I was born in 1981. Not too much younger than you, but old enough to remember when the arcade scene was really bustling.

I’m of a different mind.

I’ve played so much Pac-Man and Space Invaders that I’ve simply had enough of it.

There’s only so much time left on the planet, and I’d much rather spend it on new and novel experiences. If I play retro games, they’re either games I really want to beat but haven’t. Or they’re unfamiliar.

I love PC gaming for exactly this reason. You get to early classics like Ultima, but then you get modern fare like Black Myth Wukong.

My reason for talking on the Internet about this stuff is because it’s hard to find people, outside of conventions, who give a damn about this hobby.

I was born in the same year, 1976, and I really don’t feel the same way. Pretty much every era has bangers and also really bad games.

I have really good memories from the '80s (games like Pitfall II or the MSX Konami games), the '90s (playing MUDs with my college pals, the classic SNES JRPGs like Chrono Trigger or the classic PC CRPGs like Baldur’s Gate and its ilk), the '00s (games like Silent Hill 2, Morrowind or GTA: San Andreas), the '10s (pretty much every FromSoft game from that decade, NieR:Automata or the Rocksteady Batman games) and the '20s (games like Elden Ring, Hades, etc.). And many more games I didn’t mention.

Some decades have been better than others, but there are incredible games in all of them.

I’m a little younger, I grew up playing the NES. I had so much fun and some of my best memories are from playing those games with friends and stuff. But I find it really hard to revisit most of those games based on their own merit.

There is definitely a thing about playing games together with another person that can be magical. And that isn’t gone. You can still do that today with modern games. So in that regard, I don’t think there is anything particularly special about 80s games. Heck, it wasn’t until the N64 that it was common for more than 2 people to be able to play together. A bunch of guys hanging out and all playing a game together was great.

I think losing that is just a factor of growing up. You move on from your friends, maybe you don’t make any new ones, you start mainly playing against faceless strangers online… It’s not a problem with the games, it’s a problem with the players.

I have definitely bonded with people over video games. Playing them together, or playing them apart but doing so physically side by side, talking about them… most social groups I’ve been, even when they were not formed around gaming at all, went and made a Minecraft server for us to play together. I think it is telling that the fastest way to get me to open a game and start playing is if my other friends are playing. I am younger than your generation, though, so I’m definitely not helping your argument for retro games specifically.

Online play has helped a lot for when I am physically separated from friends. Just hop in a game and voice chat, and play together anyways.

Guess I’m an outlier. For me, games were the way to disconnect from the stress of relationships. I’ve been an introvert since the beginning, and so games’ positive associations for me are a safe place away from social pressures.

I also imagine every “retro” generation thinks its games are the best. Like, there was a meme post about joy at finding a PS2 torrent recently with strong implied nostalgia, and that’s ok. People usually experience video games at an age where the games teach them archetypical feelings of intellectual pleasure, the first time they experienced joy at solving complex problems for example. That becomes a core association through life.

So I think we’ll all have strong feelings linking the systems we played at our formative years. And again, that’s ok. That we can form such strong associations is an expression of the basic human value of video games, as an art and modern cultural necessity.

I was about 2 decades later, but I bonded over games like Pokemon and later made many friendships in minecraft. Wish I could revisit that time. I think it’s less about any particular era in gaming - it’s about being young. Kids are still forging friendships over video games today - just different ones (although, at least in the case of my nephew, Minecraft is still one of them :D).

Honestly? Not really. My best memories of gaming were in my 20s in my student flat. Lots of Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

I played games in the early '90s and don’t have much nostalgia for most of the games themselves. The late '90s had the PSX and N64 and whilst Mario Kart 64 is probably the best in the series I can’t say I feel most of the games of those platforms were “the best”.

I think I would say that the best games are the PC games that came out between 1998 and 2002. Those I can genuinely enjoy today.

I cannot say the same for much that came out in the 1980s. Most of them entertain me for about thirty seconds, without hyperbole.

Once we get past the early 2000s I’m hard pressed to find any games that I think are truly “the best”. 2007 was pretty damn good as was 2009.

When it comes to gaming with friends any game can be good. The game is practically just a framing device. I’ve not made many friends whilst gaming. I’ve gamed with friends but mostly I’ve found that people either just want to be arseholes or are extremely serious about playing online. In person I’ve found that the skill disparity means that it’s a complete crapshoot. I played a lot of Mario Kart 64 over a ten year period and don’t have any outstanding memories of it being the best thing ever (I think it’s the best MK game but that’s because the others are worse).

Mostly I like games that I can use as escapism. Exploring fun places and getting away from the day to day. I’ve rarely had all that much fun gaming with other people. Exceptions exist though - playing through the recent TMNT game with my teenaged niece was a blast. Playing KeyWe with my wife was also great.

The 80s had some great games. Donkey Kong. Pac-Man. Galaga and Galaxian. Super Mario Bros 1,2,3. Zelda 1 & 2. Contra, Castlevania, Megaman

But the 90s had Mario World and Mario Kart. Super Metroid. Link to the Past. Donkey Kong Country. Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time. Crash and Spyro. Sonic. Medal of Honor. Goldeneye. Half - Life.

I’d probably take the 90s slightly over the 80s. Heck even the 00s have Half-Life 2, the GTA series, the good Call of Duty’s and Halos. And the 2010s had RDR2 and GTAV.

2020s haven’t had any super great games yet though.

Not really. I am just a bit younger, growing up between the 80s and 90s. I still play old games, only those that aged well though, but sometimes decades after their prime. I play new games a lot too. And games from any time in between, as long as they do something right.

And there are many, many games around which you can bond just as well as you could back then. Not even talking specifically about multiplayer games (which I don’t play very much at all) I’ve always been a fan of “co-piloting” games, just sharing the experience of playing, spectating, commenting around a game.

Some games are fantastic for this. Some games are rich enough that you can share your experience and discover other people do stuff completely differently. This sort of always existed (for example, what’s the right way to complete Legend of Zelda?), and this is still true even for somewhat simple games, but possibilities have only increased in range. I am pretty sure nobody plays a game like Rimworld or Tears of the Kingdom the same.

I would mostly agree. The magic of video games and the virtual worlds was bridged to the real world by sharing them with friends. I can totally see that!

I guess “modern” gaming works best when playing online with friends (not every game allows that of course), and wind down type of games. Self care gaming 😄.

I had some great moments though screensharing my game on discord while being able to watch what my friend was playing on their screenshare. There is something - even though that it is not exactly what you were hinting at, as obviously you can’t directly influence the game that the other is playing - but it is a shared experience in some way that makes it feel connected and special.

That post gave me food for thought.