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The Importance of Video Game Collecting ft. SuperShadow271
156 Plays10 months ago
In this episode, Satsunami is joined by friend of the channel and collector extraordinaire SuperShadow271 to discuss the importance of game collecting in preserving gaming history. With the rise of digitalisation of the hobby and the overreach of companies in controlling what gamers can play, how important is game collection?
Without any further ado, let's find out!
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Review it Yourself
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Overview
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Chatsunami.
Origins of Game Collecting Nostalgia
00:00:21
Speaker
My name's Chatsunami and joining me to discuss all things game collecting is none other than the one and only I was about to call you the protocol son because you've returned once again.
00:00:31
Speaker
Yes, I have. Yeah, it is the one and only Super Shadow 271. It's me. After all this time of me hopping into your stream going, yeah, I'll get you back for an episode, I'll be out. But yeah, how are you doing tonight, Shadow? I'm doing really well. I actually just posted a new stream highlight video, so I'm really happy.
00:00:51
Speaker
I have to say I did flick through that before we came on tonight and he did a great job. I'm not just saying that. Speaking of streaming and of course video games, this is my very clumsy secret. I'm basically introducing what we're going to be talking about today because you and I, of course, are avid gamers. Spoilers for the episodes, you know, and I'm sorry you had to find out this way, Shadow. Oh, no. You thought we were going to talk about the DLC of Sonic Frontiers tonight. I was going to be. I had it a whole essay prepared.
00:01:20
Speaker
You had an H-bomber video ready to go. Yeah, exactly. But today we're going to talk about the hobby side of video games and of course you might be thinking well what do you mean by that Satsu? Because obviously you know it is a hobby in itself but there are quite a few sub hobbies within gaming and the one we're going to be honing in on today because there's been a lot of conversation about this
00:01:43
Speaker
it is indeed game collecting, which I have to say, say when you were a younger shadow, because I'm going to put this onto you first, but even when you were younger, did you really notice a lot of game collecting going around when you were
Retro Games as Collectibles
00:01:58
Speaker
growing up? Or was it more when you got older? Because I know it definitely still went on to an extent, but did you really notice it?
00:02:05
Speaker
Not when I was younger. Granted though, when I was younger, the internet didn't really exist, so I had no way of engaging with a wider group of people. So, as far as I could tell, it was only a matter of if your parents were willing to buy you a certain amount of games.
00:02:22
Speaker
There were always people who I knew had more games than me, so I knew it was something that varied person to person, but it wasn't really until I got old enough that I started to understand that, like, hey, people are interested in all sorts of games and, like, there's a whole complicated history and people collect them.
00:02:38
Speaker
after that when i was younger and obviously this is the maturity thing right enough but i always just saw games as you know you take them out the box you play them that sounds like such an old person thing to say to be like video games are for playing damn it but you looked at them as obviously a pastime
00:02:54
Speaker
but nowadays, and don't get me wrong, when I say nowadays, I don't mean over the past week or so, yeah, this has been going on for years and years, it's more apparent whether you go into a retro gaming store, whether you go into Comic-Con and they've got the IO of retro games, and I said that was such disdain because the last time I went to quote-unquote retro game IO in a
00:03:17
Speaker
convention. Yeah, they had 360 games and Wii games. Even though they're from like 2006 onwards, I wasn't happy. I honestly, I get what you're saying, but I do consider them retro at this point. I think nowadays, as much as a loth to admit it, they're probably on the precipice of going into retro. Whereas I think when I first saw them, this was definitely before the 2020s, anywhere long before I remember going into a room and they were like, oh, look, it's retro
00:03:47
Speaker
And they had a N64, they had the NES. You think, okay, okay, this is retro. And then they had the 360 in the corner and you're like, no, no. EO03, not retro.
The Garage Sale Spark
00:03:59
Speaker
Get that out of here. I don't know. I've seen people say how the Wii and 360 are older now than I think it was the SNES when the Wii and 360 launched. So I think it's fair to call them retro because we considered those retro back in the day.
00:04:16
Speaker
Speaking of collecting, though, is it safe to assume that you've gotten into the hobby as well? Oh, absolutely. I might have a little bit of a problem. I was going to say, thank God, because otherwise I was thinking, oh, I've brought the wrong guest on situation.
00:04:31
Speaker
No, believe me, you've brought the very right guest on here. I have a spreadsheet of all my games, and my total, as far as I can tell, in terms of physical games, is around 2800 across all the generations. Oh, wow. Yeah. And if we were including digital, it would probably be well over 10,000 copies of games. And then a curiosity, what got you into game collecting?
