What is the future of Classic Gaming (And Classic Computing)?

[BillyHW]

What will be the future of classic gaming and classic computing? Will interest in it increase or decrease?

 

And what about the long term future? What will happen to all this when there is no one around left who grew up with this stuff and remembers it? Will anyone still care about it any more? Are places like Atari Age doomed to die a long slow death?

[potatohead]

We've got little kids who are interested and active in this stuff.

 

Not sure it will go away. Pretty sure it will get smaller at some point though.

[Reaperman]

I'd imagine that once we really start to die off, in 20-30 years or so, the value of our collections will go to absolute zilch for a long while. Those of us who make it longer than most will enjoy the temporary feeding frenzy--if there's room in assisted living for our loot. After we all finish dying, there might be a few weirdos here and there who might discover them as a hobby, but for a solid few generations after we're gone, I'd imagine our games will be quite unpopular.

 

Then they'll become a niche oddity, like Edison cylinders, ornate spittoons, or outdated children's toys with racist themes. People will start buying small selections of video games to spark conversations with houseguests they are trying hard to pretend to like, or they'll simply want something new to make fun of on whatever will pass for social media then.

 

Game carts/systems will be another 'look at how stupid we used to be' item. Let's laugh at them for a few minutes until Ethel gets bored and pulls somebody's keys out of the bowl.

Edited April 10, 2015 by Reaperman

[7800fan]

Won't be as big as they were in '80s for sure. Some kids are turned off by low res graphic, insane game difficulty, and the fact those old games can cost about the same as new games for XBox One or PS4. For some kids, the old games aren't "cool" at all. Not to mention the old games aren't portable like mobile games are so it'd hard for one to log an Atari 2600, a CRT TV, and a portable generator to play it on the run.

 

Probably the same reason I haven't seen anyone carry around a yugo-sized Boom Box in the last 2 decades. Same reason Walmart doesn't carry LPs even though there's still production and still (weak) demand for old needle based music that people claims sound better than CD and MP3 players.

[BydoEmpire]

What will be the future of classic gaming and classic computing? Will interest in it increase or decrease?

 

And what about the long term future? What will happen to all this when there is no one around left who grew up with this stuff and remembers it? Will anyone still care about it any more? Are places like Atari Age doomed to die a long slow death?

Pretty much agree with Reaperman. Once those of us who grew up with these games die off, that's going to be it. Emulation will keep the ROMs around as a historic curiosity but the demand won't be there. Everything on earth is doomed to die, just try to enjoy whatever era you happen to live in (this time around ).

[Cynicaster]

The phenomenon of people reaching adulthood and seeking to re-experience things from their past will always be here in some shape or form.

 

If you’re talking about gaming specifically, then that means there is an inherent “sliding window” of time that defines what original stuff is most sought after at any given time.

 

If we define “classic gaming” in general terms as coming from the eras favored on this site (as, IMO, we should), then I’d say “peak interest” in classic gaming is behind us, and it’s all downhill from here in terms of not only the size of the community, but also in terms of the “vital signs” that indicate the state of the community (forum activity, social media activity, YouTube content, magazines and websites, collector market, conventions, etc.)

 

I think there will always be a bedrock of people interested in historic consoles and computers like the Atari 2600 and C64 (for example), but as those who originally grew up with those things start to either expire or otherwise move on, that bedrock will shrink down to the point where the systems become less a hobbyist-collector-thrift-store-thing and more of a museum oddity, like gramophones and slide rules are to most of us today.

 

Perhaps the arcade scene can be viewed as the harbinger of what is to come for classic gaming in general. Real cabinets are becoming increasingly rare and increasingly arduous to maintain, and thus are typically deemed “not worth the money or hassle” by all but the most fanatical collectors and purists. Similarly, for the rest of the classic gaming sphere, the proportion of people adopting emulation as their primary vehicle will increase, simply due to economics and our ever-increasing obsession with always-at-your-fingertips convenience.

