How did you rediscover classic gaming (or how did you get into them)

[mehguy]

How did you rediscover these gems or how did you get into them.

 

To be honest, I never grew up with these games. While I won't tell you my real age, I'll give you a range. I'm between 13-17 years old

 

I first got into retro gaming in 2007-ish. The NES was what sparked my interest the most and while I wanted one, I didn't have much money to buy one at the time so I mostly emulated the games.

 

My memory of how I got into it is very vague and very odd:

 

My parents and I were in toronto and we stopped by a book store. I saw a magazine and it had multiple images of NES controllers in it. I thought they were portable consoles and wondered why they didn't have a screen to them. Then it all took off from there. Another factor with my interest of retro gaming was that I was exposed to rather old technology at a young age (mainly a windows 95 computer) and also my grandma owned an N64 and a GBC and I used to play them all the time. Yeah lol it sounds kinda stupid but whatever.

Edited February 15, 2015 by mehguy

[BigO]

Had an Atari 2600 growing up. Left that life behind in '83.

 

Started wanting one again about 10-12 years ago. Found a guy at work willing to trade a light sixer and pile of games for a night vision unit that I didn't need or use.

[Algus]

I never got rid of my stuff growing up. Still have the NES from when I was 5. I never stopped discovering classic games

[The Usotsuki]

I never had to rediscover it - I never left the old games behind to begin with.

[BalloonFighter]

I never grew up with any of these older games as well. Heck, I never even really played video games when I was a kid.

 

I've enjoyed using computers since I was very young, and always found it cool whenever I saw some old Windows 95 machine or an early iMac. Around middle school, I wanted to better understand the origins of our modern personal computers, so I started digging around online and ended up learning about such computers as the C64 and the Apple II. Computers then turned into game consoles and I was just really enjoying the history, simplicity, and ingenuity behind all this 70's-80's technology. It was halfway through 8th Grade that the collecting bug bit me and I ended up getting a Game Boy, then a NES, then an Atari 2600, and so on. I've been casually collecting for a little over 4 years now, and it's been quite a rewarding hobby.

[Keatah]

What a great topic. I'm contemplating whether or not to tell a true story.

[Tombstone]

Age 10, 1978, growing up in Palo Alto, less than 20 minutes from Sunnyvale, Atari programmer on my paper route, many trips to Atari headquarters with buddies and said programmer to play Atari arcade games for free (no quarters needed in the Atari gaming room), the rest is history.

[accousticguitar]

I found an intellivision at a pawn shop. I saw my chance to finally own that video game console I couldn't afford when I was young, so I bought it. One thing led to another and eventually I got back into Atari. Now it's almost ten years later and I'm still hanging around Atari Age.

[Rhomaios]

I never really stopped. Particular consoles come and go, but games of yesteryear were always just games to me, and they really made it easy with retro compilations (like the Namco series, Midway Classics, etc.).

[Seob]

While we didn't have a computer or a console at home until i was about 13 or 14, i played a lot on the Philips Videopac, Atari 2600 and later on the Commodore 64, Philips MSX, Philips P2000 when i was younger at friends and family.

I was mostly into PC gaming, but didn't collect yet.

Then about 14 years ago, i walked inside a thriftshop and found a Intellivision. I never had heard of that console, so i bought it. Then i discovered that there where more consoles beside the A2600 and Videopac that i knew from memory.

And so i started to discover the console and computers i never had seen when i was young.

[Algus]

By the way TC, I hope you don't skew towards the 13 part of that equation.

 

I'm not quite ready for kids born after I graduated High School to be on my intrawebs LOL

[CatPix]

I grew up with a NES then SNES and a 286 PC. At the time it was still normal, but for the NES and PC, by a tight stretch (I was born in 1988). Around 2000 we got Internet at home, first, 2 hours/month then quickly after, the ADSL (512Ko/s, unlimited) booya. And I started to look for video gaming. first for PS2 titles, then for other things. And I learned about the Atari 2600, Sega Master System and Megadrive (yep; I never found ANY kid in my place that owned a Sega system; there was no gaming newpapers for sale at the various shops so... heh.) and all other systems.

And I started buying them.

And here I am now, having most of the major system released (except the Saturn). And planning to get more.

[chuckwalla]

Teenager in the 80's and had the 2600 then VIC 20 then C64.

Didn't get back into video gaming until 1992 when I bought the Genesis Model 1 with Sonic 1 (first system I bought for myself).

Soon after I started thinking about the 'good old days' of playing Atari with my friends and the rest is history - I started buying one console after another and then the Atari computers (which I remember envying in the 80's but never owned myself).

