My Ideas for a Potential Future for Retro Gaming
Image via FantasyAnime.com
Retro gaming continues to grow as a hobby. Tons of gamers want to revisit classic titles. The problem is that so many of these games are just inaccessible. The games aren't made anymore which means you have to pay crazy prices for a game, pray that it gets a remaster, or use emulation to pirate. I think it goes without saying that the last option is incredibly popular with people. The catch is that pirating is illegal and technically you do run the risk of getting into legal trouble. I want to talk about some thoughts I've had regarding the future of retro gaming.
First, retro gaming is incredibly important. It helps serve as a form of art preservation. Fans of any art form often talk about older works like the Mona Lisa, Citizen Kane, The Beatles, and anything by William Shakespeare. These older works help influence newer works of art. We don't make it so that you can't experience any of these things after a couple years unless you use illegal means, so why should gaming be any different? I can go out and buy a copy of Romeo & Juliet by Shakespeare for about $5-10, but it costs $80+ for Super Mario RPG and that’s a lot less than other games out there.
My proposition to help preserve this art form comes by way of emulation. Phil Spencer of Xbox talked just over a month ago (via: IGN) about how important emulation is and I think it's very key to preserving retro games. I think we all could agree that the best thing is to make all old games legally available for free to emulate. Unfortunately, I don't think that is going to happen. Something I think could and should happen is first creating some kind of archive and library for gaming. Then, games would be entered into the archive upon release. Games would be available to access digitally through the library after a certain period of time has elapsed with a few exceptions. Exception 1 would be if the game is still available to purchase from the publisher through physical (in New condition) and/or digital storefronts like the eShop or Steam. This would also include remasters, but not remakes. Exception 2 would be if the game is available through another manner such as Nintendo Switch Online.
In theory, this would lead to greater access to games because people can access them through the library or companies would have to continually make the game available through some form. I will admit this is not a perfect solution though as it could incentivize even more pointless remasters and re-releases.
Another aspect of preservation I want to discuss is physical media. Digital games have their place in the world. They're extremely convenient and for some, it's a must. Physical media also has a place though. Being able to play these classic games on the original hardware is the dream for many, but once again means paying a ton of money for classic games and either mods to use the old hardware with new TVs or to still have an old CRT television and room for said TV. I would love it if with this library feature there could be a way that you could pay a premium in order to get a physical version of the game you wanted. The premium would ideally be under $20. In my fantasy world, someone will also create a thinner CRT television with a ton of inputs for retro gaming and possibly even an output for streaming that could output the same image as on the TV.
I know that all of this is just a pipe dream. I also know that many of you are already in the comments telling me all the problems with my ideas. These ideas are not perfect and are more of discussion points to important discussions that I think the gaming community needs to have. Are we really going to resign ourselves to either exorbitant prices or illegal means in order to enjoy classic pieces of art? What are your thoughts for the future of retro gaming and how can we make it more accessible?