Do you think datedness is always a bad thing?

[Sweet Snow]

To me, no, some are so far in embracing the era they were in that it gives a lot of charm and some foresight to the thoughts of that day, I love blocky graphics,VHS tapes, goofy cel drawn anime and hair metal, it's just so, ya know, fun?

There is definitely bad ways to be dated but I don't think period pieces would exist if people didn't find charm from different eras

 

[Ray Trace]

Using hyperboles such as "always" or "never" in your question is typically going to result in a binary "no" or "yes" answer depending on the question asked.

But my answer to the topic title is no. I could give a countless list of examples as to why many people do enjoy vintage, retro, old stuff, but I'd just leave it with how people made MS-DOS and older Windows emulation for a variety of reasons, one to play old PC games and how in YouTube, channels such as "Whoa I Remember That Game!" or channels that serve to post videos of old screensavers remain to be very popular.

 

[Trab]

Datedness is not always a bad thing. I like dated and Retro things, but some things can get old and can lose interest, but there are some people out there who like it.

 

[zel]

i super yell over any instance of early 3d renders because i absolutely adore the aesthetic

i super yell over a 2001 and 2002 game and how they look though a lot of that might be nostalgia bias

(of course its harry potter)
so like yea its def not bad

 

[SpriteBro]

I think there's quality to stuff that stays around. NES-style pixelated retro art is popular and Atari isn't for a reason. Can't just be nostalgia because we'd see Atari graphics more prominently in successful indie games. NES graphics have been popular for over a decade now, and I don't think it's going away.

Sometimes old styles of things are better, more visually interesting. I don't think that's the case with NES graphics, it's just another accepted style, but old anime has an appeal that can't be matched in a lot of people's opinions. Akira is going to be more fun to look at than almost any digital stuff, it's impressive in the same way it is when you look at old sculptures and paintings kinda.

There's often a lot of nostalgia behind these things though. Most people aren't going to like the VGA graphics/colors computers churned out unless they grew up with them, to me purple/blue/white is almost as bad to look at as Virtual Boy but others love them. That might be the case for the 5th generation of consoles, I see a lot of people crap on them but I like the style quite a bit, almost certainly because of nostalgia (even though a few do legitimately look great at least sometimes, like Chrono Cross's backgrounds).

I guess what I'm saying is there's a mix of objective quality and nostalgia in these cases and it's hard to tell where that line is.