the "I mowed 48 lawns for Game X!" topic

[Steven]

I always love hearing stories about gamers doing such and such to earn enough money to buy game X. Obviously, this is more catered to when we were 10, 12 years old. Stories about a 26-year-old working as an electrical engineer to buy Super Metroid obviously doesn't have the same "style" as a 10 year old who mowed 48 lawns in the summer of '94 to get his copy of Super Metroid.

So, if it applies to you -- what crazy chores/jobs did you do to get game X, and what was game X? Was it worth it? What year was it? How old were you? Any other little anecdotes you want to include.

Me... never mowed 48 lawns. Didn't buy any games really growing up. My bro bought them and I played 'em.

[dedtech]

Well... How about this..
I would have been in my 20's but I was working for a company called "Singles Telephone Service" which was much like a dating profile site but over the phone on a 1-900 #.
I can guess that I has over 48+ black girls ask me if I was "Light Skinded" and if I had a "lady mans curl" (Jerry Curl). People that know me know that I sound like a black man on the phone due to my deep voice and, southern drawl. The funny thing was they would have been suprised if they met me. I had long blonde hair, wore a leather jacket and, was lanky as hell.

[Slimedog]

To get my NES, I took a paper route. I got it around the time the Action Set was released and there were major supply problems. I ordered one online from Q-Link and it took 3 months to arrive. No wonder Q-Link went under. By the time I got the system I had amassed 5 NES games and I quit the route to have more time to play. I think I was 10.

I also remember saving to get a Gameboy before it came out. There was a school fundraiser with a $100 prize for the most candy sold. Me and a friend sold candy outside a supermarket for two weekends and I used my cut of the winnings to buy a Gameboy.

[norkusa]

Back when I was in 7th grade (think this was '88), my mom always used to bribe me with things to get decent grades because I was such a poor student back then. One time she said she'd buy me a NES if I didn't get any D's or F's on the report card (almost an impossibility back in those days). I said "sure, whatever" not expecting to do well.

School ended that year and my grades were actually decent. All B's & C's. I don't know if it had anything to do with the promise of an NES (don't remember really trying hard) but I ended up getting my NES. The rest was history.

When the SNES came out, I actually had to use my own money to get that. Since I was 15 and had no job, that was going to be tough. Had a garage sale that summer though selling a lot of my old toys and made enough to buy the $200 system. That was a great summer.

[Mr.FoodMonster]

Me and my brother parked cars for some local event. My dad had worked on a house near the event, getting it ready to loan out to college students. Because it was the summer and no students were there, we parked cars on the lawn. We worked for about 3 or 4 days, and when we were done, my dad gave us enough money to go buy Starcraft at the store. Pretty much the only story like that I have.

[blue lander]

I wonder if anybody ever mowed lawns to buy Hovver Bovver, a game about mowing lawns...

[Simply Dave]

I mowed a bunch of lawns (back in 89? 90?) in order to save up enough dough for Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest. That's all I could think about day in and day out; how great it was going to be to finally own and play the game.

When the day finally came and enough money had been saved, when my folks went into town I wondered into the video game section and....they didn't have Simon's Quest in stock.

So I got Bases Loaded instead. I played that game forever and still have it to this day.

It's not in the best of condition, but I refuse to replace it with a better looking cart because it was the first game I ever bought with money I had earned the hard way.

[Pantechnicon]

You know...I'm racking my brain here and sadly I don't have a story of my own like this, and I really wish I did because it would reflect better character on my younger self. During my pre-adult gaming years all of my games were either gifts, trades, bought after the `84 market crash and in a few cases were shoplifted . I only had around 25 2600 carts and nothing else by the time I left home. But when I think about it none of it was acquired through either any pyrrhic or wholly honest efforts on my part.

I never thought about it that way before, but perhaps it was just as well that my pre-adult collection was eventually lost (sold without my consent, actually) and had to be rebuilt - and ultimately expanded - solely through more honest and hard-working means.

