37
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2026
37 points (100.0% liked)
RetroGaming
30553 readers
121 users here now
Vintage gaming community.
Rules:
- Be kind.
- No spam, AI slop, or soliciting for money.
- No racism or other bigotry allowed.
- Obviously nothing illegal.
If you see these please report them.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think there are two related concepts that the same word gets used for.
One is the sliding window of things that seem old. I'd put that around 2 gens ago - just long enough for things to go out of print/leave retail, lose media focus, and have adults remembering them from childhood.
The other idea encompasses the foundation era of game history. I think of that as the time when games harshly constrained by the available hardware, with the chunky pixels, chiptunes, low-poly models, etc. I'd cut this off at or after the PS360Wii gen. That's about when tech returns started diminishing, and it's also when the internet started strongly defining design and business models. But everyone looks at it a little different.
Still, the concept of video games is just a baby. There are humans alive that played some of the earliest ones. Maybe centuries from now people will look back fondly on the era where you owned game hardware at all, or didn't control them with your mind.