another /vr/ jan here, i think the problem can be summed up more succinctly and less dramatically: stagnation

/vr/ is currently suffering from the same issue /vg/ mods struggle with, i've seen a lot of them complain about the katawa shoujo general and such. how can people continue to discuss a game that's been out for five years and everything's been done already? the short answer is, they don't.
now apply that to an entire board.

obviously, not everybody can play every single game from older times, but there's still an upper limit of content. new games are coming out so there's always new discussion on /v/, new anime is coming out so there's always new discussion on /a/. you can't release a new retro game, though, so /vr/ is extremely limited.
the best topics on /vr/ are the ones that use old games as a platform and make new things with them, modding, romhacking, and etc, because there's OC, people are making things, there's new content to discuss, to like and to hate, to shitpost about and contribute to.

so what we can do?
if we want to get autistic, "retro" means evoking a time of the past in style and design. we consider the 90s retro, for example. the 90s weren't actually that long ago, yet its style and design are a distinct entity from Current Year. likewise, we're on the verge of the ninth console generation, but the games and releases of the sixth gen are definitely its own separate era.
the often-repeated suggestion is to consistently bump up what "retro" is, and in lieu of anything else it's pretty much the best solution. by consistently bumping up the cutoff date, we'll consistently have new content to talk about, stuff that the other boards don't care much for but still holds a niche interest.

boy am i sure not looking forward to the fucking smash melee and halo threads, though. holy shit those are going to be a fucking firehouse.

if you read through all that, have some anime titties