Yup. Those SNES/N64 carts were too expensive to be getting games on any regular basis! Sales weren't as good as they are these days either...
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When you were growing up, did you only get a few games a year and so play them to death because they're all you had?
- Thread starter oni-link
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My Mom has always been into games so growing up we got a game a month or so, and then there was Blockbusters
I had dozens of games for my NES that I bought myself. I had a paper route when I was 10-12yrs old and spent every cent on Nintendo games, comic books, & Transformers. I made around $150 a month from 1984-1987.
Between what I owned, traded/swapped with friends, & rented, I could get my hands on and play pretty much anything I ever wanted.
Between what I owned, traded/swapped with friends, & rented, I could get my hands on and play pretty much anything I ever wanted.
Maybe 3 or 4 games in a calendar year. We would just trade games with kids on the block or at school.
I traded Kung-Fu on NES for Mega Man 2 (trades usually last for a week or until a parent says get that game back)
I traded Kung-Fu on NES for Mega Man 2 (trades usually last for a week or until a parent says get that game back)
My first system was the Sega Master System. (I was 5.) I only owned 4 games on it and two came with the system: Hang-On/Astro Warrior, Alex The Kid, and OutRun. I played OutRun until I knew that game forwards and backwards.
2 years later, I got my NES and only had Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt, Mega Man 2, Double Dribble, and Major League Baseball. Played a LOT of Mega Man 2 and Double Dribble. My best friend got SMB 2 and 3 in a weird KB Toys dual pack a year later, and I got....Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Because it was one of the few games I owned (and was in love with the Turtles), I actually look back on that game rather fondly. I know people hate it (especially because of the Dam level), but because it was all I really had, I LEARNED that game.
Also, this probably feeds into the reason that I have a literal library of games as an adult and ZERO time to play them all.
2 years later, I got my NES and only had Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt, Mega Man 2, Double Dribble, and Major League Baseball. Played a LOT of Mega Man 2 and Double Dribble. My best friend got SMB 2 and 3 in a weird KB Toys dual pack a year later, and I got....Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Because it was one of the few games I owned (and was in love with the Turtles), I actually look back on that game rather fondly. I know people hate it (especially because of the Dam level), but because it was all I really had, I LEARNED that game.
Also, this probably feeds into the reason that I have a literal library of games as an adult and ZERO time to play them all.
Hell yes. We couldn't really afford much. My mom saved up to buy me a PS1 and ONE game. I remember being stressed about what game to choose lol Then I saw FF7 and it was three discs. I bought it just because it was three discs, little did I know it would become one of my all time favorite games. Probably played that game all year long.
Nope, my dad encouraged me to follow his steps and sail the 7 seas. As a kid during the 00's, I played any game I wanted.
Then I grew up, thought that I was encouraged to do the wrong thing and now, even though I still don't have the money to pay full price, I just get my games through Steam sales or play retro games through emulation.
Then I grew up, thought that I was encouraged to do the wrong thing and now, even though I still don't have the money to pay full price, I just get my games through Steam sales or play retro games through emulation.
True, there were cheap clearance deals but it was also pretty easy to find NES and SMS games for $5 to $10 around 1993/1994, in my experience. A lot of this question depends on how current the games being bought were given the price slashes that occur later in generations.
I only got to play games from the sales bin, the really awesome stuff :/
But it got me some gems I would otherwise not play, like 'zero tolerance' :D
Oh and I played the shit out of demo discs.
But it got me some gems I would otherwise not play, like 'zero tolerance' :D
Oh and I played the shit out of demo discs.
Yeah, he even got the import Saturn, Dreamcast and PS2 months or years before they ended up on sale in Germany. Always used to hang at his places and play the newest Japanese games without understanding a single word.
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I feel like I had a good mix as a kid. I got just enough games through holidays and allowance saving that I never really missed anything. I remember really digging into some games in ways I don't now, but it was never out of 'this is all I have' but 'I'm going to play this today.' I had a very high tolerance for bad games, so the only time I ever got something that I played despite it angering me was when I used all my allowance money for it and discovered it was only three hours long.
