Heading for Germany, any good game stores?

[Doc4]

I'm heading to Germany in a few days for two weeks. I will be in Bonn, Köln and near Berlin. Does anyone know where the good game stores are in or around these areas? Anyone in Germany want to meet up and talk videogame smack? Just checking, you'll will unfortunatly have to speak english to me as I speak very little German.

[san-d-2000]

You should go to a newsagent and buy a magazine called the Trodlle Sammler, it has all the fleamarkets listed.

 

I probably misspelled the name of the magazine, thomas?

 

-Sandy

[CPUWIZ]

Maybe "Troedel Sammler" ?

 

Replace 'oe' with:

 

..

O

 

in German written text.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

The main problems is, that since April we have a quite stupid new youth protection law.

 

Quite stupid, because for all games, you have to ask for an age rating. This costs about $1000. Of course this rating is done only for modern games that are still on sale.

 

The result of this law is, that all older games (e.g. 2600 Pac-Man) have an adult rating (over 18!) and it's not legal any more to sell them in public. (currently there are no exceptions to that rule, I hope that will change in the no so far future)

 

Since April I haven't seen any 2600 games in the wild anymore.

[ATARI TROLL]

If you come accross any doubles, would you mind selling them or trading when you got back?

[Vigo]

The main problems is, that since April we have a quite stupid new youth protection law.  

 

Quite stupid, because for all games, you have to ask for an age rating. This costs about $1000. Of course this rating is done only for modern games that are still on sale.  

 

The result of this law is, that all older games (e.g. 2600 Pac-Man) have an adult rating (over 18!) and it's not legal any more to sell them in public. (currently there are no exceptions to that rule, I hope that will change in the no so far future)

 

Since April I haven't seen any 2600 games in the wild anymore.

 

Yes, this new law really is a stupid mistake....

 

But who really cares? www.ebay.de still has classic pre-USK games, and you still can find games on the flea market. To what places are you referring to, when saying you didn´t find any games in the wild?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

To what places are you referring to, when saying you didn´t find any games in the wild?

My prefered flea markets in Düsseldorf. I don't travel to other places, since I am no collector.

[san-d-2000]

The main problems is, that since April we have a quite stupid new youth protection law.  

 

Quite stupid, because for all games, you have to ask for an age rating. This costs about $1000. Of course this rating is done only for modern games that are still on sale.  

 

The result of this law is, that all older games (e.g. 2600 Pac-Man) have an adult rating (over 18!) and it's not legal any more to sell them in public. (currently there are no exceptions to that rule, I hope that will change in the no so far future)

 

Since April I haven't seen any 2600 games in the wild anymore.

 

hmm that explaines a lot, two weeks ago I went to Berlin, I visited 4 fleamarkets and didn´t see one atari game.

Just overpriced N64 and PS1 stuff.

 

@Thomas,

it did cross my mind to give fish a visit, but decided to stick to the original plan which was a romantic weekend with my girlfriend

 

- Sandy.

[surfnmadness]

Since your heading to Germany,

 

any chance you can help out with the Thrust DC tread (sticky) in this forum?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Since your heading to Germany,  

 

  any chance you can help out with the Thrust DC tread (sticky) in this forum?

How could he?

[Doc4]

Not sure how I could help out on the Thrust thread. I was only in Germany once before but only for a day and as a result didn't see much in the way of gaming stores. I guess I should have been a little more specific, I am looking for 2600 games, but this new law sounds very bizarre. I don't see why they would stop selling these games, if you have a legal license showing your age why can't you just buy them as an adult. I can really only see this affecting oung kids, so why take 2600 out of circulation all together? Strange.

 

Back to the question though, any gaming stores with old school in the Bonn Koln area? I will definitely check out the magazine though. Thanks. And if I find any doubles I will be all about trading up a storm.

[panamajoe]

every first Sunday (in a month in Summer) there´s a big (very, very big!) flea market in Bonn. If you´ve any chance of getting there, i can only recommend it to you. It´s on a place called "Rheinauen" (near the river "Rhein", everyone in Bonn will know the place and you can get there by Tram easily). You´ll find everything and it´ll take the whole day to visit the market... be sure to come early.

