Are YouTubers Ruining Retro Gaming?

[Good_Times]

Well, this has been a lively topic. Alot of factors to consider before I wade into this debate so here it goes. Gaming and collecting are two different things.

 

YouTube has not ruined gaming. If anything YouTube has gotten people to play roms that were forgotten about. Where it differs is gamers who collect on the side.

 

YouTube has impacted collecting the physical media and original devices. Increased awareness plus media spotlight equals a drive in demand. This affects prices.

 

So yes if you are gaming on original hardware and pursuing physical media to play stuff you will now pay more. Buying just cart/cd only to play a game means that the prices will still be lower than a complete in box copy. Did Youtube cause this? Probably, along with people remembering games that they grew up with and now have disposable income.

 

As a major collector, I try to offer a channel to bring awareness to those who want to collect things. My channel is far from perfect. I also guest on MJR to again inform collectors on what is out there.

 

The issue I see more and more with the market is that with the increased value of things, it attracts a type of person who want to use videogames as an investment. More and more people get caught up in the price of things, when to flip a game for profit, and looking to buy low and sell high. Not everyone is doing this, but there is enough people doing it to make other annoyed.

 

For the issue of YouTubers who are being sensational or are giving misinformed info about things, just dont watch their channel.

 

Well said.

 

Always remember: Haters are gonna hate, and jealousy consumes.

[Tanooki]

Good point, but some could also confuse jealousy for what he said, annoyance. You don't have to be jealous to be pissed, you can just be pissed because the youtube circle or whatever it was (the mix of it all) drove up such further demand it just made things uncomfortably annoying to buy when it wasn't just not so many years ago. You'll find from what I've seen those who got into it in the 90s and the 00s are the ones who will bitch the most and loudest because they did it for the game, and to grab up the stuff on a system(or so) they enjoyed to try out new stuff. As noted, emulators weren't all that great until the late 90s, and in some cases not even until even more recent than that (or very recent like with Saturn.) So you buy the real thing for that reason or whatever else it could be. But now that thing you could get for $5 10 years ago is like now $500 complete because of the types who treat games not as games but as commodity trading like oil and minerals and it's annoying. They don't care other than how much they can squeeze and when the best time to drop the item is to do so. A lot don't do it, but more than enough do to deny there's an impact is nuts.

 

Like that post from earlier in the day said, some are just to where it's easier to reflect back to the period when they grew up with it. You stick to a system or two, or keep more or less the goodies you got at retail in that period and be happier with something smaller, more concise, and playable due to lack of time from job, kids, woman, etc going on in life. If you're not into physical game e-peen measuring (or online abuse which I avoid too for that type of amusement) there are alternatives other than just having a measured response such as kits, pi boxes, or just roms+emulator on your current PC. Whatever works, get what you want and do it.

[Professor Gull]

Ok I have to ask this since I feel like there is a generational gap between definitions of entertainment and information.

 

So are we more upset about dumb videos that have no tangible content or more upset at folks who opt for informational but then stray to make it a comedy on a level of meme's and non-sequitur?

 

If you think of those of us who grew up with TV not YT are are main sources of both I think there is a biased view now towards how some videos are done. So is it more public opinion that is runing You Tube which then in turn hurts retro gaming?

 

Just thoughts I had talking to the younger generation and watching videos they thought were informational and also entertaining. My only response was " Oh is that what that is supposed to be?"

[HoshiChiri]

Ok I have to ask this since I feel like there is a generational gap between definitions of entertainment and information.

 

So are we more upset about dumb videos that have no tangible content or more upset at folks who opt for informational but then stray to make it a comedy on a level of meme's and non-sequitur?

 

If you think of those of us who grew up with TV not YT are are main sources of both I think there is a biased view now towards how some videos are done. So is it more public opinion that is runing You Tube which then in turn hurts retro gaming?

 

Just thoughts I had talking to the younger generation and watching videos they thought were informational and also entertaining. My only response was " Oh is that what that is supposed to be?"

 

I think when you get right down to it, we're mad that whatever people have managed to amass a following are either a) not making content we personally find appealing, or b) making obscure game prices go up by pointing out to people the games are good, as they scrape around for titles not done to death by other youtubers.

 

I am kind of curious, though- what videos are you referring to that you were told are 'entertaining and informative', but you did not find so? And why did you disagree? I'm wondering if there's a difference in entertainment tastes, or if we get less from the videos because it's info we already know.

[Professor Gull]

 

I think when you get right down to it, we're mad that whatever people have managed to amass a following are either a) not making content we personally find appealing, or b) making obscure game prices go up by pointing out to people the games are good, as they scrape around for titles not done to death by other youtubers.