[DeputyMoniker]

My family was poor and I wasnt allowed to do work for the neighbors. My dad considered everybody on the planet to be liars & thieves so I was lucky when I got to leave the house. My best story would be convincing my dad to let me spend my christmas money on a $10 controller. XD

[drewbrim]

I had a paper route growing up, but I wasn't allowed to spend most of the money I made (the parents made me put it in the bank), but I was allowed to "blow" $10 of it a week on whatever I chose. So I went down to my local Hills store and put Duck Tales down on layaway. And every week save one I went down to the store and put my $10 towards it till it was mine. The one week I didn't pay towards the balance I bought the Beastie Boys album License to Ill instead. "Yo what's the time!?!"

[Kid Ice]

Yep I tossed some newspapers too. The first game I bought was "Skyfox" for the C64. Big disappointment...the graphics are (were) absolutely amazing, but the game was no fun. It took a couple months to save up for that one. After my route expanded and I was getting better tips I was able to buy a couple games a month.

[weirdguy]

Around 7-8 months ago, I started keeping all my loose change. I told myself I'd buy something nice when I have around 100$.

Took me around 5 months to get 130$, since in Canada we have 1$ and 2$ coin... it helps...

What did I got ? Growlanser Generations Deluxe editon. It never felt that great to buy a game.

[keiblerfan69]

I haven't eaten school lunch since the 7th grade. I am currently in the 11th grade and still don't spend my lunch money. It has become known as a my money.

[SeiruKoji]

In 99 and 2000, I had these crazy neighbors that offered me $15 a week to mow thier lawn for them. Thier lawn was not even half the size of mine. I made about $300 before they moved away. At the time, I was a pokenut, so when Pokemon Gold and Silver were coming out I reserved them. I don't remember what I bought with the remaining money. (I was only 13)

[aaronpetrosky]

In the summer of 93' I did work around the house for my grandpap and he would pay me $10-$20 everytime and I saved up to buy A Link to the Past and it was well worth it. I played that game to death and still own it. It's one of my fav games of all time.

[kentuckyfried]

I spent many summers and months working my ass off helping to develop the parents property, cutting trees, burning stuff, digging, to buy my NES, Game Gear, and TurboDuo (had to earn enough to buy one of them fancy TVs that had AV connectors in the back to work with the Duo, the TV's the only thing I still have)

And then great family members bought me games for christmas

[CYRiX]

I'm mowing around 25 for my 360

[Jumpman Jr.]

I actually remember spending months scavengering up any change I could possibly find around my house to make it so I had enough to buy my first Super Nintendo. I vividily remember trying to do anything to try to get a nickel out of the little space between my washer and dryer. I had some saved up cash origionally (maybe $50), and then over the months, I found like $50 in change (all over the place, not just my house), and my parents ended up paying the rest for me.

[exit]

I was in the 2nd (or third maybe?) grade and the SNES just came out. Well of course my parents wern't going to just buy it for me, so me and my brother saved up money and put it all up for one. I don't remember any detail except that I came home one day and saw a SNES sitting by the door. I couldn't have been any happier, except for the fact I had to goto open house at school that very night and being quite angry about it.

Other than that, I usually got whatever I wanted through birthday/christmas/easter/ect money. I would also put lunch money aside and go to the cd traders to buy stuff, sadly that place shut down 3 years ago which sucks because they had great stuff there.

[vahn401]

Only time I can recall was a few years back when they first announced the Arc The Lad collection. My mother and I went to the local EB and they were just putting a display box on the shelf, I saw the working designs name and knew I had to have it. This was right after I was given the pleasure of playing through the Lunar games for the 1st time. When the clerk told us the game was going to cost $75, my hopes dropped fast. I pleaded with the woman (mom) for like 10 minutes, and then she made me sign a contract sorta stating i would do dishes, lawn mowing, cleaning, etc. for like 3 weeks whenever she demanded. I signed willingly, hell, the game was mine to reserve now.

So we get up there and the clerk asks us if I'd like to pre-order the 2 guides that were to go along with the game, that 3-4 weeks turned into, I was a slave until the game was released.

This was a huge joke, because anybody who knows this game, knows that it kept getting pushed back for well over a year, luckilly my mom let me off after a month-month and a half. One day, the game finally came, and then 2 months later I finally got the guide. And close to the 2 year mark after I pre-ordered it, they cancelled the release of the 2nd guide, very dissapointing. This game alone marked 2 important lessons in my life. The value of a dollar, and that working designs took their sweet time releasing my game. I miss them.