In retrospect, what really tickles me about the eighties Anglo-Saxon fantasies of the lone vigilante, is that a protagonist is deemed so pure in his all-American righteousness, he is deemed worthy to learn the martial secrets of one racial minority in order to beat up all the other racial minorities. 

When we talk about moral guardian types, we’re not talking about people who really work hard to unpack themes and develop understanding. We’re talking about people whose first instinct is to lash out at newness and change, and video games were definitely that, especially in the 80s.

I give Lucky Wander Boy some credit for being one of the earliest works (published in 2003 iirc) to try to get something really deep out of video games. The problem was, it was focused on all that old mind-numbing Atari stuff. Pre-NES, with the possible exception of the Colecovision, video games weren’t much more than dinky toys. My parents played arcade games like Asteroids, Tempest and Centipede when they were in high school, but it was never the beginning of an obsession—it was a diversion, something to pass the time before cruising down the main thoroughfare with friends. I always wondered why they were so concerned with my own deep fascinations with games like Secret of Mana and Star Trek: Judgment Rites, and it was only later that I realized that they didn’t see video games as capable of those sorts of things, because of the run-and-gun no-endings play-till-you-die types they were familiar with. So it kind of chafes me when people try to find deeper meaning in that era, as opposed to later on, sometimes 8-bit but mostly 16- and onward, where developers were actually, you know, trying for that sort of thing.
As a result the whole thing just reads to me like so much eye-rolling navel-gazing freshman philosophy. I seem to recall a passage where the protagonist masturbated to Adventure; it’s never good when the most memorable passage of a book is the low point.

 I remember thinking “Video game fiction?  I’m in.”  I remember buying it.  I remember reading it.  I remember.. something about a super secret hidden level rumor?  I remember being disappointed.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing.  To take an extreme example, the Renaissance was based on misplaced nostalgia for a Graeco-Roman Classical era that wasn’t much like the 15th-century Florentines pictured it.  But the correspondence of their ideal to earlier realities didn’t compromise the Renaissance’s achievements: quite the contrary.  If anything, it’s BETTER that nostalgia be slightly rose-colored–why labor to revive the bad elements of an earlier time along with the good?  (And for all one knows, your idea of what was bad about the ’80s might charitably be described as a “boutique” opinion, to boot.)

There’s a pretty big difference between nostalgia and idealization.  You’re not showing your work.

 Thing one: If you haven’t seen the awesome Adam Curtis doc “The Century of the Self,” I think you’d really enjoy it. It’s free on line all over the place. It’s a really detailed, trenchant look at the way commerce and (pop-)psychology evolved in the States to create the contemporary American combination of extreme capitalism and libertarian self-mythologizing. His careful unpacking of how all those lefty hippie radicals from the 60s grew up to vote for Ronald Reagan in such high numbers makes something seemingly counter-intuitive make so much sense.

Thing two: There does seem to be a 20-ish-year shelf-life on this kind of cultural nostalgia. We’re coming out of the 00s-80s-50/60s nostalgia sine curve and are likely shifting into the 10s-90s-70s nostalgia sine curve. All of the 20-something college kids that nostalgia peddlers market to were born in the 90s now, so the Tee-Fury t-shirts will probably trade in their Ghost Busters for, uh, Nirvana or something.

And while it’s too early in the 10s to tell, politics seems to me moving somewhat more to the Clinton-left-ish-ness (though I imagine politics will remain more economically conservative than the 90s), and groups like Occupy/Anonymous might be presaging an era of more vocal discontent than the generally sated 00s and 80s, possibly resulting from economic crash in the late 00s. Obviously, I’m painting in super-broad strokes, but I think we all kind of are in a discussion of this nature.

Thing three: I’m personally looking forward to the movie “re-imagining” of That 70s Show, where we get to see a 10s simulacrum of a 90s simulacrum of the 70s! Emma Stone IS Laura Prepon IS Donna! Taylor Lautner IS Wilmar Valderama IS Fez!

Nostalgia typically advances. Consumers feel nostalgic for their childhood. 50s, 60s, 70s and even 90s nostalgia have come and gone over the last 25 years. It alarms and surprises me that 80s nostalgia has been as persistent as it has been. It began in the late 90s and has only gotten stronger in the last 15 years.  

For video games, it makes sense, as they were the formative years of the genre. But, like you said, the 80s nostalgia penetrates every facet of pop culture right now. Even for people born in the 90s, “Don’t Stop Believing” is an anthem.

And I don’t think it’s a resurgence of Reagan-era politics, by any means. We’re idealizing certain cultural elements, while recognizing that the 80s were pretty fucked up. Things were dark, grimy, and shitty, but we still found things to be happy and excited about. We didn’t have much hope for the future, but we found ways to make the most of the here and now.

It’s that latter attitude that best reflects the spirit of the present day. The economic prospectus is bleak, especially for youth*. We don’t have any hope left for the future; all we have is today.

*Growing up in the 80s and 90s, we learned to believe that there was a “straight” path. If you worked hard, and stayed in school, you’d get a decent job that would lead to a contented life. If you were really ambitious and gifted, you could have the world in your hands. It seemed like our biggest dilemma would be whether or not to sell out. Now, the option of selling out isn’t on the table; nobody’s buying. In the 90s, we were concerned about the number of overqualified people in “McJobs”. Now, even “McJobs” have become competitive. The ”straightest” path is no longer the easiest path, necessarily.   

They’re the same fear. In both cases, you’re expecting something around the corner, either with a knife or razor-sharp teeth. As you gain more familiarity with those environments, as you go into them more frequently and don’t get shanked/eaten, the fear diminishes.

Hmmm… I grew up in a town of ~1500 people, and I was on the outskirts – there were probably less than 10 houses within a kilometre of me, in any direction. We just ran through the woods and fields like wild beasts. And then moved to the city when I was 16, and have spent most of my life since then in various large cities. 

I’ve sometimes felt fear in both settings, but rarely. I think @Bad_Horse:disqus has it, it’s a matter of familiarity. If you’re acclimatized to it, you generally don’t fear it (unless you’re like my aunt, who spends her entire life in terror of the evil people who lurk round every corner, even in broad daylight).

Arkham City is a subversion of this trope, if you ask me. For most of the game, the real threat isn’t the gangs and supervillains, it’s the powers that be.