We should have a Retro Gaming forum in the index

[AlfredoTurkey]

super_etecoon said:

AlfredoTurkey said:

When I first thought of the idea of a retro forum, the dilemma of classification occurred to me as well. I mean, at first impulse, the word 'retro' conjures up memories of anything from Pong to Genesis etc. But then, when I thought it again, I realized that for me what makes something feel retro isn't the 'bits' but rather the way the game plays. When we think about Atari 2600, aside from the bits or graphics, what do we think? I think simplicity. It's plug and play at its finest. The ability to buy one piece of hardware that is going to be stagnant for its life cycle, buying 100% complete games at retail, no DLC, no patches because they're fully tested before shipping... to ME, that's retro gaming. It's plug and play. And anything that's going to fit into that mold, fits into retro for me. 

So, having said that, I see no issue with going all the way up to DC/PS2 era. But I could also see it being pushed back to PS1/Saturn/N64 as well because that really is the last time we had consoles (for the most part) were isolated from the internet. 

Either way, it would be nice to have a dedicated forum to the plug and play era of gaming.

So many modern games, particularly on the Nintendo front, are plug/play.  In some ways, the Switch is even easier than the NES to hook up and play.  I get where you're coming from, but I don't think that distinction is distinctive enough.  I suppose you could use what the automobile industry does and go by a particular number of years.  So any games over 20 years old could be considered retro. At any rate, best of luck with making this happen. Lately the entire site seems like it needs some action.  Maybe just a proactive approach on your part at creating official Retro threads might be a good place to start.

Let's see what's involved to buy a Switch, a copy of Zelda BOTW and then actually start playing it. First, you gotta hook it up, then you have to download a system update, then you have to download the game update... that's not plug and play. 

Plug and play refers to the time when you bought a console, plugged it up, popped a game in and BAM... you were playing it. Hence why it's called the plug and play era. No installing the game. No downloading half the game to a hard drive. No forced system or game updates etc. These days, if you want to buy a game as a gift for your kid, you have to open it and install the thing before he's awake or else you're basically committing child abuse lol.