Do young people still play old DOS/early Windows games from 90s?

I am wondering, whether the young generation of people (basically nowadays kids and teenagers) still anyhow get to play those 90's DOS and early Windows games I was growing up with. Or, formulated in different way, who are the people who are still playing those games.

Nowadays we have plenty of modern games with realistic graphics and lot of action, and there are million mobile and web games, small indie games, basically lot of things that are in course, and I can imagine, the vast majority of players just go with the mainstream and buy and play newly created games.

But at the same time, there are still many different websites where those old abandonware or shareware games can be downloaded, and many games from 90's and 2000's are still even sold on GOG and Steam. So who would still download or buy these games? Is there a chance young players (kids, teenagers) still somehow get interested in these games and go play them? Or even get to know that these games even exist at all? For the very well known titles, like Doom, Half-Life and similar, it is quite well possible, but are generally those old DOS games still appealing to young generation and can offer interesting gameplay experience, or they have too much primitive graphics, sounds and gameplay for nowadays standards? Is it true that those old games are downloaded/bought only by people at my age (30+ years old) who just play them from nostalgia reasons? And after several decades, when my generation gets too old or die, those old games would get completely forgotten and nobody would even bother digging them up and playing them?

For films and music, this is mostly not happening, songs and films that are 50+ years old are still broadcasted on radio/TV and people are still watching them, even the young people, so with games will it be the same or different?

I'm 17, and I like playing DOS games from time to time, early windows games are something kinda complicated to get running a lot of the time so those not so much. 

Been playing Chasm: The Rift on DOSBox, cool game, I have also a game called Quarantine from 1994 I believe, haven't played yet but it looks nice.

I have a thing for early FPS games, and platformers, also for some couple of point and click adventure games, although it is partly because of my situation of not being able to afford a modern console/computer I still really enjoy these games, and always, I carry them on an external drive so that I can install them on any machine that I may get in the future.

I'm sure they'll still be part of my playing habit even if I had modern games to play too, my first pick for when I got a PS2 was an arcade collection.

Theres always going to be some kid, that out of maybe sheer curiosity saw once a weird box with some cool artwork in the basement, took to box to his dad and decided to give it a go. Or, sometimes, is just that they were browsing through the history of their favorite game saga and now wants to try them all out. I'm the latter. I've been playing the original Doom since I was about 13 o 14 yo, I'm currently  18.

My favorite videogames are mostly old games, theres just something about them that its going to be very hard to find in current games, yet, that doesnt mean that modern games suck, not at all, all the contrary, modern games are truly jewels of entertainment. I just think that growing up during the 90s and the rise of 3D games was probably a big blast and some good years to be a teenager.

Doom, Unreal, Silent Hill, Diablo and World of Warcraft are my pillars of gaming. WoW is not that old, but for me it is, as I was only 3yo when the game came out, and I play it for the first time during late WoTLK.

To this day, those games still give me what I need the most; some good'ol'good times.

10 minutes ago, Endless said:

My favorite videogames are mostly old games, theres just something about them that its going to be very hard to find in current games,

 

To this days, those games still give me what I need the most; some good'ol'good times.

Couldn't say it better, I really wish their preservation keeps on going for decades to come.

43 minutes ago, Hisymak said:

Is there a chance young players (kids, teenagers) still somehow get interested in these games and go play them? Or even get to know that these games even exist at all?

Yes, if their parents introduce these games to them.

i'm 15 and i play a lot of old games, but mostly doom and half life, and sometimes wolfenstein 3d.

24 here and I play the heck outta oldschool games. In fact I am very much out of loop when it comes to modern fps games. I have yet to play games like Overwatch, Fortnite, PUBG etc.

On the other hand. I have played many oldschool fps games like Doom, Heretic, Hexen, Strife, Chex Quest, Ion Fury, Duke3D, Blood, Shadow Warrior, Quake 1 to 4, Unreal, UTs (UT99, UT2004, UT3), HL 1 and 2, Red Faction 1 and 2, and even Chasm the Rift (which Senor500 also mentioned).

Chiming in at 27 here, I have grown up on the old school games like Wolf3D being the first FPS game I played back in 1996. Including Doom 1 & 2, Duke 3D and then coming up on Quake 1,2 and 3. Learning to play with the mouse has taught me some very good aim. To this day in 2020, I still have Dosbox running older games to play it as back then. Even going back to playing UT99, UT2k4 and Unreal. Those are my most favourite games. Every now and then I play some newer stuff on the Xbox with friends that have zero interest or knowledge of these old games. Its funny cause I purchased all those older games on the Xbox arcade stuff and trying to duplicate movement on a controller compared to a KB+M is damn near impossible haha.

I remember as a kid i loved searching these classic games and giving them a try, there's something nice about getting to know stuff from a time you were not there yet. Same goes for 70's and 80's music i think, even though i'm 21 some of my favorite games are not really modern at all (not saying i don't play recent stuff too, though).

Things are not really mutually exclusive too, i showed Doom my 10 year old cousin and he liked it a lot, even though he plays modern popular games. Really good games still good not matter how old they are i guess, even old graphics can look charming, too.

Yes! I also enjoy youtube channels about this very thing. LGR, Nostalgia Nerd etc

yeah, i've always had an interest for DOS games and i guess they just appealed to me more than the modern games, they're usually more challenging and they just have a charm to them. i don't know why but the dos prompt is just so cool to me and playing doom with source ports sucks because it doesn't have that cool "DOOM OPERATING SYSTEM" startup screen lol.

