Video game snobbery: do people still judge a game by its age or looks?

I remember when I was a young skipper-me-lad, in the days or Amstrad’s, commodore’s, Amiga’s, Nintendo “Entertainment Systems”, Sega’s early glory days. Then later the arrival of the PlayStation and more advanced consoles from Sony and Nintendo, not even to mention the ever-costly upgrading of the PC, just to play the latest games.

Back in those days, there was definitely a childish attitude towards games, where only the latest and best graphics were considered “cool”. You could go through games very quickly as the next talked-about game came out, with less and less pixelly images appeared on the screen.

But the question is, do gamers of today have the same mentality as the early days, or are things different? Have we even gone so far as full circle to a point where we now prefer simpler graphics and don’t mind purchasing games that are two or three, or even older games?

Well, I believe, to a degree, we have. And I believe this is down to a few reasons. Firstly, choice is now so much greater, with thousands of games to choose, from indie titles to A+ titles.

Which leads to the second reason, which is time. With so many games and multiple platforms for each abundance of games, how can we possibly have the time to play so many games as they keep coming out?

Which then leads to the third reason, of money. As games get older and choice increases, many games get cheaper and cheaper (especially in a Steam sale 🙂 ) and so a lot of folks (myself included) wait and buy games after they become older and cheaper (cue big paragraph about the economy).

All the above accumulates to a change in gaming culture, where so many people are almost forced to buy a lot of older games, so that they don’t feel they are missing out on any gems. You could also attribute retro gaming, which has had a rise in popularity, which actually creates a cool-to-play-older-games culture, making it even more acceptable to pay older games without feeling like you’re any lesser a gamer.

So in conclusion, yes. Change is afoot (and had been for some time, almost making this post old news, but as discussed, maybe it’s now better to read older posts than to try keeping up with just reading new ones).