If there’s one thing that indie games like Mr. Rescue and Don’t Be Patchman (the world’s first and only SteamOS exclusive) demonstrate, it’s that retro is hot. Specifically, pixel art is hot.
Developers like it because it’s got a low barrier for entry, so if you don’t have an art department eagerly awaiting to supply assets for your open source game, you can realistically do it yourself without spending a year learning complex artistic tools that you may never master