- 18 year old

My father taught me doom at 4 years old and many more games i still play, like Command and conquer, Age of Empires, so I have known doom for as long as I can remember, I have no regrets, I love this games a lot, even at my current 16 years 

I don't remember having played so many Dos games, removing Blood and Simcity 2000, but I still remember them and I have to play again those games

1 hour ago, dr_st said:

Yes, if their parents introduce these games to them.

My younger brother is 12, and likes to play Doom from time to time (IIRC he played it since he was about 8 or so). He's also been a long-time fan of Half-Life, including the old 1998 games.

As for my less younger brother, a few years ago (when he was 18 or so) he was quite a bit into old Apogee platform games.

If anything, I have a feeling that today's young generation is a lot more likely to be into old games than before; I don't remember the last time I've heard any kid say "wow, the graphics on this old game suck!" or something like that.

Perhaps this can be attributed to the rise of digital distribution (which makes titles from across all of gaming history available at the tip of one's fingers), and to the never-ending wave of retro-styled indie games such as Undertale or Hotline Miami, which make the younger generation comfortably familiar with the visuals of old games.

I don't have that much of a choice with my potato computer.

I think if a person is a gamer, he will play games of all generations: from modern to extremely old. Just provide him a working hardware, like NES or Atari 2600

I'm 21, I grew up on DOS games most notably being Doom (I first played it when I was 3.5!)
I will always have a special heart for DOS and probably because of it vintage/old hardware (P3 and older) interests me

insert Im not like the other kids post here

3 hours ago, Hisymak said:

 Is there a chance young players (kids, teenagers) still somehow get interested in these games and go play them? Or even get to know that these games even exist at all? For the very well known titles, like Doom, Half-Life and similar, it is quite well possible, but are generally those old DOS games still appealing to young generation and can offer interesting gameplay experience, or they have too much primitive graphics, sounds and gameplay for nowadays standards? Is it true that those old games are downloaded/bought only by people at my age (30+ years old) who just play them from nostalgia reasons? And after several decades, when my generation gets too old or die, those old games would get completely forgotten and nobody would even bother digging them up and playing them?

For films and music, this is mostly not happening, songs and films that are 50+ years old are still broadcasted on radio/TV and people are still watching them, even the young people, so with games will it be the same or different?

Well, a 24 year old friend of mine who I met through an old job has a younger brother who’s currently 19. I first met them when they were just 17 and 12 respectively. Neither of the two of them had played NES or DOS games when I met them. I of course introduced them to some of my favorite games: Doom, Wolf3D and a bunch of classic NES titles.

I live a few hours away from them now, but whenever I’m in town I stop by and visit them. Last time was in January and when I got there, the 19 year old brother was playing Punch-Out, and shortly after I arrived we all wanted to start a Doom Deathmatch.

The moral of the story is, so long as kids know these games exist and have reasonable access to them, they will never truly “die”, just like any great art.

I don't know if 26 counts as "young" or not but I'm still over here playing X-Com: Terror From the Deep, and Crusader: No Remorse!

I'm 20 and play many old games with my potato laptop.

Its great to see such acquired taste and legacy passed down.

For those interested in retro gaming other than PC, check out Mame

And Retropie (you shouldn't need a high spec PC) 

🤓When Arcades ruled the gaming scene and consoles and early computers tried to compete🤓

dude on my chrome book, in 7 grade, I still play the shareware of doom.

I'm 14 and I do play retro games. I accidentally discovered them someday and thought, "Oh, this is how awesome gaming was back then?" From then on, most of the games I play are retro, the only modern game I play is MineCraft, but it's been months since I last played it. I feel very lucky to have discovered Doom.

And yes, my PC has only 2GB of RAM like wtf. But even if it was more, I would have played retro games as much as I do now.

My son has played older Windows strategy games.
He's a fan of anything Star Wars so that was the motivator but it didn't matter if it was old or new, if it was Star Wars he at least wanted to try it.

My daughter expressed an interest in classic Doom since she sees me play it all the time.

Set her up with Chocolate Doom to ease her into shooting games, it turned out to not be her thing, but she wanted to give it a shot.

Do I still qualify as "young" if I'm 25?

At any rate, I do play my fair share of old-school games. Doom (obviously), Quake, Descent, Unreal, Arx Fatalis, Morrowind, Blood and Commander Keen are only a select few retro games I've played over the years. Some I only tried out briefly, others I still play somewhat actively to this day. Doom is one of those that stuck.

16 hours ago, 𝕲𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖌𝖊𝖗1 said:

My son has played older Windows strategy games.
He's a fan of anything Star Wars so that was the motivator but it didn't matter if it was old or new, if it was Star Wars he at least wanted to try it.

Have you given him Star Wars: Dark Forces?

On 4/8/2020 at 4:50 PM, Hisymak said:

So who would still download or buy these games?

I'm going to answer with a screenshot okay? =D

And please mind that this is not nostalgia-glasses, since MOST of these games I have only found out about after 2018, which was the year I came back into "gaming" after a 12-year or so hiatus. Previously out of those I had only played Doom of course and a few others. And ironically enough the game which brought me back into gaming was Daikatana. Immediately after finishing it I played Deus Ex. Needless to say, what a crazy month that was.

So thanks Romero for me being here making everyone's lives miserable in these forums these days (gotta blame Romero for everything to go along with the joke, right)

On 4/8/2020 at 8:51 PM, Gifty said:

X-Com: Terror From the Deep

Dude...                                                                     DUUUUUUUUDE!!!!!!!!

This game blew my mind, brilliant game

@DwarfCleric All those icons remind of a particular LGR video of a controller device with a huge shareware collection (shovelware?). It has Quarantine mispelled as Qurantine.