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Back in the day the struggle was real

Pilgrimzero

Pilgrimzero

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,129
I remember having to go all the way to the mall to visit Suncoast Video to buy anime on VHS. And it cost like $40 for 4 episodes. A whole season of Tenchi was a damn investment.

The struggle was real.

What do you remember doing younger people dont have to deal with today

(and lets keep this lighthearted, please)
 
P-Bo

P-Bo

One Winged Slayer
Member
Jun 17, 2019
4,405
With how much cartridges and consoles cost, my siblings and I were lucky if we ever got another game every two years. My parents felt one game was enough to last you an entire generation lol. These days, with an actual job and store discounts, I'm overwhelmed by my backlog.
 
Indy in the Fridge

Indy in the Fridge

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
15,278
Back in middle school, my family was too broke to buy a computer so all of my typed assignments were done on an electric typewriter. It amazes me that my parents had to buy eraser ribbons versus being able to hit Backspace.
 
ElectricBlanketFire

ElectricBlanketFire

What year is this?
Member
Oct 25, 2017
31,831
Paying $60 for 3 episode packs of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on VHS was rough.

Spending $30 on import versions of an album to get one...MAYBE 2 b-sides.
 
Finale Fireworker

Finale Fireworker

Love each other or die trying.
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,710
United States
When I was a kid, if you didn't know the answer to a question, that was it. You just didn't get to know.

Want to learn the lyrics to a popular song you heard on the radio? Too bad.
Not sure how far away the Burger King is from the school? Oh well.
Want to check if it's true there are no poisonous snakes indigenous to your state? Not happening.

Before the ubiquitous nature of information, you simply couldn't know things.

And before people say "well you could use a map" where the heck was a 12 year old going to find a town map? It's not like Pokémon where your neighbor's sister has plenty on hand.

Finding the answer to anything that popped in your head was often time consuming, required you to buy something, and required travel. It is amazing that anyone knew anything before the widespread availability of the internet. There were so many things that I wished I could learn about when I was a little kid that I straight up couldn't and it's wild to think how different it is now.
 
AcidCat

AcidCat

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
1,410
Bellingham WA
Indy in the Fridge said:
Back in middle school, my family was too broke to buy a computer so all of my typed assignments were done on an electric typewriter. It amazes me that my parents had to buy eraser ribbons versus being able to hit Backspace.
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Yep, this was the same for me, all through high school I used a typewriter, my mom couldn't afford a computer.

Finale Fireworker said:
And before people say "well you could use a map" where the heck was a 12 year old going to find a town map? It's not like Pokémon where your neighbor's sister has plenty on hand.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

One of the first things I got when I started driving was a Thomas Guide county map book. Got many years of use out of that old thing, seems crazy now, if you were going somewhere unfamiliar you'd bust out this big map book, look up the street, go to the page, figure out how to get there.
 
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nsilvias

nsilvias

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,719
being poor and having to buy batteries every couple days with your allowance to play your gameboy 😭
i used to buy those 2 for 5 walgreens battery 6 packs all the time until i got a gba sp
 

cecilpaladin32

Member
Apr 24, 2018
3,605
I got into anime right as anime DVDs started becoming common place, but god, paying $30 for 3 to 4 episodes was painful. I did watch my fair share of fansubs back in the day, though, too.
 
Teiresias

Teiresias

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,211
Having to have some pre-paid phone cards on me during longer school or band trips out of state in order to make non-collect calls on pay phones back home prior to cell phones.
 
bionic77

bionic77

Member
Oct 25, 2017
30,888
Having to make a decision on what game to buy solely based on the cover art.

Having to call a 900 number to get help when you were stuck in a game.

Being a teen and getting excited about lingerie catalogs because that was about as good as it was going to get unless you got lucky in the woods.
 

Deleted member 8861

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
10,564
P-Bo said:
With how much cartridges and consoles cost, my siblings and I were lucky if we ever got another game every two years. My parents felt one game was enough to last you an entire generation lol. These days, with an actual job and store discounts, I'm overwhelmed by my backlog.
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You might be glad to hear a similar struggle is going on in all the developing and worse off countries of the world
 
Torpedo Vegas

Torpedo Vegas

Member
Oct 27, 2017
22,596
Parts Unknown.
I remember when DVD was brand new and Suncost got $60 out of me for Dragonheart with Denis Quaid. I ain't even going to talk about how much I paid for Lake Placid.
 
