Stupid Game Chasers

[andsuchisdeath]

People who don't really care dictating a climate.

Ignorant notoriety gluttons using video games as a vehicle to further their cause.

Clueless consumers simultaneously feeding these machines and the ludicrous market trends.

Where/what were most of these people doing beforehand? Solely acknowledging current generation 3D drivel? Buying beanie babies? Drifting aimlessly like a slugs through the cosmos while waiting for something to call their life's blood, only to have a shallow understanding and appreciation of once found?

The rest will suffer, or simply move on.

Oh, it's awful!

[Xyga]

I just had a thought. Are we forcing our kids to relive our childhoods through our own regression into retro culture? Walking through my sons room I see more from my childhood than his. Transformers, TMNT, My Little Pony. He doesn't have MLP, but it is a female example. movies like the MCU and Star Wars. Even gaming is something that started with us. older things like hot wheels, although things like HW, G I Joe, and Barbie could be argued were put on us by our parents. I do think that HW and Legos are timeless toys that could and maybe should go on forever. To be fair my son asked for those toys, I didn't just buy them for him. I see very little of there own, there are examples like Skylanders, I just wonder if we should be letting them find their own way and make new memories all their own.

'New' and worthwile stuff for the kids ?
That's impossible right now.
Because since the beginning of the 21st century Humanity has been caught in an endless loop-trap, forced to relive most of the 2nd half of the 20th century 'when things were golden and authentic'~sumthin.
Since I don't think there is anything more to expect from the baby-boomers in power aside from reheated cultural/ideological leftovers, I'd say we are to blame for our inaction.
Yes, we the 25-45~ish 'active' or would-be active, done with teenage and not yet worried about retirement, yet sluggishly worried about jobs/money every fucking second of the day, clinging to the past while feigning not to be scared of the menacing black thunderclouds barring our horizon; the 'mehctive'.
The eldery get senile and kids are powerless anyway, they won't change anything in our present.
So we the 'mehctive' should stop buying anything, old or new, quit work, quit war, go out and wreck shit up so we can actually make room for genuine new ideas, or just open a clear path for the kids and they'll bring the 'new'.
^-> This, or we don't get better games, movies etc. Ever

[neorichieb1971]

The reasonings behind collecting gone haywire are many.

But these are the triggers -

1) Forum culture - As soon as you join a forum like this one, you want what other people want. You want it because they are excited, so you should be too. Suddenly your involved in the hardware section for scalers, adapters and for some of you, the new world of RGB. Take the cost of that and your new gaming rig and the imports you missed, you could be out of pocket $10000 within 2 years.

2) Nostalgia - Suddenly you have a great job, you want what you couldn't afford as a kid.. ebay here I come. But the prices are higher than you imagined.

3) Lack of choice - Lots of game genres existed in the AAA bracket years ago. But now all AAA games are mindless walkarounds (GTA), Shooters of the FPS and 3rd person type, or sports. If you want to find that sprite based AAA action you have to go back to 1990.

I've spent more money on the games I didn't play than the ones I did play. I got divorced because of it and my wife made me roll around in my games when all I wanted was to be back with her. It was an empty world and I certainly don't want any of you going down the path I took.

[soprano1]

2) Nostalgia - Suddenly you have a great job, you want what you couldn't afford as a kid.. ebay here I come. But the prices are higher than you imagined.

So true, got a Dreamcast back in 2010 due to this. Didn't regret it.

[Xyga]

Suddenly you have a great job

Now that is rare !
I'd have higher hopes for an unopened PCE LT for 10 bucks in a garage sale.

[Strider77]

Agreed...

[Ed Oscuro]

THAT RAREST GOLD STICKER VARIANT, THO

goddamn

I want a gold sticker, too

Where/what were most of these people doing beforehand?

save the whales, hare rama, auditing tomatoes, steal this book, The Virtue of Selfishness, etc.

