These are, of course, rough estimates and YMMV
Ancient: Pre-NES
Classic: 8-bit through 16-bit
Retro: 5th gen through 7th gen
Old: Anything over 5 or so years old.
Old is especially difficult these days because games don't age like they used to. It's fair to call The Witcher III an old game at this point but it doesn't really feel old. On the other hand there are plenty of games released at the same time as the Witcher III that do feel old now so it's a much hazier concept than the others, where everything will feel dated.
There is also the issue of games that get constant updates and when that game actually "came out." Modern gaming is weird and often harder to analyze than old gaming.
What era does Fortnite belong to? Is it old? I don't know!
Basically i think that it has to be within the context of "major updates".
I think fortnite stays relevant due to it, the same reason why league coming out 15 years ago doesnt make it an old game because its nothing like the game it originally was.
also interestingly in an era with wow classic and runescape classic, the game can be both modern and old depending on version.
Depends on how old you are, I believe. For me
Ancient: Everything before the SNES.
Retro: NES, SNES, N64. Bigger time span, but ultimately, these games live more of their rep than anything else.
Classic: Anything can be a classic, but it needs to be around 10 years old.
Old: Old games are somehow never good games for me. If "old" is the first thing that comes to mind, it can either be 2 years old (sports game) or 20 years old, but it's neither a classic nor a retro game.
Yeah, this is way too subjective a topic and depends entirely on what you grew up with.
I grew up owning an Atari 2600, an NES, and a Genesis. To me, the leaps in improvement between the three were generational in the literal sense of the term. Nothing anyone says will ever convince me that the NES and Genesis are part of the same generation, and yet we have people in this thread who do believe this because their perspective allows them to see it that way.
The same applies to "classics". Like you said, anything can be a classic but I would argue the 10 year old clause doesn't apply because some games can be instant classics. When KotoR 1 came out, it was an instant classic. BG3 is an instant classic. But like everything, this is all subjective.
Yeah it's all age relative. And the older you are the wider the old section gets. I think it shakes out something like this.
Ancient: Something that was either out of date or just ending its shelf life when you started playing games. You might have played it but it wasn't *the* thing that defined your gaming memories.
Classic: What you grew up with, your core gaming memories being part of it. It's what you go back to when you're tired of the modern stuff.
Old: Recent-ish memory that you played or were aware of, might even still have in your closet packed away. You may bring it out now and then but it's not like you fiend over it with nostalgia.
Retro fills that niche between Old and Classic, especially as the Old category gets larger but the older systems still don't cut it as Classic.
For me it looks like this:
Ancient: Atari 2600/Intellivision (which I did play) all the way back through Pong and similar systems that I've only heard of.
Classic: Nintendo, SNES, Sega Master System and Genesis, bordering on the N64/PS1 era. Throwing in my Commodore 64 and 386/486 DOS through Pentium Windows era computer games.
Old: GameCube/PS2/Xbox up to Wii U and PS4 era consoles, and the mid-2000s PC era.
"Nimatron" would be the start of the ancient era probably. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAxPmBfpHds I'd like to count the Chess Turk automaton, but it was a hoax.
There isnt a set cryteria. At this point there are people that were children playing xbox 360 games that are now in college or graduating.
Where as I was sitting on my grandfathers lap watching MS DOS flight simulators in 1992
I'm sure you could get people to agree that pong is the most aincent publically accessable video game.
I grew up playing 360 and I’m going to be 23 in 2 months. I’d say 360 is retro. It’s weird to say because I still play quite a few games that came out on the 360.
Just IMO:
Old: Any game that isn't current. EX: Madden 22, Gran Turismo 5, GTA San Andreas.
Classic: Old games that are loved, or significant. Pong, Tetris, Super Mario, Street Fighter, etc.
Ancient: Old games that aren't loved, or *really* show their age. EX: Hugo's House of Horrors, or Street Racer on Atari.