 

I am kind of curious, though- what videos are you referring to that you were told are 'entertaining and informative', but you did not find so? And why did you disagree? I'm wondering if there's a difference in entertainment tastes, or if we get less from the videos because it's info we already know.

this is not the exact one but he mentione Sushi Rainbow and stuff like this to be entertaining.

 

 

Maybe just not my cup of "souls" as it were. Not saying I don't like new games but stuff like this seems like fodder or things to kill brain cells with.

[DJ Clae]

AVGN is a lot more knowledgable about movies than games. Watch his movie videos.

[CGQuarterly]

you can just be pissed because the youtube circle or whatever it was (the mix of it all) drove up such further demand it just made things uncomfortably annoying to buy when it wasn't just not so many years ago...

 

Right. It was the YouTube crowd that drove the prices up. Not the huge explosion in the number of shelf queens who buy games (or NES Mini Systems) at whatever price it takes just so that they can put them on the shelf and never play them. (...Do you happen to know anyone like that?)

 

AVGN is a lot more knowledgable about movies than games. Watch his movie videos.

 

 

I've never watched one of his gaming episodes all the way through, but I did watch a video he did talking about Ghostbusters, and it was really good.

[Tanooki]

I'm not saying it was just youtube, it's a circle if anything. Shelf queens get their stuff, they can only brag to friends. Wanting to make their e-peen even mightier, they make a video and throw it online to brag and show off like children. Then someone else gets envious, jealous, whatever, so then they make their own video to one up the last dude or run out and get that instant gratification 'Gotta Catch Em All' pokemon like mentality and pay the price or then some for a nice one. So there's your video stoking demand, then people wanting to be a 'me too' about it pay whatever which runs up prices.

 

They're equally both to blame.

 

I swung for years in the NA collector crew and saw a lot of envious people see things, then get their own and throw up videos or pics bragging about their best pick-ups and deals while 10 other users would tell them congrats and pat them on the back and do the same. It was like whack-a-mole for collecting at any cost. Many would end up running up a surprising debt feeling too much of the rush on attaining stuff then either being in debt and whining, or having to turn around a month or three later and selling off a lot of stuff as their bills are overdue, or if they're lucky just sanity kicked in and decided to back off. It wasn't a majority or a daily thing, but common enough people would comment on yet another burn out.

[Good_Times]

YouTube ruined my LIFE! I friggin HATE video games now! BASTARDS!!

[+MrBlackCat]

YouTube is just an extension of, or product of social networking.

There are a LOT of people who do exactly the same thing, for completely different reasons. I am generally non-social, but I do like to support what I enjoy. When I show pictures of my game room and games (I consider myself a gamer, not a collector) it is only experienced as intended by a relatively small group... the rest are jealous, or experience other negative reactions which they are always too eager to share. I find it disruptive generally speaking, which is why I generally don't "show off" my game and game room. If an area of my game room/games fits a specific topic, then I try to share what I have enjoyed obtaining over the years. If there is too much penix measuring going on, I don't comment or share usually.

 

The point is that YouTube is mostly socially based now, and today "collecting" retro games is "in"... Like others have so eloquently stated, they have what they do because they enjoy it, not for socially based reasons like "belonging" to a popular group, social competition, or my least compatible set, "investors".

 

MrBlackCat

[Professor Gull]

I seek to enlighten and entertain.

 

If values increase from something I personally said " Look at the rare and valuable game." Then I will make sure my editor get a good flogging and then take the game away from him as punishment. Make it sit on the shelf gathering dust never to be played again.

 

No really though I do wonder as the collectards like to flash stuff off does it create a frenzy of jealousy and anger more than a desire to go after the same goal? One would think seeing something new and rare might just be a point and reference to something another person might want. Then again when you pose a valuable game with a bikini model that's being a little dickish for sure. Like that guy who sells retro games on ebay that have mamories for your memories.

[Omega-TI]

I take a more dispassionate view on things. You Tube, like television affords one the opportunity to 'change the channel'. If a person does not like it, they don't have to watch it, while the old adage, "Different strokes for different folks" applies to videos as well a video games. Above all this is a basic truth, "You can't please all the people all the time", so why even try? No matter what you do, or how hard in life you try, there will always be some easily offended or vocal personality. Why pander or be controlled by these 'personalities'?

 

Life is too short to worry over how one word on one topic may easily "offend" someone or how one comment 'from you' might "ruin the market". If part of someone's hobby is making videos to entertain or inform others, I'm all for it. I have more respect for those people than the ones who are only in the community to make money off of others.

