Old Heads....How were y'all affording shyt back in the day?? These prices are disgusting

[The Mad Titan]

I guess I really am old, because seeing people complain about a 40 hour 60 dollar game still makes me chuckle a bit. There was a time when the price of a game was based on some hardware and how popular a game was. You wanted that new mario or sonic? 80 plus bucks easy. While rocket knight might be 49... All for maybe 3-6 hours of fun maybe more if it was difficult.


To answer the question though, it was a combination of things, you did chores and "worked" I use to cut grass, go roofing and whatever else that might earn me a 20 here or 10 there and saved up for a month or so before getting one game.

Now once block busters started to drop everywhere, that was basically the only way to play lots of games without balling.


If you had people in your hood that or area that had a gaming system...pssh you traded games and prayed you got it back.


Its crazy how different the scene is today, you can game for free, "quality games" on your handheld, PC and even console... Download them anywhere at anytime...Hustling to get a game you want is pretty much none existent to this younger gen. I remember being able to play a game boy color on the go was the end all be all.


So crazy



Props to this thread it was a go throw back down memory lane.

 

[HDKG_]

i never used to have games lol always went to blockbuster and whatever came with the system and then whatever I got for xmas

 

[rantanamo]

a.) These must be some Cali or NY prices. Sega games here were never $80.
b.) Even if you're young, you must be really, really young to think those tv prices are high. It was basically LED backlighting tech that lowered tv prices. That was right around 2009/2010. Just before that, a 37" for over $1000 was not unusual.
c.) Computers were expensive because until the mid 2000s most people simply didn't have them. When I was in high school, a lot of the white kids had them, but I was like the only black kid I knew that had one in our family. I don't think anyone else in my extended family had them. They just started to blow up amongst the middle class about the time of that ad. But it wasn't until around 2005 when everyone started having them.

Just wait, your children will have something that will ma

 

[-DMP-]

Lol yall remember buying/renting a game from the strength of the Box Art alone?

Some times you get that shyt home and it be NOTHING like what was depicted

And you had to live with it to, I swear I played the fukk out of Superman 64 cuz of this

Bomberman got me as well

I bought wwf attitude, off the strength of me not having an N64 to play WCW Revenge, and I swear to god it was the most robotic, bland game ever but I played the hell out of it because that's what I asked for and that's what I got

That's why its so weird that these days, with all the info, previews, betas, and trailers available b4 a game launches, people STILL be buying this games(day 1 no less) and not no what the hell they getting into.

 

[capblk]

Like many others have already mentioned, gaming in this era required a combination of a lot of research, convincing parents, saving up, trading, renting and playing at friends house.

I remember my pops getting a 32 inch SONY TV and that was a huge deal, he wouldn't let me plug in the SEGA Genesis because they told him at the store that gaming would mess up the screen or at least that's what he told me lol
Having gaming sessions at my cousins house, it would be like 6 of us taking turns playing one game all night. Fighting games were preferred because the controller got passed around more often.

When the SEGA Saturn and SONY Playstation came out they stop including the RF switch needed for the older TV sets everyone had.

1. Word of mouth was the only way I would even know some games existed.
2. Gaming magazines were looked over and studied like you were picking stocks.
3. Renting was the only way most kids to experience games - some would get a console with 2 of the worst games and have to just rent everything until xmas.

 

[D-NICE]

a.) These must be some Cali or NY prices. Sega games here were never $80.
b.) Even if you're young, you must be really, really young to think those tv prices are high. It was basically LED backlighting tech that lowered tv prices. That was right around 2009/2010. Just before that, a 37" for over $1000 was not unusual.
c.) Computers were expensive because until the mid 2000s most people simply didn't have them. When I was in high school, a lot of the white kids had them, but I was like the only black kid I knew that had one in our family. I don't think anyone else in my extended family had them. They just started to blow up amongst the middle class about the time of that ad. But it wasn't until around 2005 when everyone started having them.

Just wait, your children will have something that will ma

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about games. I was like I know my parents weren't buying games for $70. This must be one of them ads from one of them defunct business like Media Play who overpriced everything.

Cosign on the tv's and computer's too. I copped a 37' in 2007 for over $1000. When I moved last year I got a 32', 37', and 52' for around the price of that one. My parents bought me a computer in 2002 for college. Compared to what's in a little $200 laptop today you would have thought Dell put a gun on my family and robbed us.

Thank God for engineering and technological advances

 

[The Phoenix]

I used to eat off of those old playstation demos too. I swiped them right out of the psn magazine as soon as they dropped before other people beat you to it at dominicks and jewel osco

Oh most definitely. I used to stay robbing those things out of the magazines. LMAO at them thinking that that plastic wrapper was gonna stop a young goon like myself. I'd even steal demo discs that I already had, just because I could. Oddly enough though, I used to get pissed when I'd get a new demo disc that had a game on it that another demo disc that I already had, also had on it.

 

[Silver Surfer]

You brought back memories...i remember them best buy ads like ..need to get my $$$ up if I want that new Sega Saturn

 

[Jahbarri]

I used to flip pokemon cards for cash. No lie. I had no interest in them but a lot of people in my school were crazy into it and would pay top dollar for cards I was just boosting from Walmart anyway. Before that most of my gaming was from borrowing from friends or rentals at blockbuster.

You

 

[David_TheMan]

Damn that took me back.
Up to the playstation they made a killing with the old price point of 74.99 for a new title.
PS brought that shyt down to 49.99
Now the shyt went back up to 59.99 for a new title.

shyt like this is why I no longer game hard anymore.
You young cats paying money to get fukking demos. Paying money to play online. Paying money to access shyt thats already on the disk.

 

[Kamikaze Revy]

You

Yeah I'm I guess.

 

[NobodyReally]

Blockbuster was a one stop shop. You could rent games, movies, find out about the latest house party, and maybe even pick up a date all for $3.99

 

[LandryFieldsDad]

blockbuster like a muhfukka

Also my grandmother lived in Florida and hit up flea markets three four times a week...

she would find and send me Nintendo games that no one had ever heard of really crazy and interesting games...she made trading really easy for me God rest her soul.

My brother and I each got one game on Christmas..had my friend and his brother across the street so trades always

 

[Gold]

Be unaware that technology drops in price in brehs

 

[MarloStanTrill]

When I was younger you didn't get every game, shyt was a strategy. You found out what the homies werw going to get and you got other shyt so you could trade off. We also had Blockbuster and other places to rent games from so you didn't need everything.

Today you only really have Redbox to rent from (gamefly for those who fukk wit it) but they (Redbox) only carry AAA titles. Also you have online play now so you HAVE to have every game. Gaming back in the day was a lot different than today.

exaccly i stayed renting games andbeating them in one weekend-- if it was a really good game-- it just didnt get returned