Greek Gods on the Reels: Why the Theme Endures

Greek mythology gives slot designers a cast that almost writes itself. Zeus with his thunderbolt, Poseidon and his trident, Medusa, the winged horse Pegasus, Mount Olympus rising in the background. These figures arrive loaded with meaning, and that ready-made drama is a large part of why the theme has stayed on reels for so long.

A Ready-Made Cast of Characters

Egyptian slots lean on place and atmosphere. Greek ones lean on personalities. Each god comes with a clear role, a recognisable symbol and a temperament, which gives a game instant structure. Zeus can anchor a high-value lightning feature. Medusa can turn symbols to stone. Poseidon can flood the reels with water effects. Designers get a set of characters whose powers translate naturally into bonus mechanics, so the theme does narrative work that would otherwise need explaining.

The visual palette helps as well. Marble whites, gold trim and stormy skies look striking on screen, and temple columns frame a grid neatly. The result feels grand without being cluttered.

Drama That Suits a Slot

Myths are built on conflict, transformation and reward, and those beats line up well with how a slot is paced. A wrathful god unleashing power is a natural fit for an expanding-wild or a cascading sequence, and the promise of divine favour gives a bonus round its emotional charge. Players understand the stakes before any rules are read. That shared cultural shorthand lets a studio spend its energy on mechanics and presentation rather than on teaching the setting.

It also leaves plenty of room for variety. One studio might centre a game on a single deity, another on the whole pantheon, and a third on a specific myth such as the labours of Heracles. The source material is broad enough to support very different games under one banner.

Why It Endures

Staying power comes from flexibility. The Greek pantheon is large, its stories are widely known, and its imagery suits a screen, so the theme can be reinterpreted endlessly without going stale. New releases can adjust volatility, art and features while keeping the familiar gods that draw players in. Those interested in how the wider category looks can explore the best ancient-inspired games you can find online. Like any slot, these titles are meant as entertainment, and a sensible budget keeps the experience enjoyable.

Egyptian Mythology in Slot Design

Few visual themes recur in slot design as often as ancient Egypt. Walk through any catalogue of online or land-based machines and the symbols arrive quickly: golden scarabs, the eye of Horus, hieroglyphs running down the reels, a pharaoh staring out from the top of the screen. The theme has stayed popular for decades, and that durability is worth examining rather than taking for granted.

Why Egypt Keeps Coming Back

Part of the answer is recognition. Most players already carry a mental image of pyramids, tombs and mummies before they ever spin a reel, so a studio does not need to explain the setting. The iconography is also rich and ready-made. Gold, blue and sand tones photograph well on a screen, and symbols like the ankh or the scarab read clearly even at small sizes. There is a treasure-hunting fantasy baked into the subject too. Hidden chambers and buried riches map neatly onto the idea of a bonus round or a big win, which gives designers an easy narrative hook.

The mood matters as much as the props. An exploration story carries a sense of mystery that suits a game built around anticipation.

The Book of Ra Lineage

The most influential example is Novomatic’s Book of Ra. Its expanding-symbol free-spins mechanic, triggered by a book that acts as both scatter and wild, proved enormously popular and was widely imitated. A whole sub-genre of “book” slots grew from that single template, and the explorer-in-a-tomb framing became shorthand for the entire Egyptian category. Readers curious about how that title plays for higher stakes can look at Book of Ra real money high bet at online casino for a closer look.

What the lineage shows is how theme and mechanic reinforce each other. The book fits the explorer story, the explorer story fits the Egyptian setting, and the setting fits a payout structure that rewards patience. That tight loop is hard to improve on, so studios tend to refine it rather than abandon it.

A Theme With Staying Power

Egyptian slots endure because they balance the familiar with room for variation. The core symbols stay constant while volatility, bonus features and art styles shift from one release to the next. That keeps the category fresh without losing its identity. Anyone wanting a wider view of the genre can browse the best ancient-inspired games you can find online. As with any slot, these games are entertainment first, and setting a budget before playing keeps them that way.

