So what counts as "classic" gaming?

[1982VideoGames]

I feel as Atarileaf does. Growing up in the '70's and '80's and experiencing the birth of home video game and computers.

 

Atari 2600, 5200, 400, 800, ColecoVision, Intellivision, Commodore VIC-20, 64, Vectrex, Odyssey/2, Astrocade, etc.

 

These are the 'classics' that paved the way for everything else since.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Maybe clarify but not rethink. By childhood memories I'm talking about memories of when a console was new. This 10 year old has no memories of when the Atari and the NES were modern consoles.

You are missing the point. This kid grew up around these old consoles which he was likely introduced to by his parents. He will have memories of playing NES/Atari for the rest of his life. Yes, they are old, and the kid is well aware the consoles are older than he is. He's also played newer systems like 3DS/Wii, so I'm sure he's aware of the difference. But to declare that noone currently under 21 has or will have memories of playing these as a child is narrow-minded.

 

I was 21 when I got my NES. Nevermind everyone I knew except me had one when I was a child. And I never played Atari until 2012, and got hooked on homebrew shortly thereafter. When I was a teen, anything Atari was crap. But now, in my 30s, I'm hooked.

 

So enjoying a retro console for pure nostalgia, does not have the prerequisite that (A) the gamer grew up during it's heyday, nor (B) played it during his or her childhood. Each generation has it's own flavor. Same with music, games, fashion, whatever. Today I find myself spinning vinyl records older than I am, listening to classic rock ballads I had no idea even existed when I was young.

 

I mostly grew up with 80s pop at the skate ring, and later on 90s dance/hip hop. Classic rock eluded me, until I got fed up with modern pop and especially hip hop in the latter half of the 00s. In 2010 I got XM in my car and started tuning into Classic Rewind (Sirius XM 25) and also rediscovered 98 Rocks FM, playing the same stuff now they did 30 years ago. The sound is so awesome and amazingly deep, in a way my childhood brain simply could not process at the time. I'm still discovering new stuff all the time...

 

But tastes do change, flavors change, trends come and go, and you are mistaken to assume people not even born yet won't get hooked on classic/retro games, whether they discover them as children or adults. These youngsters have every right to play and experience these games as us "old farts" do, and I would never want to deny them that...

Edited July 22, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Schizophretard]

But to declare that noone currently under 21 has or will have memories of playing these as a child is narrow-minded.

But I didn't declare that. What I'm declaring is that a 21 year old has no memories prior to their birth.

 

you are mistaken to assume people not even born yet won't get hooked on classic/retro games, whether they discover them as children or adults. These youngsters have every right to play and experience these games as us "old farts" do...

I made no such assumption.

[BassGuitari]

Obviously in a few more years, "Classic" will become "vintage", "retro" will become "classic", and "modern" will become "retro." Ultimately "vintage" will eventually become "antique" and so on.

Again, meaningless buzzwords amounting to nothing more than synonyms for "old." Vintage = retro = classic, they're interchangeable terms.

 

In my mind, I file the timeline of video games into early, middle, and late classic, and then modern periods, but I doubt anyone what know what I mean if I start talking about Middle Classic games. What we need to do is define previous eras in a way that doesn't evolve over time. Maybe name them after the dominant company of the time or a watershed technological advancement; I feel like most people would know what I generally mean if I talked about the Pong Era or Atari Era or Nintendo Era or CD Era or whatever. Eventually we'll need to start using other terms than "classic" or "retro." Also, childhood and nostalgia should be removed from the equation completely.

 

[Andromeda Stardust]

In my mind, I file the timeline of video games into early, middle, and late classic, and then modern periods, but I doubt anyone what know what I mean if I start talking about Middle Classic games. What we need to do is define previous eras in a way that doesn't evolve over time.

There are fairly well defined generation gaps that are accepted by most gamers. Currently there are 8 generations. When someone says "4th generation" you know they are reffering to the SNES/SFC vs Genesis/MD vs Turbo/PCE years.

 

Also, childhood and nostalgia should be removed from the equation completely.