In the bigger citys there are normaly flea markets every Sunday, so simply check the local paper, or, if you can´t read german ask around. In Köln for example you´ll find the flea market places in a magazine called "Stadt Revue".

If you tell me when you visit which city i can try to find out where the flea markets are...

regarding the new (pretty stupid) law: i can´t see that it affects the flea markets, as most of the sellers there are private, only thing i noticed is that some gaming stores stopped selling non-rated games to under 18year olds.

Enjoy your visit!

[Doc4]

Hello all, I am officially in Germany and this keyboard is weird, the y and the z especially are screwed up so this is taking me some time to write. I wil be heading for the goant fleamarket tomorrow morning to hunt for video games, I have already been to many game stores with no luck for finding any Atari stuff, I did find a great many Gameboy games that I have never seen in the America.

 

I´m having some trouble typing in english on this thing and a little trouble speaking english as well since i have been listening to german and broken english for over a week now, this will mess with your head trust me. okay I´m off to more germany. I wonät be able to check this agin until I get back to the states but thanks for your help everyone.

 

Monster

[Doc4]

Just a follow up to this story, a few years later. I never found a single Atari game there, the entire two weeks, in fact I never found a single person who knew what the Atari was. Strange, I know. So where does everyone get those wonderful German games?

[staberinde]

Just a follow up to this story, a few years later. I never found a single Atari game there, the entire two weeks, in fact I never found a single person who knew what the Atari was. Strange, I know. So where does everyone get those wonderful German games?

 

Well, there are a view people that do now Atari even in Germany . But it's true, you will not find that many games in the wild. I have to resort to epay, but there you can find quite some nice stuff. The "german" games you are refering to a most probably Quelle games, which was a german company re-selling games of other companies. You find these quite often on ebay germany, they are usually not very expensive. But there are other PAL games ...

[Cybergoth]

Just a follow up to this story, a few years later. I never found a single Atari game there, the entire two weeks, in fact I never found a single person who knew what the Atari was. Strange, I know. So where does everyone get those wonderful German games?

 

These days it really all goes to eBay. I probably find a few NES or SMS games every half a year at a flea market, but in the wild you only find PC, Playstation and GBA games. You know, they're not ULTRA-RARE stuff, like Atari

 

At the last fleamarket I went to, I saw some rednecks selling a few lose NES commons. They were demanding 10 Euro for one(!!!), mocking me I should go and see how expensive those were "in the internet". Dumb idiots, probably not even knowing how to turn a computer on...

[panamajoe]

Just a follow up to this story, a few years later. I never found a single Atari game there, the entire two weeks, in fact I never found a single person who knew what the Atari was. Strange, I know. So where does everyone get those wonderful German games?

 

These days it really all goes to eBay. I probably find a few NES or SMS games every half a year at a flea market, but in the wild you only find PC, Playstation and GBA games. You know, they're not ULTRA-RARE stuff, like Atari

 

 

when i started buying atari stuff 5 or 6 years ago, the fleamarkets still had plenty of atari carts... since 2 or 3 years it really dries up, i haven´t found a single cart in the wild this year and guess what: next year won´t be better...

[video game addict]

Rednecks in Germany? Oh my!

 

I like this topic, especially the fact that the OP came back and updated us 2 years later! Awesome! I was reading for the first time I think, then I got to the bottom, and realized how old it was, but it was still interesting. I'm going to be in Mexico in a couple weeks, I was thinking of posting the same thing, maybe I'll get lucky and find some Quadruns or Crazy Climbers hiding in a little junk store down in Cozmel or Belize. Seems all the hard to find silvers show up for auction from Mexico..

[Doc4]

Was Atari very big in Germany at all. I spoke with several people old enough to be around during the video game craze and none of them had any idea what Atari was. I thought it was strange. Thomas lives there and he knows about it, where are all the other fans? How many systems even entered the country? I was expecting a treasure trove of German games everywhere

 

As for eBay, I frequent the German eBay a lot looking for games and a good deal of things I want they don't ship worldwide.

