As much as I like scanlines, this isnt really true. Games weren't made with scanlines in mind, if by scanlines we mean the heavy black lines in between the actual scanlines. Retro games are being presented a certain way as of the past few years that isn't representative of how most of us saw the games growing up. Gamers have been obtaining scanline generators, PVMs and other high end broadcast monitors for those pronounced scanlines. But these games, like live television, were made for consumers with consumer CRTs, not video professionals with $15,000 monitors.
Looking at old magazine ads, TV commercials and the backs of boxes will give a better idea of how the games weren't meant to be seen. That was mainly with very soft, faint scanlines or even nonexistent lines. Actually, the heavy dark lines of some filters, broadcast monitors and line generators ruin the visuals in some games... the graphics don't come together how they should with a CRT that has a softer image. I will say that heavy scanlines or not, they do look better than the plain image of a fixed pixel display.
Anyway, crossposting some pics I took of AM2R.