“Take eight bits and call me in the morning”: video games, well-being, and the psychology of nostalgia

Bowman, N.D, Wulf, T, King, J and Hodge, S.E ORCID: 0000-0001-5007-8429 (2025) '“Take eight bits and call me in the morning”: video games, well-being, and the psychology of nostalgia.' In: Alvarez Igarzábal, F, Guardiola, E, Johann, C and Tillmanns, K, eds. Video games and mental health: perspectives of psychology and game design. ‎Transcript, Bielefeld, pp. 15-31. ISBN 9783837668568

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Abstract

For nearly 60 years, video games have arrested the attention of players, inviting us to interact and interface with on-screen content. More than just short-term entertainment experiences, video games are part of a broader cultural milieu—they are the most profitable media entertainment sector (global revenues nearly $400 billion USD in 2023) with more than 3.5 billion players globally (Clement, 2023). Similar to other entertainment media, some video game intellectual properties have transcended generations and, in many cases, grown beyond the medium itself: common cultural touchstones include Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog, along with seemingly endless subcultures of devoted fans of specific games and gaming properties (Jenkins, 2006). Unique from other entertainment media, video games present as “digital time machines” that allow players to directly revisit personally relevant and highly familiar worlds from the past in which those worlds remain unchanged (Robinson & Bowman, 2021; Wulf et al., 2018). Among the many outcomes of this revisiting is nostalgia, understood broadly as a past-oriented, idiosyncratic, social, and bittersweet-but-overall-positive emotion that spans cultures (Sedikides & Wildschut, 2022). From a media psychological perspective, video game-induced nostalgia is especially compelling insofar as nostalgia can have therapeutic and analgesic properties—a comforting experience that has psychological and potentially even physical well-being benefits (Sedikides & Wildschut, 2018; Kersten et al., 2023). The current chapter will provide an overview of the emerging psychological scholarship on nostalgia as induced by video games. Accordingly, much of the theory and research presented here is rooted in media psychology and mass communication scholarship, as these perspectives comprise our expertise and inform our understanding of nostalgia in video games. First, we provide a brief discussion of how one defines and specifies the types of games expected to elicit nostalgia (such as defining retrogames, Aycock, 2016; BBC, n.d.) as well as a summary of cultural and economic forces involved in gaming nostalgia (such as the preservation and/or remanufacture of seemingly classic games, Allen, 2021; Dyson, 2017). Next, we define nostalgia and discuss more specific definitions of nostalgia, such as the distinction between personal nostalgia (for one’s own autobiographical memories) and historical nostalgia (as an impression or a sensemaking of prior eras; Natterer, 2014) and how this relates to nostalgia as a meaningful mediated experience (Bowman et al., 2023b; Daneels et al., 2021). Following, we present evidence from scholarship on the correlations between nostalgic video game experiences and short-term subjective well-being (summarized in Bowman & Wulf, 2023), and identify areas of future research and development necessary to further explore the robustness and stability of these relationships. We conclude with a discussion about the myriad psychological implications of gaming-induced nostalgia, from boosting entertainment as well as for improving subjective well-being. We extract from this research implications for game design—both on how to purposefully elicit nostalgia for current gaming experiences, and for how current gaming experiences might be expected to foster nostalgia far into the future.

Item Type:	Book Chapter or Section
Note:	This chapter is part of an open access book. The whole book can be read at the link above.
UN SDGs:	Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Divisions:	School of Sciences
Research Centres and Groups:	Psychology Research Centre for Health and Cognition
Date Deposited:	29 Jan 2026 19:52
Last Modified:	29 Jan 2026 19:52
URN:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/17541

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