>be yourself as a kid >parents bring you to local gamestore

>>4224067
even as a kid I never bought a game before trying it

>>4224069
So how did you try them

>>4224067
>parents bring you to local gamestore to bought you a game
That never happened. If I wanted a game then I had to earn that money myself by delivering newspapers every morning before school.
Not everyone is born into wealth.

>>4224074
To be honest, in my place, pirated video game cds and cartridge are widely sold in stores and nobody care if its illegal. They are pretty cheap and all have same price, you can buy 2-3 ps1 cds in a trip and it still cost less than a children's toy

>>4224072
Probably rented them like everyone else. Or played them at a friends house. How do you think people played games before buying them?

>>4224067
>>be yourself as a kid
Alright with you so far
>>parents bring you to local gamestore to bought you a game.
Buy me a game? For Christmas sure, but then I wouldn't be around when they did that. Every game outside of Christmas was bought by myself.
>>how do you decide what game you will buy?
Kiosk demos, trying it at a friends house, and by cover. I was barely able to rent games growing up so i wont count that. The first game I ever bought with my own money I went by cover alone. Ended up taking Shinobi 3 home. Pretty fucking great first pick if you ask me. Got lucky.

>>4224147
Is renting a game is US- thing cause i think we dont have it in my region. I did understand trying from friends though.

I tried to play them first. Disc Jockey had demo copies of the hot games that's how I fell in love with Keystone Kapers but I definitely fell for some cheaper games that were fairly unplayable. By third gen, I was reading about games first. I still sometimes tried to be a special snowflake and payed the price. I'll never forget making the mistake of buying Renegade thinking it was River City Ransom.

>>4224170
In Japan and probably many other places video game rentals were illegal. That law was a big part of what pushed the development of the Famicom Disk System

>>4224190
Do you know how expensive games were in Japan? Is it the same as in any region, cause most depiction of japanese kids room are like full of games collection.

>>4224072
The local store had a few consoles actually that you could play with, it was nice to try on those

>>4224170
Europoor here, we had game rentals.

>>4224067
>be yourself as a kid
>gamestore
You already lost me.

Unless it was something like a garage sale, if I bought a game, I decided on it before I got there. I read about it in a magazine, played it at a friend's house, rented it, etc.

>>4224067
the only games I could buy we're Gameboy games because they were the cheapest games my parents could afford otherwise I'd rent games all the time and on my birthday or Christmas, I'd get the game i wanted. Sometimes my dad would buy me games out of the blue and they we're awesome games like Kid Chameleon.

>>4224067
That's why you rent before you buy. Which is exactly what I did as a kid and avoided crappy games like Batman Forever on the Genesis/SNES, Sonic 3D Blast or that annoying Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.

>>4224067
My mother would buy me used games randomly when she worked at the town's Blockbuster. Got quite a few cool genesis titles this way like Dashing Deputies, Ranger X, Rocket Knight Adventures, and Road Rash 3.

The only time I asked for games was around my birthday and Christmas, which I'd go on either 1st/2nd party games or whatever IPs I was into at the time (Disney, Beavis and Butthead, Star Wars, etc.).

About the only time I ever fucked up was when I asked for Glover when it was new and a whopping $65. Years later I was bored and revisited it, held up better than I remembered and had my share of fun.

>>4224291
Maybe we live in a different world. First, game rentals doesnt exist in my region, if you want it you buy it. Also i dont read magazines though when i was a kid, then i never buy a game if i knew my friends had them, we just exchange them regularly.

>>4224067
I always rented before I bought.
Got burned a few times buying before trying

>>4224067
>WOW this cover looks cool! I want this!
This was young me

>>4224067
It was probably a game I played at a friend's house.

>>4224147
So how much roughly do you guys pay for rental compared to buying it.

How the fuck did they let you kids rent games? What if you broke it. I dont think that old cd has high scratch resistance

>>4224363
>So how much roughly do you guys pay for rental compared to buying it.
Games were $40-80. Renting was like, $8 I think?
If it wasn't an RPG, you'd finish the game before you returned it.

>What if you broke it. I dont think that old cd has high scratch resistance
You just give it back. They don't test it when you return it. You'd only pay if you broke it in half.
My rental store rebuffed cds every time they were returned.

Make a bee-line for Quest 64

>>4224067
Growing up in South America, people would set up stands with pirated playstation games on the street, and they even sold them at electronics stores. They were super cheap, I'm talking probably usd cents. I'd grab games based on the artwork, or I'd get like 5-6 at once on Christmas or my birthday. At least half were half decent. It wasn't until 98 that I met people other people who had PlayStations and we'd talk about games and shit. First time I played Gran Turismo was because my sister borrowed it from one of her friends at school, and I talked my dad into renting NFS: high stakes for me one time. Back on topic, 3/10 game sellers were actually gamers themselves and I'd ask them what games were good and I'd get them, that's how I discovered gta

>>4224363
>What if you broke it
>I don't think that old cd has high scratch resistance
Unless you're clumsy or an idiot, there really isn't a risk in breaking or scratching a disc.

>>4224363
>So how much roughly do you guys pay for rental compared to buying it.
For me I think it was about $1 or 2 to rent at a mom & pop grocery store, and at a regional chain it was something like $2.50 for 2 days, $3 for 3 days. For buying, brand new NES games were $50, SNES were $60 with some RPGs at $70.

>How the fuck did they let you kids rent games? What if you broke it.
The grocery store may have been a little more loose about it, but the bigger stores required you to be 18 to rent, and if you broke or lost something you paid for it.

>>4224416
>people would set up stands with pirated playstation games on the street, and they even sold them at electronics stores. They were super cheap, I'm talking probably usd cents.

This. I dont even know that its illegal at the time.

Btw, my game seller recommends me Tekken every single time when i asked her. She doesnt even remember how many times that i've told her i already have it.

>>4224423
They sell games at grocery store? Holy fuck.

>>4224363
Cost? Depends on the rental place really. Blockbuster was $3-$5 a rental, some mom N pop type place near me was $2 a rental for NES.

>How the fuck did they let you kids rent games?
Most kids handed it to their parents, parents rented it along with whatever movie they got that week. As for CD's, I don't know, I stopped renting games around that era.

>>4224431
Different anon. My grocery store had a rental store in the same building.
It worked great. Mom would go grocery shopping, pick up a movie, a genesis game if we're lucky, return it next week and get a new one.

>>4224303
Not OP, but BlockBuster was a thing here in the USA. We used to have one down the road from my house, so I'd go in and play all the Demos they had set up to decide if I liked a game or not. Of course, they went out of business when I was a young adult, so there was that. There were other places up to this point that also rented games, but BlockBuster was the big one around my town.

>>4224423
I see. Here, we had pirated NES/SNES which had like 5-6 games in a cartridge. I dont know how much would it be in usd but its very cheap that my parent can buy It everytime i beg them too, and we are too far from being rich.

Also 2 Pirated ps1 cds are worth a fast food meal. I remembered that because my parent always gave me choices.

>>4224446
Yet another anon, my old Pick n' Save Liquor (That was literally the name) had a movie and game rental aspect to it. And there was another small mom and pop rental store next to it (with a Benjamin Crafts between them). My dad would usually take my brothers and I down to both to rent our ONE GAME for the weekend. We had to choose very carefully.

>>4224067
>be someone other than yourself as a kid
>parents bring you to local shrink
>get brain damaged by meds and make retarded decisions

>>4224067
Whichever one is sub 20$
Mom bought me a fuckload of games tho i was spoiled

>>4224067
Usually I'd ask my brothers, as I saw them as higher beings, and they usually knew their stuff, so I ended up getting into Pokemon and the mother series, along with harvest moon and the like.

>>4224363
>How the fuck did they let you kids rent games

Generally you give them an ID or credit card and if there are damages, you pay for a replacement.

You know, the same as how renting anything works you sheltered fool.

>>4224072
>So how did you try them
Friends, rental, kiosks at the store (gamecrazy used to let you try before you buy before it went under) etc.

>old magazines that wrote detailed articles with the honest opinion of a guy loved that specific genre
>friends or schoolmates with that game. if loved that game for a bunch of replays would have my own copy, if it was just a play in a while then ask them to borrow for a day or so once in a while
>rentals, plus some vhs movie
>look at the back of the box, read what is there and if is the genre i like
>no info at all about that game, only copy available at the store, my spider sense would tingle when it was THAT game

It was fine. Most games my parents bought were at half price. Would use my good grades card for full priced for birthday, end of school year and x-mas.
The main issue was getting a new console though

>>4224737
Forgot 2 things. Some old 90s videogames stores had a sort of videogame book for display about the games they had in store, info about them, pictures and prices. It was pretty useful
The other thing was arcades. I got a Saturn because of Virtua Fighter series, Sega Rally and Daytona. It was great having versions of that at home, inferior versions or not, it didn't matter back then

>>4224067
I didn't go to games stores, I bought used rental copies at the local rental place for like $10 each or less...I did on occasion get new stuff for Christmas, but games were expensive new back in the early to late 90's for the most part.

