Stupid Game Chasers

[tighecg]

I have lost my way. I have been a gamer all my life, but with life getting busy on me I just didn't have time. until about two years ago. I got back into it with a desire to learn how to program a SMS game. before the hate and naysayers start in, I admit to being mostly computer illiterate, and I have no dreams(well maybe dreams) of making the next underground hit. Then I got into collecting systems for max game library with a minimum number of systems, like the 60gb ps3 and region modded gennys. about a year ago I found the game chasers, and caught the full blown collecting bug. Again, before the hate, I find the show and the chodes entertaining, I'm sure that is not the general opinion here. I am in a part of the country where flea markets are pretty much non existent, the game stores are overpriced and unwilling to negotiate, and most garage sales and craigslisters think the highest ebay buy it now listings are an appropriate price point. I am completely discouraged with the video game market at this point, retro and modern. I have come to love the RGB scene and doing my own mods, but with broken sega cds going for 100 bucks on ebay, that has gotten frustrating as well. And I still have gotten nowhere with my original goal of learning to program. I mostly just wanted to vent, but my questions are do you think the market has been influenced by shows like the game chasers? Are they driving ebay to crazy hieghts, thus all the other outlets for gaming? will the market settle down, or is this just the beginning of a new comic book/sports card/toy market? are there outlets for more reasonable deals? Am I just a whiner that got back in too late? I want out of collecting, and to get back to what my original focus was, but there are still games I want, selected titles, not all of them.

[Skykid]

Dude, it's not the beginning of a new comic book style market, it's been at that state and beyond for some years.

Basically if you're getting into collecting now you're fucked unless you have a big bank account.

All collector markets peak, trough, and buckle in time, often to rise again, sometimes never. Comics have been in a lull for a decade. In many ways games have already surpassed that scene if you consider the values at the lower end.

I think games are just going to keep getting more expensive before they trough. So yeah. Good advice would be: keep your money. Emulate. Go travelling. Live.

[BIL]

PARAGRAPHS MOTHERFUCKER 3:

I think 2012 was the last year before things really went nuts, at least for Japanese stuff. Lots of relatively accessible staples that were then "oof dats a bit much innit guv" are now nutsack-crushingly steep. I hope it all crashes down like a ton of bricks at some point. Got mine + fuck hoarders. ;3

If anything, it's the possibility of a Neo Geo AES-style high-end bootlegging shitshow that I find interesting. The conditions aren't ideal for it to happen right now, of course.

[drauch]

Collecting is for the birds anyway. Buy quality and not a shelf piece. Not saying shit isn't expensive now, because it's awful, but buy games->play games.

And yeah, game chasers are chodes and I hate them. The YouPube community has certainly added to the misery with the gotta-collect-'em-all mentality and the show your collection narcissism. Most fleamarkets and craigslist resellers and other podunk vendors have caught word and now rely on eBay's extant Buy It Now prices, further driving up the shithole market of unreason.

Nutsack crushing everywhere you turn.

[Bananamatic]

just play futari ultra dude

[Skykid]

Buy quality and not a shelf piece. Not saying shit isn't expensive now, because it's awful, but buy games->play games.

So much this.

[TransatlanticFoe]

The completist collectors ensure high prices for the rare stuff, but even common games are going for silly money if they're good Nintendo games. It's insane how much some SNES stuff goes for these days! That ebay is filled with BINs and high starting bids doesn't help - whatever happened to auctions starting at 99p??

I have pretty much all the retro games I want to play, sans Battle Garegga on Saturn. I'm glad I'm not after some of these games nowadays, but maybe it'll die down when the generation who grew up with them have passed on!

[broken harbour]

And this is why people buy everdrives. I'd personally prefer the real thing on my shelf, CIB of course... but in today's inflated market... forget it. I'd rather have money left over to live, travel, own a home, do things, etc... I thought I'd miss my real carts and CIB games but I don't.

[tighecg]

it's not just the retro market either, with crap like AC Unity and Batman being thrown at us not only unpolished, but unfinished. the big names can't be trusted. Where is there to go? Homebrews? I have not played Pier Solar, or any of the NGDev games, but from what I hear of them bigger homebrewers seem like the ones to trust. The indies on PSN/XBL/WS/Steam seem great also. Axiom Verge is incredible IMO. but for every Axiom there are 10 pieces of crap. I do have a soft spot for WayForward, and hope they stay smallish. I see a replay of 83 coming.