How Progressive Jackpots Grow

A progressive jackpot is a prize that climbs as people play. Instead of a fixed top payout, the game skims a small slice from each qualifying bet and adds it to a shared pot, which keeps rising until someone wins it. That is why the headline figures on these games can reach sums an ordinary slot would never advertise. The mechanism is simple, but the details shape how the prize behaves and what a player is really chasing.

The seed and the contribution

Every progressive starts from a seed, the base amount the game resets to after a win. From there it grows through contributions: a fraction of each bet placed on the game is diverted into the jackpot pool rather than the normal prize structure. Because that slice is pulled out before the standard payouts, progressive games often carry a slightly lower base return than a comparable fixed-jackpot title, with the difference funding the chance at the big prize. The trade is real, and it is worth knowing you are making it.

Standalone, local and networked

Progressives come in three broad shapes. A standalone jackpot grows only from one machine, so it climbs slowly and tops out lower. A local progressive links several machines inside a single casino, pooling their contributions into a larger shared prize. A networked, or wide-area, progressive connects games across many casinos or sites, which is how the largest jackpots build. The wider the network, the bigger the potential prize and the longer the odds against any single player landing it.

Some games require a maximum bet to qualify for the top tier, while others let any stake compete for it. Reading the rules before you spin matters here more than on a standard slot, because a near-miss that would have paid at full stake pays nothing if you were not eligible. The mechanics behind staking are covered in our guide to playing slots with real money.

Playing them sensibly

The appeal of a progressive is the size of the dream, not the likelihood of catching it. The odds of hitting a large networked jackpot are very long, and the slightly reduced base return means the everyday spins can feel tighter than on a non-progressive game. That is the bargain. Play these games for the entertainment and the small chance at something outsized, set a budget you are happy to spend, and never stake money you cannot afford to lose. A jackpot is a thrill to chase, not a financial plan, and treating it as one is the surest way to keep it fun.

Ontario’s Regulated iGaming Market, Two Years On

In April 2022, Ontario launched a regulated online-gambling market, becoming the first Canadian province to open competitive private operators to legal, licensed play. Before that, online betting in the province ran either through a single government-run platform or through offshore sites that operated outside any local rulebook. The change moved a large grey market into a framework with provincial oversight, and the early years offer a clearer picture of what regulation actually delivers for players.

What changed for players

The headline shift is accountability. Licensed operators answer to a provincial regulator, which sets standards for fair play, advertising conduct, data handling, and the resolution of disputes. A player on a regulated site has a defined complaints route and rules the operator must follow, neither of which existed in any reliable form on offshore platforms. Game fairness sits under testing requirements rather than an operator’s word alone.

Choice expanded too. A competitive market brought a wider set of legal options into one space, which tends to push operators to improve their products and support. That competition cuts both ways, since more available options and heavier advertising can also make it easier to play more than intended, a tension regulators in the province have spoken about openly.

Responsible-play tools in the open

One practical gain is that responsible-gambling features became standard rather than optional extras. Regulated sites generally offer deposit limits, time limits, self-exclusion, and reality checks built into the account itself. These tools work best when a player sets them up early, before a session rather than during a difficult one. Setting a deposit limit takes a minute and removes a decision you would otherwise have to make repeatedly under pressure.

None of this removes the basic reality that gambling is entertainment with a cost, not a way to earn money. The regulated framework makes the activity safer and more transparent; it does not change the odds, which still favour the house over time. Many of the assumptions players carry into online play are worth checking against our piece on online gambling facts and misconceptions.

Two years on

The broad lesson from Ontario’s first couple of years is that regulation reshapes the environment without rewriting the maths. Players gained oversight, recourse, and built-in safety tools, and the province gained the ability to monitor a market that previously sat beyond its reach. The responsibility to play within a budget still rests with the individual. Decide what a session is worth to you, treat any winnings as a pleasant surprise rather than a plan, and use the limit tools the regulated sites are now required to provide. A well-regulated market is a better place to play, not a reason to play more.

