. Sure, you won’t find pixel effects front and centre in the latest Assassin’s Creed game, but you also don’t have to look very hard to come across a wealth of games on any digital storefront with an abundance of pixels and beeps.
What we have to remember is those visible pixels and the two to three waveforms that comprised all chiptunes are originally the result of technical limitations of a specific time. Developers were making the best with what they had. It was not a choice. There will always be some kind of limitation that will impact the development of a videogame, although these days this is more likely linked to time and money (technical limitations will always exist, but they are not the main element they once were). What is of importance to note here, is that today there are many developers who have chosen to work with these limitations.
I am myself, a part of this with my decision to play around with making games for Pico-8 which is a “fantasy console” with the deliberate design of providing similar limitations to those from the 8-bit era.
There is understandable nostalgia for the aesthetics of videogames from one’s childhood, but those same aesthetics are becoming commonplace again today. For younger players today, that “retro look” is just another visual style found in videogames. Something they themselves have grown up with and perhaps look back upon fondly when they are older, again showing the significance of “relative nostalgia”. It’s all about when an individual comes across something, and not when it was originally created.
Does this mean then that a hauntological form has arisen in parts of the medium? In which contemporary videogames are unable to escape these elements of past videogames. Satiating the perceived desires amongst some players for a past they think is lost, but are actually able to reclaim via these almost simulacra of the past.
Return of the Obra Dinn by Lucas Pope employs a 1-bit art style. Visually the game looks from another era but playing it does feel like a truly modern experience.
I have not even mentioned the ontological murkiness that comes with remasters and remakes. Bringing to mind the thought experiment of *The Ship of Theseus* in which a ship that has all its components replaced can still be considered to be the same object. This is a topic for another time.
This was originally posted to my Substack newsletter back in September 2021. It has been modified/updated slightly. You can find the original here: