raiden makes a good point

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 6:58 pm

I was thinking today about a point he made in an emu debate, that if you're spending a large amount on each game (pcb price), you will probably own fewer games, so you will have to really like each game you buy as well as put more time into each. (Please let me know if that's a mis-quote/summary)

I'd disagree about pcb's being the best (it's a case by case thing depending on the quality of the emulation, thanks to savestates etc.) but it's something for all of us to think about...

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 7:57 pm

This works in the exact same way as just willfully cutting back on game purchases and concentrating on specific games, like 1-2 per week. Willpower they call it.

Import shooters are all pretty expensive as it is.

Andi · Post by **Andi** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 10:19 pm

Rob wrote:This works in the exact same way as just willfully cutting back on game purchases and concentrating on specific games, like 1-2 per week. Willpower they call it.

Import shooters are all pretty expensive as it is.

I still don't understand how people on this forum afford all the shit that they do. I work full time, live in a low rent area, and eat disgustingly cheaply and I still can only afford a new game every 2 months or so.

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 10:34 pm

You mean you don't make the occasional trip to Japan just to buy pcbs?

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:13 pm

@Andi: Hardcore shmup collectors eat their ramen RAW!

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 3:29 am

Andi wrote:I still don't understand how people on this forum afford all the shit that they do. I work full time, live in a low rent area, and eat disgustingly cheaply and I still can only afford a new game every 2 months or so.

I'm on a pretty limited income myself, and as such am not able to buy everything I want exactly when I want it, but I don't necessarily view that as a bad thing, seeing as I have still managed to pick up quite a few nice games in spite of my limited budget (you can see the shmup side of it on the "post your collection" thread, if you care, heh)...for one thing, it's prevented me from buying too many "meh" shooters and forced me to buy mostly higher-quality stuff, and second it's definitely taught me to be patient and persistent in looking for a good price...in fact, at this point I almost consider haggling for a good price part of the fun of buying a shmup...perhaps that's just because I'm inherently cheap though.

raiden · Post by **raiden** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 3:55 am

ok, since my name is in the subject line, I feel a little obliged to comment. The thing you quoted is about half a year old, I would rephrase it slightly today:

Shmups are all about getting good at a game. And even with all the replay vidz and strategy guides out there, getting good is mostly a matter of practice and spending a lot of time with a single game. There may be something like a "general" shmupping ability that crosses over to other shmups, but I think if you play shmups just for audiovisual thrills to blow stuff up, you´re completely missing the point and might just as well play something else. What´s special about the genre is the way dedication pays off.

Now, everybody has a limited amount of free time to spend with games. If you spend that on a lot of games, you don´t get good in any single one of them. Instead, you´re just looking at them, which is understandable as that is what we´re trained to do with games by other genres. Other genres teach us that a game is about going through it once, seeing everything, and then exchanging it for a new game. But that is not how you get good at a shmup, that is not how you enjoy it in the way it is special. To do that, you need to limit yourself, ideally to just one shmup you play all your life, but with compromises, to a relatively small number of shmups.

Of course, Rob is right in pointing out that you don´t need PCBs to do that. In theory, you might just as well spend the rest of your life playing one single game in Mame. It´s only... rather improbable as it´s so very easy to download more rom files. Yet PCBs are hard to get hold of, and if you don´t happen to be super-rich, you can rarely afford one. What I wanted to say is just this, that being able to afford a new shmup only rarely is not a bad thing at all. This might also console you a little, Andi. If you buy one game every two months, you are very likely to spend more time with this than people who buy ten games a month.

Btw. this whole Mame vs. PCB subject doesn´t interest me at all. I just couldn´t stand the statement that buying PCBs means you´re stupid and stinking rich. I had a rather hard time affording every one PCB I bought, and I always spent a lot of time thinking about what I should buy. Right now, I think there´s only one game left I want to buy, and that´s RaidenDX. Probably some time this year, I will be able to afford it, and after that consider my shmup "collection" (consisting of 8 PCBs) complete.

DantesInferno · Post by **DantesInferno** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 5:42 am

Andi wrote: I still don't understand how people on this forum afford all the shit that they do. I work full time, live in a low rent area, and eat disgustingly cheaply and I still can only afford a new game every 2 months or so.