Now what I decided to buy was basically if it was a game based on movies or cartoons I liked, which is why my NES, SNES and PSX collections are full of shit since I didn't start buying good games on purpose until the PS2 era...but really, if you're a little kid and you can't beat a single NES game because they're too hard, how can you tell the difference between a good game and bad game? All the good NES games I have I got from my friend as payment for borrowing my Spider-Man figures for a week.

>>4224363
$5 for a week at Network Video. I used that place until it closed down around the PS2 era.

The NES and SNES cartridges came in a big clear plastic box, maybe with a manual that had a big sticker over it that said if you lost it you had to pay a $20 fee

>>4224431
All the chain stores in my area had a rental place in them, Delchamps, Albertons and the like.

In former socialist countries like my own, we did not really have game stores. Those that had a console usually bought it in some other country. Those that had a PC had a few diskettes here and there or a Commodore 64(this one was very popular here). Even when games actually started to be sold here, the prices were disgusting. I remember paying somewhere around sixty dollars for Full Throttle, and this was in the year of our lord of 1995.

So basically, all the games you wanted to get on a PC, Commodore or such was by getting it from friends. Speaking of the early nineties at least. Mid to late nineties piracy boomed so it was easier to just buy it.

Cartridges were a harder sell, so you had to go out of the country to get those.

Basically, you didn't decide shit. You got a disc-diskette filled with shit and filtered through it.

>>4224363
$5 for two days if it was a new release, $5 a week for an older game.
Console games were always too expensive, especially Nintendo. Probably why the NES never really took off, people were accustomed to paying next to nothing for new games on C64 and most other computers.

>>4224147
Renting games was always too expensive and my dad only bought games for me that were cheap, usually from the bargain bin next to Bruce Lee DVDs.

Is it made by Capcom ?
> Yes -> you can buy
> No -> check next game

Is it made by Konami
> Yes -> you can buy
> No -> check next game

Did it look good in a magazine ?
> Yes -> you can buy
> No -> Cjeck next game

>>4224170
It was really big in the US to the point where Nintendo tried to stop it but wasn't big enough. We still can rent shit from disc kiosks though.

>Is it on clearance?
>Does it look like there's a reason it's on clearance?

>>4224102
This. Nobody developed the understanding that a game is bought like an original product, everyone pirated shit. My parents were perfectly aware of it, I had like 2 legit CDs as a kid because I wanted to play Diablo 2 online.

>>4225541
And that's how I ended up with Street Fighter 2010 and Jackal.

>>4224067
usually through game mags or renting it or if it looked interesting in commercials beforehand

Mom would give me a year sub to PC Gamer every chirstmas. So I played a lot of demos. Tried out a few to see if my computer could handle it.

I would rent videogames for the NES, SNES, and XBOX before buying.

I was a kid, so once I bought a game, if I didn't like I could return it.

Media Play had a playstation, dreamcast, nintendo 64, and a PC set up to play the current hot games.
I remember schooling a bunch of kids in battle arena toshinden and being asked to get of the PC when playing Battlezone '98, and Diablo

>>4224072
CD's full of demo's on PC.

my parents only bought me games at birthdays/xmas
all the others i saved for and bought myself and had played on demo disks already

File: download.jpg (15KB, 225x225px) Image search: [Google]

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>read subscription of Game Informer
>kids from the neighborhood had games I liked, I would borrow and then ask to get it
>kids at school talked about certain games that sounded interesting
>Playstation had those demo disks.

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>>4224067
As a kid I could only have a new game once in a long while; I already knew what games I wanted because I tended to read magazines and be "in the know" as much as I could. So, I guess I decided long before entering the store. It was always a short visit because of that.

Nowadays I like to waste the shopkeeper's time and peruse like I have nothing better to do, looking for the games that smarter and better prepared folks had already come in and bought before me.

>>4224363
$5 for a week if the game wasn't brand new vs $40-90 to own it forever unless it was a used bargain bin game no one wanted. There were a couple times I rented a PS1 game that was scratched to hell and back making it unplayable but I'd just go back to the store tell them what's up and they'd either get me a replacement copy or let me rent something else for free. Also it's usually the parents doing the renting I think at Total Video you had to be 13 to even have a membership there.

As a kid I was the kind of kid that would visit a store 70 times and buy once.

Also let's say that I couldn't really decide much on what to buy, there were 3 games (2 of them shitty, let's be honest) that I wanted for the megadrive that I wouldn't get, not based on the price but because they looked "violent". And I don't mean mortal kombat violent.

I got a lot of stupid shit and rented really shitty games as well. Like Normy's Beach Babe-O-Rama or Greendog. Or Puggsy. Well, Puggsy didn't look so bad.