Ontario’s Entertainment Habits Reflect Canada’s Shift From Cabinets to Screens

Something has quietly changed about the way Ontarians unwind. Walk into a bar or a family gathering today and you are far more likely to see people hunched over a phone or tablet than feeding coins into a machine or crowding around an arcade cabinet. The province’s entertainment culture has migrated from physical hardware to digital screens, and that shift is reshaping entire industries – including gaming and gambling.

Nowhere is that evolution more visible than in the regulated online casino space. A growing number of Canadians are choosing to play from home, and the options available through Ontario online casinos reflect how mature and sophisticated that market has become. Licensed operators now offer thousands of titles, live dealer tables, and mobile-first interfaces that would have seemed impossible on the old cabinet hardware that once defined the casino floor experience.

According to Statistics Canada, screen time among Canadian adults has increased steadily over the past decade, with smartphones and tablets accounting for the largest share of leisure hours. Statistics Canada data consistently shows that digital entertainment has overtaken television as the primary after-work activity in urban centres like Toronto, Ottawa, and Hamilton. Ontario, as the country’s most populous province, is leading that trend rather than following it.

From the Arcade Floor to the App Store

The cabinet era had a particular charm that is worth acknowledging. Slot machines, video poker terminals, and arcade units were physical objects – they had buttons you could feel, sounds that filled a room, and a social quality that came from sharing a space with other players. That tactile experience built loyalty. Players came back not just for the game but for the ritual.

What the screen era has done is strip away the friction without stripping away the experience. The games themselves have only improved. Developers who once designed for cabinet hardware now build for high-resolution displays with multi-touch controls, adaptive soundtracks, and bonus mechanics that would have required an entire arcade unit to replicate in the 1990s. The retro and ancient casino game formats that first drew players to physical venues have been faithfully recreated online – and in many cases, improved with better graphics and fairer return-to-player rates.

Ontario’s Regulated Market Changes the Picture

The launch of Ontario’s regulated iGaming market in April 2022 was a turning point. Before that, players accessed offshore platforms with no provincial oversight. Now, licensed operators must meet standards set by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, giving players a level of protection they simply did not have before. The result has been rapid adoption. Ontarians who were already comfortable with digital entertainment found that regulated online play fit naturally into habits they had already built around streaming, mobile gaming, and e-commerce.

That comfort with screens is worth examining more closely. Ontario’s entertainment economy has diversified dramatically over the past fifteen years. Subscription streaming services, mobile gaming apps, and social platforms now compete for the same leisure hours that physical entertainment venues once dominated. For the gambling segment of that market, the shift has created both opportunity and responsibility – operators must work harder to stand out while also meeting stricter standards around responsible play.

For anyone curious about the mechanics behind that shift – and the myths that still surround online play – a closer look at online gambling facts and misconceptions helps separate what has genuinely changed from what players assume. Many of the concerns people hold about digital casinos are rooted in the unregulated era and no longer apply to licensed Ontario operators.

The Screen Is Now the Casino Floor

What Ontario’s entertainment habits ultimately reveal is that the platform has changed but the underlying appeal has not. People still want the thrill of a well-designed game, the possibility of a reward, and the brief escape that comes with stepping into a different kind of world. Screens have simply become the most convenient gateway to all of that.

For players who grew up with physical slots and are now exploring digital options, playing slots with real money online follows the same logic as the cabinet version – understand what you are playing, set a limit, and enjoy the experience for what it is. The cabinet may be gone, but the game is very much still here.

Ontario’s shift from cabinets to screens is not a story about losing something. It is a story about a province adapting faster than most – and building an entertainment culture that is more accessible, better regulated, and more varied than anything the arcade era could have offered.

Slot Volatility Explained: High, Medium and Low

Two slots can advertise a similar long-run return and still feel completely different to play. The reason is usually volatility, sometimes called variance. It describes how a game’s payouts are distributed over time: whether wins arrive often and small, rarely and large, or somewhere in between. Return-to-player tells you roughly how much a game gives back across a huge number of spins. Volatility tells you how bumpy the road there is likely to be.