 

Full disclosure: Yes, I've also made a few You Tube videos which can be viewed << HERE >>.

[HoshiChiri]

this is not the exact one but he mentione Sushi Rainbow and stuff like this to be entertaining.

 

 

Maybe just not my cup of "souls" as it were. Not saying I don't like new games but stuff like this seems like fodder or things to kill brain cells with.

 

Not my tastes for entertainment either (I prefer my memes one at a time, not repeated in a broken-record compilation video.) I am curious as to what the younglings find informative tho'- that clearly isn't it, and I can't imagine a channel that plays 1 game has much info to offer, unless you also only play that game.

 

I still say the ability to learn about new games offsets the often temporary spikes in prices. For example- I found this on a smaller channel, so no spikes from it- Power Shovel on PS1. It's a construction equipment driving game. I would never, EVER consider playing such a game had I not been told of wacky, weird fun. There's a minigame where you make curry! I love that kind of bizarre gameplay! And it's in a game with a cover that very much makes it look like shovelware! Glad I learned of it through Youtube.

[Keatah]

It was fun in the 70's and 80's accumulating and playing all this stuff. Then again the 90's and thereafter in helping get the emulation scene on track.

 

The hobby is so much more fun when $$$ are not part of the equation. Listening to youtubers bark about their latest acquisition is rather boring too.

[Omega-TI]

 

The hobby is so much more fun when $$$ are not part of the equation. Listening to youtubers bark about their latest acquisition is rather boring too.

 

Sometimes it can be... unless you are currently interested in a particular item. Other times, I'm grateful for some of these videos. I was going to buy something once and a couple of reviews convinced me I would be wasting my money. Getting the perspective and opinion from someone who already has one, can be valuable. As for barking about their latest acquisition, that's usually when people have the enthusiasm to make their videos, so I can't hold that against them.

[jce3000gt]

It was fun in the 70's and 80's accumulating and playing all this stuff. Then again the 90's and thereafter in helping get the emulation scene on track.

 

The hobby is so much more fun when $$$ are not part of the equation. Listening to youtubers bark about their latest acquisition is rather boring too.

 

I think this is a great post. Especially that last sentence. I started ROM Hacking in the late 90's and was really active in the community for most of the 21st century so I understand the emulation scene and most to almost all of it is populated by gamers in the purist sense. In a way these people are like you and me (along with any other 35+ year old original gamer from their youth), most of them want to play games and in some cases like myself wanted to hack/edit/alter games to create a new experience or solve a problem. I consider people who emulate to be just as much of a true gamer as the bloke who buys physical media to actually play on their TV.

 

Back to the original topic. I suppose I am both a collector and a gamer. I'm a collector simply because I enjoy the experience of collecting more than the destination and because love seeing all the art and content most games have to offer. And of course a bunch of it will look fantastic on my gaming shelves once I get them bought and setup. I'm also a gamer because like someone posted previously... Gaming is life, life is gaming. The 80's and early 90's were the best years of gaming for me but my desire to collect from those years is long past minus some obscure stuff like 3DO, PC, and the oddball 16-bit game. I recently traded about ~250 games and a couple consoles (all cartridge-based) to a buddy of mine because I wanted out of 8-bit & 16-bit cartridge collecting market due to space considerations and mostly because of price. Sad to see a bunch of that go that I had collected for the last ~30+ years but I can always emulate these perfectly with most of it cycle-accurate and since he was also a collector and professional console repair tech he was thrilled. So I traded 90% of my SNES games+1 of my 3 consoles, Genesis games +1 of my consoles, NES, GameGear, Intellivision, and the oddball list of accessories. What I got out of it was a PS4 Pro, PS3 (100% backwards compatible with PS1/PS2), some PS3/PS4 RPGs, WildARMs 1-5, Suikoden II-V, and some others. This was worth more value to me in the end knowing that I can acquire most of these games for pretty cheap on these consoles for at least a while.

 

A bunch of this hobby gets lost with social media/youtube as with most things because of how this has impacted our society and social structure. I can no longer randomly talk to someone about games while waiting in line to put my quarters in. The last couple of times I tried to talk to someone about games while in a game store they gave me their facebook/twitter name and said "lets talk there!". I politely waited until I got home before throwing that note away--sorry I prefer to talk to humans in person on the rare occasion I want to interact with someone. But let me be clear, something I should of posted in my first post, social media/youtube isn't 100% to blame for ruining retro gaming and impacting pricing, technology itself has the largest responsibility for at least the former. Before social media retro gaming was alive and you could still meet and talk to other gamers in some of your local resale stores that sold games or arcades. Now all that human interaction is gone as is the ability to "hunt" to find that rare game or specific game you want. I still have several of my old Funcoland pricing sheets which sometimes I look at to remind me what it was like before the internet. LOL

 

Not sure who here is old like I am but I remember walking in to this thing called an Arcade where they had huge wooden cabinets with TV screens and games in them! It was a great time full of mostly great people who all shared a common bond and love for their favorite hobby--that is except for the occasional fist fight because someone beat you in Street Fighter II (LOL, been there done that!). Human to human interaction was king in the arcades back in the "olden days" but now with no more real arcades or physical gathering places like resale game or rental stores for us gamers there really isn't an outlet so this social media is it. Gross as that may seem that is it folks.