[staberinde]

Rednecks in Germany? Oh my!

 

I like this topic, especially the fact that the OP came back and updated us 2 years later! Awesome! I was reading for the first time I think, then I got to the bottom, and realized how old it was, but it was still interesting. I'm going to be in Mexico in a couple weeks, I was thinking of posting the same thing, maybe I'll get lucky and find some Quadruns or Crazy Climbers hiding in a little junk store down in Cozmel or Belize. Seems all the hard to find silvers show up for auction from Mexico..

 

 

Mexico? Isn't that cheap pirate Air Raid Country?

[thomasholzer]

Hehe, you 'like' the German keyboard layout? Not as bad as the French one though. Since I returned from UK, I stuck with my USA keyboard, can't get used to the German layout.

 

If you're still in Bonn, head here to Koblenz:

Landesmuseum (I'll be going this Sunday)

http://www.landesmuseumkoblenz.de/

(Check out the little Mario icon). 'Nintendo, From card games to Game Boy'

It's an official exhibition and runs until 19th Nov, probably well worth visiting if you're into Nintendo.

Edited October 19, 2006 by thomasholzer

[thomasholzer]

As for VCS big in Germany, it didn't do bad. We had a magazine called TeleMatch ( http://videogamecollectors.com/gallery/album116/Telematch ), which also (sometimes) took articles from EG and translated them. They always slated games like 'Battlezone' for being 'too violent', and adored games like 'Smurfs'. Soon new 'Youth protection laws' kicked in (1985 I believe), which introduced 'the index', and killed off the arcade industry (see Retro Gamer issue 18, readers letters).

Shortlived (VCS), the C64/FDD took it's place pretty soon, with XL, Schneider CPC (Amstrad CPC) also doing quite well.

Now, as mentioned, more Youth Protection Laws....

Edited October 19, 2006 by thomasholzer

[JacobZu7zu7]

As for VCS big in Germany, it didn't do bad. We had a magazine called TeleMatch ( http://videogamecollectors.com/gallery/album116/Telematch ), which also (sometimes) took articles from EG and translated them. They always slated games like 'Battlezone' for being 'too violent', and adored games like 'Smurfs'. Soon new 'Youth protection laws' kicked in (1985 I believe), which introduced 'the index', and killed off the arcade industry (see Retro Gamer issue 18, readers letters).

Shortlived (VCS), the C64/FDD took it's place pretty soon, with XL, Schneider CPC (Amstrad CPC) also doing quite well.

Now, as mentioned, more Youth Protection Laws....

 

Youth protection law??

That's so strange. I mean, the new games are much more violent and are with better graphics,

I'd say its safer for a German kid to buy Pac-man then Grand Theft Auto. This law is pointless (IMO)

One reason I think Germany doesn't know Atari 2600 (in praticular) because it wasn't as big as a Nintendo or Commodore 64. In America it seems Atari stuff is still everywhere, I just bought a pac-man shirt at a store. It's not Atari but it has the arcade pac-man (close). I know that Atari was issued for Germany, because the logo on the commercial I have seen. It's online, funny commercial.

 

LOOK hier = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJyRTNZf1hs - SPIELE!

Super Breakout "und die pac-man is da/star?" wer hat schon pac-man gespielt?

hehe I can get a few of the german words,

since I been teaching it to myself for a few years on and off.

I think I know all basic german.

 

here's a weird one, (not a TV commercial)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_vLM6O_XLk

I don't get what these guys say

 

Cool topic, here... I just read it first today, thx to Monster's update.

Edited October 20, 2006 by JacobZu7zu7

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Well, there are quite a lot homebrewers coming from Germany. So Atari may not have been as big as in the USA, but it definitely was pretty popular.

[Doc4]

Germany has a lot of great programmers, Thomas, you're included in that

 

Unfortunately I've been back in the US for several years. I've been going to New York, San Diego and some other places but nothing overseas lately. I wish I could make it to that Nintendo Fest there. I'm looking forward to Philly.