Oct 27, 2017
1,047
Bought on Vimeo! As fate would have it, I had a mild curiosity a few days ago about independent game stores and came across this article from Polygon. I remembered seeing this thread a while ago and went searching for it. Looks like the timing couldn't have been any more spot on.
 

neonglow

Member
Oct 25, 2017
803
I enjoyed seeing the life stories behind all the shop owners and what made them decide to open a gaming store. I was a bit sad about things going poorly for many of them due to the rise of digital game sales. I wish more customers were interviewed like the guy that sold his Saturn collection. It'd be nice to see why they continue to visit these retro shops.
 

SpotAnime

Member
Dec 11, 2017
2,128
Just wanted to say KalBalboa thanks for making this, I really enjoyed it. So much so, after buying the digital copy I ended up getting the Blu-ray because of the commentaries and extra footage. The extended conversation between Frank, Pat and Kelsey was really great, and the filmmaker commentary shows just how much of a fan you are of gaming as well.
 

Hawk269

Member
Oct 26, 2017
6,077
I really enjoyed it. I rented it via Amazon and will also buy it soon. It was very well done and I would love to walk into one of those stores and rummage through some of the stock rooms to see what gems I could find. As a collector with a pretty big Atari 2600 CIB collection (well not that large about 50 CIB games) and other systems and games such as Intellivision, Colecovision and some 8 Bit Atari Computers it was great watching this. I live near Boise, Idaho and I wish we had some stores like those in the documentary. Anyways, really enjoyed this and will buy it soon.
 

TheZynster

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,322
just watched KalBalboa and this has to be the most depressing documentary man. Brings back a lot of memories alone too, and I'm not all that old.

Just like the one guy said, we are selling memories not games is pretty accurate.

I just sold a copy of metal warriors to another member last year for a good penny. I remember exactly how that game was received though and how stunned i was at finding a gem based on the cartridge artwork alone. That game was a marvel piece of tech and truly blew away almost any SNES games in quality. The animations and just quality were unmatched on snes.

But i got the game when i was like 6 or 7 when dollar videos were still a thing. They had their sidewalk sale and inside the case was a copy of metal warriors for like $7.........little did i know i was going to be reselling it years later for near $200 due to its value and rarity. The game even still had the sticker on the case at the top lol.

I miss blockbuster, dollar video and the rental games of spending time in the video store just browsing at all the games and cases. I miss the mmorpg blitz of the mid 2000's.....i owned every AAA mmorpg physically. Age of Conan, Aion, Warhammer, SWTOR........EVERYTHING. I'll take all those cheesy mmorpgs back then vs the garbage we have now (outside of FFXIV). Sadly its the one genre that actually got worse and not better as time progressed. Now its all GaaS titles.

Walking to gamestop after school with my buddy or going to TNT when it was still there one town over. Now i have to go into the city to hit a retro store period. Sad to see the one featured in the chicago area already closed. But there are still quite a few from what i googled thankfully.
 

dubc

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,438
Seattle
I miss blockbuster, dollar video and the rental games of spending time in the video store just browsing at all the games and cases.
I recently visited family in rural parts of northern Indiana and we drove past several Family Video rental stores that were still open. I didn't get a chance to go into any but it was surreal to see rental places. They all had huge "CBD For Sale Here" signs in the windows, lol, scrapping on for revenue.

We went to the local library to 'rent' (check out?) some movies for my daughter and they had a lot of ps360, PS4, xbo, and nsw games. They had DS games still too! Rental may be dying off but it looks like some library systems are filling in gaps.
 

TheZynster

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,322
I recently visited family in rural parts of northern Indiana and we drove past several Family Video rental stores that were still open. I didn't get a chance to go into any but it was surreal to see rental places. They all had huge "CBD For Sale Here" signs in the windows, lol, scrapping on for revenue.

We went to the local library to 'rent' (check out?) some movies for my daughter and they had a lot of ps360, PS4, xbo, and nsw games. They had DS games still too! Rental may be dying off but it looks like some library systems are filling in gaps.


yes, we have a local family video out here......that owner knows how to keep it alive apparently. I think he event rents systems out for people who don't wish to buy a console for a single game.....kind of clever. But man, there used to be a TON of video stores even in my area back in the day. Hell i remember when dollar video expanded....it was fucking huge. They actually were bigger than a blockbuster with the addition onto the building. Then they sold out the expansion years later to some tanning company....now the tanning company just owns the building lol.

Google maps using way back is some depressing stuff, open fields that used to exist in my area now just covered in the shopping centers and strip mall complexes everywhere. two lane highways now 4 to even 6 with turning lanes. Unreal.......now thats all crumbling down due to the rise of online shopping and more. Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee got murdered by the addition of Randall road in Algonquin and lake in the hills.

Spring Hill went from i think 5 or 6 anchor stores from Sears, Kohls, Macy's, Carson Pierre Scott and JCPenny

to

Kohls

the mall has basically turned into a flee market inside. Pop up tables with signs taped to the front with maybe a few face stores left.....place is a complete dump. It's depressing knowing how massive that mall used to be.