 

Agreed. Many video games I experienced for the first time as an adult. They still bring out a child-like nostalgia even though most I'd never played and many I'd never heard of during their popularity. I mostly watch my friends play because I sucked and didn't have my own console to practice on... Edited July 22, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Rhomaios]

That itself has changed over time (cue you know who with a magazine scan). Should make better sense to be descriptive: pong, early cartridge, crash, post-crash 8 bit, 16 bit, post-16 bit, early 3D, DVD, HD, and current generation consoles.

[4Ks]

Dreamcast is the cutoff in my mind. It's the most recent console that I can point to as an example of 'the way games used to be,' and most people will understand what I mean. Post-DC is when games moved away from their arcade roots completely and became more focused on immersive experiences rather than basic fun.

[Schizophretard]

Also, childhood and nostalgia should be removed from the equation completely.

 

 

 

 

Agreed. Many video games I experienced for the first time as an adult. They still bring out a child-like nostalgia even though most I'd never played and many I'd never heard of during their popularity. I mostly watch my friends play because I sucked and didn't have my own console to practice on...

 

I think I would agree if we were just talking about console generations but the OP's question is a lot like,"When should consoles in the modern gaming section of this forum be moved to the classic gaming section?" or ,"How many consoles back does it take before we leave modern gaming and enter classic gaming?" I think nostalgia and definitively childhood should play into that. The reason I think that makes sense is because the distinction between classic and modern comes from,"These are the consoles from my time and before that but these consoles are from today." Separating them into console generations has no affect on that other than just categorizing the consoles because even if they never were separated into console generations there would still be a sense of classic and modern. I think that is because people separate modern from classic with human generations instead of console generations just like everything else. That is why I think 21 years old for a console is a good number or at least pretty close. Once a console turns 21 years old every kid from when that console was launched would be an adult and have that sense of,"Those are the classics from my day and these new consoles are the modern one's." For an example, when the XBOX ONE, PS4, and Wii U are 21 years old all of the kids playing them today will have a similar "That was a classic from my day." feeling that I do for consoles from when I was a kid. In other words, I think classic versus modern is a generation gap type of thing.

[Rhomaios]

Again, meaningless buzzwords amounting to nothing more than synonyms for "old." Vintage = retro = classic, they're interchangeable terms.

 

In my mind, I file the timeline of video games into early, middle, and late classic, and then modern periods, but I doubt anyone what know what I mean if I start talking about Middle Classic games. What we need to do is define previous eras in a way that doesn't evolve over time. Maybe name them after the dominant company of the time or a watershed technological advancement; I feel like most people would know what I generally mean if I talked about the Pong Era or Atari Era or Nintendo Era or CD Era or whatever. Eventually we'll need to start using other terms than "classic" or "retro." Also, childhood and nostalgia should be removed from the equation completely.

 

That's similar to my proposal above. But I do want to point out that vintage, retro, and classic are not interchangeable, and they don't all quite mean "old," although they tend to—unfortunately—get used that way.

 

Here's a short glossary, partly utilizing Collins English Dictionary:

 

Old: not new, "existing for a long time; worn with age or use"

Retro: "designating, of, or suggesting a style of an earlier time that has been revived"

Classic: "of the highest class; being a model of its kind"; and following up in thought, that which maintains its excellence through the test of time

Vintage: technically, should only refer to the year and crop of grapes that were turned into wine, but because older, classic vintages became a talking point, it became synonymous with both "choicest" and "dating from a period long past"

Antique: eh, should refer to things which are ancient (cf. antiquity), but not just anything out of date and old-fashioned

Outdated: no longer current

Old-fashioned: no longer current, and instead "suited to or favoring the styles, methods, manners, or ideas of past times"

 

So what is the question really asking? Surely no one things that Adventurevision is a classic, as there's no sense of excellence.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Not sure where you got those definitions.

 

By definition, an article needs to be 50+ years old. My mother got a wood framed portrait that got broken during our house remodel. It was an old black and white photo from the year my mom got married, at 21. Anyway she wanted to keep the frame because it was "antique." So I take it too the frame shop at the antique store and had it refurbed. Old man refinished the wood and repaied the frame and added new backglass. My mom is 74 now and it dawned on me the portrait was an antique because it was taken 53 years ago. Her face has changed slightly over the years but not her smile...

