Episode 664: Buying Games
Added 2025-01-11 01:39:11 +0000 UTCJeremy: When patron Jeff Vlasek requested we cover the topic of shopping for video games back in the Before Times*, my ears perked up and I knew that I needed to head up this topic. For you see, friends, I am An Old, a true and genuine Gen Xer who spent his formative years wandering the mean hallways of South Plains Mall, haunting the flip-card-and-tag zone of Toys 'R' Us, and pestering the folks in the Target camera department with weekly phone calls about their latest NES stock levels. This episode is not a celebration of capitalism and all its dangers, but it is a celebration of the lost art of having to make split decisions about how to spend two months' allowance based on box art and a couple of blurry little screenshots. Hunting for great games back in the days before demos and Steam refunds was fraught! Scary! Terribly perilous for those on a limited budget! And yet we endured, strengthened by our brushes with costly disaster even as we imprinted on the masterpieces we lucked into. Join us in our stroll through the shopping aisles of memory, and be sure to save your receipts.
*More than 10 years ago, as is the way of the retro
Edits by Greg Leahy; art by Nick Wanserski.
07:25 - Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: Customer Rewards
17:26 - Cuphead: Porkrind's Emporium
25:11 - Mega Man V: Dr. Light's Shop
35:12 - Balatro: Shop Theme
46:07 - Metal Gear (NES): Mercenary
55:32 - Gitaroo Man: Flyin' to Your Heart
1:04:45 - Mega Man Legends: The Apple Market
1:15:31 - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night: Master Librarian
1:31:29 - James Pond 2: Codename: RoboCod (SMS): Boss
1:40:43 - Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: Booster Course Pass: Coconut Mall
Closing - Mario & Zelda Big Band Live: Shop Theme
[Note: This is a re-post due to the fact that the original post did not get sent to the RSS feed.]
Comments
Great topic! One memory that the discussion unlocked for me was when I was working at electronics boutique in the late 90s. I remember overhearing my district manager having a conversation with another district manager and they would bemoaning the shift in retail strategy. Just years prior Electronic boutique’s goal was to have any game in stock on launch day so you could walk in and just buy it. By the late 90s they had shifted to the pre-order focus which resulted in things like Stewart’s experience of a store only had one copy if they had no pre-orders. I think the only people who like that were the people at the very top at the companies. Nobody at the stores liked it.
JJR
2025-02-25 20:15:33 +0000 UTCMy aunt once bought me a discounted copy of Run Saber for $5 and a couple of years I once passed up on a $15 copy of Dracula X, but did manage to get a new copy of Megaman X3 and Demons Crest for under $20. 1998/99 was a pretty good time for some discounted SNES games
Nuno Amaral
2025-01-21 17:02:15 +0000 UTCI used to grab SNES games from a toy store bargain bin for $20 pretty regularly, but only certain games ended up there unlike today when everything eventually goes on sale for 50% off (or less!)
Diamond Feit
2025-01-21 11:16:51 +0000 UTCWould it be accurate to say that discounts on games were pretty rare during the NES and SNES era? I can't recall finding games on sale a month or two after release like you would expect for (non-Nintendo) games these days. I remember K-mart was selling Yo Noid! for $12 and I could hardly believe it. Now I can count on deep discounts on any games that are at least a month old on Black Friday. Even a few Nintendo games get down to half price if they're over a year old. If I had a crystal ball I'd like to see when I would play each game for the last time and thus sell it. I've moved four time since 2017 and I'm increasingly wondering why I insist on bringing my Mario Mix DDR pad and DK bongos with me. I can't even hook up my Wii to my current TV!
PurpleComet
2025-01-16 22:20:43 +0000 UTCI got my first console, a NES, in christmas of '94 with a bunch of random games that my parents got in a second-hand deal with the console itself. I still remember the first time I went to a store to 'buy' games. After getting a needle shoved into my arm in early elementary school, my parents decided to reward the loud emotional breakdown I had that morning with a visit to a toy store to buy brand new copies of Super Mario Bros 3 and Kirby's Adventure for the heavily discounted price of 20 Dutch Guilders each. A frankly illegal amount of quality for a rock-bottom price.
Galbana
2025-01-13 19:42:27 +0000 UTCThe topic of preorders ties into (sorta) the first time I bought a game with money i earned outside allowance (since while my parents did take me to stores to use allowance on a game occasioanlly they did often have to supplement it in the SNES era). In the last few years of grade school (starting late 1996) I was an altar server and would often be tipped for doing weddings and funerals. In the spring of 97 I saw preorders for the first time at Toys R Us for Star Fox 64. I took that yellow slip up to the counter and put down the money (think TRU required $10) and proceeded to do as many services as were allowed. At least I saved up for a good game.
Patrick McClafferty
2025-01-13 15:46:23 +0000 UTCI remember my dad taking me to Toys R Us so I could get Space Harrier for the SMS. On the way home I read and re-read the instructions a thousand times in anticipation. It's aged poorly but I loved it when I had it.
James Eldred
2025-01-13 02:41:27 +0000 UTCThis episode unlocked a memory of how my father picked up Sonic 3 on his way home for his spoiled brat kid (me) on Hedgehog Day after what I sure was a shitty day of work. The Toms River NJ Toys R Us. Thanks Dad.
Craig
2025-01-13 00:21:57 +0000 UTCFinally showed up in my feed very early Sunday morning. Diamond’s episode showed up as scheduled as well, so maybe (hopefully) all is working now.
Jason Williams
2025-01-12 13:46:01 +0000 UTCThe first game system I owned was a hand me down Atari 800XL my Grandpa gave me. I think he hoped I would learn to code on it but that never happened. He would occasionally take me to a computer store whenever he needed to buy software and would point me to this one shelf that had all their unsold Atari 8bit carts on it and let me pick a game and I would always wander over to other sections and be like "Grandpa I want this" with an Atari ST copy of Dizzy or something because I had no concept of software compatibility. The first games I bought with my own money were SNES games from my local Microplay with my paper route money. I would normally rent games but occasionally I would buy cart only used games if they were cheap and I have rented the game before and liked it. The first game I ever bought brand new was WWF Warzone for the N64. I won a N64 at a work year end BBQ and since I already had bought one with my work money earlier that summer, I sold it at the BBQ for $150 and immediately bought that game for 99.99CDN + Tax. I know when people rank the N64 wrestling games that is at the bottom, but I love that game.
Alex Forsyth
2025-01-12 02:34:16 +0000 UTCSome people are getting this episode in their feeds and some aren't, so we'll be reaching out to Patreon about this issue very soon. For the time being, the Patreon app works great if you'd like to use it as a temporary solution to listen to this episode on a smart device. - Bob
Retronauts
2025-01-11 20:52:39 +0000 UTCSame here for me. Tried re-adding the feed to my podcast app, no luck.
Kormakur Gardarsson
2025-01-11 20:18:25 +0000 UTCI think the Patreon RSS is broken, because the republished episode hasn’t shown up yet either, more than 12 hours later.
Jason Williams
2025-01-11 13:59:49 +0000 UTC
