What makes you feel old about the gaming industry?
 

The fact there's adults nowadays who already grew up playing games on CDs instead of cartridges: Unless they grew playing PC games in the 90s, that is. I'm talking about people that had, let's say, the PS2 or the Wii as their first gaming console. Imagine when you'll eventually start meeting grown ups whose first video games were digital. Now that's gonna make you feel OLD.

The fact the Wii came out over a decade ago already: It was such a fad in its first year. It was sold out everywhere for a while. I kinda forget how much of a juggernaut it was during its peak.

The fact there's nearly 10 Mario Kart games by now: I still remember when there were only two of them... and when I used to think the N64 game was the only one of the series.

The fact that the GameCube, the original Xbox, the Dreamcast and even the PS2 are already considered to be retrogaming systems. All of these consoles encompassed a big portion of my teenage years. The PS2 in particular was a monster of a console that seemed so omnipresent everywhere for the time. Never had I seen a console that was as hot as that one before. Crazy to think it's no longer in production anymore. It seemed like an immortal console.

And at in a few years people will look back at the original DS, the PSS, the PS3, the 360 and the Wii as being retrogaming systems as well. That's gonna be nuts since those consoles came out at the latter end of my teenage years and lasted until my early 20s.

Portable systems not being just Game Boys or failed attempts at beating them: Remember when Nintendo was the undisputed king of portable gaming? It still dominate in that area, but the PSP had a considerable amount of success for a while and a lot of people have bought Vitas. They at least had better reputations than the Game Gear and what other companies did in the 90s to try and give the Game Boy a run for its money.

Also, the Switch being both a portable and a domestic console. Things sure have come a long way since the 90s.

Final Fantasy not being that hot of a franchise anymore: I remember when this franchise was THE hottest thing around. Everyone loved FF7 and FF8 and FFX was also pretty big. Not to mention the first two Kingdom of Hears games. Hard to believe all of this was over a decade ago already.

GTA still going strong after all these years: This one never seemed to lose steam.

Pokémon still going strong after all these years as well: Seriously, I thought by the time the time the 3rd generation would come around it would cool off. Not die, but just cool off. But it's still Nintendo's biggest cashcow alongside Mario. Now with 8 generations and nearly 1000 different kinds of Pokémon. Plus, the series is now over 20 years old. Holy...

Digital copies of games being a thing: Yeah, never thought this would be a thing if you had told me ages ago.

How old series like Mario and Zelda are by now: Both of them have been around for over 3 decades by now.

The Dreamcast being over 20 years old by now: This was the very last Sega console(not counting with the Genesis clones, obviously). As someone who grew up with Sega still making consoles it seems kinda surreal how long ago this was already.

How much a lot of classic video games show their age nowadays: It's understandable, and a sign that games keep on improving both graphically and gameplay wise, but it's kind of disheartening to pick up an old game you loved when you were a kid and realising they're not that fun anymore.

How mobile gaming became a big thing this decade: When I was a kid/teen, "mobile games" were things like snake on Nokia 3210 and 3310 or something like the N-Gage which was considered inferior to actual portable systems available at the time. But nowadays every major company is on the mobile gaming bandwagon and the micro-transactions involved in it. If you told me in 1998-2007 that there'd be a huge Pokémon mobile game called Pokémon Go where you can walk around your neighbourhood catching Pokémon I'd think you're nuts. That and playing classic Sega games such as Sonic 2 or Crazy Taxi on my ****ing mobile phone.

There's more, but these are the ones I can think of for now.

Hi Cubed... wait, what the...?!

Huh. :tgrumble:

Anyways, I have little to add but I agree with all of this.

Well, I guess I could add, "I grew up mostly playing with a Coleco-Vision". That's pretty damning.

I'd say downloadable content. It used to be that when you got a new game, you already had everything. If there was more to it, you'd just need to unlock its secrets with a code. You'd just press buttons on the controller in a certain sequence at the title screen or whatever, and it'd be for extra lives or a stage select and what not.

I remember how video game magazines were big when I was a kid. I only really subscribed to Nintendo Power from when I was ten up until the end, and I was 33 living on my own.

Dedicated portable systems might be on their way out now. There's the 3DS and the 2DS, but I tend to see things stating that the line is nearing its end.

Everything was more surrounded with some mysticism back then. All you had were anything between 5-10 screenshots from a video game before getting access to it.

How could I forget mentioning how big mags were? I loved the British magazine Computer & Video Games, in particular. Still have a bunch of their issues.

I loved the rumours and April Fools pranks magazines pulled on gamers. Like Luigi being in Mario 64, Sonic & Tails being in Melee and being able to obtain the Trifoce in Ocarina of Time :lol:

EGM was my favorite, by far.

Even though its obviously fake, its fun to try and "unlock" those characters in the games, to see if its even possible to meet the requirements.

Beating even 1 enemy in Cruel Melee is a bitch, though.

I agree with everything already said in this thread.

GamesMaster and NGC were my favourite gaming magazines.

I guess the fact that console online gaming is now nearly 20 years ago makes me feel old too, though it didn’t really appeal to me. I thought it was amazing playing ChuChu Rocket against players around the world, though I only did this a few times. Dreamcast was ahead of its time.