[Rob]

um, ok, wow. For the first time in two years I am willing to see what my wife has been saying, 'this is stupid'. When I started this conversation I was discouraged with the price of a game(Mighty Final Fight), and now I'm discouraged with my involvement in this market at all. When I think about the hours and resources I have wasted 'collecting', I get a little sad. Should I have been outside teaching my boy to throw a curveball? Probably. Why was I 'collecting'? to relive a moment when I was 10 playing Metroid at 3 in the morning, a moment that with expensive CRTs and the original equipment I can never accurately reproduce anyway. I don't mean to be a party pooper, but I feel that I have been a pawn in a marketing scheme masked in my childhood, and I just need to grow up. At 40 years old, I thought I was smarter than this.

It's cool that you have self-awareness.

Games are pretty damn cool, but I find that the only way to recapture that joy is to play something new, better, more challenging. Metroid (or, for me, Simon's Quest) wasn't special because it was warm and familiar. It was strange and new. I sure wouldn't be a fan of shumps if I had stuck to Thunder Force III.

who accuse you of killing forests and the ocean when you ask for a physical copy of a game.

People should be smarter about this stuff. Kids have the excuse of ignorance. I have no idea how anyone who grew up in the 80s can look back on action figures (as some kind of gateway drug) and think that being crack addicted to plastic was a good thing (that they want their kids to experience, on top of that). It makes me cringe thinking about all of the junk I've owned.

[drauch]

Shame on people for having plastic toys or games or books. A much better thing would be the various types of sports balls that will probably be on this planet longer than our bones.

[charlie chong]

i'm skint with health problems so i'm gonna either sell part of my game collection or part of my record collection or parts of both
i've just been researching prices on some of the titles
it was a lot different in 2003 when i joined the old forum i tell you.
you guys would cry how cheap stuff was back then.radiant silvergun on saturn cost more than nearly every pcb back then
it's pretty much the same with buying records as well. if you got exotic/raer tastes your screwed now
thank god fo teh romzz

[Ed Oscuro]

Rob's right as usual - the physical object doesn't really matter. Physical game media were used by game companies in pretty much the same way they've tried to use DRM now. Digital media gets a bad rap because they wanted to include all the restrictions of physical media (and then some) on digital copies, but if done right it's much better than trusting in some aging artifact that can break at any time.

[Strider77]

Wrong... my aging artifacts give me so much less grief than my new no artifacts.

[Ed Oscuro]

Where did I say that new digital distribution is usually done right?

You're probably using the wrong sites if it causes you problems. Send your money to GoG, not XBLA or Steam if you're having unspecified "grief" with DRM.

In any case, my experience is the reverse of yours: I have a number of old consoles that have failed or are failing due to age, which isn't a problem if you have a platform that can actually be replaced (like a DOS PC mostly still can). I also have a fair number of PCBs with faults on them, some designed to fail. None of this would be at issue if I could just load a data backup to new hardware, but old-school DRM saw fit that I couldn't do that.

[Strider77]

I just stick with physical at all costs when I can. Going over to a friends house to watch a movie or play/show a game becomes SO much easier.

That and not having to worry about HD space or how long several gigs will take to DL. To each his own but for me, I promise physical artifacts are so much easier.

Except for music... I'll admit that. Plus I'm not a PC gaming person.

[broken harbour]

Digital Distribution has it's place, I like what GOG does with old PC games making them playable on modern OS's and Mac's. (I realize you can do this yourself but GOG makes it so easy, no research or screwing around figuring out how to make a 20 year old PC game work on Windows 8...)

However, it makes me nuts when some really good console games only come out digitally, I understand why, but man I'd have loved a physical disc version of Limbo on home consoles for instance.

Sadly I think in the next decade, all media will transfer to digital streaming only, music, movies, games, etc... There will still be niche things out there (much in the same way vinyl is making a comeback) but for most everything else, we won't even get to download a file and keep it on our harddrives, everything will go to the Netflix/Spotify model, games included.

[Strider77]

So much for uncompressed audio.....

[BrianC]

However, it makes me nuts when some really good console games only come out digitally, I understand why, but man I'd have loved a physical disc version of Limbo on home consoles for instance.

There is this. It has Limbo, 'Splosion Man, and Trials on disc for 360.

[Ed Oscuro]

Going over to a friends house to watch a movie or play/show a game becomes SO much easier.

All I have to do in order to watch a show is plug a USB stick into a TV.

Don't even need to crack open a disc and fiddle around with a disc tray.

Digital Distribution has it's place, I like what GOG does with old PC games making them playable on modern OS's and Mac's.