Yeah, as a kid I definitely didn't get that many games. It was mainly just Christmas and my birthday when I'd get new ones, then otherwise I'd get used games from EB / Gamestop or rent them from Blockbuster. I was also pretty bad about not finishing games most of the time back then but I'd have a handful of games I'd play constantly like Smash Bros or Midnight Club. Wasn't really until high school when I had money of my own to buy games myself more often.
I was born in 1984 so I started gaming on band me downs from the decade.
I played copious amounts of Safari Hunt on my Master System for example before upgrading to a Nintendo Scope 6 which got *use*.
Other than that, I played so much Wiz'n'Liz and Super Monaco GP it isn't even funny. Yes, the games I had back then we're few but very, very, well used.
remember when the pictures on the back of the box were of the ace arcade version, and your home computer version looked like a potato?
I would get maybe 4-5 games a year growing up during the 8 and 16bit eras.
Renting from video stores and swapping games with friends too was how I played many games back then.
Today my 5 year old has a Kindle fire kids edition and he loves playing on the Switch. He just downloads anything and everything on the Kindle for free and he doesn't get that I have to buy games on the Switch (the ones he wants at least).
Renting from video stores and swapping games with friends too was how I played many games back then.
Today my 5 year old has a Kindle fire kids edition and he loves playing on the Switch. He just downloads anything and everything on the Kindle for free and he doesn't get that I have to buy games on the Switch (the ones he wants at least).
Was born in 1987 my parents didnt have a lot of money we could only get 1 game a year and its was at christmas, so yeah we play thame till death, i beaten zelda ocarina of time so many time 100%, mario 64 too, on the snes i only had mario and killer instincts
In-between for me. On the one hand, I did get only a handful of full games to play in a year, but that was supplemented by a ton of demos I got to play from PC and game magazines. When you're a kid, you don't see a demo as very limited, you just play it over and over because it's fun. In that sense, I had a lot of variety in what I played.
Yeah, I definitely had to appreciate the games I had because it wasn't like I was getting them super often. I remember having only Super Mario 64 and Yoshi's Story for my N64 for quite a while, so I played a lot of those before finally getting other stuff. Embarrassingly, I was very bad at Yoshi's Story for some reason back then lol, but I played it a ton.
Only having a limited amount of games also had the upside of making rentals super exciting.
Only having a limited amount of games also had the upside of making rentals super exciting.
Birthday, Christmas, Report Cards if I did really good and parent's budget accounted for it. I had to save $5 a week from chores along with Birthday money to get a NES when it came out. We had two local video stores Erol's and Stallings that had NES games to rent so every Friday my mom would come home from work with a game for the weekend.
The neighborhood crew was good about trading games with each other too, so that helped out. In 89 I came in 2nd place at a video store tournament and that got me free rentals for a year, one out at a time. Was living like a king that year lmao.
One summer my friend's mom got him the SEGA Channel and I basically lived over there for a few months.
The neighborhood crew was good about trading games with each other too, so that helped out. In 89 I came in 2nd place at a video store tournament and that got me free rentals for a year, one out at a time. Was living like a king that year lmao.
One summer my friend's mom got him the SEGA Channel and I basically lived over there for a few months.
This guy would have made a killing in my neighborhood back in the 80s.
yupper although he wasn't "snobby" but he did get all the games. Too bad he had a Sega Master System and every one else has NES and he couldn't trade games.
I rented a lot, but also traded in TONS of games to get new ones.
Oh boy I wish I didn't trade some of those games.
Oh boy I wish I didn't trade some of those games.
Only having a few games definitely made it easier to focus on whatever I had, but also if I didn't play a game because it was terrible it had long term repercussions. After a few poor decisions (like Back to the Future 2 & 3 and the Batman video game for NES) my parents decided that virtually all games must be rented before they were purchased. Games were way too much money to bounce off of inside an hour because they were shitty, so rentals became the first step toward purchases.
