Retro Gaming - Online Gaming

Retro Gaming

Retro gaming has increased in popularity over the past few years, it’s simply the choice of players to collect and play older style video and arcade games.  Players choose to play these games using the original consoles or hardware or can even use modern hardware.  Players can also be known as classic gamers as the games they choose to play are such classic games of their time. 

Retro gaming has seemed to become more popular with players choosing not go with the masses and choose to play with expensive new consoles that don’t want to reproduce old classic titles for new development of consoles.  Retro games that are popular again are those that were produced in the 1980’s.  The systems that were being used at that time range from: Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Nintendo Entertainment System.  The Commodore 64 was the best selling single personal computer of its time in the USA.  The rival to this in the UK was the ZX Spectrum which was used as a mainstream home computer and was released by Sinclair Research in 1982.  Amstrad CPC (Colour Personal Computer) was produced by Amstrad during the 1980’s and 90’s and included a series of 8-bit home computers and was seen as strong competition to both the Commodore and Spectrum.  The NES was released in 1985 and was seen as the most successful video game console of its time and the company introduced the world to one of the most popular video games of Donkey Kong and using Mario as a cameo role introduced a spin-off game of Mario Bros.

Around this time, arcade games were also gaining in popularity.  They are games that require money to operate the system and are usually found in entertainment venues such as pubs and video arcades.  One of the most popular arcade of all time has to be PACMAN which was first released in Japan in 1979 by NAMCO.  Companies that were providing games at that time were from most notably Sega and Atari.  Throughout this time there were many developers, however serious retro gamers seem to seek out certain developers.

Using retro games usually means that players have to use some sort of emulation in order the games to be played.  This software emulator allows the games to be run on a specific platform unlike their original game format.  Using emulation, allows systems to trick it into thinking that it’s being used as another device.  There are many criticisms surrounding emulation and this is usually concerned with the legality of the use of software.  Many developers view emulation as a way to copy software illegally and this infringes on copyright law.

As major companies are seeing the influence of retro game, they have understood that there is a big market for publishing old titles for modern video consoles.  Compilation titles of retro games seem to be the most popular way of reintroducing titles to the market.  Sega and Namco are just two of the big names that have picked up on this and have started to produce retro game compilations.  PS2 and Xbox are two of the other major brands to have published retro game compilations and with each compilation, there are usually at least 10 titles included.  New releases on different formats are becoming increasingly available with new releases to be seen for the PC and Wii.

Retro gaming has become so popular that there are dedicated websites and magazines set up to support the community.  There is also regular retro gaming events that are set up by fans from all over the world.  These events mean that like minded people can come together to discuss issues and play the games that mean so much to them.