00:04:54
Speaker
Well, there's no one thing I can point to because I've always been a collector in some way. I originally collected Yu-Gi-Oh cards when I was really big into Yu-Gi-Oh and I've just always been a collector. I only really started to collect video games when I went to a garage sale that was like across the street
Personal Game Collecting Stories
00:05:12
Speaker
from me.
00:05:12
Speaker
And this woman collected video games, or at least she just had a lot of video games herself. And we were talking about video games and, you know, she could tell that I was passionate about them. So she was like, hey, I'm moving. I forget exactly where, but I'm moving far away and I can't take all these video games with me. By the end of the day, if I don't sell these, you can just take them. So she ended up giving me hundreds of games. Then I was like, well, I guess I'm just going to start collecting video games. And I just never stopped.
00:05:40
Speaker
I'm not being funny, but that's the start of every creepypasta about video games. I've seen random women say, I'll give you this special game. Realistic blood. Yeah, I was digging through all the copies and I found this cartridge labeled sonic.exe. And we'll never know what that's all about. Yeah, yeah, I decided to throw it away, so I'll never know.
00:06:03
Speaker
I have to say though, in terms of collecting myself, I'm definitely not as thorough in that regard. But I have collected a few games along the line. And I have to say, I almost feel as if you get into gaming very early on. So for example, when I was younger, my brothers had the Mega Drive and the NES respectively. And of course, I've taken the clay. Some may say stealing. I call it inheriting.
00:06:31
Speaker
consoles and games, so I've got those old consoles. I've also got my very own ones, like with the N64, with the old Pokémon Gameboy games, as well as the different Gameboys that I've collected
Challenges in Game Collecting
00:06:44
Speaker
over the years. As you said, either through car boot sales, garage sales, and yeah, you almost become a
00:06:51
Speaker
passive collector if you buy physical games because it's something that I have to admit I was looking at a lot of my old games the other day and you look at them and you think it's crazy to think that nowadays obviously they're not really sold anymore the more either you know in these second-hand shops they're in collector shops or worse comes to the worse they are hopefully digitized
00:07:15
Speaker
available for download which is definitely a big thing we're going to be diving into in this episode but it is interesting to see that if you are a gamer and you have all these physical games then by proxy I suppose you do have these different games because I remember years and years ago when I was still in university I just by chance bought the Gears of War games and I kind of remember
00:07:40
Speaker
I never told you this before, where I ended up going in and one of my old font mates was like, oh you should buy Gears of War 1 and 2, you know, it was like a 2 for 1 sale. Background games were cheap and they sold pre-owned games, that's gonna date the episode. But yeah, there was a 2 for 1 deal and I thought, you know what, I'll get both of them. And the one behind the counter was like, oh I'll give you the special edition for the second game which came with the art book and I thought, wow,
00:08:06
Speaker
Fantastic, I'll take that. And I ended up getting the special edition for the third game which comes with the flag, the mini metal cog and things. So I've got some collector's editions or limited editions but I wouldn't say unless it's a game that I'm really into or I think the reward is very good then I wouldn't say I would go out my way to buy it.
00:08:30
Speaker
Honestly, unless you are as passionate about gaming and gaming history as I am, it's kind of hard to recommend being a collector, because it's very, very pricey and there's quite a rabbit hole you can go down. In terms of collector's editions, I guess I've got a few, but I wouldn't say they're really all that necessary. The only thing that I would really insist on is a lot of them do come with the soundtrack, so if you really like the soundtrack, that is an official way to have the soundtrack, but especially
00:08:57
Speaker
especially with games being digital more and more nowadays, it's harder and harder to even just find a physical copy of the game, let alone a collector's edition. And that is indeed the perfect jumping off point to dive into the episode. You did a better job than me starting off this episode. Oh, well, thank you, but you did a good job. Don't worry, I'll give you my PayPal details later. My PayPal people will talk with your PayPal people, you know, we'll get something. Yeah, yeah.
00:09:23
Speaker
But yeah, let's jump into this and indeed we will be right back after these messages. Welcome to Chatanami, a variety podcast that discusses topics from gaming and films to anime in general interest. Previously on Chatanami, we've analysed what makes a good horror game, conducted a retrospective on Pierce Brosnan's runs James Bond, and listened to us take deep dives into both the Sonic and Halo franchises.