[Squire Grooktook]

Just be discriminating, don't bother with the crap, and focus on stuff like Platinum Games, Nintendo, etc.

Also yeah, don't bother with collecting. Just emulate. Imagine a world where emulation doesn't exist. Terrible terrible place.

[tighecg]

I agree. Say what you want about Nintendo, but they do shit right.

[scrilla4rella]

Dude, it's not the beginning of a new comic book style market, it's been at that state and beyond for some years.

Basically if you're getting into collecting now you're fucked unless you have a big bank account.

All collector markets peak, trough, and buckle in time, often to rise again, sometimes never. Comics have been in a lull for a decade. In many ways games have already surpassed that scene if you consider the values at the lower end.

I think games are just going to keep getting more expensive before they trough. So yeah. Good advice would be: keep your money. Emulate. Go travelling. Live.

agree 110% with this.
Spend your money on living and experiences.

The collector game market will certainly trough at some point. I don't see a huge drop in prices short of some doomsday scenario.

Only buy what you want to play.

There are still deals out there in retail shops and ebay but you have to be able to walk out and not buy anything if the price isn't right. Buying a ton of games in a short period of time will ultimately leave you empty and unfulfilled. I know from experience. Unfortunately going into game shops and constantly browsing ebay often leads to the purchase of games/crap your not explicitly looking for. I call this 'collector mission creep'.

Play the shit out of games you currently have and love, only then seek out that one special game, that through research (youtube, emulation, write-ups) you believe to be a future love, especially ones that go for a reasonable amount. Obviously MUSHA is taken at this point.

[neorichieb1971]

If you want to collect, buy whats cheap today. There are tons of great games at great prices and one day they will be hard to find and on ebay for ridiculous prices.

I have about 200 games from the Genesis up to the current era. About 20 of them were bought used on ebay at high prices, but the other 180 are what I collected at the time to play when they were current. I don't consider myself a hoarder but I do think they are not doing me any good sitting in boxes on top of a wardrobe. But the thing is, they are my history.. They are part of me. I can't let them go. If you just collect to take pics of it and say "This is my collection" your missing the whole point of life like Skykid has already said.

[BrianC]

Also, while it doesn't happen too often, some games actually go down in price. Dig Dug GB used to be over 35 dollars loose, but is under 20 now. However, the JP version in Namco Gallery vol. 2 is a better value since it has other games on the cart.

[tighecg]

I have always been able to walk in and walk out at the game shops, that is not an issue, however I do think I have suffered from CMC(collector mission creep) a bit. I found Einhander for a buck at a garage sale, and I think that started the collector problem. That is quite a rush, and its addicting. einhander is great but I wasn't looking for it, and that's where I got off course. Scrilla, your right. ultimately I want to play games. and Squire, I was discriminating at one time. I imported Gaiares and set up my genny for RGB. I think it is an awesome game, and I put it on the back burner for collecting. Haven't even beat it yet. I need to go back and beat that game, and use it for learning how to tune in my monitor.

[Skykid]

That is quite a rush, and its addicting.

Addictive.

[KindGrind]

If you want to collect, buy whats cheap today.

I feel, like most around these parts, that the games should be played with and that collecting should only be a side-effect of this, and not a full-fledged affair. That is, you want to keep good games around to play them as often as possible, but you're not a pack rat by any means.

Still, I think the exact opposite of you if you're meaning to collect something.

Buy the expensive ones first. Once these are out of the way, you will have a much easier time picking up the rest. If you pick up lots of chaff first, you will end up discouraged when you realised that the last 5% of a collection will cost you 50 times more than what you put in for the first 95%.

Now if you want to play the damn games (and you should), things are a bit different. I'd tell you to pick up rare games that are playable and fun. For example, I'd skip on Power Blade 2 for NES but would definitely get something like Bucky or Might Final Fight (although from the looks of it the ship has sailed quite a bit on this one...).

Just my 2 cents. Everdrives are an interesting alternative if you're a player with no interest in collecting. If you like owning the physical carts or tingle every time when you slide the hu-card in the slot... You're fucked.

[BrianC]

Now if you want to play the damn games (and you should), things are a bit different. I'd tell you to pick up rare games that are playable and fun. For example, I'd skip on Power Blade 2 for NES but would definitely get something like Bucky or Might Final Fight (although from the looks of it the ship has sailed quite a bit on this one...)

The JP Mighty Final Fight is still quite a bit cheaper. Around 30 dollars loose.

