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Thread: Are we living the twilight of Classic Gaming as we know it?

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    Cherry (Level 1)
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    Default Are we living the twilight of Classic Gaming as we know it?

    I've been thinking for quite some time, classic gaming doesn't feel what it used to be. I started back in 2001 to become interested in this hobby, and 2002-2008 were the best years if you were a classic gamer, imo. Prices were a lot lower, there were lots of discussions and every message board was very busy (Gamefaqs console boards were great, I remember fondly the Nes board). Emulation helped a lot of people discover games they didn't try in its infancy, and the magic was still there.

    Of course, some of you might think I've just gotten older and I'm ranting like an old man in his backyard how 50's were a better time. But you only have to look at classic gaming actual state: Prices have skyrocketed for almost every system (Snes prices are just stupid), and getting games is harder and more expensive as time passes. A lot of the older web pages about classic systems have dissappeared, never having been replaced by more modern ones; the few that remain have a lot less posts than a few years ago. Individual boards for games older than 2000 are dead. I know there's just so much you can discuss about old games, but still, with the resurgence of Classic gaming thanks to Virtual Consoles and such, there should be a whole new lot of people interested in it.

    Life goes on, I guess, but it's sad to see that Classic Gaming will never be the same.

    Do you think I'm exageratting, or not?
    Step Back! This is my blast shot!

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    Cherry (Level 1) CastlevaniaDude's Avatar
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    Hopefully, you're right.

    If it destroys itself then all of the problems that you mentioned will go away and it will be like a time warp.

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    Like most things it will bubble up and then burst, just a matter of time. A lot of the problem is just nintendo stuff, sega stuff is still priced well for the m ost part and iseaasyto build a good library of games,especially if you want CIB.
    COMPLETED MY USA SMS SET!!!!

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    Cherry (Level 1) Guyra's Avatar
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    Prices go up and down. A lot of the high prices has got to do with the fact that those who had these consoles as kids are now adults with steady incomes. Right now it seems to be that everything from the NES to the PS1 is what is currently getting inflated, while systems both older and newer than those are much cheaper. At least that's how I see it. Of course there are other factors as well, but I believe this is a big part of it.

    Another factor is that game collecting has become a more widespread phenomenon, and therefore there is more competition driving the prices up.

    At the same time, even games from the NES and SNES are generally lower priced than if you were to buy used games back when the systems were new.

    As for boards and sites about classic systems and games, there are a couple of things to take into account: The amount of information on classic systems and games available has increased tremendously during the last decade. It is also much easier to find. People don't have to ask for help on boards to find out how to get to the next part of Super Metroid when they can just look up a walkthrough or a Let's Play video that explains it or shows how. People don't need ask others to find out what games are the ones to get for their older systems, because there are already tons of lists and videos about top games and hidden gems, etc.

    In addition to that, people who are extra interested in a certain system often ends up on "specialist" sites. So a lot of the "traffic" that you were used to might also just have moved somewhere else.

    I would also like to point out that "classic gaming" is a very vague and relative term. To some people, Atari 2600 is "classic gaming," while PS1 is "modern gaming." Another person might call the PS2 "classic gaming."

    And in the end, the world around us is constantly changing. The society is constantly changing. Our lives are constantly changing. Technology, economy, politics ... And our world view is constantly changing. I think it would be very, very strange if something as small as "classic gaming" wouldn't. In fact, I'd say it has been changing the whole time. And it's certainly not just bad things about that.

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    I think classic gaming as a hobby is really strong right now and has been for a long time, but I agree about pricing for systems such as the NES and SNES. Sellers have gotten out of hand asking crazy prices for common games and we as collectors are giving in and driving this practice. In retrospect we really have ourselves to blame because the more we spend on these games the longer these games will come with a high price tag.

    I don't see the bubble bursting for a while. Maybe once the PS2/Xbox/GCN generation starts to be seen as nostalgic we will see older systems games drop in price and those systems rise, but I don't think classic games will ever be as affordable as they once were 5-10 years ago.

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    Pac-Man (Level 10) treismac's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Damon Plus View Post
    Do you think I'm exageratting, or not?
    Prices of collectibles rise and fall, websites wax and wane, but retro gaming remains whatever you make of it. With emulation and flash carts, you can play whatever you like, which means that although collecting classic video games might have become more costly and less pleasurable, the games of yore are still within reach and as much fun as ever.

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    Strawberry (Level 2) sloan's Avatar
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    The upward price death spiral and games-as-investments have killed a lot of the fun for sure. If investors and flippers would leave the hobby alone, everybody would be better off for it. Twilight? No. Emulators and flash carts will always mean the games are available to play. Just that the wealthy will be the ones with actual games and original hardware.

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    Default Are we living the twilight of Classic Gaming as we know it?

    Me myself still enjoy my classic games, sometimes more than the new stuff. And classic games will always hold a special place for me. Back in the day, there was something magical about it.