I've never did that. Never believed in the rumour myself because I first heard of it while browsing Melee's official website and reading its FAQ section where one of the questions was "Are Sonic & Tails in the game?" and the answer plain being "No they're not."

I think I know a couple of cases of people who actually let their GC running for 20 hours just to get Mewtwo. I didn't unlock him using that method, though. My mother didn't let me keep the console on while everyone was sleeping because she feared a fire might break out or something.

Theres' a few challenges/missions I still haven't beaten in the game after all these years. The Ness vs. 4/5 different characters being one of them.

The DS came out a decade ago
 

Man this console had some great games I'd never get into gaming if it weren't for the DS

The gen 4 pokemon games are over a decade old.

FF7 was the beginning of the end. FF7 just connected with a generation somehow... and every installment since, it's just been Square-Enix increasingly frustrated with their being unable to replicate that success. So they just keep making FF games bigger and bigger, more movie-like (and despite nobody actually wanting them to do that), yet taking away or handicapping the open world experience all I-IX offered. Now for the encore, seemingly because they've given up trying to do that, they're literally just remaking FF7.

I don't even think FF7 was necessarily a great Final Fantasy game. It doesn't even have an ending. There's better ones before and after it. I think that people at large just thought Cloud and his giant sword was really, really cool and/or they wanted to have sex with Sephiroth. There was some kind of Goblin King-like fascination with him with people that I noted at the time.

I wasn't really into Pokémon at the time but I remember people on the internet talking about the new girl in the anime being named Hikaru in Japan and Dawn in English speaking countries. Hard to believe this was over a decade ago already.

All video game series have that one game that seems to connect with a generation or that achieves the most iconic status of the entire property. The game everyone first thinks of when they think of a series. FF7 for Final Fantasy. Street Fighter 2 and its 5 million versions for Street Fighter. Ocarina of time for Zelda. Mega Man 2 for Mega Man. Tekken 3 for Tekken. Etc.

At large, I guess.

Speaking of FF, did you realize it took SE ten years to make Final Fantasy XV? Ten years, I beat it a few months back and I barely remember anything about it. There's no reason in the world they need to be spending ten years on a Final Fantasy game.

Yeah. Probably because they're still dusting off the same game engine 25 years later, really.

You think? I think it's kind of like FF where on this line a gang of people loved FF6 and a gang of other people like FF7. In this case, OoT vs. ALttP.

Do people really have a strong favorite like that? Is that a thing? I mean, there's 1, and then 2-6 all sort of blur together.

Yeah, I can see that one.

Mega Man 2 is widely considered the best of the NES MM games for being the most accessible/the one everyone played.

I'm not talking about preferences per se, though. But more about which is the most iconic game in the series. I'd say Ocarina is the most iconic game of the Zelda series with ALttP coming in 2nd.

Pretty sure it's also the highest-selling Mega Man game ever. It also has the most recognizable OST, particularly the most famous Wily castle theme.

Not sure.
I missed all of SNES / PS1 / PS2 / PS3 eras, due to some circumstances, so I don't feel attachment to these stuff.

I think things that make me feel old about gaming industry is age of some franchises and death of others, like Contra, Castlevania and the likes, which were popular back in the past.

Another thing that makes me feel "old" is abundance of new pricing models (lootbox and MTX) and attempts of some retards to turn video games into their personal propaganda mouthpieces.

I didn't get the chance to play Contra and CastleVania until 2007 or so, so I don't have nostalgia for those series.

I understand that the NES CastleVania games are a classic trilogy of games... but they didn't age so well. God, are the controls stiff and frustrating. I'd rather play Super CastleVania IV. Now that is a great game and has aged A LOT better than the NES CastleVania games. Smooth controls and Simon Belmont can whip in any direction.

Contra is hard even with the 30 life code, but I think it's a good game nowadays still. It also had a great remake on the original DS. I doubt I'd have enjoyed Contra as a kid. I'd die withing 10 seconds of the game, especially since I wouldn't have a way of knowing about the 30 life code back in the 90s unless my older brother found out about it in a gaming magazine. But he's always kept passwords and cheats a secret for me so that I would improve my skills instead of just skipping levels.

I preferred "VideoGames" (but hated the generic-ass name), but when they stopped publishing they sent me EGM and I stuck with them for as long as I was able to. I miss Sushi-X, and Seanbaby basically was doing at the time what YouTube randos love doing today, only with you know, actual insight and humor instead of just being loud and "random".

Gotta say my favorite though was Tips & Tricks, which was actually VG's spin-off. Sadly they went in the wrong direction; instead of doubling down on their unique columns that made them more than just "outdated GameFAQs in print", they axed them all and literally just became "outdated GameFAQS in print".

GamePlayers was my favorite video game magazine in the 1990s. GamePro had lots of content, but everything about the magazine felt like a low-budget version of GamePlayers.

I also appreciated the thoroughness and review system of Next Generation around 1999-2002.

Loved Nintendo Power for style even though I took all their reviews with a grain of salt, knowing that it was a Hype Piece first and foremost.