This model would be welcome with gamers everywhere, not just on PC. Companies releasing games for consoles are greedy and want to reinvent the wheel every 10 years, on our dime, and without an upgrade path they don't completely control.

[BryanM]

we won't even get to download a file and keep it on our harddrives, everything will go to the Netflix/Spotify model, games included.

By the time cloud gaming becomes feasible.... I don't even know if we'll still even be using money.

It's game chasers guys...

Economic extraction is kind of what flippers and speculators live for.

Personally I'd be just fine with reproductions if I were a collector. Well, technically I guess I do already use reproductions in the form of simulation, which at some eventual level becomes a reproduction... It just makes little sense to me to spend a bazillion on NES Flintstones when you're probably getting a fake anyway.

Here is a photo of a divorced couple dividing their collection in front of a judge because they could not manage it unsupervised.

[Strider77]

All I have to do in order to watch a show is plug a USB stick into a TV.

You left out powering up the PC and loading the file. Then if your friend has a device that takes files from USB hooked to the TV. Also download time of that file.

If someone asks to see a certain movie I own I just pull it off the shelf on my way out. And yes I guess I do have to take it out of the case...

Hell if I'm watching a TV show I downloaded I don't even need USB... I have a media server set up.

Still I prefer to have discs on my keepers. Besides storing 1080p with HD audio formats.... WAY to much DL time and HDD space.

[MintyTheCat]

If someone asks to see a certain movie I own I just pull it off the shelf on my way out. And yes I guess I do have to take it out of the case...

I agree, no one 'collects' downloads - people collect physical media such as VHS, Laserdiscs, DVDs, etc. But I find it more impressive to have physical media and indeed I can select a DVD easily and take it away with me without any trouble. I may rip and convert something from a DVD that I own if I need to.

[Ed Oscuro]

As I was writing this, my router cut out for a minute. It's the perfect metaphor for what we're talking about - sometimes "losing" something actually forces you to rethink what you're actually doing. As it turns out, it was still less time to cycle it (I need to replace it sometime) and download something than it would be to hunt out a disc at the store, assuming they even had it, or to try figure out where in a huge number of boxes a particular show is hiding. In fact, even in relatively small bookshelves it's easy to get such a pile of discs that you won't save much time hunting down a disc over just downloading from the 'net. Plus, your computer will download for you - you don't have to hunt something out yourself.

Santa didn't slide discs down your chimney. You have to go to the store, or the PO, and wait in line like everybody else - when you buy "physical" media. Digital distribution isn't perfect, but it saves a huge amount of time and money overall. For me, a 2MB/sec download speed is still faster than going to the store, and Comcast claims my download speeds top off around 5-6MB per second. Complaining about the difficulty of downloading something off the 'net just makes you look technically illiterate. I am sorry to hear your ISP sucks, though. This isn't an argument against digital media; it's an argument that America needs to get into the 21st century and actually invest in infrastructure.

Technology is moving us into a new landscape, not a perfect one, but it's not really an unfamiliar one. Digital distribution and payments are easy to get. Most media starts and ends in a wholly digital format these days; in fact, "physical distribution" is a complete misnomer, since all it's doing is fixing the exact same digital information in place - and the practice of locking digital media into a specific physical format makes little sense except in terms of restricting use or creating profits. (Older media, like film and much early audio, also didn't share a the same format between the recording and home formats, even if you were transferring from film masters to 16mm, even before VHS and laserdisc; meanwhile, recording studios haven't used vinyl for a very long time, since at least the 50s if not earlier.)

What's not so easy is thinking about all the strange issues of "physical" distribution: Where it can physically ship, what regions you can use it in, and what you do if you work the night shift and you can't get to the store - which goes down every night, and what you're expected to pay over the cost of making the movie and getting the digital information onto your screen. The movie industry seems unwilling to pass on savings from not packaging things and shipping them by truck, and additionally many people like implementing restrictive DRM schemes. On the other hand, talk to anybody who has been into music since the early days of Limewire and you'll notice that the entire media landscape (besides the movies bit) is much cheaper (maybe too cheap). The Walkman was small, but now you can carry all the music you could listen to for a year, if not for life.