[scrilla4rella]

I have always been able to walk in and walk out at the game shops, that is not an issue, however I do think I have suffered from CMC(collector mission creep) a bit. I found Einhander for a buck at a garage sale, and I think that started the collector problem. That is quite a rush, and its addicting. einhander is great but I wasn't looking for it, and that's where I got off course. Scrilla, your right. ultimately I want to play games. and Squire, I was discriminating at one time. I imported Gaiares and set up my genny for RGB. I think it is an awesome game, and I put it on the back burner for collecting. Haven't even beat it yet. I need to go back and beat that game, and use it for learning how to tune in my monitor.

well shit, if you see Einhander for $1 then you've got to buy it. Those legendary finds, though exceeding rare, really do bring a huge rush. One of my rare mega-scores was finding a CIB Gimmick! for 1000 yen at a game store in Shin-Okubo. When I saw it on the shelf I started to sweat and thought that I was suffering from hallucinations.

I've never had a find of that caliber since then but perhaps that experience has lead me to make some questionable purchases since then, such as Exile on Genesis and a CIB Paperboy 2 on NES for $20 each.

[scrilla4rella]

If you want to collect, buy whats cheap today.

Now if you want to play the damn games (and you should), things are a bit different. I'd tell you to pick up rare games that are playable and fun. For example, I'd skip on Power Blade 2 for NES but would definitely get something like Bucky or Might Final Fight (although from the looks of it the ship has sailed quite a bit on this one...).

Just my 2 cents. Everdrives are an interesting alternative if you're a player with no interest in collecting. If you like owning the physical carts or tingle every time when you slide the hu-card in the slot... You're fucked.

Yeah, I don't know why more people aren't just buying Fami and Super Fami carts (or everdrives for that matter) to play the games. To me it's proof that the majority of collectors in the market don't care so much about playing the actual games, ratchet-ass hoes...

[Skykid]

Just my 2 cents. Everdrives are an interesting alternative if you're a player with no interest in collecting. If you like owning the physical carts or tingle every time when you slide the hu-card in the slot... You're fucked.

Yep. It's finally tipped over into an exclusive big money club. I always knew that day was coming, just didn't know exactly when. Guess it's here.

As someone who has no access to the games they bought, Flash Carts are indeed the most wonderful modern invention to happen to gaming. They make PS4's seem old-fashioned.

CIB Gimmick! for 1000 yen

Godly find.

I've had my fair share of those though, all in the past of course. Why, Gaijinpunch once sold me a mint CIB Magical Pop'N for £20. Neither of us knew the future value of course, but retrospectively it worked out well. For me. He got his Chu Hai.

[BrianC]

Yeah, I don't know why more people aren't just buying Fami and Super Fami carts (or everdrives for that matter) to play the games. To me it's proof that the majority of collectors in the market don't care so much about playing the actually games, ratchet-ass hoes...

I think that explains why US auctions for some EU SMS games like Sonic 2 end at over 40 dollars when the games can be bought CIB from EU sellers for under 20 (one US auction for Sonic 1 that clearly said it was not the one with the sticker also ended over 40). Then again, some people are use clueless about the "worldwide" option on ebay.

I think the best deals I got were some working rare Atari 800 disk games (including M.U.L.E.) for 25 cents at a convention and a buy it now GG Aleste on eBay for 25 dollars. I also got Gun Nac for 6 dollars at an online store named Trade N Games, at a time when prices for it were all over the place (mostly high).

[scrilla4rella]

Godly find.

I used up all of my luck on that day. No good finds since then.

I've had my fair share of those though, all in the past of course. Why, Gaijinpunch once sold me a mint CIB Magical Pop'N for £20. Neither of us knew the future value of course, but retrospectively it worked out well. For me. He got his Chu Hai.

The man does love his Chu Hai, plus the avoidance of the higher calorie beer helps him maintain his aerodynamic and scary female football player build.

Stories like that really drive home how quickly things have changed. You should hear Shou talk about buying pcbs in the early 2000s. From what I understand, the Japanese retro gaming scene (especially the folks in the pcb market) is collectively pissed off that so many foreigners are coming in and driving up prices. The Bank of Japan's expansionary monetary policy (i.e. QE bazooka) has certainly played some role in this.

[MintyTheCat]

With the Youtube Channels propagating and giving credence to 'The Collector' I think that far, far, far too many people take themselves too seriously.

