Video Game/Media Anniversaries that Make you Feel Old?

[CM30]

Well we all know how it goes. You hear about a video game or film's anniversary, and realise it's now been decades since it was first released, making you feel older than ever in the process.

So, what examples make you feel like that and why?

For me, I guess Super Mario Land being 31 years old makes me feel kinda ancient. Not just because of my age, but because the game is actually older than I am, so it makes me remember how long ago the Game Boy era is now.

Other examples would be:

Wario Land 4, which is now 19 and old enough to vote in many countries.

Super Mario Galaxy, which makes me realise that 13 years have passed since 2007, and that the Wii era is as distant now as the NES/SNES era would have been many of us.

Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon and Mario & Luigi Dream Team, since it reminds me that 7 whole years have passed since the Year of Luigi, and what I remember as 'modern' games certainly aren't anymore.

Doctor Who, cause the relaunch in 2005 still feels new to me. Hell, even the reveals of Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi as the Doctor feel kinda recent, despite being in 2010 and 2013 respectively.

Plus the Harry Potter series and Lord of the Rings film series, which first got released in 1997 and 2001 respectively.

But yeah, what games and media make you feel old, when you look back at how long ago they were released?

 

[Just a Wario Fan]

Not really an anniversary, but recently I watched Ice Age again after years, and nostalgia hit me hard. The first time I watched the movie at home, it was on VHS cassette. Yes, it's that old. The fact that it was released on home video made me realise how old that film is, and how old I am myself.
This 'geez, is really that long ago?'-feeling was reinforced by playing Shantae, which is from the same year (2002) that same day. The sheer realisation that both VHS and Gameboy Color were still being released (albeit both on their last legs) when I was old enough to have memories of it made me truly realise how time goes on, considering that it isn't even two decades ago from our present of Netflix, streaming services, Nintendo 3DS, Switch, etc.

 

[Chello]

Splatoon's getting up there. 5 years doesn't seem that long ago but considering how different i am now to how i was then it makes me feel old.

 

[tahutoa]

Shake It being from 2008 is generally my go-to for "recent" releases that make me feel old.

What's strange is, even for people that weren't alive at the time, like me (and probably most of the people on this website), 1989 doesn't feel like it was a long time ago. It's like... I and many other people have been stuck with this sort of subconscious impression that 2000 was 13 years ago, and the 90s were two decades ago. For me, it isn't until I think about the 1970s through to 1984 or whatever that it starts "feeling" like a long time ago.
Sometimes I wonder if it's the sense of relatability one can sometimes get through the pieces of media that sort of perpetuate this feeling of relevance. Not 100% sure how to word it, but-- as a related addendum to that statement-- a lot of the time I find myself thinking about what it would've been like to experience something for the first time when it happened, you know? Like, what would it have been like to see The Empire Strikes Back at the cinema?

 

[Just a Wario Fan]

Shake It being from 2008 is generally my go-to for "recent" releases that make me feel old.

What's strange is, even for people that weren't alive at the time, like me (and probably most of the people on this website), 1989 doesn't feel like it was a long time ago. It's like... I and many other people have been stuck with this sort of subconscious impression that 2000 was 13 years ago, and the 90s were two decades ago. For me, it isn't until I think about the 1970s through to 1984 or whatever that it starts "feeling" like a long time ago.
Sometimes I wonder if it's the sense of relatability one can sometimes get through the pieces of media that sort of perpetuate this feeling of relevance. Not 100% sure how to word it, but-- as a related addendum to that statement-- a lot of the time I find myself thinking about what it would've been like to experience something for the first time when it happened, you know? Like, what would it have been like to see The Empire Strikes Back at the cinema?

Ha, I have the same thing, but in my case it's the year 2002 that serves as the abritrary "recent / ancient" boundary, probably because that year was an important year in my life, that I remeber quite well, despite my very young age then.
But, since such artificial boundaries are, as I said, arbritrary and random, and only serve to "categorize" one's personal memories about a paricular subject, they are not reliable in the slightest. For example, it still takes me a lot of conviction to believe that Wario Land 4 (2001) is older than Shantae (2002), which is easily explained by the fact that Wario Land 4 is on GBA, whilst Shantae is on the predecessing Gameboy Color. But even then my subconscious keeps telling me that Shantae is (much) older than it truly is. That is not to say that I consider Wario Land 4 a "young" game, though.
There are also games that I, in the same fashion as the aforementioned case, somehow subconsciously "refuse" to consider old, even when I consider games the same age to be as such. Mario Kart DS is probably my best example.

This kind of strange reasoning applies to other things as well, like the Internet, where I somehow consider the year 2016 as the border between "old" and "not so old", almost certainly because the year 2016 has been an eventful and personally important year for me as well.
These are quite good examples of how we often use events in our own lives to keep a sense of time in the long term.