What people do in the moment often seems to them to be normal or natural. But in retrospect, there are almost always identifiable characteristics that can be grouped together and given a name.
Oh definitely, no denying that.
The point I am trying to make there is:
certain forms of music for early games are now known as "chiptunes." We didn't know we were composing/creating chiptunes back in the day. We were just making use of the available tech, copying and influencing each other in the process.
This is a particular style that crystallized out because it actually resulted from the available technology only giving established composers a limited set of tools to work with and them trying to create actual art with what they have. Limitation can indeed be
very conductive to creating great art or even just new
forms of it, therefore...
Do people who like chiptunes now only like them because of the fun they had playing the original games? I don't think so.
...neither do I.
But this is art that
was, despite the limitations, made to be pretty.
The reason I say that the kind of style we are talking about is
not that is that a lot of the people making this game art did so
without having the slightest clue what they were doing.
There were a lot of hobbyists and small-scale developers back in the day who quite simply had not yet found out that making games aesthetically pleasing might be a goal in its own.
Graphics were, I believe, often simply made with the idea of "has to hopefully remind the player of what it is supposed to be" in mind. No primary regard to actually making it pretty.
There
are a lot of examples of game art from that era and even earlier which were definitely great and made by people who knew what they were doing, but those styles alreay
have been named a long time ago.
What we are looking for here is -again, I assume- the "miscellaneous" category of that time, the stuff that was made to serve a purpose. "Functional" if you will.
All I am actually trying to say is that most people have fond memories of
that category from a particular time only because it is what they happened to be exposed to.
Personally, I can very much appreciate most of the "named" styles, no matter how old, but I really dislike this particular one. The people who tell me they like it have so far always been the age to have played it at the time.
In conclusion:
If the graphic style being invoked hasn't yet been named, it's probably only a matter of time before it will be. Most likely there are people deep into graphics who already have come up with terms for the different game art periods and styles.
I do not believe it has been named or will have a big enough comback to get a name now.
If there is or will be a name I suppose that name will have "90s" or similar in it, as it is a product of its time and much less so its technology.