High, medium and low

Low-volatility slots pay frequently, but the individual wins tend to be modest. Your balance moves in small steps, sessions feel steady, and long dry spells are uncommon. These games suit players who want longer play from a given budget and do not mind smaller returns. High-volatility slots flip that profile. Paying spins come less often, and stretches of nothing can run long, but the wins that do land are larger and the top prizes are bigger.

Medium volatility sits between the two and is where a large share of popular titles land. It mixes regular smaller hits with the occasional bigger one, which is why it tends to feel balanced to most players. None of these categories is fixed by law, so two developers might label similar games differently. Treat the labels as a guide, not a guarantee.

Why it matters for your budget

Volatility should shape how you size your bets. A high-volatility game can swallow a budget quickly during a cold streak, so smaller stakes help your money last long enough to reach the rarer big hits the game is built around. A low-volatility game is more forgiving of slightly larger bets because wins refill the balance more often. High-bet sessions on swingy games carry real risk, something covered in our look at Book of Ra at higher real-money bets.

The figure usually sits in the low-to-mid 90s for return-to-player on many slots, but that number says nothing about a single session. Over a few hundred spins, results swing widely around the long-run average, and the higher the volatility, the wider that swing. That part is easy to underestimate.

Finding the right fit

Some games publish a volatility rating in their information screen; others leave you to judge from the paytable. A big gap between the top symbol payout and the rest usually signals higher volatility, while a flatter paytable points to a smoother, lower-variance experience. Match the choice to what you actually want from a session, whether that is long, gentle play or the chance at occasional larger wins with more dry spins in between. Either way, set a budget first and treat slots as entertainment rather than a way to make money, and stop when the fun does.

How Slot Paylines and Ways to Win Actually Work

Every slot machine needs a rule for deciding when a spin pays. On classic and many modern games, that rule is the payline: a fixed path across the reels that the game checks for matching symbols. Other games drop the fixed path entirely and use a “ways to win” system instead. Both can sit inside the same casino lobby, and knowing which one you are playing changes how you read the screen.

What a payline actually is

A payline is a defined sequence of positions, one per reel, that the game evaluates after the reels stop. Land enough matching symbols along that path, usually starting from the leftmost reel, and the line pays according to the paytable. Early machines had a single line straight across the middle. Later games added lines that zigzag, step up, or cross diagonally, and a single spin can be checked against dozens of them at once.

The number of paylines matters for cost. On most line-based slots you are betting per line, so a game with twenty lines costs more per spin at the same coin value than a game with ten. The paytable, reachable from a button on the game screen, lists every line and what each symbol combination returns. Reading it before you spin is one of the simpler habits worth keeping, and it pairs well with playing slots with real money at a pace you have already decided on.

How “ways to win” differs

Ways-to-win slots ignore fixed paths. Instead, matching symbols pay as long as they appear on adjacent reels from left to right, regardless of their row. A common layout produces 243 ways, and bigger grids push that into the thousands. You are not betting per line here. The total stake covers the whole grid, which is why the bet structure on these games looks different from a line-based title.

Neither system is inherently more generous. A game’s long-run return is set by its math and its symbol weighting, not by whether it counts lines or ways. More lines or more ways simply means more frequent small hits spread across a spin, which can feel busier without changing the underlying odds. There is a useful run-down of related assumptions in our piece on online gambling facts and misconceptions.

Reading a game before you play

Open the paytable. Check whether the game lists a line count or a ways figure, note the minimum and maximum bet, and see how scatters or wild symbols behave, since those often pay outside the normal path rules. Slots are entertainment, not income. Set a budget you are comfortable losing, treat any return as a bonus rather than a plan, and step away when the session stops being fun. The mechanics are worth understanding for their own sake, and they make the games more interesting to watch unfold.

