Conversation

I was recently watching an Adam Conover video where he argues—quite successfully, I would say—that our perception of time often depends on how we use language.

For example, during the ’80s and ’90s, we tended to segment time into decades. You were living in the ’80s. You were living in the ’90s. And when you were living in the ’90s, it was clear and present that the ’90s were quite different from the ’80s.

Ever since the new millennium started, our language has shifted simply because we didn’t have a word to describe the 2000s apart from saying “the 2000s,” which doesn’t roll off the tongue as nicely as “the ’90s.” We don’t refer to the 2010s as “the tens”; we call them “the twenty-tens.” And right now, we don’t even call our current decade “the twenties.” When you think about “the twenties,” you don’t think about the 2020s—you think about the 1920s.

For this reason, when you look at media made from the 2000s to now, it all seems like one giant era. And I’ve been wondering—okay, this might sound strange, but it’s very, very true—I’ve been wondering when I’m allowed to feel nostalgic about the things I want to feel nostalgic about.

In the ’90s, it was okay to feel nostalgic about things from the ’80s. In the ’80s, it was okay to feel nostalgic about things from the ’70s. Adam Conover even mentions how we had nostalgia for the ’80s during the ’90s. Take The Wedding Singer, for example—that movie came out in 1998 but was set in 1985, a 13-year gap. And yet, people were okay with joking about the wild ’80s fashion, music, and culture.

So, it’s 2025 right now. Do we feel nostalgic about things made in 2012? In some ways, I kind of wish we did. The world was very different in 2012, yet it doesn’t feel that way because, again, how we segment time affects how we perceive time. This is a linguistic trick—but a trick that changes our perspective.

Video Games and Generational Shifts

This got me thinking about video games because I play them quite a bit. Looking back, when video games were made between the ’80s and the 2000s, they were segmented into specific generations.

The 8-bit Era

The 8-bit generation included the NES, Master System, and Atari 7800. It had a distinct look and sound, with specific games defining the era:

The Legend of Zelda
Super Mario Bros.
OutRun
Alex Kidd (if you were a Master System owner)

The 16-bit Era

Sprites became more colorful and detailed, and the era had a distinct 16-bit style. Parallax scrolling was a big thing. Some defining games:

Sonic the Hedgehog
Super Mario World
F-Zero
Star Fox

The 32-bit Era

This era introduced polygons as the dominant visual style. Some key games:

Final Fantasy VII
Crash Bandicoot
Super Mario 64
Virtua Fighter Remix

Post-32-bit and the End of Bit-Based Generations

Starting from the PlayStation 2 onward, we stopped segmenting console generations by bits. There was no longer a shorthand to describe them. Even though games have changed substantially from the PS2 to now, it doesn’t feel that different linguistically because we lack a way to describe these shifts.

PC Gaming: A Fuzzier History

PC gaming followed a similar path but was even less defined by clear generational markers.

The 8-bit PC Era

This included:

ZX Spectrum
Commodore 64
Atari 8-bit family
Apple II

These systems had a distinct look—anyone can picture their command-line prompts and classic games like Ultima, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and Lode Runner.

The 16-bit PC Era

This era included:

68K Macs
Commodore Amiga
Atari ST
DOS (which, while not tied to bits, is often associated with this period)

Some defining games:

Commander Keen
Flashback
Prince of Persia (even though it originated on the Apple II, it became a defining game of the 16-bit era)

The 32-bit PC Era and Beyond

The 32-bit era for PC gaming was long, but when the 64-bit era arrived, there was little fanfare. The transition started with AMD chips, but the real focus quickly became multi-core CPUs. Unlike consoles, PC gaming lacked clear generational shifts, making it even harder to categorize changes.

For example, what games require a dual-core CPU but not a quad-core CPU? It’s hard to say. Unlike consoles, which have clear hardware generations, PC gaming evolved continuously, making it feel like one long, ongoing era.

Even with major operating system shifts—such as from Windows ME to XP—there’s no clear generational cutoff. Windows XP and Windows 11 feel like part of the same broad era, even though they are vastly different. The same applies to Mac OS: ever since Classic Mac OS ended with version 9, everything since has been branded as OS X/macOS, making it feel like one continuous period despite major architectural shifts (PowerPC to Intel to ARM).

The Problem with Modern Nostalgia

All the time, I hear people say, “Not much has changed since the early 2000s.” But as someone who has played video games consistently, I can confidently say there’s a world of difference.

Take World of Warcraft vs. Path of Exile 2—huge differences in gameplay, graphics, and design philosophy. Or compare Halo: Combat Evolved to DOOM Eternal—massive advancements in every aspect of game development.

Yet, we don’t think about it this way because, ever since the 2000s, everything kind of bleeds together.

And this is why I think it’s a big deal. As time goes on, more and more PC games are released every year. Time keeps marching on, and I want to talk about games from the past 25 years—not necessarily new releases, but older games that deserve retrospectives.

Yet, it feels like I don’t have “permission” to be nostalgic about them because, linguistically, everyone treats them as part of the same broad era of gaming.

Games That Deserve a Nostalgic Lens

I’m looking at my PC library right now—thousands of games. Here are some I bought in 2015 (10 years ago!):

Geometry Wars
Trine
Gorky 17
Hard Reset
Shadowgrounds
Hotline Miami (can you believe this came out over a decade ago?)
Psychonauts (wow, that one’s even older!)
Aquanox (came out at the turn of the millennium)
Serious Sam 2
Blade Kitten
Advent Rising (a game with a crazy story—it was supposed to be a “Halo killer” with a famous sci-fi writer, but it flopped so hard it destroyed both the studio and the publisher)

We Need a New Linguistic Shorthand

We need a new way to talk about this stuff. A new way to segment and define eras so that we can properly feel nostalgic about the past. We need proper retrospectives for these games—because they deserve retrospectives.

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