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Do you spend more money on vintage or modern games?


Shawn

Do you spend more money on vintage or modern games?  

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  1. 1. Do you spend more money on vintage or modern games?

    • Vintage
      174
    • Modern
      31

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One other brief thing. Focusing on one (or two) systems IS more rewarding. Through and through. I don't care what megacollectors say. It allows you to concentrate resources into effectiveness. It allows you to pursue something with a vigor and vitality that would otherwise be diluted into ineffectiveness. It allows one to savor the flavor. Immerse oneself in the entirety. That's what I do with Apple II.
 
And if a system is living large like the PC - so many aspects to it - focus on a few aspects is the name of the game. My personal goal is to have the best representative graphics cards from each major era. And to have the ability to run all the period software up to when they started making multi-core systems. A side goal is to do it on as few machines as possible. Another side goal is maintain my vintage 486 well into this century and the next.
 
And that's a lot to swallow!


Well said! That’s been the climax of my understanding of this hobby over the last few years. If you do it right it won’t leave that bad aftertaste caused by overstimulation.
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I don't know if it's overstimulation or a droning fatigue by being stretched threadbare from all declining effectiveness in hunting down the rare items.

 

For me it is the droning fatigue that comes immediately after overstimulation. It's certainly exciting to see thousands of games available for your platform of choice. But to get them all? That's a real task

 

A somewhat applicable example can be made in the Apple II world of 17,000+ titles. Ranging from grade A games and business stuff that was published and well known for years on end - to - crappy PD collections containing filler material with 1 amusing gem interspersed among 50 other dullards.

 

I sort of discovered a balance seriously (and dangerously) late in the game. Having been an Apple II enthusiast since 1977 it was just as fun acquiring the stuff as it was playing & using it. Being unexpectedly thrust into overdrive with the BBS scene in the early 1980's it appeared the dream could come true. So many warez were being traded. And tons of stuff was on the brink of being discounted for pennies on the dollar. It was overwhelming. I(we) would have to increase the rate of collection by about a billionfold to keep up. And in the late 80's - early 90's the scene started collapsing. II consoles were being thrown in the dustcart, being sold st thrift stores for $5, being put outside the local computer store. Literally on the sidewalk, for your pickens.. And I was hardly a fraction of the way into getting the anecdotally-agreed-upon 17,000+ titles. I might have amassed a thousand, maybe two.

 

It's the mid-90's now. The 486 was maturing. The Pentium 60/66 was on the horizon. And no Apple II BBSes in sight. Came close to ditching all the Apple II stuff I acquired since the 70's. Partly in hopes the Amiga would finally fulfill its promise of becoming the "ultimate". It never matrialized. It only served as a distraction. That was the "dangerous" part. But I figured all that hard work and good times shouldn't be discarded too rapidly. Yet I could hardly give a rat's ass about it. It was thin in comparison to the well curated megacollectors collections yet to come. So I just carefully and all-inclusively packed everything into boxes almost indiscriminately. The only criteria being that if it was Apple II related it was being packed. Carefully however. Ended up with a voluminous pile that filled a 1-car garage full. And there it sat. For 10 years, 15 years.

 

I even thought about selling stuff. I put feelers out on several places like AppleFritter and Vintage Computer Forums. I didn't like the rotten & stuck-up attitudes I encountered. So. No. A blessing in disguise. Thanks to all the assholes I still have my stash. It's funny. Stuff they bemoaned was common now commands a premium on eBay. But... Yeahhh... Don't let the community set the price or guide you. They'll low-ball you every time. Just to get your stuff for cheap.

 

It's 2012 now and various archives like Apple2Online, ftp.asimov, Internet Archive, and other richly populated (but small) archives were popping up. Were becoming noteworthy. An awakening was around the corner. It was becoming possible to have a significant portion of the mythical 17,000+ titles. An important inflection point had arrived.

