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Reuters.com: In Video Games, Everything Old Is New Again

Sun May 23, 2004 09:52 AM ET

By Ben Berkowitz

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hold on to something long enough, the theory goes — a car, a tie or even a hairstyle — and eventually it will be cool again.

And so it goes with video games, where today’s fans can’t get enough of games that were popular when their parents were kids, and quarter-a-game arcade machines now sell for thousands of dollars each.

In a nod to the nostalgia boom for classic video games, the Electronic Entertainment Expo — E3 — the industry’s major trade show, a forum devoted to hyping the latest in game technology, last week also organized a tribute to old-school pixilated fun.

Featuring classic arcade cabinets like “Ms. Pac-Man,” “Popeye,” “Donkey Kong,” “Punch-Out” and “Space Age,” and well-loved home consoles like the Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis and 3DO, this year’s expo drew fans nostalgic for the days when playing a game meant little more than mashing one or two buttons over and over again.

“These games are designed to be addictive,” said Keith Robinson, president of Intellivision Productions, lamenting the fact that modern games are designed more for sneaking around dark corners and exploring vast mostly fictitious lands than the simple fun of trying to rack up high scores.

Robinson, one of the original programers for the 1980s’ Intellivision game system, is one of the “Blue Sky Rangers,” a tight-knit group of former Intellivision programers who continue to work together on various projects.

WHAT’S OLD IS NEW AGAIN

In fact, even as the modern games industry gets bigger and bigger, classic gaming is very much in vogue.

Collections of throwback arcade games are available for consoles, handhelds, personal digital assistants and cell phones, and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has announced it will launch an arcade featuring some classics such as the race favorite “Pole Position” on its Xbox Live online gaming service later this year.

One of the organizers of the Los Angeles Classic Gaming Expo, Joe Santulli, said the adults who own and play today’s games grew up playing the kinds of games he has on display.

“There’s the memories,” he said. “Naturally, a childhood should bring happy thoughts of a simpler time.”

And while new versions of old games are popular sellers, the originals are worth more money than some ever imagined.

At the E3 event, the organizers offered a flyer from a southern California shop selling pinball machines, redemption games and arcade cabinets from about $400 to nearly $7,000.

On eBay, a brisk business in old consoles has some systems, bundled with games and accessories, selling for well over $300, some of them even in various stages of disrepair.

PSSST, WANT TO BUY A VIDEO GAME?

Commercially, games have come a long way from the early 1980s, when game developers, like early underground hip-hop DJs, resorted to selling their wares out of the trunks of their cars, often packaged in plastic baggies.

“We didn’t have advertising — you found these things in a Laundromat,” said George Sanger, a legend in video game history for his work on game audio whose nickname “Fat Man” belies his slight frame.

“We started in Mom’s basement,” Sanger said. “We had nothing to work with but two bits and a six-pack of Jolt.”

But he said some of the creativity has been lost in modern games, vast and expensive undertakings that involve dozens of people that can make or break entire companies.

“It’s impossible to do art under those conditions,” Sanger said.

Though the Atari system and others like it are long gone, the names remain, and the head of the company that now carries the Atari name (ATAR.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said the old games are an irresistible draw for some people, much like the child’s sled that is the object of a media mogul’s yearning in the film classic “Citizen Kane.”

“It’s like ‘Rosebud,”‘ Bruno Bonnell, Atari’s chief executive, said.

Ahhhh… the power of nostalgia is such that it induces cryptamnesia. Jolt was not introduced until 1986, sir.