Question for those who have been members for a few years

[BoringSupreez]

So, where were you in life when you first joined, and how have things changed since?

When I joined, I was an obnoxious, bored 15-year-old who was looking for something a little meatier than IGN and Gamefaqs. Life was easy, and I though about precious little besides how to best entertain myself. Now, I'm an adult and have to think about stuff like which college to attend, what career to shoot for, and how high to aim. How to finance it all. Especially since I'm experiencing the special joys of unemployment. I have an idea of what I'd like to do, but it would require hard work, talent, and I'm not talking about it until I'm able to determine whether or not I have the potential for it. I will say this though: it's not something totally ridiculous like "rock star" or "president."
I find myself playing fewer and fewer games, and more and more of them are "outdated" by today's standards. My tastes haven't grown up along with the rest of me; I prefer 128-bit gen stuff to most of what comes out today.
Surprisingly, my tastes in TV and movies hasn't changed at all as I've gotten older. I still watch a lot of kid's stuff because the stuff they make for teens is so retarded (for the most part.) Leads to me not having a lot I can relate to or talk about with other people my age, though. Most everyone I know watches crap like Vampire Diaries or Glee.

[noiseredux]

good topic. I stumbled upon the site because of Together Retro. We were playing Castlevania. It was almost exactly 3 years today (like the Built To Spill song). I had a fat PS2 and a PSP that I emulated old systems on and this site got me into lots of retro stuff. Let's see. I was 27. It was kind of a tough year. My wife and I were renting a house in a neighborhood we hated. Playing games and talking to strangers seemed a fun little hobby for escapism. I quite honestly did not think I would really stick around much other than to play the TR games. Who knew! We moved out of that place about 6 months later and my collection continued to grow, as did my activity on the board. The rest is... history?

[MrPopo]

Wow, this was three years go. I was about a year into my employment at Amazon and now that I had settled into my new apartment and got a good setup for my video games going I decided to start backfilling my collection. What specifically brought me here was the guide on playing backups on your Saturn, as I wanted to play the Shining Force III translation patches that were nearing completion. Things were pretty constant for me for the next couple years; I grew my collection and filled every inch of my apartment with Ikea shelves. Then this year I finally saved up enough for my house. Now I've got a couple arcade cabs and a kitty, and this December I plan to finish things off by snagging a Pump It Up machine. Oh, and I've got one more week with Amazon, then I switch over to Microsoft to work on Windows 8.

[Droid party]

Oh, and I've got one more week with Amazon, then I switch over to Microsoft to work on Windows 8.

Oh sweet mate, congrats! Good luck with your new job.

For me and how I joined, it was 2007 and I was just starting to take the dreamcast seriously and needed a vga box which I bought from Racketboy on ebay and noticed that he linked to a website with his name on it, checked it out and liked the people and have hung around since.

And what's changed, I was single living from pay check to pay check and generally hated my life. But in the last year I met an amazing girl and we have started to make a life together and have a bright future. We have plenty of money coming in and a 4 year old girl (hers from previous relationship) who lights up my day every time she smiles. Life is pretty good although unfortunately my body hasn't wanted to play along with the happy ending (or more to the point my head), 3 days ago I was diagnosed with major depression a condition that has gotten gradually worse over the years until earlier in this month when things got really bad and my girl told me get help. I'm now on medication and the doctor wants me to come back to organize a psychologist and asses how the pills are going. But for the most part life is pretty sweet so that should help me to get my head in order.

[Inazuma]

I kept up with gaming most of my life until a few years ago. I saw how the game industry was getting worse with DRM, DLC, in-game advertising, pay to win business models, etc. I got fed up with all that bullshit and started to collect retro games.

My mind was blown when I learned how cheap it was for me to buy tons of retro Japanese games from places like Ebay. Somewhere along the way, I learned about RGB. I spent a lot of time researching RGB and trying to figure out the best way for me to hook up my consoles. I found Racketboy and joined because I wanted to talk to like-minded people. I think my first post was asking for help with RGB connections.

[AppleQueso]

I've almost been here two years, does that count? My life hasn't really changed in any way at all since I joined...

[o.pwuaioc]

I wish I had been here two years ago.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I've lurked forever and read the articles for years, which I had started posting earlier. I didn't join the boards until May 2 of this year, which was actually my birthday.... so Racketboy was my birthday present?

[gtmtnbiker]

I came across the website when I was looking for information on Gameboy Advance & the Gamecube because I was looking for presents for my daughters for Christmas. I noticed the forums and liked the quality of the discussions so I was hooked. I lurked for awhile before I finally joined in Jan 2009 to contribute my thoughts on the gamecube.

[J T]

I first started visiting the site in 2008. It was mainly for the Hidden Gems articles. I was building up my PS2 collection and those gave me plenty of new items on my wishlist. I also ended up buying my first GameCube since then because so many people raved about it here, and my PC collection has grown remarkably from discovering GOG and Steam via the racketboy forums. I lurked the forums for awhile until I felt I had a sense for the culture, then joined in 2009. I think my first post was about D-Pad Hero, a homebrewed NES Rom that let's you play a Guitar Hero style game with a two-button NES pad. I was excited to have found that and just wanted to share it with anyone that might be interested. I guess that kind of started a trend for me in finding free games and posting them to the site.

In my personal life, I was married in 2008, bought a house in 2010, I won a distinguished teaching award in 2011, and finished my dissertation last month. I will finish an internship and receive my PhD by 2013. Then I'll finally be done with this graduate student chapter of my life and will move on to becoming a licensed psychologist.