Have the term "Retro" lost all it's meaning in regards to games

[Mutant1988]

It seems like it to me. Because when I browse the selection of games on Steam, an overwhelming amount of games are tagged as retro or otherwise advertised as "retro-inspired" or "Retro-styled".

Yet it seem to me to be little more than an excuse to put as little effort as possible into the graphics and few games seem to actually try to evoke any sense of nostalgia. Which seems to me to be a pre-requisite for something to be retro.

Very few games with simplistic graphics advertised as retro seem to actually be good, either by recreating a nostalgic gaming experience or by merging nostalgic trappings and visuals with innovative concepts. Now, I realize that retro is not defined as "good", but I feel that these poor efforts being called retro detract from the meaning of the word, turning it to mean "Intentionally poor graphics and sound"

And let me clarify that I don't have anything against this style of game, if it's executed well. I've heard of Shovel Knight Adventures and it seems magnificent and definitely worthy of it's retro label. But most games aren't Shovel Knight Adventures.

So what do you guys think? Has the word retro lost it's meaning? Or am I just being a language snob?

 

[gsilver]

Modern pixel art really doesn't look like old games in most cases. Shovel Knight, while obviously NES-inspired, is far beyond anything one would ever see on an actual NES game. SNES is a closer comparison.
Something like VVVVVV is very modern in its mechanics, even though the graphics are meant to resemble Commodore 64 games.

But I do appreciate good pixel art. What I've seen of Hyper Light Drifter looks amazing. Towerfall: Ascension was also pretty impressive.

If you actually go back and play some of the old games, you'll instantly appreciate how "Modern retro" games smooth off a lot of the rough edges. Compare, say, Shovel Knight to Duck Tales (NES). Shovel Knight is much better all around, and we're basically comparing an indie game to a then-AAA game and million-seller. Most NES games don't come close to Duck Tales.

But it's more like very few games are good, period. Google says that the NES had 713 games. How many of those would you even want to play now?
A quick Google search showed that Steam had over 1300 games released that year by mid-September of 2014. That's nearly double what the NES had in it's lifespan. Now, a lot of these are terrible, but there are a whole lot of them to sort through, and many of them are great.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I dunno, maybe? Whenever I see an indie 'retro' game I'm all excited, because nostalgia amirite? But then I play it and remember oh yeah, most old-school games were terrible and shouldn't be emulated in any way.
I mean how many good old games do we remember? 12? 13 in pinch? Maybe between all of the Escapist we could get an even hundred. Out of what, tens of thousands of them? Hundreds of thousands even?!

Retro may be dead, it may not be. I'm more curious why anyone would want to be retro. What's the appeal of reminding us all of a time when we had to pay quarters to play Time Crisis?
I'm more than willing to let old gameplay mechanics and graphics stay in the past.

 

[Mutant1988]

Modern pixel art really doesn't look like old games in most cases. Shovel Knight, while obviously NES-inspired, is far beyond anything one would ever see on an actual NES game. SNES is a closer comparison.
Something like VVVVVV is very modern in its mechanics, even though the graphics are meant to resemble Commodore 64 games.

There's a really interesting article about Shovel Knight and how and why they deviated from the NES specifications:

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DavidDAngelo/20140625/219383/Breaking_the_NES_for_Shovel_Knight.php

That shows a lot of care and effort. Which is my issue with many retro games - The absence of the same.

A lot of so called retro just seems like clichéd "classic" gameplay with "intentionally" terrible graphics. That or just taking something old and inserting the hot new gimmick (Crafting, voxel building, rogue-like and survival are common).

But I do appreciate good pixel art. What I've seen of Hyper Light Drifter looks amazing. Towerfall: Ascension was also pretty impressive.

I like pixel art too. I just don't think it needs to be labelled as retro specifically. At least not when it's not specifically evocative of something from the past.

If you draw great pixel art, then just draw that and don't call it something else than it is.

A quick Google search showed that Steam had over 1300 games released that year by mid-September of 2014. That's nearly double what the NES had in it's lifespan. Now, a lot of these are terrible, but there are a whole lot of them to sort through, and many of them are great.

Are you sure? I've gone through about 2500+ games in my Steam queue and there's not a whole lot in there that I liked. Granted, I have about a 100 games on my wishlist. But I can safely say that very few of those fall under the classification of Retro. At least, the one used on Steam. I've got lots of old games on my list, but I guess those games aren't retro enough.