There has been a shift in that people are looking for some kind of acceptance in owning more titles or expensive titles at the true expense that once you own more than a few games you cannot possibly play them all and become anything like good at playing them all without literally sacrificing most of your time to it.

I think, and this comes from someone who was 'right there at the start' as this effing silly, antagonistic dicks are always harping on about - that it is an interest, it is something to get into and for many of us now this is a part of our past but for god's sake if all you have to say about yourself is that you are "A Collector" then you are a sad specimen to say the least.

What I find most offensive is that very few of them on YT ever both to get into the design and technical aspects of gaming and are only really able to latch on to the culture and go wholesale. I see it at gaming conventions especially around the younger gamers.

Gaming and even more so collecting should be a part of your lifestyle but not your lifestyle.
I have met all manner of sad bastards who get into debt over gaming, lose jobs and partners and every time I find it amazing that people can be that foolish and the other part of me thinks if you are going to put everything on the line for something then make sure it is something worthy

I actually play rarely these days but when I do I get into it and enjoy myself. I was playing raiden DX the other day and the flow is nice. This is what games are for: they give you sometime out and allow you to get out of your day's events but are not a substitute for life. The same goes for all these younger people I find that rely on online relationships only; nothing beats the real thing

I got back into it with a desire to learn how to program a SMS game.

That is a good start but don't do what nearly everyone on the Internet does these days and sits around dreaming about it: fucking do it!!!!

Get the books on Z80 Assembly, get to know the SMS hardware, learn as much as you can, put forward something that you want as a game (I hope it will be a Shmup but I am biased ) and have a lot of fun doing it.

I will always say it: anyone can be a gamer but very few have what it takes to develop a decent game. Be active and not passive.

Pass me your address and I will gladly post you a book on Z80 Assembly.

[DestroyTheCore]

I would like to know system11's opinion about game collecting.

[Ed Oscuro]

This whole discussion calls to mind the old adage about how you can't make a man understand something when his prosperity depends on his not knowing it. People who normally are rah-rah for class warfare and faint at the idea of "collective ownership" suddenly are upset that the careless rich get to soak up our cultural history and manipulate markets that we would rather not be. The story of the wealthy soaking up ancient artifacts is an old one, but the reason that people go to jail for grave robbery and illegally excavated dinobones is because history is being looted, hidden away, and destroyed - not because we personally want to be able to own those things for less money. Do I care that wealthy people have hoarded all the ancient castles? Not much; they have to deal with expenses, regulation, and annoying tourists from Georgia.

I don't think it is wise to fixate only on the actual artifacts of culture, instead of thinking also the content (but again, not just the content). People might spend a huge amount of money for an old copy of Robinson Crusoe or Treasure Island, but thankfully worldwide laws are progressive enough to admit the right to freely distribute works of long-dead authors (at least). The experience of reading a new copy of Treasure Island, or reading an ePub scan of an illustrated original, is not the same as reading the book in 1894, but most people agree it's close enough unless you're a historian. Games aren't so straightforward because more of the experience of playing classic games depends on technology - not just cartridges and CDs, but also CRTs. However, this just raises the question of how much we care to preserve gaming - is there enough call for individuals and society at large to produce ways to experience old games as they should be? I would hope so, and so far we are making good progress. With books there's usually a good amount of agreement that different people can have basically the same experience of reading the same book. You don't need the original book or the original environment to get the same experience.

How sad, then, that people who normally agree that good game design is an exercise in simplifying find themselves unwilling to live beyond all the clutter of "the real game experience," which cannot be completely recaptured. Especially people who have already given up the CRT, and think the Framemeister is better! We've also had some members say they'd like to relive the '90s.

We can turn again to archaeology for an argument against thoughtless (but legal) hoarding: If everybody treated games as only useless rubbish - like physical books, coins, or sports cards - that are damaged even when they are looked at, we would cease to understand what games are. If there is some way in which the thoughtless games hoarder hurts gaming, it's by just buying things and not trying to find out what they mean, and to share that.

Beyond that, it's pretty much business as usual - supply and demand, that sort of thing.