Edited August 4, 2017 by jce3000gt

[Tanooki]

 

I think this is a great post. Especially that last sentence. I started ROM Hacking in the late 90's and was really active in the community for most of the 21st century so I understand the emulation scene and most to almost all of it is populated by gamers in the purist sense. In a way these people are like you and me (along with any other 35+ year old original gamer from their youth), most of them want to play games and in some cases like myself wanted to hack/edit/alter games to create a new experience or solve a problem. I consider people who emulate to be just as much of a true gamer as the bloke who buys physical media to actually play on their TV.

Thirded here on that. It was fun until it became about the money, then it got to be a job, a chore, and not very fun at all because of the side effects. Like you later 90s I was in that too, just with the NES side of things ROM releases, headers, emulator type stuff. I've had like you a few people throw a name/card at me for that stuff too, and did the same as you as well -- nice, then trash. I'm not going to sub or like someones video channel because they can't talk to me in person like a human being. And I too recall the arcade, so much so in the last couple years I put a pinball and arcade machine in my room here since they've much gone the way of the do-do in the classic sense.

[jce3000gt]

And I too recall the arcade, so much so in the last couple years I put a pinball and arcade machine in my room here since they've much gone the way of the do-do in the classic sense.

 

^ This is the dream. If I win the lottery I'll open up a proper arcade and revenue be damned. Right now I'd kill for the $$$ to be able to get either an NBA Jam or a Street Fighter II arcade cabinet. LOL That and the space to put it!

[Tanooki]

Well I kind of got around the army of machines, Neo-Geo -- buy one, throw whatever arcade pcb cartridge you want in it. Game carts are like 2 1/2 DVD cases thick and around the same size the other 2 dimensions so they line up well on my media shelf.

[Lord Thag]

Some good posts here.

 

What I get tired of is this never-ending need to sub categorize people as 'true gamers'. You are a gamer if: you play games, collect them, watch them, program or hack them, or study them. Most of us are some combination of those. Doesn't matter what combination, either. Kids who love this stuff are just as valid as the folks who were here since the beginning.

 

Youtube isn't ruining gaming. The problem is that gaming is now mainstream, and as with any big enough group, it attracts idiots and jerks. But the people who kept all this alive, before it became trendy they're still here too. Those of us who kept the games from the trash heap long enough for the technology to be available to archive and share them. The historians who wouldn't let up so that things that were once rumored, things like Alamagordo, are now actual history. Nothing is ruining gaming.

 

It's just so widespread it now includes all the assholes as well.

[Osgeld]

games have been mainstream for a long time, and my local all things video games has been around since I graduated high school ... in 1997

 

but as time wears on more gamers that didn't grow up with old systems, or ones that can now afford the expensive systems are expanding

[Austin]

games have been mainstream for a long time, and my local all things video games has been around since I graduated high school ... in 1997

 

Except that videogames are way more mainstream now than they were in 1997.

[AtariLeaf]

Listening to youtubers bark about their latest acquisition is rather boring too.

 

Not necessarily. I can't count how many times I've discovered games I became interested in because of "pick up" videos and I've had countless comments on my videos stating the same thing. I discovered two gameboy games I'm interested in acquiring because of a recent pick up video by Crooowww111 (I can never remember how many "O"'s, "W",s and "1"s are in his username

[homerhomer]

Not really. YouTube is great. Of course there's more people hunting out there now but that's not ruining it. I would personally say it's just everybody is price checking. I used to see all kinds of cool stuff thrifting, mostly the Goodwill, but about 4 years ago it stopped. They now have there own auction site and also sell on eBay. Everything in these stores are filtered. Gone are the days of unknowing thrift store employees just guessing a price. Well unless the mess up.

[Austin]

Everything in these stores are filtered. Gone are the days of unknowing thrift store employees just guessing a price. Well unless the mess up.

 

Yeah, on one hand this is a real bummer. But, on the other hand I'm spending a lot less time looking for games and a lot more time actually playing them.