Pixel party: YouTube breaks down 1.5 million retro gaming videos

One of YouTube‘s contemporary trends is a blast from the past. The YouTube Trends team has published a breakdown of more than 1.5 million retro gaming videos dating back to 2006.

Most of the titles that gamers consider “retro” were released before the era of YouTube, but interest in those oldies has increased as the Google-owned platform has scaled up. According to YouTube’s analysis, retro gaming videos are one thousand times more numerous in 2023 than they were in 2007.

That growth has been fueled by an expanding conception of what “retro gaming” is. The community is still filled with plenty of enthusiasts who play and comment on timeless 8-bit touchstones, but subgenres like console restoration and speedrunning have also attracted hobbyists. Some creators’ idea of retro is a Space Invaders arcade machine. For others, memorable franchise installments trigger nostalgia, even if they were released 25 years after the end of the arcade era.

“While the majority of retro gaming videos uploaded to YouTube correlate with consoles from the 1980s and 1990s, we’re noticing a slow increase of more modern consoles from the 2000-2010 era, showing that retro gaming is ever evolving and expanding as those consoles slowly become considered as ‘retro,’” reads the YouTube Trends post

That doesn’t mean gamers have stopped playing the classic hits. A more detailed look at the data shows that the majority of retro gaming videos feature titles from the 80s. Of the 100 most-watched videos in that category, 60% concern hardware like consoles rather than the games themselves.

To celebrate the love for retro games on its platform, YouTube teamed up with gaming creator Caddicarus for a video that summarizes the Trends team’s findings. More “blasts from the past” have been compiled in a playlist of the retro gaming community’s greatest hits.

Even as the perception of retro gaming changes, some of the category’s most familiar faces are still at its center. YouTube cited the Angry Video Game Nerd‘s Nightmare on Elm Street video as the oldest retro gaming video with at least one million views. 17 years after that clip first hit YouTube, the Nerd’s Cinemassacre channel is still the most-watched retro gaming hub with more than 2.1 billion lifetime views in all.