Do you find yourself drifting away from the scene?

[godslabrat]

I much preferred the original Super Mario RPG. Paper Mario's graphics are nice, but I wish we could see another sprite game.

[Tanooki]

SMRPG actually felt like a real Square made RPG at the core using Mario. Very well balanced system, nice ways to extra raise up perks by choice, good combat and item system. The later stuff went more rhythm heaven with it, all about excellent timing or death, RPG aspects more canned, minimal, can't level up to beat a stage as it caps low with 1XP vs normal gains per battle (not kill.) I couldn't stand it, I can't handle timing games. The GC game while it has it, it's not much more strict than SMRPG was, and the Wii game was basically a weird 2/3D platformer so it was fine.

[Keatah]

I'm recently wondering how many of you have "run out of nostalgia" and now (or always) played the games you grew up with for the sheer fun of it?

 

Additionally what comes next after you've run the nostalgia course and have come full-circle?

[AtariLeaf]

I'm recently wondering how many of you have "run out of nostalgia" and now (or always) played the games you grew up with for the sheer fun of it?

 

Additionally what comes next after you've run the nostalgia course and have come full-circle?

 

I've mentioned this before but this is my personal philosophy on collecting - Nostalgia gets you there, game play keeps you there.

 

It's probably a fair statement that almost all of us started collecting and playing the games of our youth because of nostalgia and that it's the games themselves that keep you coming back to it. I don't know how many times I've bought games or systems from people who've said they found them in a yard sale or thrift store, remembered them from their youth and wanted to relive it. However after a short time that nostalgia wore off and they no longer cared so they resold it.

 

If you're in this hobby for nostalgia alone it probably won't last and if you have a collection based on nostalgia alone it probably hardly gets played. This was why I took a hard look at my collection and sold everything I didn't actually play because I realized that nostalgia alone and not playing the games was the reason I owned it. The Tandy Coco was a primary example of that - I had it growing up but almost never played it. I found for me the games didn't hold up and as a result it all sat on a shelf or in drawers and bins never to be touched, just occasionally looked at. So I made the decision to sell it and over a year later I still have absolutely no regrets. It's how I know I made the right decision.

 

Nostalgia is great but if none of it ever gets played, what's the point? I still love the games I still have and play them often, whether on real hardware or an emulation box, depending on my mood that day. Those feelings of my youth are still there, they always will be, but the games themselves are still a blast to play in 2018 just as much as they were in 1980.

[+save2600]

Will never run out of nostalgia as I'm also/mostly here because I enjoy using vintage hardware, playing classic games, making frenemies and participating in the discussion!

[Ransom]

Nostalgia's my lodestone, but the fun is in using the things it leads me to. Buying stuff just to have it sit on shelves isn't worth it to me.

[+LS650]

I find it goes in cycles. I have two major hobbies or interests: motorcycling and retro videogames. In the summer I tend to ride the motorcycle a lot, and don't have much spare time for videogames. In the winter, the bike doesn't leave the garage much, and I find I have plenty of time indoors for gaming. I don't get bored of the old school games; after a summer 'away', the games seem fresh again in the winter.

Edited December 12, 2018 by ls650

[fiddlepaddle]

"run out of nostalgia": nostalgic for nostalgia.

[Tanooki]

 

I've mentioned this before but this is my personal philosophy on collecting - Nostalgia gets you there, game play keeps you there.

 

It's probably a fair statement that almost all of us started collecting and playing the games of our youth because of nostalgia and that it's the games themselves that keep you coming back to it. I don't know how many times I've bought games or systems from people who've said they found them in a yard sale or thrift store, remembered them from their youth and wanted to relive it. However after a short time that nostalgia wore off and they no longer cared so they resold it.

 

Count me in on that, though part of the factor is slim budget and slimmer free time. 2 years back I found within months of each other a Dreamcast and a Wii, and the year before that a Genesis no-TMSS and Blue Game Gear. I found in both cases the same thing happened. I got a solid bit of fun for around 3-4mo out of them, then excuses as much as legit reasons stopped play or ran to a trickle, and within 6mo it was a plugged in decoration. That's when I put a stop to it. Out went the Wii and the DC first, then I went back on the GG and lastly the Genesis. I didn't hate them, and the last 2 Sega things was more of having to shove myself over the edge on it, but they had to go. Fun sure ,used, nope. My level of care didn't equal the value of free space and a bit of money for it. It's why I started saying screw it entirely, got all those kits this year, HDMI-ified what I could of all but the PC Engine at this rate, and left it at that to play when the mood arises. The kept games, 99% of it or close, my old 80s/90s buys/received gifts, and yet of that, ones that still are fun and didn't age into a turd of some sort.