00:09:48
Speaker
Also, if you're an anime fan, then don't forget to check us out on our sub-series, Chatsunani, where we dive into the world of anime. So far, we've reviewed things like Death Note, Princess Mononoke, and the hit Beyblade series. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can check us out on Spotify, iTunes, and all good podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:10:10
Speaker
Hi, I'm SuperShadow271. You can find me over on Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and even Discord. I play and talk about a huge variety of games, so there's bound to be something you're interested in, especially if you're a Sonic fan. My content tries to be chill with some insightful commentary on games, so if you're interested,
The Cost of Collecting
00:10:28
Speaker
please check me out. Thank you so much for listening, and let's get back to Chatsunami.
00:10:32
Speaker
Let's talk game collecting and I just want to go back to something you said in the intro there when you were talking about this being a very expensive hobby. I have to admit I 100% agree with you. I was in, I think it was Acme Comicon, big shout out to Acme Comicon in Glasgow. There was a guy there who was selling all of his, well I say all of his, you know, his horde of games
00:10:56
Speaker
cards and a big plastic bucket in front of him and you know he was selling all of these like really pristine games and I remember thinking oh they've got Dreamcast games I wonder if I should get a copy of Sonic Adventure 2 because I have a copy of the first one well my brother had so again inherited not stolen. A legal reason.
00:11:16
Speaker
But yeah, I thought, oh, I'll get a copy of it. You know, just for old time's sake, I'll get a copy of Sonic Adventure 2. £60. It was £60. I just looked and I went, not today, Satsu. I'm not a rich podcaster. I can't afford.
00:11:32
Speaker
you put it down and you think it does seem a bit excessive yeah unfortunately that's just the nature of a lot of this stuff because i can't remember where it was posted but there was a report saying that 85 or so percent of all games sold from like five years ago or earlier just aren't available anymore and that is
00:11:55
Speaker
a really, really sad number when you think about preservation, but it also means that secondhand copies end up becoming much more valuable because they're the only legal way to acquire the game and it just ends up becoming a money sink. There are ways to mitigate it, but at some point you just need to know this is a very expensive thing to get into, and if you're not passionate about it, I wouldn't recommend
Digital Shift and Preservation
00:12:19
Speaker
it.
00:12:19
Speaker
Yeah, because you're just going to end up with a stack of plastic covers and you're just like, wow, this means nothing to me. Yeah, I had a friend who would occasionally want to be a collector and he'd go out and he'd buy a bunch of things. But since he wasn't really passionate about it, he'd grow bored of it and then he'd just sell it to me, which on the one hand, I mean, I was happy to get stuff. But on the other hand, it illustrated to me why you don't become a collector unless you are truly passionate about what you're buying.
00:12:47
Speaker
you don't have that emotional attachment, you know? I was going to ask that, out of curiosity, what's the line for you between collecting something just because it's a rare versus collecting something for the nostalgic value? It's a thin line. Can't say I have a great definition, but I think my definition would roughly say somewhere that if you are buying something that genuinely like excites you, that you actually connect with.
00:13:13
Speaker
I would interpret that as a more genuine like collecting versus oh this game is worth this much so I should acquire it but you don't have that same emotional connection to it and that just becomes essentially scalping. It's a grey area for sure. Yeah because I have to say I think one of the more infamous examples of that is anything to do with Nintendo. Oh yeah. Because we have a shop in the UK, I don't know if you've ever heard of this, it's called CEX. Oh yes.
00:13:43
Speaker
I'm calling it that because I know the way they want me to say it. And for legal reasons and for the kids listening to this, I'm not going to say it that way. But they of course have a hoard of different retro hardware, different retro video games, DVDs and the like.
00:14:02
Speaker
I don't know quite enough. I got my copy of, I think it was a limited edition for Gears of War 1 from there. So half a shout out to them because I do have a point here. But yeah, I remember going in once and I have to admit, I have bought Pokemon games from them before, you know, and while they're not the best price, sometimes they're not too bad. You know, the kind of range in the thirties to forties with Pokemon Sun and Moon. I think they are a
00:14:30
Speaker
Funny enough, they're like £15. No idea why it's so cheap, but if you look at certain other games for the Pokémon franchise, oh my god, you need a second mortgage for these games. Oh, there's ones like Pokémon Art Gold and Soul Silver.
00:14:49
Speaker
to my absolute favourite ones and you would be paying about 80 odd pounds just for a copy of it. It is ridiculous but what's even worse than this is where I throw down the hammer here is you know the spin-off games Pokémon policy and the Pokémon Gale of Darkness. Pokémon Gale of Darkness is extortionate. It is around 200 odd pounds. Yeah, all the GameCube ones are really expensive.
