swlovinist
03-12-2004, 11:55 PM
The date was September 9th, 1999. It was the launch date of the Sega Dreamcast and I didn’t know what to expect. It was my first day in management at a retail game store. I considered myself fortunate to have a job that paralleled my passion for games. Though I was a casual collector at the time, my interests being split between games and a few other hobbies, like collecting Star Wars figures, I was unaware of the effect that day would have.
The doors opened early, at 6 a.m. The crowd was dense, hardcore. Gamers of all types were foaming at the mouth, clambering over each other for Sega’s promised system, the system that was supposed to be beyond the problems of their past. Sales were higher than I had ever seen before…comparable only to the day after Thanksgiving, or Christmas (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ve never been in retail). The store remained packed all day. I didn’t have time to think or rationalize what was happening. By the end of the day, exhausted, my head swimming, I came to a realization. A) Sega pulled out all the stops on this machine and B) I had to have one! Gimme!
At the time I was no longer a poor college student. Instead, I was a poor college student that wasn’t in college (I was on hiatus at the time). As much as I wanted the system, I again had no money and thus started looking at Ebay and what it could do for me. In a very short period of time, I came to a few conclusions that changed my life forever, though I didn’t understand it at the time. Figurines were cold, and games were in. I started hitting flea marts and yard sales to generate extra cash flow. I was still into my Star Wars figures…until I saw Episode 1, which was released around the same time as the Dreamcast. The death of one hobby spawned the life of a neverending love affair with collecting games.
Fast forward six months; I now had a stable income, my buying and selling was coming along, so I decided to buy a Dreamcast; it was, after all, the reason all of this started. I was lucky enough to get a system in good shape with the original box, an extra controller, a VMU and one game: Soul Calibur. It’s just as funny to me that people paid up to $700 at the time of launch for Dreamcast paraphernalia as it is funny that I only paid $175 and that it was considered a GOOD DEAL!
Soon after my purchase, my free time was no longer my own. It belonged to Dreamcast. Endless hours were spent on Soul Calibur, and to be quite honest, I must have played over 1000 hours on that game in a period of six months. Playing wise, I didn’t care about any other game at the time. Collecting, I was still building momentum. When the desire to play SC (constantly) subsided, I borrowed various other games from the store and really tested the capabilities of the system. While I spent so much time with Soul Calibur, I was replacing my RPG fix with a fighting game…when I stopped playing SC, I started getting withdrawals…I hadn’t played an RPG in over half a year. I needed one quickly, so I took a look at what was available and saw that an old favorite of mine was getting a serious upgrade. Phantasy Star Online was not the traditional RPG I was used to, but more like a sci-fi, 3D Diablo hunt.
My schedule changed after I got PSO. I would get up in the morning, play PSO. Go to work, think about PSO. Come home, play PSO. Go to sleep, dream about PSO. It was a vicious, vicious cycle…and I loved every minute of it. I was excited about the Dreamcast’s built in modem and was anxious to try SegaNet. The experience was very positive due to the fact that I could play it for free, an aspect of online gaming that is sorely needed today.
By now, the environment of my game collecting had changed dramatically. Not only was I collecting for new systems,(the PS2 was the first system I ever bought on its release date) but my retro collecting and gaming was increasing. Where my Star Wars items once resided there was now a gaming shrine. Other gamers at work opened my eyes to systems I had forgotten about (Saturn), and even thought the Dreamcast was no longer the focal point of my gaming lifestyle, it was still an important one.
After a year of being in a retail game environment, I had to leave (with regret) to pursue my teaching credentials. I would once again become a poor college student. Fortune smiled upon me though, as I landed a job at a pawn shop that specialized in movies, music and most importantly, video games. My time there was a mixed bag. On one hand, it was not an ideal job to support myself on, but on the other hand, it fueled my collection to heights I had never reached before. This was to be my last hurrah with the Dreamcast.
I started to notice the clearance signs and markdowns. Dreamcast games were being discounted left and right. While I felt odd about it happening so fast, in my heart I knew it was coming. I remembered the TurboGrafx and realized I was not going to stand idly by and let all those Dreamcast games slip through my fingers. I quickly and efficiently (without using any internet help, by the way) ninja’d several titles that I deemed were either going to be rare, rare at the time, or games I would want to play in the future. Mostly I grabbed the 2D fighters that seemed to appear in a flash, and disappear just as quickly.
