Skykid wrote:So last night I engaged in heated and gradually more drunken videogaming debate with RupertH in a central London bar. In the light of day I can't really remember the finer points except that, once again, two incredibly like minded gamers managed to find something to disagree on (and had one too many beers to figure out a resolution.)
If I get a job in London, we should hang out
The general question looming around wrote:
So, what is retro?
A few days ago I had a discussion with a Le Coq Sportif PR in Australia, when I was buying a new bag at a local chain of import stores (called "Glue").
Basically, he told me that "retro" is usually considered anything that belongs to the father/older brother generation of a current market generation. In raw terms of years, it is (on average) the vintage of 2-3 decades past. Since stores like "Glue" sell to 18-25 australian urbanites, "retro" is a general label that applies to anything that looks 70s-80s (earlier 80s is better than later 80s, but still).
Simply put, it is the stuff your dad was wearing/listening/playing when he was in this age. Ironically, I doubt that the fathers of the said Australian kids wore Le Coq (or anything else retro), when they were late teens/twentysomething, especially when they are sons of immigrants.
The definition on wikipedia can give you an idea:
here. Game-wise, I think that the label is a bit problematic because videogames and gameplay styles changed much faster than the "standard" styles in other media. Roughly put, there were something like 3 generations of gaming when other media had just generation, e.g. '80s electronic music covered the same decade as Atari/Famicom/S-Famicom, more or less.
I wouldn't say that these kinds of definitions aim for thorough mathematical precision. Also, this generation-oriented definition tends to be orthogonal to the nature of the various media. Retro gym shoes are nevertheless gym shoes, it's just that they look like your father's gym shoes. So, if for games only graphics are relevant, then 2-D should be retro or, say, extremely basic 3D (e.g. Atari's Hard Drivin'). I don't think that retro as an all-encompassing label can be easily applied to games.
Whether it is a derogatory term or not, it's up to the individual and his oddities, I'd say. I can't see what sound and valid reason there should be in making the equation "retro/old=bad". Maybe the 4D-lizards want us to buy *only* the new and cool stuff?
"The only desire the Culture could not satisfy from within itself was one common to both the descendants of its original human stock and the machines [...]: the urge not to feel useless."
I.M. Banks, "Consider Phlebas" (1988: 43).
