VICARIOUS NOSTALGIA? PLAYING RETROGAMES FOSTERS AN APPRECIATION FOR GAMING HISTORY

Abstract

In recent research, video games have been implicated as vehicles for feelings of nostalgia. Retrogames present a unique context in which to explore the elicitation of nostalgia, especially historical nostalgia among younger gamers who may lack first-hand experience with older games and gaming technologies. As part of a larger study investigating nostalgia and retrogames, n = 102 younger individuals wrote briefly about their thoughts and feelings after playing the game Double Dragon II, a video game representative of the “Beat ‘em Up” genre popular in the 1990s. Via a thematic analysis, we identified eight themes clustered into three groups: retrogames as unique experiences, retrogames and important others, and retrogames and the self. Players connected their feelings of nostalgia to distinctive features of retrogames and the experience of playing them, social thoughts, and recollections (mostly involving close friends and family), and their own personal identities via autobiographical memory. The present findings align with previous research on nostalgia more broadly and illustrate some unique aspects of nostalgic experiences evoked by retrogames. Our data have implications for how younger players take up and experience video game history through replaying retrogames of yesteryear, and might explain the enduring and increasing popularity of retrogames among myriad gaming cohorts. Furthermore, this research adds conceptual refinement to historical nostalgia (nostalgia for bygone eras), and introduces the notion of vicarious nostalgia as a perception of how others (such as parents and older siblings) would experience and make sense of older media content from their respective generations.