Age of Empires II – Classic is Stronger than Ever

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There are hardly any fans of RTS games which have not spent tens of hours playing Age of Empires II. It was officially launched in 1999 as a heavily updated sequel of the original title released a couple of years earlier. The basic yet engaging gameplay was a total hit in the bullseye, and Age of Empires II quickly ranked next to mega-hits like WarCraft. The complex storyline and huge variety of units kept fans busy for months. Furthermore, it looked like the developer Ensemble Studios has struck a perfect balance between the detailed city management, soldiery units, and epic battle scenes.

No matter if you prefer playing campaign missions, single-player against AI, or multiplayer, you’ll most probably be completely captivated by the heroic saga development. Actually, this unique diversity presented in a rather simplistic way is what was driving users to keep playing. The monumental battles are the icing on the cake and will happen no matter if you are ready or not. Anyway, the developing studio knew that even the best RTS games need updates because otherwise, players will just go on with the next big hit on the shelves. That is why a sequel was released in 2002 with the help of SkyBox Labs disguised as Age of Mythology!

Although it attracted the attention of many players at the beginning, this title did not live up to expectations. Indeed, Age of Mythology is played even today without being much improved over the years, but most Age of Empires II fans just continued with their favorite. Perhaps that was why the company took another shot and released Age of Empires III in 2005. However, the same mistake was made, and the sequel was just too different. A precedent has been set as an outdated version continued to be preferred years after its initial release and despite several updated versions!

First Age of Empires II Update

In 2013, Ensemble Studios, with the help of Hidden Path Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios, released the long-awaited Age of Empires II HD version. It became playable on Steamworks, connecting thousands of players in epic multiplayer battles. Actually, the integration was the only notable difference in this high-definition update of the classic real-time strategy. And the graphics, of course, with significantly improved water reflections, building shades, and unit details.

Although many players highly ranked Age of Empires II: HD Edition, it again failed to deliver something valuable to the old masterpiece. Many users remained mesmerized by the 14-year-old version. Besides the visual appearance, we must mention the upgraded AI, several new trading cards and features, and better workshop support. However, the big boom was postponed for another time. And after a few minor updates, this moment finally came in 2019!

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

Forgotten Empires and the publisher Xbox Game Studios finally achieved a major breakthrough in the final quarter of 2019. Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition came as a fresh breeze for players nostalgic for the old days. The classic Age of Empires II gameplay was updated with a few additional civilizations widening the historical scope of the storyline. Some of the oldest European nations are now available, including Bulgarians, Lithuanians, and Tatars. Visually, the sequel is much better than everything we have seen so far – 4K graphics, significantly improved visuals (troops, buildings, and surrounding environment), and even more epic video elements.

Players and spectators (another new feature) are not capable of zooming in and out, including during battles and sieges. Besides the new civilizations, buildings, and military units, a new expansion was added without removing any of the previous ones – The Last Khans. Players can enjoy fresh and very well narrated campaigns. The music and voice sounds have been brought to another level as well, comparable with the newest trends. Overall, the game was finally brought to that new level that all fans have been expecting for years. We can’t say that Definitive Edition breathes new life into the Age of Empires II because the title as a whole has never lost its popularity. It’s just that the updates so far have been mediocre!

Great Multiplayer Experience

The Steam integration was transferred to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. Only six months after the release of the final version, more than 50,000 subscribers have been reported. This shows how popular the title remains to be after 20+ years! The huge number of followers means that you don’t have to wait long to enter a multiplayer game. Servers are full of potential matches, so you only need to find a suitable lobby through the Multiplayer functionality of the game. It’s unnecessary to say that this aspect was also improved by Forgotten Empires and the other involved parties.

Conclusion

In October 2021, Relic Entertainment, World’s Edge, and Xbox Game Studios launched in a partnership Age of Empires IV! It’s a far superior game compared to Age of Empires II, or at least the commercials say so. The truth is that the classic RTS will never become obsolete. The real question is whether the new version will be at least half as successful or will be forgotten in just a few months. Back in 1999, the AOE2 created a dynasty, and today the title is stronger than ever!