 

While there are a few antique pinballs and plenty of electromechanical novelties, "antique" video games won't start showing up until the 2020s.

 

Vintage, when not reffering to wine or champagne, is an object between 25 and 50 years old. People think of vintage games as being pre crash but in reality, Atari, NES, and Sega Genesis are "vintage" now. SNES will be "vintage" in another year when it turns 25.

 

But I don't think such rigid efinitions really apply here. I place the retro games cut off between 5th and 6th gen. Throw in Dreamcast due to it's early release and discontinuation, and GBA for it's 2D style, as I explained in earlier post. New Millenium makes a tidy cutoff, but not because my HS graduation year was 1999. Or maybe...

Edited July 25, 2015 by stardust4ever

[omegadot]

The definition postings make this feel like the very long discussion about the word 'collections'. I hope we can avoid that. We all use words differently in different contexts, the definition game is just a path high post counts and tears.

[Rhomaios]

Not sure where you got those definitions.

 

The dictionary. I did make a slight typo. Under "antique", I should have said "now" and not "not".

 

The numbers, 25/50, etc. that's all made up. There is no historical basis and no agreement among all parties and no authority to decide that. It's pure marketing, made-up and arbitrary bullshit.

[SS]

 

 

For an example, when the XBOX ONE, PS4, and Wii U are 21 years old all of the kids playing them today will have a similar "That was a classic from my day." feeling that I do for consoles from when I was a kid. In other words, I think classic versus modern is a generation gap type of thing.

 

I hear what you are saying and don't really have any issue with it. However, those kids will have almost zero connection with an Atari but, yet, both generations of gaming will be lumped into the "classic" realm. At some point there really will need to be an across the board consensus of where lines are drawn. I am starting to think that the antique, classic, retro and modern monikers really make a lot of sense. The problem is that there are sooooooo many gaming communities and sooooooo many differences of opinion within those communities that the idea of one cooperative labeling system seems an almost impossible task to spearhead. When did the Comic Book eras start getting widely used and accepted? I'm thinking somewhere in the 1970s, which would be 30-40 years in; just about synonymous with the era of home videogaming that we are in now.

[CatPix]

I think the more "factual" denomitaion based on bitness and/or media is the way to go.

Because as many people said, "classic" bear both a feeling of "not recent" but also a "well know" feeling. For example, MarioKart 8 can be described for the most part of being a classic MarioKart game. It's a NEW game! It's not even 1 year old! but it's a classic game.

 

On the other hand, something like "Out of this world" or "Heavy Rain" are alien games that are almost unique in their genre. Therefore they will never be called "classic" even if Another world" was released in 1991 (well some people will call it classic because about everybody played it...).

 

If you look aside in litterature, there are tons of classics. But there is no need to be a scholar to know that the Oddysey is NOT the same era, theme and origins as Les Miserables.

Yet, I never hear no one complaining about both being lumped in the "classic" category.

 

Or when you look for one, you'll have categories like "Greek classics" "French classics" "Middle Age classics".

If we apply that to video gaming, that would put us back to the bitness and media categories, as you'll have "16 bits classics" "128 bits classics" etc...

 

IMO it's way better to just stick with gens and/or bits.

[Schizophretard]

 

However, those kids will have almost zero connection with an Atari but, yet, both generations of gaming will be lumped into the "classic" realm.

 

That is kind of the point I'm making. Kids from today have a strong connection to modern consoles but have almost zero connection with an Atari. That is the generation gap thing I'm talking about with the whole 21 year old console thing. Once a console is 21 years old all the kids from its launch are adults and there is a new generation of kids with new consoles. In other words, I choose 21 years because that is when the connection with the kids of the present drops almost to zero and the console moves away from being modern towards,"This is the console my parent's played when they were kids." Therefore, I see no issue with both generations of gaming getting lumped into the classic realm. All consoles start out as modern and then are almost entirely considered classic gaming around the shift from one generation of kids to the next(21 years).

 

[Andromeda Stardust]

IMO it's way better to just stick with gens and/or bits.