 

I had decided to re-awaken the Apple II "collection" in a tentative trial so to speak. I made sure I still had my childhood stuff. I did. Disks & drives, cards & cords, consoles & controllers. Books, manuals, and miscellanea.. But kept it packed away mostly. Taking it for a Sunday spin every now and then.

 

And now were are in the present. Several archives are bristling with new material. Stuff that was unheard of or impossible to acquire in the BBS days and thereafter is becoming available on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. Every visit to three repositories yields something new. Some filler material, some new stuff, some cool stuff.

 

It may not be not the original diskettes themselves. Naturally. Real disks degrade over time. Become sticky, grow mold, develop weak spots, or have their labels discolor and fall off. So instead of all that miasma high-quality disk images like clean cracks in standard .dsk format are where its at. Or even the original disks being made into .a2r and .woz. Even moar win! And from that real physical disks can be made up for the ultimate experience on real hardware if that's your gig. Otherwise it's common and perfectly acceptable to just run the stuff in high fidelity emulation.

 

So there is where I spend money. On maintaining the old hardware. Enhancing it with new hobbyist developments, replacement parts, spare parts. Packaging materials from The Container store. Things like that.

And the same applies with documentation. The rate at which "incoming" happens is increasing, faster in the scanned department, slower in the printed department. But both increasing nonetheless.

 

For over 15 years I was missing a certain piece of documentation. Nowhere to be seen anyplace. But ebay had it for $700 or $800. But yeahhh-uhmmm. No. Just because something is "old" or is "rare vintage game" or "Apple II" doesn't indiscriminately afford someone the justification for such a high price. Or for me to spend that amount of money. Well yes they can list it for whatever they please. But don't expect to make a sale. And for years I watched it languish. Justice was being served!

 

Like magic. The other day it popped up on one of the repositories and a rush of the excitement of the thrill of a downhill rollercoaster filled the air. The anticipation of a fat man cruising the buffet on round #1. It was everywhere!

 

The major excitement wasn't about adding it to a collection. Just small amount was. But now I could play the game as it was intended. With the story background. The proper controls. The goals. The score values. It was all there. Sure I could have figured out most of that. But that's not the intent. The experience would have been much different. Now I can play it properly! Printed original vs .pdf? In this case it made no difference. Bonusfully it's a good scan that captured the proper fontage which lends atmosphere to things like this.

 

If this keeps up I'll need to splurge $50 on another USB disk! Another example of spending money on modern stuff to support vintage activities. Ohh the first world problems. We're spoiled!

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I don't know if it's overstimulation or a droning fatigue by being stretched threadbare from all declining effectiveness in hunting down the rare items.  

For me it is the droning fatigue that comes immediately after overstimulation. It's certainly exciting to see thousands of games available for your platform of choice. But to get them all? That's a real task

 

A somewhat applicable example can be made in the Apple II world of 17,000+ titles. Ranging from grade A games and business stuff that was published and well known for years on end - to - crappy PD collections containing filler material with 1 amusing gem interspersed among 50 other dullards.

 

I sort of discovered a balance seriously (and dangerously) late in the game. Having been an Apple II enthusiast since 1977 it was just as fun acquiring the stuff as it was playing & using it. Being unexpectedly thrust into overdrive with the BBS scene in the early 1980's it appeared the dream could come true. So many warez were being traded. And tons of stuff was on the brink of being discounted for pennies on the dollar. It was overwhelming. I(we) would have to increase the rate of collection by about a billionfold to keep up. And in the late 80's - early 90's the scene started collapsing. II consoles were being thrown in the dustcart, being sold st thrift stores for $5, being put outside the local computer store. Literally on the sidewalk, for your pickens.. And I was hardly a fraction of the way into getting the anecdotally-agreed-upon 17,000+ titles. I might have amassed a thousand, maybe two.