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    Prices have gone up, way up, but as time goes, I don't see them getting cheaper, if anything more expensive.
    Nothing deemed collectable rarely ever gets cheaper with time.

    I paid some pretty good prices online for some Japanese Mega Drive games, but titles like Battle Mania, Pulseman, and other games in that bracket such as Gleylancer you're lucky to find for under $140.00

    I recently sold most of them, for about 80 dollars each which was 30 dollars cheaper then the next cheapest copy maybe a year ago.
    I wasn't looking to make money, I actually lost a small amount, but I just wanted to flip them and move on to another system.
    Now these same games have shot up at least 50% more and I'm kinda kicking myself but these listings for 200 dollar games just sit there on Ebay forever.

    You can catch a break if someone doesn't know what they have most likely from an estate, but if it goes to bidding that can get pricey as well.

    The best time to collect is when a system is wrapping up it's lifespan.
    Consoles are everywhere.
    In 1997 or so, the EB Games here had literally a wall full of model 2 Genesis complete with the sidecar Sega CDs and 32X for about 60 dollars.
    I bought a Nomad in 1995 for 180 dollars in 1995 and another in 1997 for 40 dollars.
    Back in the early 2000's used Genesis and both NES and SNES games were also sold in much more retail stores.

    If I really, really want a game badly enough to the point it's itching at me, I can afford about 80 to 100 dollars once a month to throw away on it, but that's rarely the case.
    The fact is, less consoles are working, most retro games were owned by children, especially NES.
    Sega sold the Genesis to an older demographic , signing deals with Joe Montana, Tommy Lasorda, and Arnold Palmer. ( The kids loved them some Arnold Palmer back in the day).
    The system was expensive and heavily sports orientated as well as arcade.
    Probably the 1st system whose majority of owners took care of.

    But to wrap whatever point I think I might me making up, time is no friend to the serious collector and to some point even the casual one.
    Last edited by zakthedodo; 08-01-2013 at 08:38 PM.

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    Cherry (Level 1)
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    You guys do know that in 5 decades people will see the Atari through Genesis era of gaming as the stone age? Retro is always going to be around as gaming goes forward, its not like its gonna disappear as long as people can see with their eyes and use their hands to do stuff. Hell there will be games when were doing everything with just our minds with computer chips. There will also be games, and games that are 20 years to 30 years old will be retro. Ps2 will be someones 2600 and at the end of the PS4's life time youll see those $10 copies of God of War be $50.

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    Insert Coin (Level 0) zakthedodo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JakeM View Post
    You guys do know that in 5 decades people will see the Atari through Genesis era of gaming as the stone age? Retro is always going to be around as gaming goes forward, its not like its gonna disappear as long as people can see with their eyes and use their hands to do stuff. Hell there will be games when were doing everything with just our minds with computer chips. There will also be games, and games that are 20 years to 30 years old will be retro. Ps2 will be someones 2600 and at the end of the PS4's life time you'll see those $10 copies of God of War be $50.

    In 50 years, maybe sooner, video games ( or the equivalent thereof ) might be indistinguishable from anything that's been on the market up til now.
    If in 1963 you tried to explain the internet or a current gen console, or even earlier, most people would have no frame of reference of what you were talking about.
    Then tell them there will be over 500 stations on the television that is now shaped like a movie theater screen.

    Thankfully however, these games now are being archived digitally as in 50 years from now, most of the cart based games will inevitably corrode regardless of how much care is taken care of them and I don't think optical drives will be around in 10 years, much less 50.

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    Quote Originally Posted by zakthedodo View Post
    If in 1963 you tried to explain the internet or a current gen console, or even earlier, most people would have no frame of reference of what you were talking about.
    Then tell them there will be over 500 stations on the television that is now shaped like a movie theater screen.

    Thankfully however, these games now are being archived digitally as in 50 years from now, most of the cart based games will inevitably corrode regardless of how much care is taken care of them and I don't think optical drives will be around in 10 years, much less 50.
    There was radio back then and tv, just say that it was a mix of both. Carts will corrode over time, but the software is surviving due to emulation on computers, wii virtual console, psn and xbox live. People already think maybe therell be virtual reality games, it was on star trek next generation, one episode of the honey i shrunk the kids, and other shows. I have an idea about how video games could evolve, but I dont want to say it out loud yet.

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    Maybe they're all too busy playing classic games

    You know that old 50s song, "Rock and Roll is here to stay"? Well, I feel the same about retro games.

    I think there will always be a place for simple (elegant, if you prefer) games that offer highly-refined gameplay with great replay value. That and I think the 8 and 16-bit games really showed the fantastic results available when designers are faced with strict limitations.