Although the Dreamcast wasn’t around for too long, it showcased excellent game play and was a pioneer for next gen. 128-bit gaming. Sometime in late 2001, Sega announced it would stop producing Dreamcast consoles, and soon after it was disappearing everywhere. To me the Dreamcast was and is a wonderful system, and I like to think it withdrew gracefully rather than fail as a system.
The doors opened early, at 6 a.m. The crowd was dense, hardcore. Gamers of all types were foaming at the mouth, clambering over each other for Sega’s promised system, the system that was supposed to be beyond the problems of their past. Sales were higher than I had ever seen before…comparable only to the day after Thanksgiving, or Christmas (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ve never been in retail). The store remained packed all day. I didn’t have time to think or rationalize what was happening. By the end of the day, exhausted, my head swimming, I came to a realization. A) Sega pulled out all the stops on this machine and B) I had to have one! Gimme!
At the time I was no longer a poor college student. Instead, I was a poor college student that wasn’t in college (I was on hiatus at the time). As much as I wanted the system, I again had no money and thus started looking at Ebay and what it could do for me. In a very short period of time, I came to a few conclusions that changed my life forever, though I didn’t understand it at the time. Figurines were cold, and games were in. I started hitting flea marts and yard sales to generate extra cash flow. I was still into my Star Wars figures…until I saw Episode 1, which was released around the same time as the Dreamcast. The death of one hobby spawned the life of a neverending love affair with collecting games.
Fast forward six months; I now had a stable income, my buying and selling was coming along, so I decided to buy a Dreamcast; it was, after all, the reason all of this started. I was lucky enough to get a system in good shape with the original box, an extra controller, a VMU and one game: Soul Calibur. It’s just as funny to me that people paid up to $700 at the time of launch for Dreamcast paraphernalia as it is funny that I only paid $175 and that it was considered a GOOD DEAL!
Soon after my purchase, my free time was no longer my own. It belonged to Dreamcast. Endless hours were spent on Soul Calibur, and to be quite honest, I must have played over 1000 hours on that game in a period of six months. Playing wise, I didn’t care about any other game at the time. Collecting, I was still building momentum. When the desire to play SC (constantly) subsided, I borrowed various other games from the store and really tested the capabilities of the system. While I spent so much time with Soul Calibur, I was replacing my RPG fix with a fighting game…when I stopped playing SC, I started getting withdrawals…I hadn’t played an RPG in over half a year. I needed one quickly, so I took a look at what was available and saw that an old favorite of mine was getting a serious upgrade. Phantasy Star Online was not the traditional RPG I was used to, but more like a sci-fi, 3D Diablo hunt.
My schedule changed after I got PSO. I would get up in the morning, play PSO. Go to work, think about PSO. Come home, play PSO. Go to sleep, dream about PSO. It was a vicious, vicious cycle…and I loved every minute of it. I was excited about the Dreamcast’s built in modem and was anxious to try SegaNet. The experience was very positive due to the fact that I could play it for free, an aspect of online gaming that is sorely needed today.
By now, the environment of my game collecting had changed dramatically. Not only was I collecting for new systems,(the PS2 was the first system I ever bought on its release date) but my retro collecting and gaming was increasing. Where my Star Wars items once resided there was now a gaming shrine. Other gamers at work opened my eyes to systems I had forgotten about (Saturn), and even thought the Dreamcast was no longer the focal point of my gaming lifestyle, it was still an important one.
After a year of being in a retail game environment, I had to leave (with regret) to pursue my teaching credentials. I would once again become a poor college student. Fortune smiled upon me though, as I landed a job at a pawn shop that specialized in movies, music and most importantly, video games. My time there was a mixed bag. On one hand, it was not an ideal job to support myself on, but on the other hand, it fueled my collection to heights I had never reached before. This was to be my last hurrah with the Dreamcast.
I started to notice the clearance signs and markdowns. Dreamcast games were being discounted left and right. While I felt odd about it happening so fast, in my heart I knew it was coming. I remembered the TurboGrafx and realized I was not going to stand idly by and let all those Dreamcast games slip through my fingers. I quickly and efficiently (without using any internet help, by the way) ninja’d several titles that I deemed were either going to be rare, rare at the time, or games I would want to play in the future. Mostly I grabbed the 2D fighters that seemed to appear in a flash, and disappear just as quickly.
Although the Dreamcast wasn’t around for too long, it showcased excellent game play and was a pioneer for next gen. 128-bit gaming. Sometime in late 2001, Sega announced it would stop producing Dreamcast consoles, and soon after it was disappearing everywhere. To me the Dreamcast was and is a wonderful system, and I like to think it withdrew gracefully rather than fail as a system.