 

It's the mid-90's now. The 486 was maturing. The Pentium 60/66 was on the horizon. And no Apple II BBSes in sight. Came close to ditching all the Apple II stuff I acquired since the 70's. Partly in hopes the Amiga would finally fulfill its promise of becoming the "ultimate". It never matrialized. It only served as a distraction. That was the "dangerous" part. But I figured all that hard work and good times shouldn't be discarded too rapidly. Yet I could hardly give a rat's ass about it. It was thin in comparison to the well curated megacollectors collections yet to come. So I just carefully and all-inclusively packed everything into boxes almost indiscriminately. The only criteria being that if it was Apple II related it was being packed. Carefully however. Ended up with a voluminous pile that filled a 1-car garage full. And there it sat. For 10 years, 15 years.

 

I even thought about selling stuff. I put feelers out on several places like AppleFritter and Vintage Computer Forums. I didn't like the rotten & stuck-up attitudes I encountered. So. No. A blessing in disguise. Thanks to all the assholes I still have my stash. It's funny. Stuff they bemoaned was common now commands a premium on eBay. But... Yeahhh... Don't let the community set the price or guide you. They'll low-ball you every time. Just to get your stuff for cheap.

 

It's 2012 now and various archives like Apple2Online, ftp.asimov, Internet Archive, and other richly populated (but small) archives were popping up. Were becoming noteworthy. An awakening was around the corner. It was becoming possible to have a significant portion of the mythical 17,000+ titles. An important inflection point had arrived.

 

I had decided to re-awaken the Apple II "collection" in a tentative trial so to speak. I made sure I still had my childhood stuff. I did. Disks & drives, cards & cords, consoles & controllers. Books, manuals, and miscellanea.. But kept it packed away mostly. Taking it for a Sunday spin every now and then.

 

And now were are in the present. Several archives are bristling with new material. Stuff that was unheard of or impossible to acquire in the BBS days and thereafter is becoming available on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. Every visit to three repositories yields something new. Some filler material, some new stuff, some cool stuff.

 

It may not be not the original diskettes themselves. Naturally. Real disks degrade over time. Become sticky, grow mold, develop weak spots, or have their labels discolor and fall off. So instead of all that miasma high-quality disk images like clean cracks in standard .dsk format are where its at. Or even the original disks being made into .a2r and .woz. Even moar win! And from that real physical disks can be made up for the ultimate experience on real hardware if that's your gig. Otherwise it's common and perfectly acceptable to just run the stuff in high fidelity emulation.

 

So there is where I spend money. On maintaining the old hardware. Enhancing it with new hobbyist developments, replacement parts, spare parts. Packaging materials from The Container store. Things like that.

And the same applies with documentation. The rate at which "incoming" happens is increasing, faster in the scanned department, slower in the printed department. But both increasing nonetheless.

 

For over 15 years I was missing a certain piece of documentation. Nowhere to be seen anyplace. But ebay had it for $700 or $800. But yeahhh-uhmmm. No. Just because something is "old" or is "rare vintage game" or "Apple II" doesn't indiscriminately afford someone the justification for such a high price. Or for me to spend that amount of money. Well yes they can list it for whatever they please. But don't expect to make a sale. And for years I watched it languish. Justice was being served!

 

Like magic. The other day it popped up on one of the repositories and a rush of the excitement of the thrill of a downhill rollercoaster filled the air. The anticipation of a fat man cruising the buffet on round #1. It was everywhere!

 

The major excitement wasn't about adding it to a collection. Just small amount was. But now I could play the game as it was intended. With the story background. The proper controls. The goals. The score values. It was all there. Sure I could have figured out most of that. But that's not the intent. The experience would have been much different. Now I can play it properly! Printed original vs .pdf? In this case it made no difference. Bonusfully it's a good scan that captured the proper fontage which lends atmosphere to things like this.

 

If this keeps up I'll need to splurge $50 on another USB disk! Another example of spending money on modern stuff to support vintage activities. Ohh the first world problems. We're spoiled!