In hindsight it was a good move, but damn did it lead to a few cases where every kid on the playground was freaking out about some new game, but I couldn't get it at New Movie Review (my local video store) or Blockbuster. In time they changed it to include "played it at my friend's house" but I abused that a couple times to again buy shitty games, and then it was back to rental or nothing.
Explaining to 10 year old me the state of my current Steam and PSN/PS+ libraries likely would have broken that kid's brain. But I think I was happier with games back then, so it is what it is.
In hindsight it was a good move, but damn did it lead to a few cases where every kid on the playground was freaking out about some new game, but I couldn't get it at New Movie Review (my local video store) or Blockbuster. In time they changed it to include "played it at my friend's house" but I abused that a couple times to again buy shitty games, and then it was back to rental or nothing.
Explaining to 10 year old me the state of my current Steam and PSN/PS+ libraries likely would have broken that kid's brain. But I think I was happier with games back then, so it is what it is.
Yes.
It's crazy, my 7 year old daughter has legitimately like 50+ quality games on rotation to play whenever she wants. I would've died for that as a kid.
It's crazy, my 7 year old daughter has legitimately like 50+ quality games on rotation to play whenever she wants. I would've died for that as a kid.
I grew up in late 80s / early 90s.
My first gaming machine was the Donkey Kong Jr game & watch when I was 12. I played that game to death until I was good enough to get my score back to 0.
I then got the gameboy when I was 13 with just 2 games: Tetris and McDonald's land. I played both over and over.
I then finally got the Amiga 500+ when I was 14 with Captain Planet, Lemmings and Bart Simpson vs the space mutants. I never bought another game for it, just a lot of blank floppies... The rest is history.
My first gaming machine was the Donkey Kong Jr game & watch when I was 12. I played that game to death until I was good enough to get my score back to 0.
I then got the gameboy when I was 13 with just 2 games: Tetris and McDonald's land. I played both over and over.
I then finally got the Amiga 500+ when I was 14 with Captain Planet, Lemmings and Bart Simpson vs the space mutants. I never bought another game for it, just a lot of blank floppies... The rest is history.
I used to meet with friends to go to shops where they had snes/mega drive demo stations.
Really shitty when they had stuff like Clayfighter for months on display :/
Really shitty when they had stuff like Clayfighter for months on display :/
Games were only expensive in the 80s/90s if you limited yourself to consoles, avoided trade-ins, the second hand market, swapping games with friends, cover discs...
Yeah, there were plenty of cheap options back then.
Yeah it was just a few games here and there, rentals were pretty popular amongst me and my friends up until the 360 era.
My opinion/observation is that it was the year 2005 that it started to change. Xbox live had just came out late 2004, steam started selling more than just 1st party games, and playstation store launched 2006. From then on the spectrum of pricing was opened wider for everyone.
My opinion/observation is that it was the year 2005 that it started to change. Xbox live had just came out late 2004, steam started selling more than just 1st party games, and playstation store launched 2006. From then on the spectrum of pricing was opened wider for everyone.
Yeah, my parents bought me a handful of games each year. I mostly rented games on the weekend. So I probably played anywhere from 3-6 different games a month. Obviously I'd play certain games for a longer period of times than others.
I only got about 6 games a year on my NES/Master System, but I did borrow/lend with my neighbour. He had a Japanese Famicom that had games I had never seen before, so that was kind of cool.
I remember I got so good at Ninja Garden I could complete it on less than 3 lives and I did not realise it was hard until much later. I always just thought that's how games were and having so few games gave me plenty of time to git gud.
I remember I got so good at Ninja Garden I could complete it on less than 3 lives and I did not realise it was hard until much later. I always just thought that's how games were and having so few games gave me plenty of time to git gud.
