Over the last 20 years, technology has advanced tremendously, disrupting our daily lives and creating whole new realms of entertainment. In this time, we’ve gone from the classic buttoned Nokia to the iPhone 16, the GameCube to the Nintendo Switch 2, LimeWire to Spotify, and a world record of 2,151 special effects shots being used in Revenge of the Sith to over 4,500 featuring in Baahubali: The Beginning.
Yet, as the younger entertainment consumers of 2005 move into being the bulk of the spending consumer base in 2025, it’s become clear that producers see the path to the wallets as being nostalgia. So, with all of this new and enhanced technology to play with, they’re bringing back old trends in media to see what sticks. As it turns out, quite a lot does, for better or worse.
When the Old Becomes Fresh Again
Across entertainment media, the status quo always evolves. Where once a 90-minute flick was the standard, now you’re looking to be seated for at least two hours for a big release. So, reverting to old standards can create a unique and fresh product in the current landscape. This is exactly how the collection of online classic arcade games is described on the SkyCity platform.
The new titles come with a blend of modern casino-style games in the form of classic arcade gaming. In the decades since arcade gaming was popular, online slots have evolved tremendously, to the point that they’re clearly different from the machines that once stood in the same halls as the likes of Space Invaders. By using modern design tech but keeping to the fundamentals of arcade games, Mines and Wheel of Winners become innovative.
It’s a trend that adds variety to the scene of online casino gaming, tapping into what made arcade games popular while also giving them a lick of paint and a few adjustments to modernize the experience. Video gaming is enjoying a very similar trend. The hits of the 90s and 00s are being remastered and brought to modern consoles as The Ringer describes. Again, their classic game mechanics and designs make them stand out in an arena complex, vast, and graphically intense products.
Returning to the Live-Action Adaptations Well
The 1990s and, to a decreasing extent, the 2000s, were a rough time for movie studios looking to draw stories from the most popular titles in the newest hit entertainment medium. Clear cash-grabs struggling to see the point of the source material weighed down by poor writing and embarrassing attire, the likes of Super Mario Bros. and Mortal Kombat stood as a warning to Hollywood studios’ future efforts of adapting from video games.
Over the decades since, video game graphics have improved massively, even to the extent that filmmakers now tap into video game engines like Unity and Unreal to produce their special effects, as explained in this Filmmaker Tools article. Narratives have been given more of a priority, and the tech available to filmmakers has improved. As a result, we’re now back in the trend of Hollywood studios adapting from video games.
Powering this is the ever-improving nature of CGI and motion capture technology. Combined, they offer a way for the human characters and the landscapes of the games to come to life in live action, as well as allow for mostly realistic-looking beasts, monsters, zombies, and other such creations to exist on-screen seamlessly. Of course, the old trend can bring with it old habits. For every well-written and well-realized The Last of Us and Sonic the Hedgehog, there’s a Fallout, Halo, and A Minecraft Movie.
With advancing technologies, the old trends can become new again, arriving with a new lick of paint and a kind of novelty in the modern entertainment media landscape.
