In seeking to exploit the emotional pull of nostalgia I'd found that, prior to the 1980s, our halcyon memories of childhood are filled with toys & sweets ... but for those aged under 40 video gaming itself is a significant part of their childhood, adolescence & formative years.
However, video game nostalgia -- retro-gaming -- presents a very thorny path of still-active copyright & trademarks. Most frustratingly, there is minimal room for reminiscence when many iconic tentpole Intellectual Properties (e.g. Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Mario, Sonic, Halo) have never actually gone away. And it's not just the IP: the actual games themselves are still with us. Nintendo's late-'80s NES Mario titles were re-released in the mid-'90s for the SNES and then re-released again for Wii in 2010! Games companies are already exploiting their own nostalgia, and doing a very good job of it.
So I decided to ignore retro-gaming; to explicitly avoid it -- stating that I would instead "explore wider non-game-related nostalgia cues". Whittling a subject down to a very specific area -- to a precise question -- is a vital part of the MA. I went in my own chosen direction and am very happy with it, with no regrets.
The Future of Nostalgia
That said, I was very interested to discover that one of this year's talented new MA intake, Matthew Hoey, was considering focusing on nostalgia for his main research.
More specifically, he has been exploring retro-gaming and has already hit on an angle that I hadn't even considered. He is currently focusing on the look & feel of older games and applying this as a nostalgia trigger in modern games. It's a smart move, and avoids the whole IP issue (much like the fictitious title character games in Wreck-It Ralph).
His work looks very promising and I really look forward to seeing where he goes with this, especially due to its complementary relationship with my own research. It's great to see academic research pieces fitting together like a giant jigsaw, each playing a part in expanding the whole discipline. It's also satisfying to know that the future of nostalgia is in safe hands!