[Clint Thompson]

The interesting gap will be with DLC or when the current systems become classics... I guess there are ways of preserving it but with stuff that requires license activation or to be online may be a bit trickier.

[omegadot]

I think some of you have a near 30 year lead on me. I'll bide my time. Yesssss. Yessssssss.

[Lendorien]

I have the theory that Gen Xers and Gen Ys have this obsession with nostalgia. Specifically of their childhoods. If you look in child pop culture, you see a lot of the same things we grew up with being reformatted and rereleased. My Little Pony, Legos, Transformers, He-man, etc. etc. etc. It's not just because our kids like the stuff, it's because we're reliving our childhoods through our kids. Move on to video games. I suspect your major collecting group is people in their 30's and 40's who grew up in the 70's thru early 90's and are now established in life with some spending money. They're trying to recapture the things of their childhoods.

 

Video game collecting has exploded. I've been doing it for about 6 years now and it has gotten harder to do as things are starting to dry up and prices go up. The interest is increasing. I only see it going up for the forseeable future. 20 years from now? who knows. Maybe it'll go the way stamp collecting has.

[VectorGamer]

50 years from now most of us will be dead. The Atari and ColecoVision won't mean much to future generations. There will be very few people playing these games and the homebrew scene will die as well.

 

When Albert kicks the bucket, is there a plan already in place to keep AtariAge going?

[+HatNJ]

 

When Albert kicks the bucket, is there a plan already in place to keep AtariAge going?

 

I wondered that myself or maybe not kick the bucket but real life situations taking him away

[Keatah]

I just rather assumed it will always be here forever and ever..

[awhite2600]

50 years from now most of us will be dead. The Atari and ColecoVision won't mean much to future generations.

 

I have to disagree. My 19 year old son has been playing my games since he learned to hold a joystick. He appreciates them and intends to take good care of my collection when I move to the big arcade in the sky. I can only hope that my games will be passed on for generations.

 

My father is a collector - stamps, coins, banana stickers (he has thousands), ceramic figurines. I have every intention of honoring his collections when the time comes.

[moodorf]

Prices are just gonna rise until there's some sort of crash/disaster for Retro gaming stores across the states.

 

Course, I might be wrong

[BillyHW]

Wow, this thread is pretty depressing.

[Atari_Bill]

My opinion has always been to spend what you're comfortable with right now because in the long run what we're all buying right now will be absolutely worthless in years to come. I have no faith in any of this holding value as of even 15 years down the road.

[Keatah]

That is right. I spent a lot of time and money baggie-chasing this graphics tablet thing for the Apple II, and today it isn't worth any more or less than what I paid for it.

 

OTH: I picked up a bunch of interface cards and memory cards for pennies on the dollar. And today each one is going for $300+. It's actually moving on ebay!

 

And those white 6502 chips. Each can command $1,500 plus! I thought I had smashed all of them open when I was a kid (to see what was inside), but apparently some survived. And if it wasn't for ebay I wouldn't have the slightest clue as to what they are worth today.

 

And word of warning. NEVER EVER EVER ask what something is worth. You will get lowballed every time.

 

[BillyHW]

My opinion has always been to spend what you're comfortable with right now because in the long run what we're all buying right now will be absolutely worthless in years to come. I have no faith in any of this holding value as of even 15 years down the road.

 

I don't collect and I don't care about the money. But I do like knowing that there's other people who like and play the same classic games that I do.

[VectorGamer]

 

I have to disagree. My 19 year old son has been playing my games since he learned to hold a joystick. He appreciates them and intends to take good care of my collection when I move to the big arcade in the sky. I can only hope that my games will be passed on for generations.

 

My father is a collector - stamps, coins, banana stickers (he has thousands), ceramic figurines. I have every intention of honoring his collections when the time comes.

 

I think your son is going to be in the minority. My gaming preference is for systems released up to the mid 80s as anything released after that has no nostalgia for me. When my son reaches my age, I'm guessing he's going to be nostalgic for systems he's gaming on now like the 360 and not the Atari 2600 or ColecoVision.