Best Retro-Style Games Of 2016

2016 was… Difficult. I won’t go into detail here, I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about how terrible and dreadful and no-good the last year was, so suffice to say, the tragic death of a beloved gorilla was the least bad thing that happened in the last 365 days. But hey, on the plus side, at least we got some pretty damn good retro games! The retro renaissance may have passed, but that still doesn’t mean we’re not going to get some titles which truly channel the spirit of the past or give modern concepts that good old 90s spin! I played a lot of retro-style games in 2016, and unfortunately a lot that I really liked (such as “Crypt of the NecroDancer” and “Darkest Dungeon”) didn’t quite make the cut, for one reason or another, but the three that I ended up picking are utterly fantastic! They’re classics such as:

3. Salt & Sanctuary

Screenshot from Salt and SanctuaryYou love “Dark Souls”, right? Of course you do, who doesn’t like “Dark Souls”? Well, have you ever looked at “Dark Souls” and said to yourself “Hmm, yeah, I mean, this is pretty great, but you know what would make it better? If it was in 2D, with retro pixel graphics”? Well, the guys over at Ska Studios definitely did, and bless them for it! This game is often referred to on the Internet as a 2D “Dark Souls”, but its unique perspective provides a completely different style of gameplay which requires you to think in a very new way. And sure, it also has its fair share of challenges (the absence of a map, while not that noticeable in “Dark Souls”, can be very confusing in “Salt & Sanctuary” because of the lack of reference points), but honestly, if you like the brutal hack & slash series, you’ll like its 2D iteration too, and if for some completely unexplainable reason you don’t, then maybe all you need is a change of perspective!

2. Mother Russia Bleeds

Screenshot from Mother Russia BleedsI love this game. I love this game. I grew up on 2D brawlers like “Golden Axe”, “Streets of Rage” and “Maximum Carnage”, and as some of you may know, one of my most favorite games of all time is “Hotline Miami”, which I’m always ready to talk to you about. So the guys at “La Cartel Studios” were like “Screw it, let’s just combine these two and make all of Oliver the Retro Guy’s dreams come true!” And boy, am I glad they did. The game is exactly as awesome as it sounds! It’s delightfully messed up, with creepy, twisted and violent visuals that are able to remain dark while still being completely over the top. Its controls are tight and responsive, and when you die it’s always your own fault, not to mention the awesome new “Nekro” mechanic brings a whole new element that’s not found often in 2D brawlers. Add to that what’s probably the best soundtrack of the year and you’ve got a winner!

1. Stardew Valley

stardew-valleyI fell in love with “Mother Russia Bleeds”. I really, really did. It’s one of my best games of the year, period. But… How could I not give the number 1 spot to “Stardew Valley”, a quiet, peaceful game about farming made by one person which, nonetheless, managed to capture the hearts of gamers worldwide? Don’t get me wrong, the game is fantastic – its writing is on-point (even though there’s no story to speak of), its atmosphere is spot-on for a relaxing game that will always bring a smile to your face, its mechanics are well-thought out and well-implemented, there’s a lot to do in the game already, with even more things already being added… But the fact that, on its own, “Stardew Valley” is fantastic isn’t the reason why it’s on the list. The reason why it’s there is because this game, which, again, was made by just one guy (Eric Barone), managed to top Steam’s charts and become the ONLY 2D game to make in the top 40 best-selling PC games of 2016. Wow. Despite starting out as a tribute to the classic farming series “Harvest Moon”, I think it’s fair to say that in many ways “Stardew Valley” surpasses it, and I can’t wait to see what else the developer has in store for us!

Are We Seeing The End Of Retro Culture?