But this documentary brings all those memories back. Like Funkoland, EB Games, hell even gamestop early on was kind of cool.

It's depressing what the state of everything is these days is. Sure convenience is great, but a big part of going to the store and browsing as well was the social experience you would have with other customers and the employees. When everyone shared their memories and history on something. Now its all corporate garbage of just feeding you BS till you have had enough and just don't bother going back.

Thankfully some of the retail market still lives on.....but man, the day it dies really is a depressing day.
 

Fuzzy

Completely non-threatening
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
18,230
Toronto
I really enjoyed it. I rented it via Amazon and will also buy it soon. It was very well done and I would love to walk into one of those stores and rummage through some of the stock rooms to see what gems I could find. As a collector with a pretty big Atari 2600 CIB collection (well not that large about 50 CIB games) and other systems and games such as Intellivision, Colecovision and some 8 Bit Atari Computers it was great watching this. I live near Boise, Idaho and I wish we had some stores like those in the documentary. Anyways, really enjoyed this and will buy it soon.
These aren't good?

www.retrogamehunter.com

Retro Game Hunter - Your National Retro Video Game Store Database - Boise

The largest, most accurate, and most reliable listings of retro video game stores located in Boise, Idaho.
 

SpotAnime

Member
Dec 11, 2017
2,128
I miss blockbuster, dollar video and the rental games of spending time in the video store just browsing at all the games and cases. I miss the mmorpg blitz of the mid 2000's.....i owned every AAA mmorpg physically. Age of Conan, Aion, Warhammer, SWTOR........EVERYTHING. I'll take all those cheesy mmorpgs back then vs the garbage we have now (outside of FFXIV). Sadly its the one genre that actually got worse and not better as time progressed. Now its all GaaS titles.

Walking to gamestop after school with my buddy or going to TNT when it was still there one town over. Now i have to go into the city to hit a retro store period. Sad to see the one featured in the chicago area already closed. But there are still quite a few from what i googled thankfully.

yes, we have a local family video out here......that owner knows how to keep it alive apparently. I think he event rents systems out for people who don't wish to buy a console for a single game.....kind of clever. But man, there used to be a TON of video stores even in my area back in the day. Hell i remember when dollar video expanded....it was fucking huge. They actually were bigger than a blockbuster with the addition onto the building. Then they sold out the expansion years later to some tanning company....now the tanning company just owns the building lol.

Google maps using way back is some depressing stuff, open fields that used to exist in my area now just covered in the shopping centers and strip mall complexes everywhere. two lane highways now 4 to even 6 with turning lanes. Unreal.......now thats all crumbling down due to the rise of online shopping and more. Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee got murdered by the addition of Randall road in Algonquin and lake in the hills.

Spring Hill went from i think 5 or 6 anchor stores from Sears, Kohls, Macy's, Carson Pierre Scott and JCPenny

to

Kohls

the mall has basically turned into a flee market inside. Pop up tables with signs taped to the front with maybe a few face stores left.....place is a complete dump. It's depressing knowing how massive that mall used to be.

But this documentary brings all those memories back. Like Funkoland, EB Games, hell even gamestop early on was kind of cool.

It's depressing what the state of everything is these days is. Sure convenience is great, but a big part of going to the store and browsing as well was the social experience you would have with other customers and the employees. When everyone shared their memories and history on something. Now its all corporate garbage of just feeding you BS till you have had enough and just don't bother going back.

Thankfully some of the retail market still lives on.....but man, the day it dies really is a depressing day.

Yeah, I was having a debate with some MLiG Patron supporters about this movie, who were complaining there was no narrative to this. But in the discussion we realized the folks saying that were young, and they never saw or experienced this retail culture. They are digital children.

I said this movie was more a tragedy than anything, as it really hits home the things that our memories are attached to are slowly dying, with the realization we are all as well. Keeping these things alive keeps a part of us alive, but it's slowly escaping our grasp. It's inevitable.

Even the preservation efforts documented in MLiG's Analog Frontiers docs only go so far - physical media is still dying, they are just new devices that are going to play the games via SD cards, because the carts and discs we have will stop working.
 
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KalBalboa

KalBalboa

Member
Oct 30, 2017
8,093
Massachusetts
IGN Italia just ran a nice piece on the movie: "Un documentario firmato dal regista Kevin J. James racconta come alcuni negozianti statunitensi abbiano affrontato la crescente affermazione del digital delivery."

HZHLzWd.png


(I swear, the Punch Out cartridge shot was not staged; a friend stumbled upon it in Brooklyn and texted me the location: election day 2016)
 
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KalBalboa

KalBalboa

Member
Oct 30, 2017
8,093
Massachusetts
lol, was it just the front half or the whole cart?

The entire thing.

Tom and I (the DP) were packing up our cheap rental car with camera gear at his apartment. It was day one of our three week road trip to film a good chunk of the movie. Our buddy Steve texted me on his way to the polls to tell me "Go to X and Y street, there's a Punch Out cart that got run over- it's perfect!"