I work about 68+ hours a week, and time and a half for anything over 40 hours and under 50..and double time for anything over 50...so I make some pretty decent bank. I also live alone, no pets, the only bills I have are my home payments, car insurance for two cars, and my utilities/cable payments. So I don't belong to the "buy a pcb, eat ramen for a week" club...but my game budget has dropped a lot now that I have most of the games I want. Now I only buy the occasional board and whatnot. Most of my money gets saved...but back on topic...I own many pcbs, and many games for the plain and simple reason that games seem to be sucking more and more as time goes on and the games I like are getting fewer and fewer..so I made it a point to get all the games I felt I would like to play and I will eventually get around to playing them all hopefully...and getting as good as I can get at them...and I just like collecting games.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 6:24 am

DantesInferno wrote: I work about 68+ hours a week, and time and a half for anything over 40 hours and under 50..and double time for anything over 50...so I make some pretty decent bank.

I envy you. I would kill to make overtime in my industry. Seriously - tell me who I have to go off. I'd have so much more freaking money than I do now if I got paid over 40 hours.

llaoyllakcuf · Post by **llaoyllakcuf** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 6:33 am

The n00b wrote:You mean you don't make the occasional trip to Japan just to buy pcbs?

HAHA, that's great.

TWITCHDOCTOR · Post by **TWITCHDOCTOR** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 8:06 am

landshark wrote:
DantesInferno wrote: I work about 68+ hours a week, and time and a half for anything over 40 hours and under 50..and double time for anything over 50...so I make some pretty decent bank.
I envy you. I would kill to make overtime in my industry. Seriously - tell me who I have to go off. I'd have so much more freaking money than I do now if I got paid over 40 hours.

Damn, thats really funny. The last job that I'm now fired(layed off) from was working at a bar/night club. The main manager gave me hell because I had put in a few extra hours. Dude, I only was working 4 hours a fucking day!!!
On a busy night, I had to stay a couple extra hours. Like I said, DAMN!!! Most employers don't want to pay overtime, in fact, I don't even know what over time is!!! Even worse, one of my paychecks bounced!
I need a better job in the NEAR future!!! Seriously.
TWITCH is bummed out and pissed!

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 6:32 pm

TWITCHDOCTOR wrote:
landshark wrote:
DantesInferno wrote: I work about 68+ hours a week, and time and a half for anything over 40 hours and under 50..and double time for anything over 50...so I make some pretty decent bank.
I envy you. I would kill to make overtime in my industry. Seriously - tell me who I have to go off. I'd have so much more freaking money than I do now if I got paid over 40 hours.

Damn, thats really funny. The last job that I'm now fired(layed off) from was working at a bar/night club. The main manager gave me hell because I had put in a few extra hours. Dude, I only was working 4 hours a fucking day!!!
On a busy night, I had to stay a couple extra hours. Like I said, DAMN!!! Most employers don't want to pay overtime, in fact, I don't even know what over time is!!! Even worse, one of my paychecks bounced!
I need a better job in the NEAR future!!! Seriously.
TWITCH is bummed out and pissed!

40-50 hour weeks are typical (usually in the 46-48 range). But 50-60 are not uncommon. And every so often (though not very often), the illusive 70-80 hour week pops up.

Always paid for 40 though. Can you guess what industry I'm in?

Can you imagine if they only paid public officials such as cops for 40 hours?

BIG · Post by **BIG** » Sun Jan 30, 2005 9:25 pm

Andi wrote:
Rob wrote:This works in the exact same way as just willfully cutting back on game purchases and concentrating on specific games, like 1-2 per week. Willpower they call it.

Import shooters are all pretty expensive as it is.
I still don't understand how people on this forum afford all the shit that they do.

Heh,if you think it's bad here,you should see the amount of money people throw around over at Neo-Geo.com

BIG-

Cthulhu · Post by **Cthulhu** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 3:03 am

Indeed, the guys on neo-geo.com who throw around tens of thousands of dollars for obscure AES games make me sick.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 3:33 am

Not ALL pcbs are absurdly expensive. There are plenty of old school shmups from the '80s that you can get on pcb for less then $100.

I was just watching some of Ben Shinobi's replay vids today. The guy has plenty of games from the '80s on PCBs. Makes me seriously think if I shouldn't get into PCB's at some point; plus I think that it would really help my impulsivity, which I am continually working on.

Then again, it would be pretty difficult to completely ignore consoles-there are just so many great console shmups.

Raiden, what made you turn to PCB's from consoles; I would seriously like to know?

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 4:58 am

DaveH wrote:Makes me seriously think if I shouldn't get into PCB's at some point; plus I think that it would really help my impulsivity, which I am continually working on.

