Old games are crap the majority of the stuff from the era I started playing (mid 80s) and before is borderline unplayable now. No concept of difficulty curves, no end or target, no saves or restart points, games requiring a massive amount of repetitive replays just to get a little bit better. No, while I'm trying to get back my 'original' games as something to present, I've little interest in games earlier than about 88 or 89 with a few exceptions.
Old games are great because the game industry always, always chases the latest fad, perfectly good genres etc. get thrown on the scrapheap, often you can take a 5 year slice of time and some genres will be at their peak then. Even though many of these genres have been revitalised now in the indie scene, they're rarely as good as the games developed by established game studios back in the day and they all seem to have one of the three (crappy) graphical formats: 8-bit style pixel, ultra-low detail flash game or flash game style with minimal animation. The likes of Wonder Boy in Monsterworld, Soleil (Crusadre of Centy) and Mario World were unique to their time.
Open world means barren world GTA 3 was a real wow moment when it was released, but as time has gone on it's become apparent just how much effort (possibly too much!) it would take to really make open world games anything more than exercises in world-building with a handful of random events thrown in. This sort of game doesn't interest me at all any more.
Japanese turn-based RPGs aren't the be all and end all like many here, in my yoof the likes of Final Fantasy 7 made me feel squishy inside, but the tired anime tropes of this kind of game really makes it hard to get into them these days. Nice art, shame about the characters. and game.
More awareness of what makes me tick it's weird, but there's been a number of games I rejected back in the day that I've gone back to and thought "oh, hey", they're great! Likewise I'm a lot more self-aware of when something's just plain boring or has otherwise crossed a red line. Nights of Azure, for instance, is something I initially had an internal argument about getting rid of, since it's 'that' sort of game I like, but I don't like it, it bores the living crap out of me, so off it went, no regrets.
From collecting to playing Over the past several years I've rebuilt my collection (again), including buying anything remotely playable when it's cheap. It's not a 'problem' as such, but it's time to get rid of the mediocre and really enjoy being able to play 'my' kind of game from the past 5 generations. Building up and storing the games has taken a lot of time, sorting them into order and storing them properly so they can be got at is no easy task. But, I'm now finally at a point where storage is no longer going to be an issue, once they're sorted this time there will be places for new purchases to just slot in. There's also a lot less emphasis on acquiring - more than happy to buy trade-in bait for a treat every few weeks, but the 'must have must get quick quick the price is rising' fire is now much diminished, which suits me.
The joys of ownership The closer I'm getting to be able to just play the games rather than having to spend time sorting them out, the more chillaxed things are. Even if there's not time today, there will be another day and they're there to be used.