Gaming Divides Us, Nostalgia Saves Us
Gamers jump from shiny thing to shiny thing in search of the next big game that can crush the esports landscape. The reality of that matter is humans can only accept change so fast. That’s why old games like Call of Duty, Halo, and Street Fighter still hold our attention after all this time.
Looking at recent moves by Blizzard it’s hard to ignore how they are consolidating around their most profitable and powerful titles. Combine this with the growing independent game development scene and we have a perfect formula for sustained nostalgia carrying us forward.
It seems counter-intuitive that we while we say we want new and better games our collective hearts scream like little children when the news of a relaunch hits our ears.
What is wrong with us?
Nostalgia Pays Well
There is a reason why throwback NFL and NBA jerseys still sell well. We know exactly how to feel about them. We can easily ignore the last few years of Jerry Rice’s career with the Seahawks and Raiders when we buy that throwback 49ers uniform. Michael Jordan is still the greatest ever and his legend only grows each time his iconic Bulls jersey is purchased.
Ignore that Jordan actually played with the number 45 in his first comeback from retirement, and his Washington Wizards career never really happened anyway.
So it makes perfect sense that Blizzard gave Destiny 2 back to Bungie. It dropped competitive support for Heroes of the Storm. It also placated the fans with World of Warcraft and Diablo remasters instead of completely new games. Call of Duty still drives the bus for them. Even in the face of all the fallout from the Activision reorganization, the money is still there for legacy titles.
Let’s not forget Overwatch. It is gaining its legs as a truly viable pro league even in the face of growing complaints about the current meta. When you have the amount of third-party content centered around each of the main league weekends as well as the growing and fully supported Contenders scene, the passion is real and the money is, as well.
The recent announcement of a Call of Duty mobile game as well as the franchising of the CWL means the demand is there more than ever. Orgs are lining up to pay $25 million for a spot in the CWL, and further OWL expansion is expected in 2021. It’s so real that the teams are finally geo-locating in their home cities starting in 2020.
Meanwhile, when 343 Studios announced a relaunch of Halo for PC, they had to tell people to stop sending pizza to the developers. Fans were so excited for a return to their youth that the studio had to tell people to NOT spend money.
Nostalgia Reminds Us Of Our Growth
There is a reason Street Fighter has headlined every EVO since the event was first called Battle By The Bay in 1996. Along with Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter dominated the youth of nearly every major FGC star currently competing.
I’m not just talking about SF2 World Warrior. Each iteration has its story and Capcom has done well integrating new versions of previous characters into each release and patch. What each new version does is allow players to look back at how characters were updated, buffed, nerfed, and how broken the old versions were.
We look at graphics updates and remember the first console on which we played them. It’s new yet not so new that we don’t know how to feel about these changes. It’s a slow enough evolution that we can still see our collective past while wishing for more and better changes.
And therein lies the truth of it all.
We want change, but only enough change to not lose sight of our the past where we knew how to feel about everything, where we knew how to access each community, and we knew how to explain every move.
Nostalgia allows us to see which tribes to which we belong. We know how to identify friends and potential foes. We know which people we can find common ground. Whether you never got over how great Modern Warfare was or wish the SF4 version of Ryu would just come back one more time, it’s all about feeling connected to something from which we can launch our growth.
Nostalgia Is A Good Thing
I come not to destroy the past. I’m not here to chastise all of you for clinging to your younger years when everything felt simpler even though it wasn’t. I’m here to confirm your truth and stand with you as we make gaming better.
History is a great teacher should we heed its lessons. It’s perfectly ok to hate the old version of Halo:ODST. Let’s all pray that 343 uses current technology to make this version better. It’s well within your rights as a veteran gamer to look at the current generation and laugh when they don’t get it.
Just make sure you stand with them as we make this thing better. Mistakes were made and will continue to be made sometimes on an epic scale. That’s ok because things were better back in the day. We will make them better now.
Bill Wagner is the Chief Relationship Officer for Esports Labs. You can follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
