GAMING NOSTALGIA MEMES FULL

That being said, convincing a massive audience to pay for more in-game content is not usually an easy feat. The Mario Bros franchise itself being used for nostalgia shouldn’t come as a surprise in the slightest. As a franchise, Mario Kart has managed to hold legendary status over multigenerational childhoods. However, there’s no denying the clever play on nostalgia the gaming company is using here.Īside from Wii sports reboots, nostalgia gaming shows itself in another area of the recent Nintendo Direct in their Mario Kart expansions. Nintendo has created some of gaming’s most iconic titles, which regardless of the iterations will always elicit a degree of excitement, and the Wii Sports franchise is one that deserves the love it receives. We are all united by our familiar experiences, and gaming brands have realised that when they return to the games of our childhood, they don’t have to win us over with clever marketing, but rather just appeal to our inner child. While you might be in the small group who hasn’t played Wii Sports, there’s a high chance you’ve seen the Matt memes (about a particularly adept Wii sports non-playable character) circulating the internet for a few years now. Through meme culture and social media, we revitalise game titles in popular culture by returning to them and bringing them to the front of public discussion years after their release. Nostalgia allows us to simply remember the best instances of our experience, ignoring how frustrating aspects of the (now outdated) Wii could sometimes be.Īnother element that keeps Wii sports alive in our memory, one completely outside of the marketing strategy of Nintendo, is meme culture. Firstly, the games were good, very good in some cases, but many of the quality games came from later additions to the franchise such as Wii Sports Resort. While Nintendo has played its part in keeping the game alive, Wii sports has stood the test of time for a couple of reasons. This ode to the 2000’s kids’ childhood highlights this long-lasting love for the game, regardless of how awkward the Wii game system may feel now in 2022.

GAMING NOSTALGIA MEMES FULL

Nintendo Switch Sports, to be released on April 29, will feature classics such as bowling and tennis, while also introducing games such as football that truly use the full capabilities of the joy-con controller pair. Wii Sports and all its reiterations have managed to stay popular and relevant in pop culture and collective nostalgia. The recent Nintendo Direct, Nintendo’s informational presentation on upcoming games and developments, highlighted the use of nostalgia as an unspoken buzzword in game advertisements.įor example, one of the standout titles of this year’s Nintendo Direct was without a doubt the reworking of Wii Sports for their Switch console. Sometimes this includes playing on what we know, the dependable and the nostalgic. Regardless of the industry, brands must always be rethinking and reworking their marketing strategies to turn the best possible profit. “One of the standout titles of this year’s Nintendo Direct was without a doubt the reworking of Wii Sports for their Switch console.” These brands are returning to older titles to rework them for newer game systems, or simply reusing the title in never-ending franchises. Nostalgia gaming has become a point of interest for a variety of gaming companies, most predominantly Nintendo. Our childhood games hold a special place for us, and it should come as no surprise that game companies are recognising and feeding into this.

Ask someone what their favourite game is and more often than not the reply is “I love XYZ but I’ve always loved ABC”. The games we played as children create clear markers in our childhood memories and experiences. There is a reason that nostalgia can be incredibly impactful for those of us who grew up gaming. Gaming nostalgia is a powerful experience, as video games are designed specifically to elicit emotion, to spark the part of your brain that gives you satisfaction.

Over a decade on, Nintendo is now in quite a unique position of being a source of real childhood nostalgia for a large chunk of consumers, and they are capitalising on that. We whiled away the hours happily, glued to the likes of Nintendogs, Super Mario Bros, and Pokémon. The advent of the Nintendo DS in 2004 and Wii consoles in 2006 brought gaming to a younger audience than ever before. We grew up in somewhat of a golden age of childhood videogames.

Gaming nostalgia memes