Ghost bustersThroughout the late 2000s and early 2010s, retro culture seemed EVERYWHERE! We were getting retro game after retro game after retro game, various old properties that were famous in the 80s and 90s such as “Transformers” and “GI Joe” came back for an encore to astounding success, hell, even music genres that were popular 20-30 years ago (such as techno and disco) began seeing a resurgence! For a while, it was all about retro, retro, retro, prompting many people to jokingly ask “What year is it?” when faced with so much media that would’ve felt right at home a few decades ago. Games like “Shovel Knight” and “Super Meat Boy” look and feel like they came from a different era, while other titles such as “Hotline Miami”, “Retro City Rampage” and “FEZ” are filled with so much love for the 80s and 90s that one just can’t help but feel nostalgic for days gone by when playing them. The same goes for movies and TV shows – “Drive”, which directly inspired the aforementioned “Hotline Miami”, would feel right at home if it was released as an 80s low budget pulp thriller, and then of course there’s the smash hit series “Stranger Things”, which is essentially the 80s Stephen King adaptation that never was. And this is without listing the dozens upon dozens of revivals of franchises from our past, such as “Star Trek”, “Planet of the Apes”, “Terminator”, “Robocop”, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and many, many more.

But in the last few years, the wave of retro things seems to have stopped. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s still occasionally an awesome retro-inspired project that catches our attention (such as “Stranger Things”, as well as Oscar nominee “Mad Max: Fury Road”), but for the most part the media just seems to have moved on from this trend. Looking at the list of upcoming videogames for 2017, for example, only two of the announced games have a retro inspiration – “Shenmue III” and the Castlevania-inspired “Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night”, both of which were brought to life thanks to the original franchises’ creators asking for fan support on Kickstarter for one last hurrah. The same goes for movies – the majority of movies that are coming out in the next few years are part of established franchises, with the few that bank on nostalgia (e.g. “Trolls”) being very far in between. Why is that?

One of the biggest reasons why studios are being more cautious with retro stuff is because they’re simply not as profitable as they once were. Let’s look at two of the most anticipated retro products of 2016 – the “Ghostbusters” remake and the game “Mighty No. 9”. “Ghostbusters”, despite a very controversial marketing approach from the studio which sought the help of vocal feminists to label everyone who disliked the movie as a misogynist, still only made $226 million on a $144 million budget, and while initially that may seem pretty great, keep in mind that the budget listed here is only for production and doesn’t include the massive marketing campaign, so the real estimate should be close to about $300 million cost, which means that “Ghostbusters” actually lost money. While I don’t have any sales numbers for “Mighty No. 9”, I do have its reviews, and, as I’ve mentioned before, they’re not that great, with an average score of around 5/10.

But the lack of success for these otherwise massively high profile projects is only a symptom, not a cause. In order to be able to properly answer the question of why retro is not doing too well and gradually disappearing, we need to discover just why it was popular in the first place. And the reason for that is simple – the people who were kids in the 80s and 90s were adults in the 2000s, with disposable incomes. Thanks to the Internet, their nostalgia for the shows they watched and games they played as children reached the ears of the people who actually have the power to bring them back, and so they did. But as the market got saturated by these “retro” properties, a HUGE number of which weren’t really all that great at all (I genuinely fail to think of a single movie reboot of an 80s property that was any good, and many independent game makers opted to use “retro” graphics for their games to cut costs even when they weren’t appropriate). Today, we’ve got our fair share of retro stuff, and we don’t want any more. Instead of looking at the past, we’re looking at the future.

In 2008, “Iron Man” blew people’s minds with the promise of a shared universe between numerous movie franchises, but it wasn’t until 2012 when “The Avengers” hit that this promise was actually fulfilled, and we saw the heroes of 4 movies teaming up to stop a bigger threat. Since then, we’ve learned what the Marvel Cinematic Universe holds for us all the way up until 2019, and the same can be said for the DC Extended Universe, which started in 2011 with “Man of Steel”. Numerous studios are announcing their projects way ahead of time, sometimes without even having a star or a director (we had a release date for a “Captain Marvel” movie way before ANYONE had signed on to work on it). Hell, even franchises based on nostalgic properties, such as “X-Men”, “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” are announcing massive cinematic universes spanning the rest of the decade. Perhaps the reason why retro isn’t as prevalent today as it was in the past is because audiences have stopped looking towards the past and have begun looking at the future.