00:15:15
Speaker
Oh, it's ridiculous prices. Yeah, it's the whole Nintendo tax I have to admit. Nintendo games really don't depreciate in value, do they? Yeah, they really don't. Nintendo's a very strange case. Because games are inherently a luxury product. You don't need them to live, so... Well, well, hold on now.
00:15:35
Speaker
Oh well, okay. Mostly you don't need them to live. When you're talking about old games, you want to get the ones you enjoy and that I think most often is Nintendo, so I think they hold their value because they're just timeless in a lot of ways. It's frustrating when you want to get into them, but it also makes sense from a supply and demand perspective because there is basically always a demand for Nintendo games.
00:15:58
Speaker
As you said, it's a bit of a special case here and I don't want to just dogpile on Nintendo because trust me, we'll get onto the other companies soon, cracking their knuckles being like, you gave your turn. But with Nintendo, I suppose they've mastered the art of scarcity. As you said, the causation between supply and demand, where loads of people are wanting a product, but Nintendo for some reason are very good at marketing, getting people to want the product.
00:16:26
Speaker
The thing is, for the example of Pokémon, even if Pokémon games have decreased in quality over the years, people will still buy it to see how bad it is. Or, you know, they'll just buy it out of nostalgia, say. They'll buy it because of X, Y and Z. The main thing is that they're getting that revenue. So when they decide, oh, we're going to move on to the next generation of this particular franchise, then the original one gets left behind. Something that
00:16:53
Speaker
partly inspired this episode as well is the idea of companies moving from the physical realm to a more digitised space.
Digital Store Issues
00:17:04
Speaker
And in particular with Nintendo, if I remember correctly, they have decided that they're going to start cutting off the online services for the Wii U and 3DS games, which on the one hand you can
00:17:18
Speaker
kind of understand why they're limiting that because they probably want the resources towards something a bit more, you know, contemporary and modern as it were. But on the flip side of that, and it's quite sad looking at this from a retro gaming perspective because at least in terms of Pokémon, and I know I keep using this example but last one,
00:17:38
Speaker
I swear, I actually remember years and years ago, they decided to bring out quite a lot of the old games onto the 3DS store. So they had Pokémon Red, Blue, Yellow, and then they had Silver, Gold and Crystal. And then one day they said, oh yeah, we're shutting up shop so you can no longer buy these games. So it pushes a lot of people who really want to play this, but can't, into less scrupulous means, as it were. You know, not advocating for it, Nintendo lawyers.
00:18:07
Speaker
Please don't tell me. Nintendo ninjas. Reverter and Andaloy, but it's that kind of idea that because they've shut that down and then they've not provided an alternative, Nintendo aren't the only ones, are they? They're maybe the most prominent, but there's definitely a lot of that in basically every aspect of the gaming industry.
00:18:24
Speaker
because as we were talking about there, there seems to be this desire to either... ...scarsify certain additions, or you know, have a limited run of something, or worst case scenario, decide whether or not the consumer, or by extension the gamer, can play their game or not. Because I remember one of the earlier examples I can think of off the top of my head was Deadpool. Do you remember this?
00:18:49
Speaker
Oh I do remember, yeah. I mean god that must have been, I can't remember when they did this but it was 15 years ago. It was something to do with publishing rights wasn't it? Yes. And then they took it off Steam, they had to take it off Xbox and things, which essentially meant that unless you had bought the game and downloaded it, you no longer had access to that game.
Preserving Original Games
00:19:08
Speaker
It's funny you mention that. If I remember, that was roughly when Marvel was acquired by Disney, so they were trying to, like, renegotiate all their licenses and things. More so than Deadpool, I actually think a good example of this is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. There was, like, an arcade beat-em-up.
00:19:26
Speaker
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World game that came out on PS3 and Xbox 360 many years ago. And people said it was good, but for whatever legal reason they had to not only take it off of storefronts, but you weren't even allowed to re-download it if you paid for it.
00:19:42
Speaker
It was a really big deal because a lot of people were burned and for many years they hounded Ubisoft and the creator of Scott Pilgrim and whoever else they could to get the game physically because it was only a digital download. So the only way to play it was through less legal methods.
00:20:01
Speaker
So eventually Ubisoft acquiesced and managed to re-release the game with like all the DLC and they made physical copies and everyone was roughly happy, but I think a point that gets glossed over in that story that really upsets me is that they didn't reinstate all the people who had originally paid for the game, they just got the license to sell a new version of it.
00:20:24
Speaker
you were still out the game either way, it's just now you had the opportunity to buy it legally. And it was a really important lesson to me about how having a physical copy will ultimately always be preferable for me than buying a game digitally. No, I totally agree with you because the more infamous example of that as well was Silent, was it P.T. Silent Hill?
