Reliving 10 Years Old: Descriptive Insights Into Retro Gaming

ORCID

Nicholas David Bowman: 0000-0001-5594-9713

Document Type

Article

Date

3-2026

Disciplines

Communication Technology and New Media

Description/Abstract

As video games and players age, some are drawn to retro titles, operationalized here as games from the 1970s–early 2000s. This trend has sparked growing interest among researchers and the games industry in areas such as consumer behavior, nostalgia, and well-being. However, little is known about naturalistic retro gaming—who plays them, and what time periods players revisit. We analyze 1,099 players’ logged session histories on Nintendo Switch classic consoles (e.g., Nintendo Entertainment System, Nintendo 64), totaling 13,000 hr. We find that retro gaming increases with age until around 40; that people tend to revisit consoles popular when they were 5–13 years old (personal nostalgia) but that some play games predating their birth (historical nostalgia); and that there are no stable differences in well-being between those that do (not) play retro games. Retro gaming may yet have more localized or short-term implications for psychosocial health in older adults and is set to significantly impact the future of the games industry.

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submission

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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