Retrogaming
As retro gaming typically older computer and video games are called. It is often seen as the border with retro games, the time of change to the vast publication of 3D games to the mid-1990s, which was heralded by powerful CPUs in PCs and new consoles, particularly the PlayStation. Following the principle retro, but shifts this limit, often games are already viewed until the end of the 1990s as a retro games.
Furthermore, the term Retro Game has also established itself as a genre name and referred to as such computer games until the end of the 8 - bit era (about 1970 to about 1985), such as Pong or Frogger, which is not unique to one of the RTS gaming be classified and therefore are just classified as " retro ". Retro Gaming refers to the employment of individuals or groups with retro games, as a differentiable from the normal mainstream games culture phenomenon.
History
The trend of retro gaming was the end of the 1990s, and has been enjoying the increased popularity, which focuses on old games and game consoles. This is quite a recent development in the computer game scene, eg There are now specialized publications such as the monthly Retro Gamer Magazine or the German language, and the return Retro magazine.
Since the 2000s, the games industry has discovered the target audience of the "Retro Gamer" and the existing stock of "Retro Games" for themselves. Thus, remarkably, come more and more classic games on current consoles out in the form of samplers. An example is the Konami Arcade Classics Collection for the Nintendo DS or the SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection for Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 With these compilations are usually more than 10 or 20 old games brought to the customer in one package. Another market for retro games, the market place of the Xbox Live, are to be acquired on the HD versions of classics such as Street Fighter, and the Wii Shop Channel by Nintendo.
The Polish company Good Old Games offers since 2008 PC classic DOS and early Windows era technically prepared for modern platforms on the Digital Distribution at.
Motivation
In general, one can make two main reasons for this trend.
For one, many of today's adult gamers have grown up with the beginnings of the computer game development late 80s and early 90s, for which the former games were very formative. Many games genres are now almost extinct, including, inter alia Adventures, Jump 'n' runs, puzzles and side-scroller, because the games industry is no market potential for these genera. For lack of alternatives and current of nostalgia back to concentrating on the old classics.
The second reason is that many players of today's games industry complain that conservative commercially to act and be able to give or give creative game concepts no chance - a view that is partially shared by development companies and publishers themselves. Since the 1990s, the cost of professional game development grew significantly and increased the fear of producing a costly failure, which a focus on well-known game recipes, sequels ( whose only development often lies not in the graphics quality but in creative game concepts ) and the simpler but broader target groups appealing casual games meant.
Objectives
Motifs for retro gaming can be obtained, especially the classic games, making it available to a wider public. It is also the final being lost classics, such as Closure of Sunnyvale Atari 1996 happens to be prevented. At that time, inter alia, the original source code of milestones in history of gaming as Asteroids or Centipede disposed of. Fortunately, some saved by enthusiasts from the garbage, reconstructed and published on the Atari Museum later.
Therefore, the aim and interest of retro gaming movement that old games released as freeware or open source software on time. So these are also brought from the legal gray area abandonware and with the source code with the necessary technical adjustments can be made effective.
Another goal is to make old games again on modern operating systems and hardware platforms capable of running, for example, by so-called community - patches which attempt to remedy these shortcomings. An ability to run on current platforms can also be achieved through the development of alternative interpreters (such as ScummVM ) and emulators (eg MAME or DOSBox ). In addition, numerous games that were never localized for the German market, from the Japanese or English into German translated (so-called fan - translations) and thus made available.
Another form of retro gaming is making available as remakes or ports ( with source code ) of old games for new hardware and software platforms, eg portable devices or mobile phones, or Mac OS. Background here is that games of the 8 - or 16-bit era on hardware with comparable computing performance and technical data (RAM, screen resolution) and now mobile phones have been developed. This porting is easily possible, and the profile of the games the same as for the target platform (eg readability despite a low screen resolution).
A new trend is the revival of old computer game title under the crowdfunding. For example, Wasteland has been successfully financed 2 2012 inspired as a Wasteland turn-based, post-apocalyptic old-school computer role-playing game by Brian Fargo's inXile Entertainment on Kickstarter.com platform with three million dollars.
Museums and exhibitions
Retro games are now being taken to museums as an art form worldwide and presented in exhibitions, eg in Karlsruhe in the Retro Games Arcade Museum, which was founded in 2002, or in 1997, opened Computer Game Museum Berlin.
The home of computer games is as a touring exhibition with changing exhibits on the history and culture of the computer game at fairs, congresses and festivals.
Exhibitions of classic video games also exist in traditional art museums, such as the exhibition The Art of Video Games 2012 in the Smithsonian American Art Museum or as part of the "Applied Design" permanent exhibition of the Museum of Modern Art since 2013.
Projects
Interpreter
- Z- machine - all Infocom - Adventure
- ScummVM - LucasArts adventures, AGI -based Sierra Adventure ( formerly Sarien ), including
- Exult - Ultima 7 Engine Rewrite
Emulators
- M.A.M.E. - Arcade emulator
- DOSBox - DOS Emulator