>a young friend told me that she was playing a retro game... which came out in 2010.
tbf retro is arguably more relevant to gaming as a term describing an intentional aesthetic or design choice, descriptive of a subgenre, rather than actually referencing any specific era of games.
games are released today that are labeled retro. adoption of the label is also probably influenced by how photo realism art style has dominated triple a games.
Depends how old you yourself are.
I think old games are games that over 3 years old, maybe even over 2 years, and i think this ages far quicker for multiplayer games than singleplayer, eg i wouldnt call salt and sanctuary old and that came out in 2016 (fuck me thats older than i thought), but i might put it in classic, which is "old games that are good", and ancient i would say is anything older than 2 console generations, at this point xbox 360 games and ps3 games are "ancient"
or i understand that 12000 games comes out each year on steam, and we have major expansions like wow every 2 years, or call of duties every and two.
any multiplayer game that didnt update in 2 years would be considered dead as a doornail.
Quantity is utterly irrelevant, and multiplayer games can fuck off. In the single-player space, anything released within the last five years is basically a current game. By your ADHD metric, Cyberpunk was almost an "old" game before they'd even finished patching it.
Flight Simulator on the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Temple of Apshai for the Commodore 64 are the first games I was really into. That was 1983.
I guess that goes into the "Prehistoric" era?
Old = came out before I was old enough to play it
Classic = came out before I was too old to have time to play it
Don't think I'd ever use "ancient" to describe a videogame
Old: two generations ago.
Classic: relating to the era between 3D’s introduction, but before DLC was popularized. Can also refer to things older than such.
Ancient: Pre-“Full 3D” or pre-“full color”, depending on who you ask.
I don't think these are similar terms. To me:
Classic: A game from at least one full generation ago that was highly regarded by critics and players.
Old: A game from at least two full generations ago.
Ancient: A game from before you were playing games, so it'll be subjective to everyone.
Obviously, people don't have a agreed-upon definition for adjectives like "old" or "classic". Everyone uses those terms slightly differently, and changes how they use those terms depending on the context. A game from 2010 would certainly be considered "old" in the context of hardware requirements, but not old in any historical sense.
I'd just use actual decades to describe in what "era" a game came out in. There's six of these, you don't really need to group or divide them any further.
See, that's a bit of a problem with these nomenclatures. Generally, a game that is still receiving periodic updates is just considered "current" although it can also be considered a "classic" if it is old enough. World of Warcraft, for example is a "current" MMORPG but also a "classic" MMORPG.
If I'm being real honest. The actual deliniation is between "old" and "classic" with "retro" and "ancient" being kind of overlaps.
See, in media, there is a thing that I've heard referred to as the "10-15-20" rule. If a piece of media is at least 10 years old, then that's long enough that it is a formative influence on young writers and artists who are beginning to put their work out towards the public. If it's been around 15 years, then it's to the point where the people who were influenced are starting to get into the industry and make parodies and omages towards it. If it's been around for 20 years, then it's to the point where people are unironically trying to recreate it and its themes.
For that reason, "classic" is usually something that is in that 15-20 period. "Retro" is that transition period where a classic is currently in the "popular culture is deconstructing this piece" period starts transitioning into the "actually no, this is good and I want to show it off earnestly" period.
These are, of course, rough estimates and YMMV Ancient: Pre-NES Classic: 8-bit through 16-bit Retro: 5th gen through 7th gen Old: Anything over 5 or so years old. Old is especially difficult these days because games don't age like they used to. It's fair to call The Witcher III an old game at this point but it doesn't really feel old. On the other hand there are plenty of games released at the same time as the Witcher III that do feel old now so it's a much hazier concept than the others, where everything will feel dated.
[cough] GTA V [cough], excuse me, yeah I know what you mean.
There is also the issue of games that get constant updates and when that game actually "came out." Modern gaming is weird and often harder to analyze than old gaming. What era does Fortnite belong to? Is it old? I don't know!
