Is Nostalgia Just Stubbornness?

[OdinHades]

Cobretti2 said:

I don't think it is stubbornness but rather how we as a society have evolved and also because we are now adults .

When you are young you are more impressionable as you are experiencing something for the first time and those memories burnt a lasting impression.

When you are an adult and you have your own disposable income, your way of thinking changes, and time becomes precious and by that stage have played many games if something doesn't impress you straight up like it did in the past as a child you dismiss it as there is so many more options out there now to get your gaming fix.

Personally I think the age of information all though it is a great resource, rather than just enjoying things in life (games, movies, collectables, sport or whatever it may be), we over analyse everything about it and try to pick faults with it. through arguments with others online. Did we do that as a kid? not so much as our minds were innocent and were just happy to have a new game to play. Social media/smartphones has shortened our attention spans also. so if you can't get a buzz from something in the first hour you probably will think the rest of he game is crap.

As most of us here are now adults and have our own disposable income, as the old saying goes money does not buy you happiness. Does it make life easier? sure, but when things become the norm (i.e. multiple new games purchased each week) vs when you were a kid maybe one every few months as you had to save up your pocket money to buy the game the special feeling that you got from it also isn't the same as you have more of it lol.

To end my post, this is what stubbornness is. When I was a young lad and the first time I installed itunes on my PC and it killed it for some reason with a blue screen of death that required me to reinstall windows, is the day I decided to never buy an apple product or install any of their software. Now I am sure it was just a bad coincidence of why it happened, but because it happened I am now too stubborn to even entertain the idea of giving an apple product a try ever again in my life lol.

This is one of the best posts I have seen around here. It describes exactly how I fell about video games nowadays. I have plenty of money, I bought the Steam Deck just for the lulz. I buy games that I barely play afterwards, but what I don't have anymore is time. Every now and then I manage to get myself 1-2 hours for playing some games. And I always try very hard to get the most out of it. So I begin to really think about what to play. And in the end I'm almost always frustrated. 

Back in the day I had to save up money for months just to get a new game. I always wanted to get a dreamcast but couldn't afford it. For the longest time in my youth, I played only on Nintendo consoles as that was that my older brother had. There was no chance in hell that I could ever afford my own console. But reading your post I realize that I still had way more fun than today and just now I begin to understand that it won't ever be that way again. Not only do I lack the time to really enjoy new games. My friends also don't share my passion for video games anymore, most have moved on to other hobbies or they just gave up all their hobbies altogether because family and work and stuff, lol.

Because of that, gaming also feels a lot more isolated and less social for me, as I never got into all that online gaming stuff. For me the best times always were with me and my buddies chilling on the sofa, playing single player games with one person playing and the others just watching and giving silly comments and stuff.

In the last months I more and more understood that those times will never come back, which makes me a little sad. But whatever, times are changing, ain't nothing you can do about it. So I just look forward to find other hobbies that I can enjoy in the future. I won't give up on gaming, but I also don't try so hard anymore to find new games that I can enjoy and follow new releases and all that. I kinda just stick to the stuff I like, playing old SNES or GBA games when I get the chance and just enjoy the little time I still have with the medium.

So I kinda mutated into a retro gamer, but I wouldn't say because of nostalgia. I know very well that there are countless great games today, I just don't have the time or the energy to get into them anymore.