I dunno, maybe? Whenever I see an indie 'retro' game I'm all excited, because nostalgia amirite? But then I play it and remember oh yeah, most old-school games were terrible and shouldn't be emulated in any way.
I mean how many good old games do we remember? 12? 13 in pinch? Maybe between all of the Escapist we could get an even hundred. Out of what, tens of thousands of them? Hundreds of thousands even?!

I could probably name quite a lot of great old games. But that's actual old games and not new works trying to recapture what they did. Which most games doesn't even seem remotely interested in doing, instead opting for just doing whatever with the graphics being the only factor that's even remotely reminiscent of the past (i.e, terrible).

Retro may be dead, it may not be. I'm more curious why anyone would want to be retro. What's the appeal of reminding us all of a time when we had to pay quarters to play Time Crisis?
I'm more than willing to let old gameplay mechanics and graphics stay in the past.

I'm not really saying it's dead as much as it's devalued by works that aren't actually retro, but just lazily made. At least that is my harsh judgemental impression.

 

[Fappy]

I think retro is just an overused classification these days. It's gotten to the point that pixel art and bit tunes are almost as common in Indy games as 3D-modeled/2D-flash games. If there's an obvious retro influence beyond the audio/visual design, sure, call it a retro game.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

I'm not what retro was meant to mean in the first place. How old does a game have to be to be considered retro? Is there a cut off date and if so what is it? Is the date based on hardware or a particular year?

 

[Evonisia]

I'm not what retro was meant to mean in the first place. How old does a game have to be to be considered retro? Is there a cut off date and if so what is it? Is the date based on hardware or a particular year?

Retro doesn't have a cut off point. Much like nostalgia it's just completely subjective for when people start reflecting on old games as retro.

Personally I go by fifth generation backwards (so PS1/N64), given that said generation began about twenty years ago.

 

[Lilani]

-snip-

It's funny to me that whenever a term changes or expands in meaning, many people lament that it's lost its meaning. As though words only have the power to lose meaning, never gain, so when it changes the word just becomes an empty shell and it can never mean anything ever again.

As far as retro, I'm pretty sure it means what it has always meant: old, "classic," or "vintage," either in age or style, typically by no more than 1 or 2 generations, but there isn't any strict statute of limitations on the term. And this doesn't just apply to gaming--retro clothes could be ones from the 60s, 70s, 80s, or even 90s. Retro music could be disco or scat singing. And new clothing or music can be made in a style which is considered "retro"--like a pop song which samples or takes the structure of disco or the blues. I've always known retro to have this use of referring to something which isn't actually old but simply made in a style which mimics the old. And looking up the definition you get the same result:

Share
retro [re-troh] adjective, Informal.
1. retroactive:
retro pay.

2. of or designating the style of an earlier time:
retro clothes.

Bolded emphasis is mine. I don't believe the meaning of the word has ever changed, perhaps you just have never heard it used in such a way until recently.

 

[Lilani]

Modern pixel art really doesn't look like old games in most cases. Shovel Knight, while obviously NES-inspired, is far beyond anything one would ever see on an actual NES game. SNES is a closer comparison.
Something like VVVVVV is very modern in its mechanics, even though the graphics are meant to resemble Commodore 64 games.

A lot of these games have "idealized" pixel graphics. Everything may be constructed as though they are pixel sprites, but the colors often include gradients and far exceed 8 or 16 bits, and often small details and effects are more sophisticated than could be achieved in true 8 or 16 bit limitations. The sound and music are also idealized--typically only relying on a simple chiptune and then having reverb or other rhythms or effects in there to make it sound less like a MIDI and more like a true score.

There's also the fact that many of them are constructed in an engine such as Flash, so even though the sprites are made up of blocky pixels they are moving in a high-res environment, so your movements are not limited to the blocky structure around you.

I'm generally okay with this. While I do have a lot of love for games on the SNES, Genesis, GB, GBA, etc. I also don't mind a fresh coat of paint on something old. The good variants of games in this style are ones like VVVVVV which take use simplicity required by the style to their advantage, to narrow the focus of the game to something very simple, like a mechanic or story point.

Saying it's sacrilege to revisit older gaming styles to do something which was never tried in the past either due to technological limitations or simply it never being tried (or stylistic limitations of the time--a lot of indie games that come out these days wouldn't have made it in the past due to their having such a niche audience and no digital distribution or promotion in the past) would be like saying it's sacrilege to make a variant of a classical piece of music, or sample a classic rock or jazz song for a new pop song.

 

[Mutant1988]

2. of or designating the style of an earlier time:
retro clothes.

Bolded emphasis is mine. I don't believe the meaning of the word has ever changed, perhaps you just have never heard it used in such a way until recently.