Mistake. You think buying more expensive games will keep you from selling them? Eh, if you have to deplete your funds as a substitute for self control it just isn't going to work. You'll get antsy that you've got a $100 board sitting around and sell it the next day. I personally had a really hard time with the idea of owning boards (I had two). Just try focusing on 1-2 games a week. Seriously. How much can you be enjoying these games if you can't devote a week to one of them, so you should be able to do that.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 5:10 am

Good points Rob; thanks for the advice!

Still, I would be interested in knowing why Raiden got into PCBs.

Rob · Post by **Rob** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 5:14 am

I think he already posted about it before and the answer was Raiden Fighters.

Ex_Mosquito · Post by **Ex_Mosquito** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 8:58 am

DaveH, If you want to play 80/90's PCB i'd advice you to get a chipped xbox and MAME, the newest version of MAMEOX is near pefect. Same goes for 8/16-Bit console. All i have now is a supergun for vert shooters and a chipped xbox with every emu and all the roms. Dont listen to what people say about them "the filtering on the picture isnt quite right" etc...if you just want to play the games they're as good as the real thing, morso on the xbox through a TV.

TWITCHDOCTOR · Post by **TWITCHDOCTOR** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:56 am

Speaking about hours per work week. I can deal with 35 to 40. Between 6 to 8 hours a day/five days a week. Anything more would steal away from "my time". PLus, I really don't want to kill myself(overwork,strain,BURNOUT) or end up being a friggin zombie from lack of proper rest.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 2:19 pm

DaveH, If you want to play 80/90's PCB i'd advice you to get a chipped xbox and MAME, the newest version of MAMEOX is near pefect. Same goes for 8/16-Bit console. All i have now is a supergun for vert shooters and a chipped xbox with every emu and all the roms. Dont listen to what people say about them "the filtering on the picture isnt quite right" etc...if you just want to play the games they're as good as the real thing, morso on the xbox through a TV.

Well, that really depends. Fire shark and batsugun don't have sound even on a pc. And I've read the xbox has problems handling games like guwange and esprade...plus some stuff isn't even emulated yet. depends what you wanna play.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 9:58 pm

As far as the Xbox goes, that's simply not an option for me-I am absolutely NOT comfortable using emulation to do anything other then try out games to see if I want to buy them.

"Speaking about hours per work week. I can deal with 35 to 40. Between 6 to 8 hours a day/five days a week. Anything more would steal away from "my time". PLus, I really don't want to kill myself(overwork,strain,BURNOUT) or end up being a friggin zombie from lack of proper rest."

That's a VERY wise work philosophy TWITCH. I've known people who don't have time for anything BUT their work, and that's extremely unhealthy-both physically and psychologically.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:30 pm

I'm in agreement with Rob and Raiden. I was talking to a guy that works at the local import store and he has a notebook with a listing of all his games for every system and it was just ridiculous. Hundreds and hundreds of games, every system, and dozens of games for everything. We got on the subject of shooters and he was going on and on listing all the shooters and stuff he has and I'm thinking he knows his stuff. Then it hit me, the guy didn't know that Shienryu and Gekioh are the same game even though he owns Shienryu for Saturn and Gekioh for PSX. I thought to myself, sure he has all those games but he obviously doesn't play many of them or put much time into them if doesn't know something as obvious as that. What's the point of owning all that shit and filling up all that space if you're not going to play any of the games?

I recently moved and the fact that my closet was full of games I never played made me realize this. Whats the point of collecting if you don't have the time or space to fully appreciate each piece of your collection? More importantly, what's the point of collecting for collectings sake or owning games you don't like or don't play? Status? Just because? I really don't understand that "I'll get it just to own it" mentality.

The n00b · Post by **The n00b** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:52 pm

Well some people really just like to collect stuff. They don't really "play" games. I never understood this mentality myself but hey if people can collect coins and stamps, why not games? Sometimes they don't play games for a very good reason. I used to read this game collector's journal over on gamespot. He collected tons of ps1 and saturn games yet admitted to not playing them because he just is not very good at games so he sees no point in ruining the collectibility of old games by opening them. Yeah it was crazy.

I don't really mind collectors but they drive the price up on games like that Dracula game for the Turbo Duo or Radiant Silvergun. These games are never rare, they just have an artificial price point because of collectors. Someday I'll buy a mint Radiant Silvergun, get out the cd, throw the rest of it away, and do it all in front of one of these collector types. Oh yeah these guys also scream about emulating Radiant Silvergun. They think it will hurt the collector's market....

raiden · Post by **raiden** » Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:16 pm

there is one aspect of collecting that I´ve come to understand only recently, and that´s preserving what you consider worthy to be preserved. That´s actually something I can respect, although I wouldn´t want to bother with it. I still cringe when I see people consciously buying games they know are crap, just to get a system´s collection complete.