[Cynicaster]

 

I have to disagree. My 19 year old son has been playing my games since he learned to hold a joystick. He appreciates them and intends to take good care of my collection when I move to the big arcade in the sky. I can only hope that my games will be passed on for generations.

 

My father is a collector - stamps, coins, banana stickers (he has thousands), ceramic figurines. I have every intention of honoring his collections when the time comes.

 

I don't think anybody is saying that there won't be a single person on earth caring about what we consider to be classic games. There will always be somebody, but it will be in ever-decreasing numbers. If your son does make good on the pledge to preserve your collection, and if he actually continues to enjoy it, then I think he's a bit of an anomaly.

Edited April 20, 2015 by Cynicaster

[awhite2600]

 

I think your son is going to be in the minority. My gaming preference is for systems released up to the mid 80s as anything released after that has no nostalgia for me. When my son reaches my age, I'm guessing he's going to be nostalgic for systems he's gaming on now like the 360 and not the Atari 2600 or ColecoVision.

 

 

 

I don't think anybody is saying that there won't be a single person on earth caring about what we consider to be classic games. There will always be somebody, but it will be in ever-decreasing numbers. If your son does make good on the pledge to preserve your collection, and if he actually continues to enjoy it, then I think he's a bit of an anomaly.

 

I will agree that my son is a bit of a minority. At the same time he evangelizes the older games to his friends. Yes, they all play PS4 and XBOX One. Some of them now collect for system like the N64 and the SNES. I limit the majority of my collecting to pre-NES systems. My son collects N64 and various flavors of GameBoy (GB, GBC, GBA). While there may be a shift in nostalgia, there will still be people that respect the 2600 and other systems of that era.

 

Hopefully those of us that have collections today can find someone to preserve them in the future and to keep the memories alive.

[VectorGamer]

I think what is going to happen is there will be less interest in collecting pre-crash systems and games and as a result prices are going to go way down. The market will be saturated with games and systems nobody wants and IF they sell they will go at ridiculously low prices.

[Flojomojo]

Until the mid-1960s or so, it seemed like most of the popular TV shows and movies were Westerns. Today, it's very rare to see something in that genre, and it's usually done deliberately to evoke some old nostalgia. Personally, I have next to zero interest in watching a western unless it's dressed up in sci-fi drag like Star Trek or Firefly.

 

I think "classic gaming" as you define it (I assume you mean first-generation stuff like the Atari VCS) will be the same sort of thing. I grew up with this stuff and even I am starting to wake up to the fact that cartridges and 8-bit consoles are hopelessly crude and have limited ability to entertain forever. Some of the aesthetics will live on elsewhere, such as Pac-Man or Donkey Kong as characters and concepts, but I think we're past the tipping point for truly appreciating the old designs.

 

Retro gaming, on the other hand, will always be around, in my opinion. I would define "retro gaming" as a couple of generations back from current, the stuff you grew up that helped form your current tastes. There's a whole slew of millennials who think of NES as "classic" and N64/PSX/PS2/GameCube/XBOX as "retro." The window will slide up with time and technology.

[Clint Thompson]

I don't see any reason that sometime just before the year 2,100 we wouldn't be able to 3D print just about any console/game at the click of a button so the idea of owning an original collector Atari or such will be for mueseum owners only really. Pretty sure 3D printed silicon will be at a point too where we will at least either print the chips or some sort of modern FPGA setup that's just as easy to program at the click of a button... Toss X2010 chip in, load it with just about every console/game ever made and just connect the required controller for said console through a singular universal connection? But hey, that's for enthusiasts.. I'm sure most will just emulate like the way we've been doing it for years now without owning any physical hardware/software.

[The Usotsuki]

Call me a cynic, but rather than dumping them cheap on fleabay and such, I'm betting the next generation's just gonna throw the old stuff in the circular file.