 

 

 

Wow, and holy Wow! I don’t think many people have ever had that dedication to anything, even by accident.

 

That’s an incredible journey and experience. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt that way about anything including a computer or piece of technology. Maybe my wife, but I wouldn’t stash her in storage and then try and sell her later. I can certainly see her thinking about doing that with me over the years(15 so far).

 

I really appreciate you sharing that level of detail about your experience with the Apple II.

I can identify with parts of that but only with intermittent flashes of desire for some things.

 

It clearly illustrates to me some of the reason why you are the most powerful advocate I’ve come across on the Atariage forums for going to emulation. And for why some things may need to remain physical when it comes to past and present purchases.

 

The expense of it all seems like a huge factor past and present. It also makes me wonder like it appears you have if it’s all(the physical) worth it.

 

Mainly it causes me to pause and analyze if I have that much love for the stuff I have collected thus far, I’m not sure.

 

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Yes. For a long time I worked to find the balance between virtual/emulation and real physical stuff. Worked to find a reasoning. Worked to find and decide on the actual items I want to keep forever. And while there are no set rules something has to be done to control the sprawl, the accumulation, the hoard. That's the last thing you want is to be burdened with closets, rooms, garages, and god forbid - WAREHOUSES full of this crap! You want it all to be elegant and attractive and worthy of a Sotheby's auction.

 

Simply going up and down a list didn't work. Choosing based on rarity or cost or ebay/thrift availabily didn't work. Choosing based on popularity in the media (magazines, youtube, reviewers) also didn't work. Those are all examples of other people's choices.

 

So I found out that putting everything out of sight and "trying" to forget about worked surprisingly well. And it turned out to be the stuff from childhood (or early experiences in the hobby - age irrelevant) that stood out. That's the stuff that's going to be worthwhile keeper material.

 

Of course just by being in the hobby itself means we (you) will have interest in a hunnert'n'fifty other systems too. And so emulation is here to fill the gaps, to give the experience, to open the window.

 

Emulation will also provide access to the inaccessible things like vintage arcade games. Consider those early 80's arcade games. We all know what they are. And we all know they are practically unavailable. Not like yesteryear. Emulation will let those games live on in the form of MAME and ROM's, or officially endorsed classic packs for modern consoles, or officially licensed replica arcade cabinets.

 

That article had likened comparing the cost of an arcade cabinet to a distribution cost. The design, manufacture, and installation of a cabinet was but just a mere extension, a final step, in delivering "the game program" to its audience. Today this all done over wireless network to your phone. Or wired network to your XBOX.

 

So whichever way you play vintage games, you'll be spending some kind of money on hardware.. Likely modern hardware.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Vintage for me here, but with todays prices thats becoming less and less. But with being able to buy good switch games on the eshop for dollars, it still ends up that I spend way more on vintage games even if the quantity is less. What I find comical is the switch games that are 2 or 10 bucks are sometimes 1000 times better than the expensive vintage game I just bought. 

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Vintage because "vintage" is getting old. No pun intended. With the ever expanding pile of shit that vintage gaming is becoming, a gamer or collector has to be more diligent than ever. There's only so many variants of Centipede and Missile Command that interest me. And that's it! It has to be sorted through.

 

Vintage is becoming more expensive because someone says it has to be that way. And that draws in a certain crowd that fuels the fire. Which becomes a blaze and attracts more attention.

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  • 9 months later...

Vintage/Classic/Retro 97% of the time. Basically if a game needs more than (6) buttons and/or a half hour tutorial... it's too involved for me. I prefer games I can get my fox on for 20 minute sessions, or something I can best within an hour and a half, two tops. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I’m not sure where the Virtual console falls into this equation. I’ve purchased way more retro games recently on the Wii U virtual console. I especially like all of the NES, SNES, and TurboGrafx games. It’s the accessibility that gets me. Well that and the save states, and the feeling that I’ve paid my money for many games that I’ve only emulated through the years.

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