Some other too-simple reasons for collecting, and possible answers:
"I buy to play games" - if that's all, then support game creators by buying high-profit digital distribution, or just save your money and emulate / get a flashcart.
"I buy as an investment" - I've questioned this one before, and so far as it goes it's hard to criticize it. It's a risk, but some games have proven a better investment than many sports cards. Of course, in both games and sports cards, one scandal or one person questioning how important it is to own a game can throw price into disarray. The big wrinkle: Many sports cards were simply overproduced to such an extent that nobody cares. It's not true of many good games.
"I buy to take my mind off the pain" - literally the reason given in one instance (I won't name a name). Find a hobby that costs less money and which does more for your brain!
"I buy for community cred" - this was the obvious mindset of many people at The Retrogaming Roundtable, which was ironically undercut by the site URL, "Digital Press." All the bragging and laboriously shot photo galleries of clutter central can go down the memory hole at any time. And what did everybody get out of it? A bunch of time wasted and a lot of money spent on bad games. I think some of my last posts there were questioning people about the wisdom of buying every game ever, in the hopes that they would not waste their money. Alas, many people persisted and then found themselves scrambling to minimize their losses a few years down the road when it turned out the scent of mold annoyed them. And this was a "friendly" site; I'm not even going to poke a stick in the direction of another site with some rabid hoarding devotees.

[MintyTheCat]

Games aren't so straightforward because more of the experience of playing classic games depends on technology - not just cartridges and CDs, but also CRTs. However, this just raises the question of how much we care to preserve gaming - is there enough call for individuals and society at large to produce ways to experience old games as they should be? I would hope so, and so far we are making good progress.

I agree entirely with. It is important to put things into a context: a technological, an artistic and a cultural one. Many times we saw pioneers doing things for the first time due when we can view things in this manner. I look back at many traditional Japanese arts and crafts and how they preserve their methods as being a good example here.

With books there's usually a good amount of agreement that different people can have basically the same experience of reading the same book. You don't need the original book or the original environment to get the same experience.

That is true provided that the language and grammer and even dialect can be understood and are close enough to what we know already. It is often very hard for native Chinese speakers to read ancient chinese texts for example but it is comparatively simple for speakers of German and Dutch to read Old-English as it is pretty close enough to what we use today - within limits

How sad, then, that people who normally agree that good game design is an exercise in simplifying find themselves unwilling to live beyond all the clutter of "the real game experience," which cannot be completely recaptured. Especially people who have already given up the CRT, and think the Framemeister is better! We've also had some members say they'd like to relive the '90s.

Do you mean simplifying or distilling here? To me you start each art form and media with the definition and then from that point you progressively serve to refine it.

I agree: far too many people these days opt for a cut down, space, time - friendly alternative to the real thing. Sadly, not enough respect the real thing to really appreciate what they are missing

I had a chap visit me recently who was obsessed with getting a Framemeister and who rejects CRTs as "too bulky/too old/etc." but I can tell you when he saw my BVM 201F running Megadrive and NeoGeo games (on the real hardware of course) in the flesh he left my house a changed man for he saw what he was missing - what he was depriving himself of This smacks of the 'here for now and gone tomorrow, social media instantly updated' throw-away culture that has made itself known these last few years sadly, I feel

If there is some way in which the thoughtless games hoarder hurts gaming, it's by just buying things and not trying to find out what they mean, and to share that.

Yes, they may know the price but often they do not understand the value.
When I play a Shmup now on 8, 16 or 32-bit machines I am looking at how the game was designed and I have a sort of sense for it now. The value for me is the quality of the software and the work that went into producing the title. Even the cover artwork that was often hand made I appreciate but I guess I am from a time when we just got less and things took a more natural rate of flow than the way things are these days. These days I find myself having to 'turn off' the stream of constant flow of media updates where as back in the 80s and early 90s it was all about finding the source of information and tapping into it.

"I buy as an investment" - I've questioned this one before, and so far as it goes it's hard to criticize it. It's a risk, but some games have proven a better investment than many sports cards.

This way tends to make me smirk some what: kids, get into property, business investment and shares if you want real assets. They are substantially more tangible as assets than Videogames

"I buy to take my mind off the pain" - literally the reason given in one instance (I won't name a name). Find a hobby that costs less money and which does more for your brain!

"off the pain" - to clarify are you referring to the simple fact that games serve as a past-time and as fun distractions or is life for many gamers considered 'hell' in the real world? I have to ask as far too many of these addicted gamers seem to lack even the most basic of skills that matter in the real world I find. I agree, choose a hobby and interest that will give you something back. I have a few friends who write as a hobby and work on stories and such. Some play musical instruments. I personally paint for fun - no money involved and it is nothing like what I do for a living but I enjoy and it gives me something in return. I also encourage people to take up sports and meet real people in real situations as opposed to 'competing online' all the time
I get more from a shiai than I would get from competing online any day of the week personally.