Agreed. There is great variety within generations of games but each generation have common themes and appearances. Pre crash games were different from say NES/SMS. I lump 7800 with pre crash due to it came out in 1984 and the style of the games even though it's 3rd gen and NES is technically older than 7800 by a year if you count the Japanese Famicom. If it weren't for the brilliant mapper hardware developed by Nintendo they would have never progressed past arcade ports and "Black Box" style games and would hardly have been more detailed than 7800 library. Regardless, 3rd gen 2D had a distinct style from 4th gen 2D and 5th gen 3D had a distinct style from 6th gen 3D and so on. Generations of 5-6 years are adequate to define industry trends where technology evolves at a faster rate than say fashion trends.

 

 

That is kind of the point I'm making. Kids from today have a strong connection to modern consoles but have almost zero connection with an Atari. That is the generation gap thing I'm talking about with the whole 21 year old console thing. Once a console is 21 years old all the kids from its launch are adults and there is a new generation of kids with new consoles. In other words, I choose 21 years because that is when the connection with the kids of the present drops almost to zero and the console moves away from being modern towards,"This is the console my parent's played when they were kids." Therefore, I see no issue with both generations of gaming getting lumped into the classic realm. All consoles start out as modern and then are almost entirely considered classic gaming around the shift from one generation of kids to the next(21 years).

 

Drop it with the 21 years bit. The fact a person born on the day a console launched is old enough to drink booze, is meaningless.

 

Kids these days can and do grow up with classic consoles if their parents expose them to it. People can have nostalgia for things before their time or they otherwise were not exposed to at a younger age. I listen to vinyl records older than I am. People's opinion can and do change over time. I am living proof. I didn't get an Atari until I was 31 in 2012 and I love it. Groupthink when I was a teen dictated that Atari was synonymous with crap.

 

Adult gamers are kids at heart and the games bring out the kid in us all. If adults can play modern games meant for kids, then the kids can enjoy retro classics "meant" for us old farts. To say that an adult can't feel like a kid playing X system or game for the first time, or a kid cannot appreciate things from their parent's generation is folly. A kid has every much a right to play Atari or NES as I have a right to play modern E rated titles like Splatoon or Minecraft.

 

Game generations do not exist in a vacuum. Retro games influence and inspire modern games, and modern games can influence retro development. See also Halo 2600, or easy targets for programmers such as Flappy Bird clones, but it is a thing now and it can amusing to play mobile style games on a retro platform. It's not a lot different than the shallow concepts back in the day on Atari with some 3rd party devs.

Edited July 26, 2015 by stardust4ever

[RevEng]

Agreed. There is great variety within generations of games but each generation have common themes and appearances. [...]

I tend to look at the lines this way, which is why I'm partial to some metric apart from technology. Each age should represent a shift in predominant game style.

 

To me I see the pre-crash consoles with their main focus on high scores as representing one distinct age, the NES to SNES where completable 2D games predominated as another. The crude 3D graphics era of PSX, N64, and Doom on the PC, brought forth another distinct style.

 

After that I'd tend to lump together xbox/gamecube with the modern era. The games themselves have gotten much more sophisticated, but the predominant styles themselves haven't changed a whole lot.

[Schizophretard]

Kids these days can and do grow up with classic consoles if their parents expose them to it.

That and every sentence that follows doesn't contradict anything I have said. Talking about parents exposing their kids to classic consoles goes perfectly along with what I have said.

[Bill Loguidice]

While *I* have a clear sense in my head of what "classic," "vintage," etc., is, I readily acknowledge that my interpretation is a by-product of growing up in the late 70s and 80s. With that in mind, I readily accept any system no longer actively on the market as "classic," which does include relatively recent releases like the PlayStation 2. There's also the sticky matter of platforms that haven't died, like the modern PC, which can genuinely trace its roots back to 1981, despite having clear technological dividing lines along the way (DOS, Windows, 2D, 3D, 64-bit Windows, etc.). Frankly, it's easier to say things like "Pre-Crash era," "16-bit era," etc., as dividing lines than something fairly generic like "classic." Of course even those designations are open to interpretation and debate.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Like I said, having graduated HS in 1999, I place the cuttoff at January 1st, 2000. Dreamcast and back is retro. Add GBA as the last holdout with it's 2D sprite engine.