Funkybee

Funkybee

Member
Feb 20, 2019
2,240
Having to wait on my fans in the arcade so I could snag a coin from them which would last me for a good 3-4 hours of kicking ass in the fighting games cabinets. I was considered the absolute monster in basically all of the available cabinets like Street Fighter 2 & Zero, King of Fighters 96, History Fighter etc. If I was broke and none of those fellow kids would show, then I had to show off my skills to other kids who I didn't know by offering my help to make their game last more thus they'd just leave the game to me, and there would always be some of the other dudes who hated my guts because they had already lost so much money and would just not give up and challenge me infinitely. Fondest memories.
 
WascallyWabbit

WascallyWabbit

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,398
Back in the day you had to wait a few minutes just for a damn porn photo to load. I mean you really had to get to know the girl from her face down to get your fap on. Had to learn the patience and work it takes to get the ladies.

Nowadays kids can just Google some wild shit and it's all available in HD for free. They don't know the struggle man
 

Deleted member 48897

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 22, 2018
13,623
Todays gamers probably don't even know what an interrupt request is, let alone that it's something we had to configure manually if we wanted to hear our video games
 
Zojirushi

Zojirushi

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,293
Finale Fireworker said:
It is amazing that anyone knew anything before the widespread availability of the internet.
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It's this.

Then again, everything I knew was from teachers/school and that stuff was probably more relevant/focused than the crap I look up on the internet nowadays lol.

But yeah for those who were already adults at that time, phew, sounds rough.
 
OP
OP
Pilgrimzero

Pilgrimzero

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,129
nsilvias said:
being poor and having to buy batteries every couple days with your allowance to play your gameboy 😭
i used to buy those 2 for 5 walgreens battery 6 packs all the time until i got a gba sp
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The battery pack and the magnifying glass thing that also had a light, was essential to Gameboy playing. I felt like a technological wizard when i had all that stuff. LOL
 
skeezx

skeezx

Member
Oct 27, 2017
20,129
My friends and I would pool our money for anime then. Like one suncoast visit with $200 netted us, like, 3 Ranma videos or some shit
 
modoversus

modoversus

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,674
México
Taking an almost 1 hour bus ride to a University to be able to rent 3 or 4 hours of Internet use at their computer lab. Would spend time at the sega chat on the sega.com website, download to floppy discs game screenshots and .wads for Doom.
 
BigMack

BigMack

Member
Oct 27, 2017
565
"BigMack, get off the internet! I need to use the phone!"

Having to buy a whole album for $20 just for the few good songs on it.
 
Foxtastical

Foxtastical

Member
Oct 27, 2017
412
I understand why people get nostalgic and wide-eyed about the past, but it still blows me away that people think that way or genuinely want to live in the past. Gimme the present and future.

Still remember slowly getting through Gundam 0080 and 0083 over a period of like 6 months. Each VHS cost at least $30 for 2 episodes. I'd rewatch those fucking episodes so many times before getting the next tape. Memorized previous episodes before finally getting to experience the next segment.
 
NinjaScooter

NinjaScooter

Member
Oct 25, 2017
54,123
Having all your friends phone numbers written down.

Leaving a QT video downloading so you can watch some shitty off camera footage of a game from E3.

Spending $15 on a CD only to realize you only like 1 or 2 (or sometimes none) songs.

Having to get to the theatre early to get tickets to a movie (pre-midnight screenings, when the "first" showing was like 11am on Friday). Remember doing this for Mortal Kombat back in the day. Waited in line like an hour+ just to get tickets.
 
Jesse_and_the_rippers

Jesse_and_the_rippers

Member
Dec 22, 2017
7,099
P-Bo said:
With how much cartridges and consoles cost, my siblings and I were lucky if we ever got another game every two years. My parents felt one game was enough to last you an entire generation lol. These days, with an actual job and store discounts, I'm overwhelmed by my backlog.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

It's strange how games have somehow always been 50-60 dollars. And that was a lot back in the 1980's.
 
MonadL

MonadL

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,888
Waiting an hour to download a single song from Napster if you had shit 56k internet. And God help you if someone had to make a fucking call.
 
