[pjerem]

Except most of those games aren't "retro" because, unlike real retro games, they are mostly still updated and they work on any recent computer/console.

So for me, even for the oldest ones, they are still part of the same "era". What I mean by that is that if you buy any of the items in this list in 2026, it will not feel like it's an "old" game.

[YurgenJurgensen]

Surely that just shows how much things have stagnated. If a 2011 game and a 2026 game don’t “feel” different, where’s the innovation?

[fluoridation]

That's not what GP said, what they said is one doesn't feel _older_ than the other, not that they don't feel different at all.

That aside, is innovation (technological or otherwise) the goal of video games? If past a certain year the best games of every don't seem to be any better than any other, but just different kinds of good, to me that's not stagnation, but rather that the designers collectively figured out how fun games that are not constrained by the hardware. There's a reason, for example, that past a certain point lives systems just about went away, or autosaving nearly completely replaced manual saving.

[wizzwizz4]

Super Mario Bros works on any recent computer / console. Is it not retro?