Complaining about the costs of hard drives? I assume you've not been posting from a library PC since 2006, and you actually do own a computer, but I'll agree that hard drives aren't free (you can get really big ones these days for not much money, though) - however, this should get better in the future, again.

There's two really big problems with physical media, though. The first is choice: Some suit sits down in a cubicle with graphs and metrics, and asks "what do people want to watch?" With the Internet, I get to choose to watch something besides sport highlights and summer blockbusters. Digital distribution is great if you want to watch a Hong Kong martial arts film or an episode of Time Team which was never released on region 1 disc. This also means that it is easier for those shows to find an audience - so long as there is a 'net connection between there and here, and there's a payment service I would like to use in place, they can sell it and I can buy it.

The second problem with physical media is also about choice: With digital distribution, not only do you get arguably better backup options, but you aren't forced into being a librarian. Now, I know many people are too disorganized to manage a digital collection, but I'm really not worried about that. I am worried, and basically every day, about the growing size of my collection of litter, both the stuff I throw away (too much, even after recycling and hoarding) and in terms of what I keep. I've been in far too many houses and even cramped apartments that were basically unlivable because people had too many DVD cases all over the place - and in places where people simply didn't have the room to save them.

I don't know too many people who are oppressed by keeping a couple hard drives around, but I know lots of people who are holding onto dusty piles of discs they will never watch again. Digital distribution makes it easy to hoard things, but it also makes it much easier to be ruthless about what you keep - and it's not much less satisfying to press "delete forever" than it is to go out and take a sledgehammer to a disc you don't like. Safer too!

But I find it more impressive to have physical media

Again, there's agreement on this topic's facts, but not on interpretation. It always impresses me when looking at a large stack of movies about how much wasted effort and material is represented there. I think that society values movies, not so much the packaging, and certainly not clutter and places to store old cat hair.

To be fair I'm not so critical of books - I'm not going to buy a Kindle any time soon - but I find myself worrying about the already incredible size of my game collection every day, and that only adds to having a huge library. And I think "I'm only three decades in, I don't want to add seven decades' worth of new stuff to this pile." Where would I find the room?

Here is a photo of a divorced couple dividing their collection in front of a judge because they could not manage it unsupervised.

Wins the thread.

[Strider77]

Sometimes it's actually nice to leave the house get in the car and drive a bit and walk around. Meet friends and go swing by bestbuy before catching a movie and a few drinks after.

I never viewed walking to the mail box or stopping by the store as a hassle I'd like to delete. There can be a social aspect to it as well. Just like going to an arcade versus playing a rom.

[Ed Oscuro]

At this point you're just arguing to argue. Nobody's saying you have to keep cooped up in the house. You do have to buy groceries, right?

Overall, I think that things are trending towards the more efficient and space-saving digital distribution model, which is good. I think there will be a demand for "physical" (prerecorded is what we called it in the days of VHS, you ever think how much space the entire 73 episodes of Star Trek on VHS take?) media, which is fine for choice. For everybody else, I think digital distribution is the way to go, even if your standard is M-DISC, "made of stone to last 1000 years."

[BIL]

Economic extraction is kind of what flippers and speculators live for.

Personally I'd be just fine with reproductions if I were a collector. Well, technically I guess I do already use reproductions in the form of simulation, which at some eventual level becomes a reproduction... It just makes little sense to me to spend a bazillion on NES Flintstones when you're probably getting a fake anyway.

As a collector fully intending to be cremated with his stuff, or near as, I'd welcome a third party whipping up new print runs of zomg rarez provided everything was 1) manufactured to original factory spec and 2) inconspicuously marked, for transparency's sake. (I wouldn't care about marking as long as the stuff was factory quality, but where flippers are a bit pitiful scammers are fucking pond scum, so given the choice I'd prefer the latter take a bumming)

I'd also welcome counterfeiters and their knockoff trash going feet-first into woodchippers, but that's obviously something else entirely.

One of our cutest threads is where chaps get mad because GameQuest Direct paid Sega and WD for some new runs of Rez and Persona, direct from MFG. I think my Fatal Frame PS2 trilogy (handily snapped up brand new & SE@LED ZOMG circa 2011) was the product of a similar arrangement.