Inugami

Inugami

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,995
Jesse_and_the_rippers said:
It's strange how games have somehow always been 50-60 dollars. And that was a lot back in the 1980's.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's not when you realize in the console market the majority of the cost was for the ROM chips themselves, and another chunk was licensing, packaging, etc. Devs were likely only making $10ish per copy sold unless you were a first party developer. It's why Famicom Disk System games were so cheap (like the equivalent to $5 to download a full game) since they were just rewriting onto a diskette.

It's also why PS1 games were often going for $40 day one versus N64 which were almost always $50 or $60. And the PS1 classic line could sell for $20, while Nintendo's greatest hits line started at $30.
 
dDASTARDLY

dDASTARDLY

The Fallen
Oct 28, 2017
702
9 year old me having to learn how to use a map to help my mom catch the right exit if my father didn't ride with us. The responsibility was enormous at that age and time.

Want to spend 30 minutes at Blockbuster to figure out which game you wanted to rent? What's Mega man? Eh...pick it up and we'll see what that plays like.

Recording radio stations for playback was an art form.

Owning anime (Robotech!!!) was crazy expensive and basically a luxury item.
 
Gaia Lanzer

Gaia Lanzer

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,669
Pilgrimzero said:
I remember having to go all the way to the mall to visit Suncoast Video to buy anime on VHS. And it cost like $40 for 4 episodes. A whole season of Tenchi was a damn investment.

The struggle was real.

What do you remember doing younger people dont have to deal with today

(and lets keep this lighthearted, please)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Anime was the worst. Well, in pricing (anime back in the day was my life). I remember buying a subbed Ranma 1/2 VHS, 2 episodes (dubbed cost more) for around $30. It was something I had to collect little by little over a WHILE back in the day.

Don't get me started with how regular VHS movies cost back in the 80s. That's a point I brought up for that one thread about the artwork featuring an 80s room where the kid has a bunch of VHS tapes for movies. Yeah, unless your dad worked for the movie studio, worked for a major retail chain that sold movies or owned a video store, you weren't going to be a kid with a stack of legit VHS movies. Chances are, you were going to have to have bootlegged copies you recorded via double VCR or off the TV.
 
skillzilla81

skillzilla81

Self-requested temporary ban
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,043
NinjaScooter said:
Having all your friends phone numbers written down.

Leaving a QT video downloading so you can watch some shitty off camera footage of a game from E3.

Spending $15 on a CD only to realize you only like 1 or 2 (or sometimes none) songs.

Having to get to the theatre early to get tickets to a movie (pre-midnight screenings, when the "first" showing was like 11am on Friday). Remember doing this for Mortal Kombat back in the day. Waited in line like an hour+ just to get tickets.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't know any of my friends numbers by heart, but I still remember 5 or 6 numbers I used on the daily from childhood.
 
Finale Fireworker

Finale Fireworker

Love each other or die trying.
Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,710
United States
Zojirushi said:
It's this.

Then again, everything I knew was from teachers/school and that stuff was probably more relevant/focused than the crap I look up on the internet nowadays lol.

But yeah for those who were already adults at that time, phew, sounds rough.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Right??

If I want to to know the lyrics to Monster Mash I can look them up right now. That song is from 1962. Adults born before that time, and kids born during, had to wait like four decades before the lyrics to the Monster Mash were readily accessible to them. People lived and died without ever knowing the words. How did anyone ever know anything? 😩
 

real2

Member
Jan 31, 2019
366
For me it was using dial up internet and then having my parents telling me to use it less since they wouldn't be able to call home while they were at work since the line was busy.

Also, I remember getting my first cd player and then having to carefully choose what songs I wanted to put on it since once it was on there, you couldn't change it (this was way before rewrite able CD's became dirt cheap)
 
SolVanderlyn

SolVanderlyn

I love pineapple on pizza!
Member
Oct 28, 2017
13,500
Earth, 21st Century
Driving in a strange place without a GPS, using MapQuest or whatever, must have been a huge pain. I was too young to experience that, but I feel for those who did. Especially before the internet.

Looking up stuff in the library for school research projects pre-internet was pretty wild.
 
bevishead

bevishead

Member
Jan 9, 2018
885
I would go into media stores like FYE and see the prices of anime, laugh, then walk out. No way was 3 - 4 episodes of anime worth more than a block buster hollywood movie.
 
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