In this day and age, it is certainly not uncommon to see people yearn for a simpler time by feeling nostalgic for their childhood experiences. For now, it seems the best way to capitalize off that nostalgia is through rebooting a beloved franchise like 2018's God of War or by remaking a groundbreaking classic like the blossoming world of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake fans were treated to this year.
One of the more recent nostalgia trends harkens back to a time when Pizza Hut's Book It program would reward children and their families with free food, barring that their child read a certain milestone of books. While these days, buying Pizza Rolls might unlock some Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War content, the 90's pizza scene was all about the fun of learning masked behind a love for the food.
A series of trending Tweets revealed the deep nostalgia children of the '90s have for this program, using their saved Book It certificates as a benchmark for how old they are. And while that might sound like a completely unrelated topic to gaming, this brand of nostalgia led to many people continuing on to reminisce about Pizza Hut's PlayStation demo discs that were offered around the same time the Book It program was in it's heyday.
These discs, which featured demos for such PlayStation titles like Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Ape Escape, and Final Fantasy 7, are even joked about as having a better lineup than Sony's own nostalgia machine, the PlayStation Classic, which many fans had to hack in order to get their desired games on the device.
One of the most interesting bits of trivia surrounding this nostalgia train is that former Nintendo of America President, Reggie Fils-Aime, is the man responsible for Pizza Hut's partnership with PlayStation. At the time, Fils-Aime was Pizza Hut's Senior Director of National Marketing and took advantage of gaming's rising popularity to help boost Pizza Hut sales. It wasn't too long afterward that Fils-Aime found himself at Nintendo, where he quickly gained a fan following as the face of Nintendo of America. Currently, Fils-Aime is enjoying his retirement as one of the Board of Directors at Gamestop.
Something fans might like to know is that the Book It program is not dead. In fact, its website still boasts a partnership with Pizza Hut to this very day, though Dominos and their PlayStation 5 themed pizza ads are some assured competition.
While demo discs might be a thing of the past and some games, like Person 5 Strikers, didn't even get a demo in the West, it feels like the days of demos are dwindling. At least fans will always have their nostalgia to lie back on.