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    Insert Coin (Level 0) zakthedodo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JakeM View Post
    People already think maybe therell be virtual reality games, it was on star trek next generation, one episode of the honey i shrunk the kids, and other shows. I have an idea about how video games could evolve, but I dont want to say it out loud yet.
    Virtual Reality was the next big thing in the '90's but I guess the technology wasn't ready yet.
    The Virtual Boy, Sega with Virtua this, and Virtua that. Neither really lived up to the promise of their namesake.
    Classic games will always have a market however.

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    Strawberry (Level 2) sfchakan's Avatar
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    Personally, I remember the highest level of discussion and passion for vintage gaming to be the late 90s, early 00s. People were just discovering that there were other freaks like them that still played and collected all of these old games. Message boards were busy, fan sites were numerous, and emulation was really exciting to follow.

    Now, with numerous resellers killing thrift shops, secondhand stores being unreliable, collectors snapping up games no matter their asking price, and a lot of fan favorites being just a legal download away; it feels like the community has waned a little bit. Holy run-on sentence, Batman! Aw, fuck it.

    I'd say it started to die down around 06, 07; it not a little bit before then.

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    Quote Originally Posted by JakeM View Post
    You guys do know that in 5 decades people will see the Atari through Genesis era of gaming as the stone age? Retro is always going to be around as gaming goes forward, its not like its gonna disappear as long as people can see with their eyes and use their hands to do stuff. Hell there will be games when were doing everything with just our minds with computer chips. There will also be games, and games that are 20 years to 30 years old will be retro. Ps2 will be someones 2600 and at the end of the PS4's life time youll see those $10 copies of God of War be $50.
    If it ends up like comic books, people will always be after the golden and silver age. Most things after that you might as well burn as it's all next to worthless(some exceptions obviously). At a certain point most games will just lack the early fresh feel and will just feel old and obsolete years later, like most early 3D or FMV games do now. Unless a person grows up with certain games there will be little attachment to it, and those who focus on that because of nostalgia alone will get bored and sell it off afterwards. Right now video games are really popular, they won't always be just like with Beanie Babies. With Beanie Babies there are a handful that are still worth a decent amount even today, but most are worthless.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Gameguy View Post
    If it ends up like comic books, people will always be after the golden and silver age. Most things after that you might as well burn as it's all next to worthless(some exceptions obviously). At a certain point most games will just lack the early fresh feel and will just feel old and obsolete years later, like most early 3D or FMV games do now. Unless a person grows up with certain games there will be little attachment to it, and those who focus on that because of nostalgia alone will get bored and sell it off afterwards. Right now video games are really popular, they won't always be just like with Beanie Babies. With Beanie Babies there are a handful that are still worth a decent amount even today, but most are worthless.

    So when does the Golden Age of video gaming begin and when does the Silver Age of gaming begin and end?

    There were coimcs before the Golden Age.

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    I don't see games getting cheap especially from the NES, SNES, and Genesis systems. I brought up the NES, SNES, and Genesis for a reason.

    There are websites, and sellers on ebay that sell reproduction game cartridges. What I read from Lostclassics website a couple weeks ago shows a problem in amount of NES game cartridges.

    Lost Classics website mentioned that It's no secret that NES stuff is getting harder to find for everyone. Their stock of donor carts for the NES is dwindling.

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    Bell (Level 8) 7th lutz's Avatar
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    There is something with Cartridge based systems that I think some people didn't realize. A good amount of those systems using existing game cartridges to put hacks, reproductions, and homebrew games on cartridge.

    I don't think that is something disc based systems to worry about. The fact is you can burn CD's to put games on them for a disc based system to play.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Buyatari View Post
    So when does the Golden Age of video gaming begin and when does the Silver Age of gaming begin and end?

    There were coimcs before the Golden Age.
    For me personally, I would consider the Golden Age to begin with the early 70's around the Magnavox Odyssey/Pong/Computer Space years and end up until the NES. The Silver Age would be the NES up to and including 32bit systems. The only reason I would include 32bit systems is because of the 32X expansion and Sega Saturn, that would allow the PS1 to be included with them.

    There were electronic games going back to the late 1940's, and of course the later Tennis for Two, Spacewar!, and even Galaxy Game(first coin-op video game beating Computer Space). These weren't exactly available for the general public, these were before video games started becoming mainstream and widely popular.


    Right now the people I see clamoring for vintage video games are teens, I just saw today some teens in a thrift getting all excited over finding Sega Master System stuff. The only thing I saw that they bought was a copy of Phantasy Star for $7.99 missing the instructions, at least they left the rest of the games which were junk and also missing the instructions. Still they were excited to just see the games. I'm pretty sure I saw one of them later carrying around a VHS VCR while looking through the video tapes for action films, or it was few different teens. I didn't bother to stick around to see if they bought it all, I just know the Phantasy Star was gone when I later came back to the store. Usually when teens are into something in groups, it's just fads that don't last long term. Five to ten years from now I'm not sure if collecting video games will still be as popular, at least as popular with common games. Actual rare stuff will always be sought after.

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