Raiden, what made you turn to PCB's from consoles; I would seriously like to know?

as Rob said, it started with Raiden Fighters Jet. I had waited for two console conversions, both were cancelled, I was fed up. I didn´t like the concept of PCBs at all, all this sensitive electronics lying around openly, the space consumption, the price... but I wanted to play that damn game, which I played for years in a local arcade, until they stopped carrying it.

When I had it, I found out that mysteriously, I was playing the game even more than I liked it. Meaning, if I was in a mood to play a game I had for PS2, I would still play RFJ instead. After years of CD consoles, I was addicted to a game without loading times.
I had been buying and selling the same consoles several times, maybe not with your frequency, but there were some I had had 3 or 4 times. I didn´t want to own all consoles, but I was unsure which to keep, because there were some exclusive shmups on each. I realized that by changing to PCBs, I would have one hardware to play them all with, no hassle with plugging and unplugging several joysticks, no need for a big multi-scart-selector, and no temptation to buy games just because they are cheap and availlable for a system I own.
The thing is, I can draw a pretty clear line between shmups I totally adore, and others which were just "nice to have", but never got much playtime. And so I decided that not only do I not need the latter ones, but they´re actually a waste of time, it´s better for me if I don´t have them, so it´s easier to focus on those which I consider really important.

But if you´re still in the process of finding out which shmups really appeal to you most, I don´t know if it´s such a good idea to start with PCBs. They are expensive, can be damaged easily, and if you happen to buy a game that´s not so popular, you can wait rather long until you find someone to sell it back to.

Ex_Mosquito · Post by **Ex_Mosquito** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 12:35 am

What you have to remember is a collector sees a game as just a "title" to be ticked off on their ever extending list of "titles" to collect, it's rarely about the gameplay (AES Collect0tz?). I think what happens is they get influenced by a thread on the net saying something like "OMG this game is SOO good!!, best game evar!" they then buy it "phew, cool i own it!" then move onto their next purchase. Sure, they'll try the game when they get it to check it works then thats usually pretty much it before they move onto their next purchase to give themselves braging rights to fellow collect0rz "hah i own a mint Garegga with mint spine!11!" Yeah and, do you play it?

After a few years of this game hoarding mentality usually results in a collection of 5464876487 games they never play or spent even more than an hour per title with. Ask them how to beat "insert boss here" and they wont have a clue what you're on about. Okay maybe im just generalizing here, but ya know what i mean...

A gamers worth is in his play, not his purchase.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 12:39 am

Thanks for the advice Raiden; I really appreciate it!

I do totally agree with your philosophy on shmups that are nice to have; if you don't adore the shmup, then not getting it (or selling or trading it if you already have it) is the best policy. I'm not one either to want EVERY shmup on a given console just to complete the collection; to me that's just a waist of money.

Acid King · Post by **Acid King** » Wed Feb 02, 2005 7:53 am

raiden wrote:there is one aspect of collecting that I´ve come to understand only recently, and that´s preserving what you consider worthy to be preserved. That´s actually something I can respect, although I wouldn´t want to bother with it. I still cringe when I see people consciously buying games they know are crap, just to get a system´s collection complete.

Preservation is why I'm considering getting into PCBs. I'd really like actual arcade perfect versions of my favorite games of all time (Samurai Shodown 1-4 [yes i know they're neo carts] and Ikaruga mainly, though possibly a few others). Those are games that I will continue playing despite their age for years. I just think it's odd for someone to preserve something when they don't have an attachment to the object beyond owning it. A friend of mine has over 50 N64 games, all in good shape, all boxed with manuals but has never played 90% of them for more than 15 minutes. It just seems so pointless to me, like buying dozens of books, only reading the synopsis on the back and slapping them up on the shelf only to sit there unused. The attachment is more towards the object itself rather than the contents. I've never been able to understand it.

The n00b wrote: I don't really mind collectors but they drive the price up on games like that Dracula game for the Turbo Duo or Radiant Silvergun. These games are never rare, they just have an artificial price point because of collectors. Someday I'll buy a mint Radiant Silvergun, get out the cd, throw the rest of it away, and do it all in front of one of these collector types. Oh yeah these guys also scream about emulating Radiant Silvergun. They think it will hurt the collector's market....

Reminds me of the Simpsons where Homer becomes Mr. Burns Prank Monkey and has him buy a copy of Spider Man #1 and eat it in front of the comic book guy.