 

I still get things here and there, but really, I find just supporting Switch, rarely the 3DS, and the occasional PC game buy satisfies better as it's more controlled and less to handle around time.

 

Right now I'm fighting the compulsion to get a HDMI option for Sega, and a kit. I think the cash wouldn't match the hours involved, yet it would be far less damning then going old school again to just get dusty. Same kind of reason I don't buy PS1 games unless I source them locally ridiculously cheap, it staggers things and makes it easier to dig into it, kind of like a kid on an allowance budget.

[Opry99er]

I just get harder. Dial-up BBSes, printing 50 page docs on my dot matrix printer and making binders out of them, making my own cables, and stripping all modernity from my systems.

 

I only emulate one system, and that's only so I can code stuff for real hardware. Original floppy disks, cassette interfacing (using real cassettes) etc.

 

I'm going down that path, and it makes my hobby worthwhile to me.

[phoenixdownita]

...

 

Additionally what comes next after you've run the nostalgia course and have come full-circle?

.... if you still like videogames usually you take a look at modern stuff just because, then you find out it is not "the four horsemen of the apocalypse" and you kind of enjoy a little bit of it .... then eventually nostalgia comes back again as we are all getting older and the precious happy moments of yesteryears are even more treasured ... granted eventually some part of it is just "done!"

 

Example: I just don't see myself going back to a C64, I played the crap out of it in the 80s, then during the PC emulation of late 90s, took a quick look again in the first half of 2000s and haven't really felt the urge to go back to it ....

Wrt to 800XL I had one in the late 80/early 90, got back to it in early 2010, dropped off again a couple of years ago ... don't see the need to revisit it once more. Same for MSX, I still dig the Konami games though.

Wrt 2600 I had one early 80s, then got my 7800 maybe 6 years ago, didn't dig much the 2600 part, got a UNO cart recently and enjoyed little bit of it, nothing transcendental, but still fun.

 

In all cases nothing wrong with them it's just that I think I got (some of) them out of my system so .... for now onto something else .... considering the little free time I have now it's just random stuff (last thing I actually played was some CV emulation on Odroid-Go and I dislike portable systems LOL .. mostly because my eyesight is getting worse and the controls are so crammed ... nothing new there, I wrestled with a GBMicro a few years ago and it's just too small to enjoy it for me at this stage of my life .... I'm almost looking forward more to that prostate exam everyone talks about than playing on my GBmicro ... I said ALMOST)

[adamchevy]

I find myself continually drifting around the scene. I’m back at the Vectrex/7800 for a third time. I think I’ll stay awhile. I found the 5200 wasn’t really for me. Then I thought maybe the 800 was what I was missing...nope.

[Keatah]

I find myself continually drifting around the scene. I’m back at the Vectrex/7800 for a third time. I think I’ll stay awhile. I found the 5200 wasn’t really for me. Then I thought maybe the 800 was what I was missing...nope.

 

During the time I owned both a 5200 and 800 I would go back and forth between them, always looking for a difference. Always looking for a reason to own them both. Eventually I just tended to continue with the 800. That was also at a time when I had a lot of systems going - and perhaps I was burning out. And the duplicity of the games between the two didn't help much.

Edited December 15, 2018 by Keatah

[Keatah]

.... if you still like videogames usually you take a look at modern stuff just because, then you find out it is not "the four horsemen of the apocalypse" and you kind of enjoy a little bit of it .... then eventually nostalgia comes back again as we are all getting older and the precious happy moments of yesteryears are even more treasured ... granted eventually some part of it is just "done!"

 

I'm "done" with most of the childhood nostalgia when it comes to television, or playing in the mud, or riding BMX. There's only so many times one can watch The Brady Bunch or 6 Million Dollar Man. I can even envision a time when I would not want to watch such shows and actively avoid them.

 

I'm not done with the good times of gradeschool or trading games or frozen dinners and soup on wintry weekends in the blanket room. This year the TV watching has been replaced with lazy times of organizing and polishing my Apple II and Pocket Computer stuff. And reading Intel datasheets.

 

There's still Apple II books for me to read and projects and a few acquisitions here and there to complete. But it's not like gung-ho gotta get it now. That's an annoyance. I do like using the ebay "saved searches" feature - every month or so an item pops up that I've been looking for. But I will take as long as a year or two to buy it at the right price. No rush.