Nice condescending attitude you got there.

My issue is not that I think the meaning of the word has changed, but that I think most video games that classify themselves as retro are just lazy garbage.

You know, that's why I specified "In regards to games" in the topic title. My impression is not that people want to invoke classic games as much as get away with putting in the minimum amount of effort into their graphical design. That being the basis for why I ask if the word has lost it's meaning, "In regards to games".

Context matters, even if you personally see fit to ignore it by bringing up retro clothes and music or arguing pure semantics in lieu of actually considering why I ask the question.

The word hasn't really lost it's meaning - It's just plagued by terrible games, making the term practically useless if your intent is to find works that genuinely try to invoke elements from the past.

 

[Lilani]

2. of or designating the style of an earlier time:
retro clothes.

Bolded emphasis is mine. I don't believe the meaning of the word has ever changed, perhaps you just have never heard it used in such a way until recently.

Nice condescending attitude you got there.

My issue is not that I think the meaning of the word has changed, but that I think most video games that classify themselves as retro are just lazy garbage.

You know, that's why I specified "In regards to games" in the topic title. My impression is not that people want to invoke classic games as much as get away with putting in the minimum amount of effort into their graphical design. That being the basis for why I ask if the word has lost it's meaning, "In regards to games".

Context matters, even if you personally see fit to ignore it by bringing up retro clothes and music or arguing pure semantics in lieu of actually considering why I ask the question.

The word hasn't really lost it's meaning - It's just plagued by terrible games, making the term practically useless if your intent is to find works that genuinely try to invoke elements from the past.

Is this different from anything else that calls itself "retro?" I can think of a lot of songs and outfits I've seen that are "retro" and awful, either due to execution or simply failing to understand the original point of the thing. There are going to be good and bad games, there always have been and always will be. There have always been good and bad shooters, platformers, RPGs, flight sims, driving sims, you name it. That isn't any reason to stop calling them what they are, or to dread the word before even knowing what it's being used to describe. I can't think of a time when I was told something was retro or some other thing without there being further information to discern of what quality it was. Same with platformer, shooter, horror, or whatever. People who are silly enough to hear the single word "retro" and throw all their money at a thing without knowing if it was actually good weren't made that way because of retro games. And people who deliberately slack on design and cover it up with such labels as "retro" or "minimalist" have also always existed, that's just a classic marketing ploy.

So yes, perhaps the term is not a be-all, end-all indicator of quality, but it never was and no single label ever is. It is a starting point, though, and if you really want to find good games which evoke feelings of the past you have to start somewhere.

 

[Mutant1988]

So yes, perhaps the term is not a be-all, end-all indicator of quality, but it never was and no single label ever is. It is a starting point, though, and if you really want to find good games which evoke feelings of the past you have to start somewhere.

Thank you, that was a much more pleasant and interesting post to read.

I do see your point and agree with it to a fair degree. It just irks me to have lazy developers use retro as a crutch for poor design, rather than have it for a basis of the game design itself and actually try to evoke the past and not just lamely mimic it's appearance.

I do have a similar dislike for "minimalism", as it's featured in most games. And I freaking hate monochrome. In short, I just dislike any aesthetic design that cannot be justified as integral to the game design. Shallow design, that is.

 

[dangoball]

Front page didn't show the full name of the thread so at first I thought it's going to be about hipsters because basically this:

As far as retro, I'm pretty sure it means what it has always meant: old, "classic," or "vintage," either in age or style, typically by no more than 1 or 2 generations, but there isn't any strict statute of limitations on the term. And this doesn't just apply to gaming--retro clothes could be ones from the 60s, 70s, 80s, or even 90s. Retro music could be disco or scat singing. And new clothing or music can be made in a style which is considered "retro"--like a pop song which samples or takes the structure of disco or the blues. I've always known retro to have this use of referring to something which isn't actually old but simply made in a style which mimics the old.

I wouldn't say the word "retro" has been devalued, though it might have been lets say cheapened, if you see my meaning. I always felt retro was supposed to be something enjoyed rarely to evoke nostalgia, yet it's becoming everyday occurrence in gaming and fashion. It no longer evokes something old because it's temporary present (I hope that makes sense).

No arguing that lazy execution results in bad games but that is true of any kind, not just retro. Sandbox has not lost it's meaning because of a flood of sandbox games.

 

[Danny Dowling]

it's the idea of making a game look old but using modern technology to enable it to achieve/do things that weren't possible back then. nothing wrong with that.

 

[Lilani]

Thank you, that was a much more pleasant and interesting post to read.

