The Many Faces of Nostalgia
I'm a retro fan, and likely you are too if you're reading this thread. Why? because of the word "nostalgia", that's why!
Whenever you hear or read that word, there is a special warm feeling you get when time suddenly freezes and you have flashbacks on the "good old days". But what does nostalgia really mean, is it just reflecting on the past? Do people mean the same thing when they use that word?
Well I've had deep thoughts about this, and come to the realization that Nostalgia can take on many many forms, in relation to retro gaming. I've got some examples:
1. Gaming Nostalgia (the act of playing games): for me I started playing games on the Commodore 64, then Sega Master System, and then moving onto the 16-bits SNES/Megadrive. So many games played, but where the heck did I find the time to play them all??
2. Shops Nostalgia (the act of walking into the shops back then, being in awe of so many awesome games and thinking "I wish I had more money to buy more games"): I remember the Mega CD was being shown at a small gaming expo locally in the mid 90s, and I was blown away at Sol Feace (arcade shooter). Felt like being in the arcades for real!
3. Gaming Magazine Nostalgia (the act of reading gaming magazines, entering into competitions or writing letters to the Editor). I still have a huge amount of gaming magazines from way back in the early 90s from EGM, CVG, Game Pro etc. Before the online boom, magazines were a must if you wanted to know which games to try/buy next!
It's interesting to differentiate these different forms of nostalgia, because what kind of nostalgia we place more importance, then it is likely that will form our gaming and collecting habits.
For example, people who put emphasis on the "Gaming Nostalgia" then they would likely to care for the cart/disc only, or with boxes but not fussed on their condition.
People who put emphasis on the "Shops Nostalgia", will likely to be a collector and wanting games to reflect condition of worth to be sold from the shops ie. excellent to mint unsealed/sealed.
People with emphasis on Gaming Magazine Nostalgia (eg. like me), will likely to be reading a lot of random forum crap or type up a lot of nonsense thread topics such as this one!
Comments
Out of the three, the store nostalgia probably gets me the most. I would love to recreate a large room into an electronic boutique circa 1997ish...
I sure did love Blockbuster. RIP
Out of the three, the store nostalgia probably gets me the most. I would love to recreate a large room into an electronic boutique circa 1997ish...
Yeah, same here. James, from AVGN, recreated a VHS rental store in his home.
Shop Nostalgia, seeing all the advertisements in store, on TV, TV shows, being able to trade in retro games, competitions,etc,etc. i love seeing retro stuff in physical stores, even though it may be in an overpriced pawn shop and they may be "trapped"!
I used Cheat Planet more than reading guides and magazines so don't have as much nostalgia for that
Sign me up for all three. They're in my blood.
The thread topic was an excerpt taken from another forum. However, nothing to worry about as I was the original poster through said other forum. There's actually more types of nostalgia. I'll add some more when I find the time.
I remember the local Game Xchange here (closed many years ago) and would frequently trade my used games in for other games. They had a multi-shelf Game Boy glass display with a button to revolve the shelves driven by a motor.
My parents would buy me a Nintendo Power Advanced when we were going on vacation, brings back awesome memories. Later on, I remember getting a free subscription through GameStop to Game Informer every year if you bought enough used games.
4. Discussion Nostalgia (the act of discussing/arguing about games, usually done in the schoolyard): The obvious point of conversation back in the early 90s were "Sega is ace", "No, Nintendo kicks more ass", "Mario is a fat plumber", "Sonic can only jump and roll", "Sonic is faster than Mario", "Says who?" etc...
I would say we all are universally attached through this Nostalgic force, if we like going onto chat forums.
5. Dressing-up/Role-Playing Nostalgia (the act of pretending you were a fantasised character): although I never really played "dress up", but I remember as a kid I would watch some cartoons or movies and pretending to be that character eg. He Man, Superman, Robocop etc.. This is the Nostalgia for mostly fans of the Comic Con, where they would play dress up of their favourite gaming/anime character.
6. Pseudo-Nostalgia (the act of remembering vaguely about past encounters with games, and then exaggerating that nostalgia). What I'm referring here are the people who has vague recollections of past retro games, and then talk about it in present day like they were a gaming addict and a know it all. These people act like this I can only guess, to mix with the retro crowd for various gains eg. building on a games collection and lying about "nostalgia" to buy cheap from casual sellers, gaining popularity amongst chat forums, attention seeking behavior etc
7. Fake Nostalgia ( the act of not knowing anything about retro games, but creating a nostalgia to others on false pretense). This would be similar to the Pseudo-Nostalgia, but main difference is that these group here have absolutely no experience with retro games, either they were born in the new millenium, or they lived in the 80's or 90's but had thought gaming were for the geeks, until the modern era where gaming is considered nowadays mainstream and they're compelled to conform to Nostalgic forces.
Arcade fighters were my main favourites eg. Golden Axe, Streetfighter 2, Final Fight. Very good times!!