Crippled by Nostalgia: The Fraud of Retro Gaming

[BoringSupreez]

I never sold off any of my collections except for my mostly-crappy PS2 library when I was 13, and I have everything that was any good from it back already. My collecting is entirely of the getting-what-I-missed-while-it-was-big variety. My biggest regret is choosing the PS1 over the N64 back in the day. I so wish I could have experienced that one first hand.

Then again, I had the PS1 and PS2 while they were current, and now I don't have a whole lot of interest in either. Maybe if I had owned an N64 I'd be in love with the PS1 instead?

[harper]

It does make me wonder, though, if the big collectors here got their starts by reclaiming games they'd "loved and lost," and then just kept going. Collectors? Thoughts?

I didn't play/have a lot of games growing up (except for what my brother owned). We did occasionally rent games and I eventually got my own N64 and a couple of games. I remember selling the NES and games at a yard sale in the early 2000s, I kept my N64 and can't remember what happened to the SNES.

Anyway, what really got me into gaming (around 2008) was when a friend of mine was leaving for the Navy, she left all of her video game stuff with me. And around that time a local cd/movie store decided to start selling old video games, so that kind of fueled the fire. I of course had the urge to find all of those games I remembered playing growing up, and like Michi, I also did a lot of research and made lists of games that I thought sounded interesting. Since I started looking at it as "collecting" there have been some ups and downs, but like I said in my last post, I found out that what really makes me happy is experiencing the games and keeping the ones I love so I can still revisit them if/whenever I want to. I don't get as much out of just hoarding games that have no real sentimental value to me (of course once it's in your "collection" it already has a little bit of sentimental value, so that alone made it hard to get rid of a lot of things, but I did it anyway).

I probably leave twice as much stuff at the thrift stores than I take away from them. Sometimes one must leave experiences for others to find.

True dat, my friend. If it doesn't interest me, I leave it. I like to think that it gives someone else the opportunity to be as excited as I was to see those games sitting on the shelf ('cause heaven knows it's few and far between that we even have something to sift through around here haha).

EDIT: oops, fixed the quoting. haha

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I never sold off any of my collections except for my mostly-crappy PS2 library...

Don't get me started...

Anyways, I, like quite a few of the members here, retro-game not for nostalgia but simply because I love gaming and games. In fact, like Boring here, I have very little interest in consoles I grew up with. I'm much more interested in playing games I never was able to before, especially in gaming generations I didn't grow up with like the 16 bit era.

I don't think it's very weird or necessarily bad, that a lot of us buy more games than we play. There are tons of games obviously, and it takes a while to get through them. I have plenty of modern gaming friends that don't touch retro yet don't play much or finish all their games. It's hardly just a "problem" in the retro community. I also know a few of our members here have gotten their collections where they want them and are now playing through them, which I hope to accomplish by next Summer. This article is the typical gaming journalist thinking he somehow knows better just because he's a journalist. It's not an insatiable hobby for most of us (though some people like the author may find themselves feeling that way).

Now spending time on Racketboy. THAT's an insatiable hobby.

[retrosportsgamer]

"If this picture makes your nether regions moist"

...and you are not female, then you might have a glandular problem and should talk to an endocrinologist.

My intent was not to bash the author, but...jeez. An editor read that and thought "fine with me"?

Yeah, I hate that stuff also. It's corny and bush league and then diminishes the entire focus.

[shmuk]

Anyways, I, like quite a few of the members here, retro-game not for nostalgia but simply because I love gaming and games. In fact, like Boring here, I have very little interest in consoles I grew up with. I'm much more interested in playing games I never was able to before, especially in gaming generations I didn't grow up with like the 16 bit era.

^ That's pretty much my reason for collecting. I always keep on hearing about all these awesome games of the past that I want to play. However, when it come to collecting for collection sake, it comes more towards nostalgia for me.

[MrNash]

I agree with others that have said that younger gamers are also checking out the retro games out of curiosity of what they haven't had a chance to play yet. I don't see it being different from when I was growing up, and expanding my musical tastes. At first I was listening to a lot of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden, etc., but after that I wanted to learn more about bands from before my time and started to listen to more and more stuff by the likes of Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, Deep Purple, and so on. To a degree I think we're seeing the gaming equivalent of this as younger gamers check out some of the games from times of yore.

[Menegrothx]

To make a long story short I found myself hunting out all the games I used to own or rent for my NES, which spilled over to my Genesis, which just continued on from there.

Same here. Think about buying all the classic PS1 games you don't own ->hey, I've been enjoying playing NES and SNES classics on an emulator, maybe I could buy both of them and only buy a few select good games on them -> read about all the "essentials" and hidden gems on NES, SNES, PS1 and PS2 online, my "games to buy" list grows by ^4. About the same time I realized that I had already started getting into other consoles. And my "I saw a couple of screenshots/short gameplay video/review of it on the internet and it looks cool/weird/so bad it's funny so I decided to buy it for my collection" to "essential games every one should own" ratio is increasing all the time. And I'm already starting to dream about owning a Pipppin and FM Towns Marty

After a brief perioid of getting some great classics on my PS1, my PS1 collection just stopped growing. Now I'm getting some shitty platformer that "might be a hidden gem, or atleast halfway decent" once every 2 months. Many times when I am about to collect money so I can buy some pricy high demand NES/SNES/PS1 game, I just decide to collect a little more and buy myself a new console with the money. I keep telling myself that once I have all the consoles I want, I will start buying those good games. Yet I'm waiting to buy myself an Amstrad GX4000, even though I know I will probably never get more than a handful of games on it, and that all of them are very mediocre/suck anyways.

Well, by now I have over 30 consoles and I only need 7 more (including Vectrex and Neo Geo AES and Neo Geo CD ), so I'm getting there, slowly but surely

[ZeroAX]

It has been a long time, years maybe, since I've read a decent article on the topic of collecting and more importantly playing retro games.

http://www.retrogamer.net/

Look online for some pirated issues (specially the newer stuff, cause it keeps improving as a magazine so the stuff from 2006 isn't as good as the latest stuff) to see if you like it.

[Balasubbie]

It has been a long time, years maybe, since I've read a decent article on the topic of collecting and more importantly playing retro games.

http://www.retrogamer.net/

Look online for some pirated issues (specially the newer stuff, cause it keeps improving as a magazine so the stuff from 2006 isn't as good as the latest stuff) to see if you like it.

Ironically, if you in anyway frequent the retrogamer forums, you'll find some of the more immediate examples of the sort of collector the OP article mentions.

Still, quality magazine.

[Nintendork666]

I collect mostly to play. Even so, I think it's a great idea to prune your collection every so often to keep your head in check. Appreciating the medium is fine, but there are plenty of games which I just don't need to own.