If you go to any subreddit, forum, or Facebook Fanpage that is based around video games, you will undoubtedly find some kind of post relating to a game from the days of yore. Gamers are absolutely obsessed with the past. There always seems to be some kind of outcry whenever a new sequel, or even a new game entirely, is released and how it isn't as good as the old one. Because of this, gamers have an adversity to something new, and as a result: have a very closed mind when it comes to video games.
Gaming is something that most of us have grown up with in this generation. It was something that we all did as children, and it reminds us of those days when all we had to worry about was doing homework and waking up for school the next day. Admittedly, those were some good times. Now, things have changed. We have matured, in more ways than being able to play a game with a mature rating. We have responsibilities, we have (hopefully) experienced more in life, we've taken in new movies, books, television shows, and even video games. Yet, people have this strange fixation to the past. Whatever version of that thing that they first experienced is the true original and anything that tries to replicate or improve upon it is worse or wrong. What is the point of this?
It may be a bit extreme to say, but if we keep up with this kind of mindset, the gaming industry will never mature or expand. We will continue to have the same Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Battlefield, and Pokemon game every year until they stop making video games (which they wont). The gaming industry feeds off of our nostalgia and the safety that we feel in the familiar. Gamers are too critical of adversity, which is ironic considering that adversity is the driving force behind every single video game ever created. Gamers act like children if things are not held to their ridiculously high standards, or are reminiscent of a game from their youth.
We, as gamers, need to be more accepting of new games. We need to be accepting, yet still somewhat critical of new games, even if they have flaws. We need to have a more keen eye when analyzing new games, as opposed to administering a blanket statement of "it's not as good as the original".
I revisit games of my youth all the time. Some of them still hold up, and some of them don't. I'd like to say that all of my old games take me back to the living room of my old house when I would sit on the floor in front of the TV and play them for hours on end. Yet, as I sit here writing this and looking at all of the games that I have amassed and played throughout my life and career as a gamer, I realized that my taste in gaming has changed. I still appreciate the games from back in the day, but more so in a manner that reflects how far we have come. There is value in the classics. As I said before, there are still some games that hold up and are still a lot of fun to play, but again, not all of them are.
I don't think that there is anything wrong with nostalgia. I think that going back and having fun with old games is perfectly fine. However, it is possible to have a sort of overdose on nostalgia, to the point where everything moving forward must be the same as it was in the past. Developers hear this feedback, and are thereby restricted on how they move forward. There will always be the small yet vocal minority who will shout from the mountaintop of every forum that is accessible to them, but this causes others to join in with them and grow their numbers. It's the reason that we have so many HD remakes of so many games, even ones that were released on the last generation of consoles less than ten years ago. Gamers pine for the classics and are not happy until they have the exact same experience as they remember. That's why the market is flooded with knock-off after knock-off that is "never quite as good" because it doesn't have the same name as the game that gamers remember.
I may be exaggerating a bit here, but I'd like to think that my point here still stands. I play lots of different games, and I keep an open mind to a lot of them. Yes, there are new games that are released these days that are genuinely bad, but there are a lot of games out there that are objectively good but still have a few flaws. I want gaming to progress. I want gaming to diversify. I want gaming to try new ways of creating games; in the way we play, in the way we experience stories, in the way that we game. Gamers have the power to shift the paradigm of the industry with what games they play. If Activision continues to see incredibly high sales numbers for Call of Duty, there's going to be another Call of Duty just like the last one. If gamers gravitated more towards indie games that try something new, that would change how the market looks. That developer would be able to continue to create more games that experiment with the idea of what makes up a game. I know that you can't change everyone's mind, but you can start by changing your own. Try out a different game that you might not even look twice at before. Try out a game that you've never heard of before. Play more games. Play different games. Above all: have fun.
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