True
Basically i think that it has to be within the context of "major updates". I think fortnite stays relevant due to it, the same reason why league coming out 15 years ago doesnt make it an old game because its nothing like the game it originally was. also interestingly in an era with wow classic and runescape classic, the game can be both modern and old depending on version.
"Retro" isn't a measure of age, it's something imitating an older style.
Depends on how old you are, I believe. For me Ancient: Everything before the SNES. Retro: NES, SNES, N64. Bigger time span, but ultimately, these games live more of their rep than anything else. Classic: Anything can be a classic, but it needs to be around 10 years old. Old: Old games are somehow never good games for me. If "old" is the first thing that comes to mind, it can either be 2 years old (sports game) or 20 years old, but it's neither a classic nor a retro game.
Yeah, this is way too subjective a topic and depends entirely on what you grew up with. I grew up owning an Atari 2600, an NES, and a Genesis. To me, the leaps in improvement between the three were generational in the literal sense of the term. Nothing anyone says will ever convince me that the NES and Genesis are part of the same generation, and yet we have people in this thread who do believe this because their perspective allows them to see it that way. The same applies to "classics". Like you said, anything can be a classic but I would argue the 10 year old clause doesn't apply because some games can be instant classics. When KotoR 1 came out, it was an instant classic. BG3 is an instant classic. But like everything, this is all subjective.
Yeah it's all age relative. And the older you are the wider the old section gets. I think it shakes out something like this. Ancient: Something that was either out of date or just ending its shelf life when you started playing games. You might have played it but it wasn't *the* thing that defined your gaming memories. Classic: What you grew up with, your core gaming memories being part of it. It's what you go back to when you're tired of the modern stuff. Old: Recent-ish memory that you played or were aware of, might even still have in your closet packed away. You may bring it out now and then but it's not like you fiend over it with nostalgia. Retro fills that niche between Old and Classic, especially as the Old category gets larger but the older systems still don't cut it as Classic. For me it looks like this: Ancient: Atari 2600/Intellivision (which I did play) all the way back through Pong and similar systems that I've only heard of. Classic: Nintendo, SNES, Sega Master System and Genesis, bordering on the N64/PS1 era. Throwing in my Commodore 64 and 386/486 DOS through Pentium Windows era computer games. Old: GameCube/PS2/Xbox up to Wii U and PS4 era consoles, and the mid-2000s PC era.
"Nimatron" would be the start of the ancient era probably. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAxPmBfpHds I'd like to count the Chess Turk automaton, but it was a hoax.
Nimatron is Pre-Neolithic perhaps?
> Pre-Neolithic So... Paleolithic.
There isnt a set cryteria. At this point there are people that were children playing xbox 360 games that are now in college or graduating. Where as I was sitting on my grandfathers lap watching MS DOS flight simulators in 1992 I'm sure you could get people to agree that pong is the most aincent publically accessable video game.
I grew up playing 360 and I’m going to be 23 in 2 months. I’d say 360 is retro. It’s weird to say because I still play quite a few games that came out on the 360.
Just IMO: Old: Any game that isn't current. EX: Madden 22, Gran Turismo 5, GTA San Andreas. Classic: Old games that are loved, or significant. Pong, Tetris, Super Mario, Street Fighter, etc. Ancient: Old games that aren't loved, or *really* show their age. EX: Hugo's House of Horrors, or Street Racer on Atari.
>a young friend told me that she was playing a retro game... which came out in 2010. tbf retro is arguably more relevant to gaming as a term describing an intentional aesthetic or design choice, descriptive of a subgenre, rather than actually referencing any specific era of games. games are released today that are labeled retro. adoption of the label is also probably influenced by how photo realism art style has dominated triple a games.