"I buy for community cred"I think some of my last posts there were questioning people about the wisdom of buying every game ever, in the hopes that they would not waste their money.

Yes, completely tragic The best titles are less common and it only serves the ego to do the cluster-bomb equivalent of 'take no prisoners' - this was never how it was back when I was a kid; if a game was shit it was shit and people avoided it

Sadly, it is incredibly easy (subject to the amount of cash you have around you, naturally...) to buy them all - it doesn't take much more than time and money. I would trade that for a skill any day of the week or a talent that would give me something that the raw 'ability' to spend money Spending money is really a passive thing...

Alas, many people persisted and then found themselves scrambling to minimize their losses a few years down the road when it turned out the scent of mold annoyed them. And this was a "friendly" site; I'm not even going to poke a stick in the direction of another site with some rabid hoarding devotees.

Yes, people who have ego but lack conviction would equate to immaturity to me

Some good points raised, Ed - cheers.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yes, if there's an overall theme here, it's asking what of the past needs to be brought forward, and how much we will spend to do it.

But additionally, what is hopelessly subjective, and what can be standardized? I don't think that something being "cut down, space, time - friendly" is necessarily bad, so long as that's not a choice forced by the loss of the fuller experience. Even if we did lose a lot of context, it won't be the end of the world. People use sayings from old works all the time, and we can do that without anybody actually having the full picture of what those works represent - a good example is Shakespeare in the English language. Lots of sayings and some words appear there for the first time, but there is not a single person who really fully understands some of the allusions, which are lost to time. Only a fraction of most work is ever useful to most people, and this is okay as we go into a more efficient (?) future. We don't get to provide a standard interpretation of what's around today for the future, but we do get to pass along some of the things that might otherwise fall through the cracks. I wonder sometimes whether even modern games will be very interesting to most people in the future, who will ask "you have to use your hands?" On the other hand, the first novel ever written is still being read (and even still in print, using technology that wasn't even around at the time). The experience of sitting in front of a CRT isn't for everybody, and neither is attempting to read the classic German typeface, or using 1000-year-old Visigothic script - but all these things have an obvious place and get carried forward into the future, in incremental steps.

There's no agreed standards for recreating some of the individual character of CRTs, but on the bright side, most of the critical components were standardized (i.e., color reproduction and brightness, speed of footage), so people in the future will have much better chances of recreating a "classic" gaming experience than we can get for something like early motion pictures, where the speed at which the film projector ran was up to the projectionist! At the moment, there doesn't seem to be any demand for spending a lot of money to do it, but possibly most all the relevant information is documented in film and video, plus many drawings of the actual construction of these devices.

So, as it pertains to "games," today's topic, what good could come from hoarding? Artwork is pretty perishable due to wear, so that's worth taking care with. Even the method of printing and the inks used matter for history, such as it is. They probably matter a lot to counterfeiters too, but we don't get to choose ahead of time whether posterity will use gifts from the past wisely.

Incidentally, the game slabbers have the completely wrong idea. We don't have any assurance that a sealed-up game is going to be well preserved inside, just as we have no assurance that an ancient timber in the ground is in good shape unless we dig down and look at it. At this point, the chemicals used in most games should have stabilized, but nobody can be sure without inspection; even then, many game materials could be preserved better than in the original sealed package. Just like cheap books on acidic paper, the materials were chosen for cheapness, not for preservation.

[BIL]

My favourite thing about IMPENETRABLE VGA ACRYLIC CASES is the seam designed to let that sweet sweet oxidising O2 circulate. ^__^

[scrilla4rella]

Ed, Minty, and other's comments also bring up a side issue of this manufactured "gammer" identity. The idea that gaming primarily defines you as a person is a deliberate ploy by corporations. This is leaking into the retro gaming scene to some extent, enabled no doubt by many of the Youtubers.

The fact is, a lot of folks- including more than a few disaffected guys- have been manipulated by corporations and cultures of fandom into dropping an unhealthy amount of their discretionary monthly income on new gaming crap because of a "crude marketing term".

I suppose the same could be said of our community here on the forums but the thing I love about this place is that we often have these conversations and acknowledge the necessity of downzing-purging and focus.

--
I found this article on the whole "gamer" tag interesting.
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-peo ... rd-culture