 

Can never get enough of the hobby whether it's playing, scouting out games & systems, or watching or reading about the early years of video gaming and the companies, marketing tactics, game advertisements, and magazines.

[BillyHW]

I never really abandoned the classic gaming. I just couldn't get into the modern gaming actually.

[ventrra]

I never had to rediscover classic gaming at least in the sense of home consoles. I was there when they were new from the Sears "Pong" unit on, anyway. While some of them left me (the Pong unit died a smokey death for example), I never left them.

[VectorGamer]

I grew up in the arcades and had a 2600 back in 1980. My brother bought a ColecoVision back in '82 and that console was mind blowing at the time - played the heck out of that thing every day after school.

 

Long story short - lost all interest in gaming from the mid 90s until 2008 when I saw Chasing Ghosts on Showtime. I couldn't believe people still played the old arcade games. I discovered AtariAge shortly thereafter and I've been here ever since.

[Cynicaster]

I got back into it about 5 years ago when I decided to buy an Atari 2600 at a local used game store.

 

It was bound to happen eventually, though. Some people are just born with that gene that makes them suckers for nostalgic things. As far back as the mid-late 90s, when the internet started to become more and more commonplace, I remember one of the first things I did was read stuff about Atari, even though I was pretty much completely out of videogames at the time. When I first discovered emulators--around the same time--I was like "whoa!". After several years of casually walking past the figurative storefront and looking in the window at semi-regular intervals, it finally occurred to me that I should just pull the trigger and pick up an Atari. I figured, even if I only played it for a few days and tossed it in the closet, who cares? Of course, that's not what happened.

 

Eventually I realized that what I thought was 15 or so years of me naturallly distancing myself from videogames was actually videogames distancing themselves from me, by going in a direction I found dull and uninteresting.

 

Now that there are so many ways to play games from all eras, you get to pick what you want to play rather than just taking what is put on the store shelves. For me, it's all about the retro... not because of the simple fact that the games are old, but because they're designed in ways that I like, and pretty much a lost art.

 

So, I guess you could say that I came for the nostalgia, and stayed for the games.

Edited February 18, 2015 by Cynicaster

[cimerians]

Discovered arcades in the late 70's, got my first Atari in 80 or 81' (whenever Space Invaders was released). Colecovision though blew my mind a few years later.

 

I lost interest until the mid 90's when the internet was just taking off and the SNES was kind of dying out. Found some websites dealing with classic games and emulation was all new. When ebay first appeared (and it was actually good) I got a lot of my old stuff back for really cheap. I still had some original stuff back at my parents house but the mid to late 90's were great time for buying classic stuff. It was all dirt cheap for the most part.

[bohoki]

never really left them went through 2600,5200,nes,genesis,lynx then mostly pc gaming

 

a couple years ago i got a cheap playstation $10 then

a ps2slim random trade then an xbox with 15 games for $15

then a gamekoob for like $20 with spogebob

my brother sold me his 360 for $45 but i could use his netflix account indefinatly

found a ds in the trash it just needed a new top screen cable (ebay $5) (then bought 200 games at gamestop)

now just got a n64 for $15 and have 16 games coming soon from a half.com seller

[Keatah]

I never really left the classic gaming scene. I was there since the mid-1970's. After my game consoles were taken away from me I got re-acquainted with them via emulation.

[Nebulon]

I was 10 when the arcades were going crazy in 1982. It was like someone said to the various major cities in North America, "Tell you what, I'll give you unlimited money to make the most insane entertainment hubs imaginable. Food, games, movies, bookstores.... Go for it!"

 

Wandering through all of that and taking in the games really left an impression on me. When the crash hit, I stopped paying attention. I even missed out on the NES and the Master System.

 

Finally, in the late 1990s emulation started to take form. I kept trying beta after beta of the emulators that were being developed. I could see where it was going and hoped that they would be fully working soon. It didn't take all that long and now emulation is highly-refined. Ironically, all these virtual consoles sparked my interest in the real consoles.

 

So I went back and discovered systems and games that I'd missed out on: NES, SNES, Genesis, SG-1000, Master System, GBC, Lynx, TG-16, Dreamcast, Playstation, .... That led me to give the modern systems a try. Hence the XBOX and XBOX 360. To be fair to the newer generation of gaming, I played all the Bioshock and Modern Warfare games, along with a ton of other recent titles. It made for a good point of comparison. The gaming experience between retro and new is so different for me that I've placed them into two different camps and I alternate between then, depending on my mood.

 

It's cool that you are also going back and discovering stuff that you missed out on. You have the benefit of time. When the majority of us croak, you'll be one of the few people who will have an idea of the "big picture" as it relates to making games that are genuinely fun to play. Maybe you could hire yourself out as an electronic entertainment consultant in the year 2045.