Retro Revive: Why are young people buying retro games?
The past couple of years have seen a surge in retro games, but not in prices. Many are not buying the most recent games and instead are picking up these 90s classics for less than a Tesco’s sandwich!
The main generation that this is happening in is Gen Z, who now have started to have more of an appetite towards the older games. The main reason is money; the cost of living has surged and alongside this so have the RAM prices due to AI companies buying vast quantities of RAM. This makes modern consoles, and therefore games, super expensive. Comparing the most modern Mariokart to the oldest (assuming you don’t have the console) is £500 to about £150. Assuming you do it’s £50 to £15.
Source: CeX
With the recent price hikes of major companies like Nintendo™, who’s new Nintendo Switch 2 has the incredible price of £434.99 for the console alone, and another £54.99 if you want to buy World, for a total price of almost £500.00! This, obviously being outside of budget, making the 20-year-old generation who have just started to pay off their student loan – they don’t want to pay £500 for a video game!
The reason for the lower price of older games is simple. The collectability of the video games is high, but the rarity is low. Hours of gameplay can be found in 90s classics like goldeneye, or even slightly more modern classics like half-life 2. The lower price of old games is also connected by the accessibility of them. Just the other day I purchased “Assassin’s creed revelations” and “AC1” for £2 in a charity shop. Combined they were roughly £150 at launch at E3. (to put that into perspective, the most modern is £70). As the old hardware was, unsurprisingly, old, the requirements to play them were much lower – so you can play them on a smartphone, for free!
Nostalgia is another big reason why people are going back to 2000s and 2010s games – the millennials and the Gen Zs want to come back to games which they played with their parents and play them with their children to bring back memories of their own childhood. The main games that have taken to the younger years are games like goldeneye, Mario kart and DOOM, and people are starting to come back to Mario Kart Super Circuit, Manic Miner and 3d Mario games.
Reported by Henry C and Shay N