I do see your point and agree with it to a fair degree. It just irks me to have lazy developers use retro as a crutch for poor design, rather than have it for a basis of the game design itself and actually try to evoke the past and not just lamely mimic it's appearance.

I do have a similar dislike for "minimalism", as it's featured in most games. And I freaking hate monochrome. In short, I just dislike any aesthetic design that cannot be justified as integral to the game design. Shallow design, that is.

Yeah sorry, after reading it again I see I did become rather snarky there, lol.

Personally, I have a bachelors of fine arts degree and do motion graphics for a living, so given the number of art and art history classes I've taken I guess I've developed a pretty high threshold for giving things a chance until I fully understand them. I also understand that sometimes people have to work within certain boundaries: simpler styles are easier to achieve on a smaller budget, even if you have mechanics that could justify a more sophisticated style. I agree that it's really satisfying when aesthetics and gameplay match, but I've also been an art student and overly-ambitious hobbiest so I understand sometimes you have to use your imagination.

That's no excuse for the total shit out there from real game studios that gets Greenlit, but the way I figure making a game is not an easy task--even a shitty one. I'll not begrudge somebody for trying, even if it wasn't successful or well thought out. The only ones I'll begrudge are those sweatshop game studios cranking out clones of other games to try and make a quick buck.

 

[SweetShark]

Here is the first mistake think most people when they speak about a retro videogame:
A Retro Videogame isn't about a vieogame being made with low-quality 2D sprites, but to be a old/classic videogame.
Because let face it, there are retro games that use 3D graphics, like Starfox,Doom,FFVII. However most people DON'T think of them as retro because doesn't follow the well-known "recipe".
A retro game is about "feeling" like a old classic videogame, not look like one.

 

[lepito]

I'm not so upset that "retro" might mean something different today than what I used to think when I saw the word. I do think that these days it's a cop-out for a developer to use as a self-descriptor of their game.

The thing that game developers never seem to understand is that you only need to tell me enough to sell the idea to me. If your game is "retro", I'll see it from the screenshots or how it plays on video. I'll be the judge of whether something is retro or not AFTER I've had a chance to play it and see whether it fits into my definition. If you're telling me that your game is retro and that's a reason to play it, and not because your game is good or innovative but because you're simply banking on my memories, it feels like a cash-in.

I don't mind games with dated graphics. I don't mind games with technically-mediocre visuals. I don't mind if a developer wants to reinterpret a style of gameplay that worked well once and should work well again. I DO mind when I see some decent pixel art on Steam, actually buy the game to play it, and find out underneath all that spit and shine it's a steaming pile.

It's the same thing if you tell me your game is "cyberpunk" or "oldschool". You see that a lot these days. "Oldschool" first-person shooters that don't actually play like how the genre used to due to its historical technical limitations. Sometimes those technical limitations defined a unique brand of gameplay. That's what people are really looking for when they see "retro". It's not just about the look.

 

[Ratty]

Basically lazy (indie) devs are giving it a bad name. Sprite art and 2D games are much more doable on a limited budget/timeframe, so for every talented caring dev crafting beautiful retro-inspired pixel art there's tons of people who don't know what they're doing who just throw pixels together on a crappy game hoping for a quick buck. Then they call it "retro" to try to cash in on nostalgia and hipster dollars while excusing their bad art. As if they think all games on the NES looked like shite because they've never actually played any of those games, which I suspect is actually the case in a depressing number of cases.

 

[Plucky]

I would personally consider a game retro-styled, provided that it's either an RPG, a Platformer or has non-3D 2D gameplay as core features; so whilst Binding of Isaac: Rebirth has a pixelish style and is an overhead 2D game, the randomly generated scenario puts it more closer to the Indy label, rather than attempting to touch genres that more prominent developers doesn't do anymore. (with the exception of Nintendo)

As far as Retro being contemporary, i would consider anything from before the NES to the N64, or as far as Dreamcast to be Retro. with 3D gaming getting more advanced from the PS2 onwards, the whole genres of gameplay kind of expanded too much, and storage being an issue no longer. so you're probably going to get fully voice acted games which could legitimately be as comparable to Movies. an exception to the Pre-NES to Dreamcast rules would be the GBA since allthough it has 32-bit colors, it's much more closer to a Super Nintendo, it also enjoyed ports/remakes of SNES-era games whilst having some creativeness from other developers; Megaman Battle Network, Mega Man Zero, Boktai being examples of original content. whilst Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga & the Warioware games were unique spins on existing series.

 

[gnihton]

Rooster Teeth called GTAIV retro (this was a few years ago as well) and I lost my shit.