Games in general are. It's just that the old games that remain in people's minds today have been filtered through time into the ones that either were good or were so bad that their awfulness was hilarious.

Same. I stick with older games because I'm priced out. But it's that and nostalgia, though I have found retro games I didn't play as a kid and enjoyed them anyway.

My laptop can’t run newer games

I tried playing the Neverwinter MMO and it lowered the graphical options automatically; when I raised them to what I felt was normal, something in my PC literally exploded.

I got a PS5 early last year and I was like oh cool, I can finally go through all the PS5 game I missed!

There was like 4.

People are also starting to realise that most of these very expensive games don't truly belong to them anymore. Up to date gaming has become more expensive than it ever has, except most of it is behind a server that can be shut down at a moment's notice. Why pay that much for a something that will be taken away? Will I be able to access my steam library if Steam goes under? When I used to buy a physical Cartrage, it was mine. If I decided I didn't like the game anymore, I could sell it.

You can't do that as often anymore. Nintendo Switch has physical copies still, but most consoles are moving to digital only, and others are locking even physical copies to a single account so that you can't resell. The new Playstation and Xbox have versions of their consoles that are digital only, and I assume Nintendo will follow eventually. And then you have the gaming companies that are trying to turn gaming into a Netflix style subscription based streaming service shudder, and if corporations want it, it will happen in time.

Rental stores aren't a thing any more either. So basically, there are less and less ways the average non-wealthy person can access games. There is a reason why little kids today are all playing free to play mobile garbage these days, because it's the only new games they can at least access without a credit card.

TLDR: Capitalism is destroying all media and art, emulation and piracy based retro gaming is the only thing preserving gaming.

Why buy a new game when you don't know if it'll be a buggy mess on launch and those old games are available to play right now.

Yeah, like, I'm so sick of (particularly singleplayer or mostly singleplayer) games releasing and then needing a dozen patches to be in something close to a "final" state. Are companies just not playtesting anymore or what? I get it if there's growing pains from not anticipating server loads, and maybe you need to do some adjustments if some very creative players find an overpowered strategy and it has to be nerfed, but there's numerous times where I see issues that are patched and just go "There's no way that you wouldn't have found this if you'd used a small amount of your massive company profits to pay for a bunch of playtesters to go try and break the game and see if the balance is about right."

I think I'm also just generally not a fan of the Early Access model of continuously releasing new updates. I understand all the reasons why they do this, but I'm very much somebody who enjoys buying a game and knowing that it is a full, complete experience which will not change and update while I'm playing it or after I'm done. Just a discrete thing I can pick up, play for a while, and then put down and be satisfied that there won't be an update or DLC in a few months that adds fishing and 10 new bosses or whatever. I can put it out of my mind and not have to track a bunch of update release dates and play another game. No FOMO, just enjoying my time off.

It doesn't help my mind to juggle caring about like a dozen games at once. Like "Okay, so this game will release in August, then there's an update to this other game in early September. Then there's the full release of this game in late September after five years of Early Access. Then this DLC comes out in mid-October, and my friends will probably want to play this with me in late October..." I could do all that with a dozen games, or I could just play an older game like Bloodborne and know exactly what I'm getting myself into with zero surprises or updates or DLCs or battlepasses or full releases or definitive editions to care about.

I'm honestly really excited to see what a socialist video gaming industry would look like. I hope it looks like relatively fewer games released per year due to no crunch time, but the games are very high-quality, have many fewer problems, don't have exploitative practices like microtransactions, have more meaningful content, etc. I also hope that copyright for many current games is cast aside so we can get True Remasters of current and old games with all the features that were ditched due to time or resource constraints. Instead of having individuals or very small teams jankily modding things into games to fix some of the features, they would be re-developed in a more official sense. Kinda like what Bluepoint did with Demon Souls, but like five times as ambitious.

m&b warband

Bannerlord

Back in the day

Witcher 3

This is bait. It worked. Slight rise in blood pressure achieved

Witcher 3 was anything but a "hidden gem", the series had a huge fan base already from the first two games. It was expected to be a gem and turned out to be one.

New games can be free

Maybe I'm just old but the Xbox 360 era is also modern gaming in my eyes