 

PS2/GC/Xbox and forward is modern. But I agree with you, draw the line anywhere you like.

 

One can also use "bits," 2D vs 3D, SD vs HD, cart vs disc vs download, or any other artificial metric besides timeline.

Edited July 28, 2015 by stardust4ever

[Emehr]

I think it depends on the age of the person defining the term. For me, I don't count anything newer than the original PlayStation as "classic". It's still too "new" to me. Same for the Saturn, N64, and Dreamcast. Definitely not classic to me. I remember when they were new and that didn't seem like that long ago. Also, these consoles define the shift from 2D presentation to 3D, which is the cut-off (again, to me).

 

I know I've said this before when this subject comes up, but I like to define generations by the prevalent game play style and presentation, not by console releases. My definitions are probably different from the last time I posted it but the spirit remains the same:

 

Classic

Gen 1: Classic arcade style (O2, 2600, 5200, 7800, Colecovision, INTV)

Gen 2: 2D Side-scrollers/Neo-classic arcade style (NES, SuperNES, Master System, Genesis, TG-16/CD, Neo-Geo)

Gen 2.5: Weird, transitional stage/awkward teenage years (SegaCD, 32X, Jaguar)

 

Modern

Gen 3: 3D Environments (Saturn, Dreamcast, PS, PS2, N64, GameCube, Xbox)

Gen 4: 3D Environments + Online (PS3, PS4, Wii, WiiU, Xbox 360, XBone)

 

If I were to organize my gaming room by generation, those consoles would be in good company with each other.

[mikey.shake]

I'm a casual gamer, but to my mind, the shift from 2D to 3D in the mid-'90s is where I draw the line. While there have been lots and lots of crazy developments since that period, I feel like there hasn't been the same monumental PERSPECTIVE shift. 2D-to-3D was like a revelation, and it really changed everything, down to the way you interact with most games. But since then, I feel like the most major development has been online interactivity, which is a huge shift in how games are played, if not the gameplay itself.

 

Obviously, a lot of it is personal taste/age, as so many have pointed out. But with that dividing line, you can then divide each subset. There's pre-crash and post-crash (i.e. 2600 vs. NES) in the first category, which seem like distinct enough subcategories. And in the latter, you can see the shift from "local player" to "online multiplayer".

 

For my money, the next big shift in cutting-edge gaming technology has already seen the early tremors, most prominently with the Wii and Kinect. Direct physical interfacing is still in its infancy and I think there's still a lot of room for development...

[MrMaddog]

20 years ago, "Classic" was the definition used for pre-Crash games. I remember the controversy of including 3rd generation systems like NES in r.g.v.c discussion and someone tried to call them "neo-classic". </shrug>

 

Right now, I say that over all "Retro" would cover all 8 & 16-bit systems. IMHO 32-bit systems like Playstation should also be included because they were experimental when trying to go from 2D to 3D graphics. 6th generation systems like Playstation 2 are "Modern" because the games play exactly like current games minus the HD graphics.

 

So I consider the labels "Classic" for pre-Crash games, "Retro" for anything post-Crash up to the new millennium and "Modern" afterwards...

 

(Could change much latter sometime in the 21st Century once holograms come out... )

[Andromeda Stardust]

Gen 2.5: Weird, transitional stage/awkward teenage years (SegaCD, 32X, Jaguar)

 

You got that right. But those are the 4.5 generation.

 

5200, Coleco, Vex are 2.5

 

6th generation systems like Playstation 2 are "Modern" because the games play exactly like current games minus the HD graphics.

Thank you. That's also why I place one 6th gen handheld, the GBA, with retro, because stylistically, as a 2D system, it has more in common with SNES.

 

*Electro-mechanical, pre-video entertainment machines (pinball et al) = Vintage / Antique

*Pre-crash, golden era Arcade = Classic.

*3rd-5th gen, late arcade + GBA = Retro.

*6th gen and up = Modern.

*Mobile devices and future download only / "cloud" game consoles = eWaste

Edited July 29, 2015 by stardust4ever

[The Usotsuki]

Didn't Sega have some arcade hologram game out back around 1990 or 1991?