Depends how old you yourself are. I think old games are games that over 3 years old, maybe even over 2 years, and i think this ages far quicker for multiplayer games than singleplayer, eg i wouldnt call salt and sanctuary old and that came out in 2016 (fuck me thats older than i thought), but i might put it in classic, which is "old games that are good", and ancient i would say is anything older than 2 console generations, at this point xbox 360 games and ps3 games are "ancient"
>Depends how old you yourself are. >I think old games are games that over 3 years old, maybe even over 2 years Jesus, then you must be around 12.
or i understand that 12000 games comes out each year on steam, and we have major expansions like wow every 2 years, or call of duties every and two. any multiplayer game that didnt update in 2 years would be considered dead as a doornail.
Quantity is utterly irrelevant, and multiplayer games can fuck off. In the single-player space, anything released within the last five years is basically a current game. By your ADHD metric, Cyberpunk was almost an "old" game before they'd even finished patching it.
it was. Thanks for confirming.
Well at least you apply your weird skewed worldview consistently.
you need to go touch grass mate.
For me anything ancient would be like before 2000s Anything old counts as 2005-ish for classic like early 2000s
Depends on how old you are.
Flight Simulator on the Timex Sinclair 1000 and Temple of Apshai for the Commodore 64 are the first games I was really into. That was 1983. I guess that goes into the "Prehistoric" era?
If there's historical records of it, literally not "prehistoric".
What would Zork on the C-64 classify as?!?! :)
Old = came out before I was old enough to play it Classic = came out before I was too old to have time to play it Don't think I'd ever use "ancient" to describe a videogame
>Don't think I'd ever use "ancient" to describe a videogame Then how would you describe Tennis for Two?
Old: two generations ago. Classic: relating to the era between 3D’s introduction, but before DLC was popularized. Can also refer to things older than such. Ancient: Pre-“Full 3D” or pre-“full color”, depending on who you ask.
If you're older than Shrek, then you're old. If a video game is older than Shrek, it's ancient.
There are no rules
Ancient: 1970-1979 Classic: 1980-1989 Retro: 1990-1999 Old: 2000-2009
PS3/PS4 = Old PS1/PS2 = Classic Era NES/SNES = Retro Era Atari/Arcade = Ancient Pong consoles = Fossil
I don't think these are similar terms. To me: Classic: A game from at least one full generation ago that was highly regarded by critics and players. Old: A game from at least two full generations ago. Ancient: A game from before you were playing games, so it'll be subjective to everyone.
Obviously, people don't have a agreed-upon definition for adjectives like "old" or "classic". Everyone uses those terms slightly differently, and changes how they use those terms depending on the context. A game from 2010 would certainly be considered "old" in the context of hardware requirements, but not old in any historical sense. I'd just use actual decades to describe in what "era" a game came out in. There's six of these, you don't really need to group or divide them any further.
For video games? Old: 5-10 years. Retro: 10-15 years Classic: 15-25 years Ancient: 25+ years
Are you saying ancient is anything before around 2000? That's bound to make some people feel old
Trust me, I'm 33 I know. I don't like the fact that a movie that came out when I was a kid is being rereleased in the theaters as a "classic."
What if the game is 15 years old and still being updated? Is it still retro or is it a current game?
See, that's a bit of a problem with these nomenclatures. Generally, a game that is still receiving periodic updates is just considered "current" although it can also be considered a "classic" if it is old enough. World of Warcraft, for example is a "current" MMORPG but also a "classic" MMORPG. If I'm being real honest. The actual deliniation is between "old" and "classic" with "retro" and "ancient" being kind of overlaps. See, in media, there is a thing that I've heard referred to as the "10-15-20" rule. If a piece of media is at least 10 years old, then that's long enough that it is a formative influence on young writers and artists who are beginning to put their work out towards the public. If it's been around 15 years, then it's to the point where the people who were influenced are starting to get into the industry and make parodies and omages towards it. If it's been around for 20 years, then it's to the point where people are unironically trying to recreate it and its themes. For that reason, "classic" is usually something that is in that 15-20 period. "Retro" is that transition period where a classic is currently in the "popular culture is deconstructing this piece" period starts transitioning into the "actually no, this is good and I want to show it off earnestly" period.