For new games yes, but we'd buy cheap lots from ebay or people we know that were selling bunches of games/systems, and rental stores existed then. That said, the most egregious was getting Vice City and a PS2 for Xmas 2002 but my dad not understanding that you needed a memory card, so I had to wait 9-ish months for my birthday to get one (meaning every time I wanted to play I'd have to start from the beginning).
Yeah, I was super-obsessed with the mainline Pokémon entries on Nintendo DS because that's all I ever asked my parents to buy me when I was younger.
The real reason for me was- gaming was social back then.
One kid would get a game, and we'd either pass the game around or go to one house to watch it being played. And discuss secrets and plot.
Now, I don't think any of us are playing as much, and certainly not the same games.
One kid would get a game, and we'd either pass the game around or go to one house to watch it being played. And discuss secrets and plot.
Now, I don't think any of us are playing as much, and certainly not the same games.
My brother and I would typically each get one game for Christmas, and if we were lucky, we could get one for our birthdays. Anything else had to be bought with gift money and/or allowances, but we only got $2 each week (if anything) and this was in the early '90s.
Worse yet, none of my friends back then had their own SNES, so I had no one to borrow or trade games with us. The PS1 era coincided with my high school years, so the combination of knowing more people with PS1s, all of us having part-time jobs, and the drop in game prices meant that we had much larger game collections and were constantly borrowing each others' games. And then I made the mistake of letting a friend borrow all my PS1 discs in 2001 when I joined the military, because he thought I was giving them to him and he never returned them.
Worse yet, none of my friends back then had their own SNES, so I had no one to borrow or trade games with us. The PS1 era coincided with my high school years, so the combination of knowing more people with PS1s, all of us having part-time jobs, and the drop in game prices meant that we had much larger game collections and were constantly borrowing each others' games. And then I made the mistake of letting a friend borrow all my PS1 discs in 2001 when I joined the military, because he thought I was giving them to him and he never returned them.
I dont think so, the 'Gamestop' kind of shops robbed kids, giving them essentially pennies for trade in games. Sold used games for 5 DeutschMark less then new (like 5 Dollars off). PC games where still expensive and came in a big ass card box. There was no e-Bay, or Craigslist back then.
Swapping games with friends highly depended on what console/ PC they had or what their parents got them. Then you had shitty kids not sharing/ trading. etc.
It was rough man.
Of course it was, try being a 10 year old in 1987 trying to convince your parents to spend $50 on a video game for your birthday. It's almost impossible but for Christmas you are guaranteed at least one game. Really the only way to play multiple games a year back then with either swap, trade, or borrow from friends.
Oh man, this game looks super cool
Let's look at the screenshots on the back!
Notice "may very considerably". This probably covered their ass, but was still untrue, as no matter how powerful your computer, this is what you were getting:
God I played this piece of garbage for so many hours
Let's look at the screenshots on the back!
Notice "may very considerably". This probably covered their ass, but was still untrue, as no matter how powerful your computer, this is what you were getting:
God I played this piece of garbage for so many hours
Spectravideo -> C64 -> Amiga 2000 -> 486 PC -> ...
True, we seemed to have abundance of games available for each system.
Utterly the opposite. Growing up in the UK in the early 1980s the scene was all about the ZX Spectrum and C64, then later the Atari ST and Amiga. Other than the Atari 2600 consoles didn't really take off until the 90s with the Megadrive and SNES.
Spectrum and C64 games came on tapes and were really easy to copy so I would regularly come home from school with C90 cassettes rammed full of games. Games were cheap to buy too, so I always had more games to play than time to play them.
The 90s changed all of that of course as the consoles took over the scene, but the 80s were bountiful in the UK at least.
Spectrum and C64 games came on tapes and were really easy to copy so I would regularly come home from school with C90 cassettes rammed full of games. Games were cheap to buy too, so I always had more games to play than time to play them.
The 90s changed all of that of course as the consoles took over the scene, but the 80s were bountiful in the UK at least.