Edited December 15, 2018 by Keatah

[adamchevy]

 

I'm "done" with most of the childhood nostalgia when it comes to television, or playing in the mud, or riding BMX. There's only so many times one can watch The Brady Bunch or 6 Million Dollar Man. I can even envision a time when I would not want to watch such shows and actively avoid them.

 

I'm not done with the good times of gradeschool or trading games or frozen dinners and soup on wintry weekends in the blanket room. This year the TV watching has been replaced with lazy times of organizing and polishing my Apple II and Pocket Computer stuff. And reading Intel datasheets.

 

There's still Apple II books for me to read and projects and a few acquisitions here and there to complete. But it's not like gung-ho gotta get it now. That's an annoyance. I do like using the ebay "saved searches" feature - every month or so an item pops up that I've been looking for. But I will take as long as a year or two to buy it at the right price. No rush.

I’ve found that rushing around on eBay ends up making me hate the hobby. I think taking my time over the past while has made the acquiring/collecting part of the experience almost as fun as the items themselves.

[adamchevy]

 

During the time I owned both a 5200 and 800 I would go back and forth between them, always looking for a difference. Always looking for a reason to own them both. Eventually I just tended to continue with the 800. That was also at a time when I had a lot of systems going - and perhaps I was burning out. And the duplicity of the games between the two didn't help much.

Having the 5200 made me miss owning an 800. The problem is how expensive both of those items are to acquire in nice condition . With the 5200 you need Masterplay adapters/clones(or atleast I do) and a modded system(Svideo atleast for myself). Then theirs the 5200 Trak Ball Controller And multicart(amongst the most expensive in retro gaming). The 800 had built in Svideo with the right cable, but Ofcourse as a technology freak I like the best possible solution. Then I needed some 810 Happy drives and a working 820 printer. Ok maybe not need, but they seem to go together. Then theirs the SIO2SD or similar type of device. Anyway the amount of items and space those two systems take up was my driving factor in giving them up. Both amazing systems, but very emulatable in my opinion. The system I wanted to play the most again was the Vectrex. Not a system I have seen emulated well yet. I also really wanted to play Vector Patrol. Edited December 15, 2018 by adamchevy

[AtariLeaf]

 

In all cases nothing wrong with them it's just that I think I got (some of) them out of my system so .... for now onto something else ....

 

I think this is an important point and one we all have to go through as collectors. Granted many people who've collected for years or decades still have and play everything they've bought. I feel the same as phoenixdownita in that I will go through spurts of collecting and playing various systems or computers such as the C64, Intellivision or Odyssey 2 because I never owned one and wanted to experience the system. After some time however I end up getting that experience "out of my system" and I sell it to someone who may enjoy it more than I do. Same with the Coco mentioned above. I revisited a childhood system that I had fond memories of and enjoyed collecting but not necessarily playing. I've now gotten the coco out of my system too. For me now this is part of where emulation fits in - to fill in those gaps for games and systems I don't particularly want to own but want to play now and then.

 

After decades of collecting I come back to the same systems over and over for the most part - 2600/7800/XL/XE and NES. And these are mostly for the arcade games on those systems. I don't own a traditional NES collection for example. Almost all my NES and Famicom carts are arcade ports or pinball games. I did a video years ago about "what defines your collection" and for me it's always been arcade ports. My best gaming experiences were from 1978 to 1985 or 86 when I spent the most time in arcades and love the hell out of many of those games. As a result I love the home versions of many of those games and keep coming back to them again and again. That's my center, my go to video game happy place, then I just fill around it with other systems and games I want to try in that moment, enjoy for a bit and move on. In the end though, I always return to my video game happy place.

 

Again, it's not just nostalgia or it would never keep me coming back. You have to really enjoy those games and I do.

 

The system I wanted to play the most again was the Vectrex. Not a system I have seen emulated well yet. I also really wanted to play Vector Patrol.

 

 

I was wondering if there were any good Vectrex emulators around, I never hear about them. It's a shame because it is one system I've wanted to try and never owned.

Edited December 15, 2018 by AtariLeaf

[+LS650]

The problem is that the Vectrex is very well emulated - except the actual vector display, which really can't be emulated at all!

[adamchevy]

The problem is that the Vectrex is very well emulated - except the actual vector display, which really can't be emulated at all!

That’s what I meant to say.

[Flojomojo]

It's decently simulated (good enough FOR ME) on high res screens. I have owned a Vectrex and I don't miss the boxy humming monster, which reminds me of another period piece of electronics

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

 

I've mentioned this before but this is my personal philosophy on collecting - Nostalgia gets you there, game play keeps you there.