[Strider77]

No I'm just saying that I personally find physical discs far less of a hassle. I truly do...

Plus I'm a home theater enthusiast so yes I want those uncompressed audio masters to take advantage of my set up. Clouds do not offer HD sound formats for movies [DTSMA ,PCM or DDHD] and storing raw rips is ridiculous on a large selection of movies. Way to much of a hassle for me anyways.

I'm not arguing whe I say that I don't mind and even enjoying getting them on disc. I've never sighed out of annoyance over walking to the mail box or driving to the store.

I do not find it easier at all but quite the opposite. Now if it's disposibile and just for a random one off watch etc sure. I use net fix and torrents etc. And they are great.

If you do that's fine. I'd just prefer that we both have our preferred method as an option.

[Ed Oscuro]

I'm not arguing whe I say that I don't mind and even enjoying getting them on disc. I've never sighed out of annoyance over walking to the mail box or driving to the store.

Apparently you didn't notice that I first presented my argument for digital distribution, which you then tried to crap all over with stories about how much you like driving, how hard USB sticks are, and talking about movies when I already said that digital video isn't the best showcase of digital downloads' potential. If you're not arguing, then what are you doing?

My point was not that your "preference" is wrong or that circumstances don't make digital downloads less attractive than media, but rather that if done well digital distribution has almost every advantage.

[broken harbour]

if done well digital distribution has almost every advantage.

Problem is, I have only seen a single company do DD properly, and that is Bandcamp. Bandcamp is great, you pay the artist directly, BC takes a small cut, and you get completely free DRM files in any format you want. As long as you back it up, you'll have it forever, even if the artist later takes the album down.

Every other company that I know of hasn't done DD nearly as good, even a platform as awesome as Steam has some issues, unlikely as it is... what happens if Valve ever goes bankrupt? Kiss your entire game collection on there goodbye.

[Ed Oscuro]

Sure, media companies have to win our trust. Having that flexibility is important, but it's also important to note that it's a good thing not to have to be forced into hoarding files at your house, either on a drive or on discs. You can call it "just a rental," but ultimately you're going to pay for access to media, one way or another. It's always been that way, right back to when people first started charging a rental for seats in a theater.

Besides, Good Old Games is perfect.

There's also plenty of off-the-radar distribution by indie / doujin / whatever artists that literally would not exist without purely digital distribution. Somewhere inbetween are services like ModDB, which is a kind of free digital distribution - not to mention that free email services and file hosting, not to mention torrents, are really a part of this discussion too.

In a good and just world I think that it would be best to have pre-burned media for people who decide it's what they need. Many OS distributions, and Wikipedia, offer digital discs for people who need it. I recall internet browsers often did the same thing. But I don't have any illusions that eventually most media will switch over to digital distribution for one of the major reasons the N64 lost a lot of market share to the PlayStation - distribution costs. This might turn out to be a bad thing overall, but it won't be because the idea of digital distribution is bad. As consumers we can't count on seeing any cost savings, but on the other hand it does help keep costs in check.

[Strider77]

My other gripe is having to have a subscription to x amount of different services due to different titles being split between them. All due to studio dealings and exclusives or rotating libraries. I get why.. but it's a pain.

The only time it becomes easy is when you bypass all that crap and just "take" it off the net.

I still don't know how I'm suppose to store movies in 1080p WITH 1 for 1 studio masters (HD audio formats) practically. Sure I could get HHDs but that would take a ridiculous amount of space. I think for some who don't care about that... and I'm not saying they have to or even should, it works out okay. But streaming a 1 for 1 of a bluray ain't happening anytime soon and the amount of time to download and store all of that... that is just a hassle. Not to mention the hassle of hunting down a file that actually is 1 for 1... I shutter at even trying to find a place that offers a 1 for 1 "officially".

I found one (raw blu ray rip) a few months ago for Sorcerer as I've never seen it. I get a big kick out of seeing these older movies given the royal treatment with new transfers. Sure I found one and had it the next day, but after watching it and enjoying it I ordered the bluray and deleted it from my hard drive. Next time I just take it off the shelf. WAY easier to me anyway. I mean sure I could settle for a more compressed version... but I don't want to.

And it's all about meeeeeeeeeeeee........