So, naturally, we drove over, I jumped out of the car and got the shot on an A7S with my 35mm Rokinon. We then drove over to Digital Press VG in Clifton, NJ.
 

firehawk12

Member
Oct 25, 2017
24,617
A bit of a random question, but I'm curious if you're planning to do anything with the extra interview footage that didn't make the film?
 

Z Y

Member
Oct 27, 2017
918
I bought this at launch on Vimeo and have been meaning to jump back into this thread to sing its praises.

Well done KalBalboa. Loved every minute of it.
 

dubc

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,438
Seattle
I was thinking about this movie last night. I'm almost certain one (perhaps more) of my local game stores will go out of business soon.
 
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KalBalboa

KalBalboa

Member
Oct 30, 2017
8,093
Massachusetts



We finally got our last bit of score up and available on YouTube today: this is PC-JR's remix of Robert Parker's 85 Again, which is the film's ending credit's theme song.
 
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KalBalboa

KalBalboa

Member
Oct 30, 2017
8,093
Massachusetts
Proud to be included alongside the likes of Danny at Noclip and the team behind Pretending I'm Superman!

From USGamer.net:

How Documentaries Are Helping Preserve Gaming Culture We're at Risk of Losing
USgamer spoke with six filmmakers about their work and how it makes gaming history accessible to viewers.

gN473MC.png



"History isn't intended to create a one-to-one representation of the world."
That's something Laine Nooney, New York University professor and expert on the history of Sierra On-Line, told USgamer for a recent piece on video game preservation. The thrust of Nooney's work, and of the work of the other preservationists and curators interviewed for that piece, revolves around things that the people who make and play games have left behind—not just games and the hardware they're played on, but design documents, marketing materials, personal effects.

While working on that piece, a relevant interview opportunity at PAX East 2020 landed in my inbox. Though I didn't know it at the time, the question of how we hold onto video game culture was about to get a lot more pressing. Over the past few months, I've spoken with six filmmakers about documentary projects that capture gaming history from various angles and scopes. From the embedded YouTube development documentaries of Noclip, to feature films like Pretending I'm a Superman, these filmmakers have not only captured stories about games, developers, and subcultures, but together their work may inform a future record of what gaming culture at-large was like in a pre-pandemic world.
 

Sanjuro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
31,630
Massachusetts
God. You hit me with the Lechmere feels...

The movie was definitely not what I expected, in a good way. Kind of bummed I missed the showings, as it was right up my alley.

In terms of the stores themselves, I made the trip to Salem a few times. It was basically that a few great comic shops. My hometown local game store went throughout the years from new product, to used, to just clinging on, then literally dying.
 
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KalBalboa

KalBalboa

Member
Oct 30, 2017
8,093
Massachusetts
God. You hit me with the Lechmere feels...

The movie was definitely not what I expected, in a good way. Kind of bummed I missed the showings, as it was right up my alley.

In terms of the stores themselves, I made the trip to Salem a few times. It was basically that a few great comic shops. My hometown local game store went throughout the years from new product, to used, to just clinging on, then literally dying.

Yeah, the Lechmere bit is a distinctly New England moment. It helps build the subtext of marginalizing retail while keeping the Massachusetts footprint of GameZone in the mix. I love that he has that old Nintendo case (still!).
 

Sanjuro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
31,630
Massachusetts
Yeah, the Lechmere bit is a distinctly New England moment. It helps build the subtext of marginalizing retail while keeping the Massachusetts footprint of GameZone in the mix. I love that he has that old Nintendo case (still!).
Yup. On the south coast we also had Apex. You can still see the funky pyramid building driving through North Providence / Pawtucket on the highway.
 
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KalBalboa

KalBalboa

Member
Oct 30, 2017
8,093
Massachusetts
Cant wait to check this out! Gonna give it a watch tonight

Hope you like it!


Thanks!

Hey Kal. Any idea when the Blu-ray will be back in stock?

Our manufacturer just started printing the second run, so I'm guessing in 4 weeks.

I have ONE sealed copy left in my possession, so I could ship it to you if you want it sooner rather than later. DM me?

That's awesome! Congrats!

Thanks!

Holy crap, that's awesome! Congrats!

Right?! Thanks!
 

Secretofmateria

User requested ban
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
8,424
Hope you like it!



Thanks!



Our manufacturer just started printing the second run, so I'm guessing in 4 weeks.

I have ONE sealed copy left in my possession, so I could ship it to you if you want it sooner rather than later. DM me?



Thanks!



Right?! Thanks!

about half way through it, I love it, I actually live closer to a few of these stores than I thought! Im gonna check a few of these stores out
 
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KalBalboa

KalBalboa

Member
Oct 30, 2017
8,093
Massachusetts
Holy shit, I missed this news. Congrats, kal - that is incredible!

Right?! When I was first contacted I booked a hotel and made plans to travel with my dad so I could show the movie off to him at the museum, but then COVID kicked in. The in-person screening got moved to a digital event for obvious (smart) reasons.

Still- getting that email from the Smithsonian knocked my socks off.
 
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