 

It's probably a fair statement that almost all of us started collecting and playing the games of our youth because of nostalgia and that it's the games themselves that keep you coming back to it. I don't know how many times I've bought games or systems from people who've said they found them in a yard sale or thrift store, remembered them from their youth and wanted to relive it. However after a short time that nostalgia wore off and they no longer cared so they resold it.

 

If you're in this hobby for nostalgia alone it probably won't last and if you have a collection based on nostalgia alone it probably hardly gets played. This was why I took a hard look at my collection and sold everything I didn't actually play because I realized that nostalgia alone and not playing the games was the reason I owned it. The Tandy Coco was a primary example of that - I had it growing up but almost never played it. I found for me the games didn't hold up and as a result it all sat on a shelf or in drawers and bins never to be touched, just occasionally looked at. So I made the decision to sell it and over a year later I still have absolutely no regrets. It's how I know I made the right decision.

 

Nostalgia is great but if none of it ever gets played, what's the point? I still love the games I still have and play them often, whether on real hardware or an emulation box, depending on my mood that day. Those feelings of my youth are still there, they always will be, but the games themselves are still a blast to play in 2018 just as much as they were in 1980.

 

For me, this highlights an important distinction: the difference between a collector and an enthusiast.

 

Those two can definitely have overlap, and very often do. But whereas a collector often wants to acquire primarily for the sake of ownership due to nostalgia, an enthusiast typically wants to acquire for interaction with the hardware as a key part of that nostalgia.

 

That's probably a somewhat clumsy comparison on my behalf, and certainly is not a very broad one; there will be differences and exceptions. But, fundamentally, I've seen to hold true across a wide range of hobbies and interests that I've been involved with.

 

Hell, I've even been on both sides of that equation, and went through a similar purge to yours several years back with both arcade games and computer systems and consoles. These days are spent much more in the enthusiast camp, and I find that doing so helps to maintain both perspective and interest in the hobby as a whole.

[adamchevy]

 

For me, this highlights an important distinction: the difference between a collector and an enthusiast.

 

Those two can definitely have overlap, and very often do. But whereas a collector often wants to acquire primarily for the sake of ownership due to nostalgia, an enthusiast typically wants to acquire for interaction with the hardware as a key part of that nostalgia.

 

That's probably a somewhat clumsy comparison on my behalf, and certainly is not a very broad one; there will be differences and exceptions. But, fundamentally, I've seen to hold true across a wide range of hobbies and interests that I've been involved with.

 

Hell, I've even been on both sides of that equation, and went through a similar purge to yours several years back with both arcade games and computer systems and consoles. These days are spent much more in the enthusiast camp, and I find that doing so helps to maintain both perspective and interest in the hobby as a whole.

Well said! I fall completely in the enthusiast camp these days. As a result, I usually am always losing money buying and selling hardware. Especially on eBay. Ofcourse I am constantly having fun experiencing many great systems and games.

I think the amazing communities surrounding these systems help build my enthusiasm and keep it going. That’s recently what brought me back to the Vectrex.

 

Here are a couple of examples:

 

Edited December 15, 2018 by adamchevy

[Schizophretard]

I don't feel like I'm drifting away from the scene. It is more like having trouble relating to changes in it. For an example, I can't relate to the common desire to want to play original hardware and/or very accurate clones on HDTV because I don't see a huge difference of what is being displayed compared to just running an emulator on an HDTV. In other words, the difference between running original hardware vs. an emulator on an HDTV doesn't seem to me as night and day as going from a CRT to HDTV.

[S1500]

I find myself wanting to discover other things. When I plan trips, I find myself looking to see if there's a retro gaming angle to it(shopping at stores, etc). In my later years, I now feel like a one-trick-pony in terms of hobbies.

 

Next year I won't be hitting Midwest Gaming Classic, as I've seen all there is to see there. There will always be that computer with a rear-view-mirror display just like years before. I want something new now.

[Silverfleet]

Someone earlier mentioned being "nostalgic for nostalgia". I think I might be, sorta.

 

I started collecting "on purpose" (aka not just hanging onto my old stuff and seeking out older games I didn't have as a kid) back around 2001, mostly when I was on break from college. When I was doing this, I was out hunting with one of my buddies most of the time. We would hit up flea markets and game stores for deals, and it was all part of just hanging out. Afterwards, we would take our respective hauls and play games until the wee hours because we could. There were less responsibilities and more free time to sit for hours on end playing all the old games we used to rent or borrow and now owned because we found them dirt cheap in the wild on a college kid budget. No honey-do lists, no crazy hours at the day job, no absurd prices... just friends, a few beers, and some great games from back in the day.

Those were great times, and I'm definitely nostalgic for that.