00:20:47
Speaker
Yes, PT. Yeah, PT. Pour one out for PT. It's funny how it became one of the most important horror experiences in basically the last decade or two, and yet nobody could play it. Yeah, people still talk about it to this day. When you think of video games getting taken off the marketplace, PT is usually the one that people go to because I actually remember when it came out, everyone downloaded it at the time I didn't have a PlayStation.
Collector's Value and Digital Barriers
00:21:15
Speaker
loads of people bought it and then as soon as they said, oh no, due to whatever it was, it was something to do with licensing and the arguments between, you know, developers and they were like, nah, we're going to take this down. And then people were selling their PlayStations for a ridiculous amount of money, like thousands of pounds on eBay. Just, oh yeah, buy it. It's called PT on it. That's just
00:21:38
Speaker
Easy. I think it was a couple years ago, maybe two years. They introduced an update for it. So that way, even if you kept that PS4 that had PT on it, if you kept it connected to the internet, it would download this update and make it unplayable. So yeah, so now the PS4s that have PT are even rarer because now they can't be connected to the internet lest they get killed by the update. That is absolutely insane though.
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah it's really amazing the amount of scorn Konami had for that game. That's not even that a lot of people would just enjoy the experience and say oh well we're a waste of game, things went wrong, let's just leave it alone. That is just messing with people's experience. Oh absolutely.
00:22:20
Speaker
Funny enough, I was reading an article the other day, I want to say it was Eurogamer or something, I could be wrong. But they were saying that PlayStation users had, I think it was a notification message saying that PlayStation essentially reserved the right to remove content off of the console. And it was something to do with Discovery, I think they said. Oh, yes.
00:22:42
Speaker
the discovery situation is also really awful. It's just as crazy to think that if you're actively pursuing this hobby, and again, you know, I want to emphasize that you said at the beginning of the episode, this isn't a thing that I'm doing a Hail Mary here before I
Impact of Digital Releases on Collecting
00:22:58
Speaker
say this. It's not a necessity to love video games, but it's so weird how, you know, years and years ago,
00:23:06
Speaker
you went out, you bought a game, that was it. And as you said, if you bought a physical version, nobody, unless you're Nintendo ninjas, take your doors and physically rip it out. You had, you know, they can't take that from you. Nowadays, it's becoming very, very precarious for, I feel as if, both collectors and gamers as a whole. And the latest one that really lit a fire under my backside was the
00:24:00
Speaker
Spec Ops situation.
00:24:04
Speaker
I absolutely love it. Why don't you play it sooner? I don't know why. The fact is that with Spec Ops, Spec Ops is just such an important game. Whether you're playing it as just a mindless shooter or you actually pay attention to the narrative because it is so, so important in the game and landscape. It's just gone now, right?
00:24:26
Speaker
It's just you can't get it anymore unless you pay a scalper. How bad is that problem? I know scalpers exist and they are a scourge in gaming. It's obviously the same with when gaming events have these different events and things and they have like a special card you can get or a special something and then scalpers buy it by the thousands or the hundreds just to sell it on for an exorbitant amount.
00:24:52
Speaker
Seeing the collector sphere, is it more shunned by collectors or do you think that behaviours… I don't want to say encouraged because I don't want to put the blame on the people buying it, but do you say it's a problem? It's definitely a problem, especially because of the pandemic. Prices for video games absolutely skyrocketed because suddenly scalpers were like, hey, this is an entertainment you can have at home and
00:25:15
Speaker
suddenly everybody wants it, so I'm gonna crank up the price. As someone who's really passionate about video games, I don't want to encourage this kind of scalping, but I do see that a lot of more casual type collectors don't mind paying a scalper for such things.
00:25:30
Speaker
It's a really weird issue. I'm sure for some people, yeah, I'm paying more for this, but like, hey, I get this thing now where I tend to approach it as like, this game really is not worth this price to me. You know, I know what I can roughly expect from it, so I don't think it's worth more than this.
00:26:06
Speaker
until much later and then vice versa. So all of these gaming companies are in the same pot here but oversimplifying here. But would you say the companies and in particular gaming companies in action to provide an alternative for a source of these games is damaging the collector sphere as it were?
00:26:12
Speaker
It's different for everyone.
00:26:26
Speaker
I would say that the collector's sphere is kind of the only market for such things, so I wouldn't say that it would necessarily damage it. Yeah, I just mean more in terms of like, as we were talking about before, with older games that are still related to relevant games, for example Pokémon, I know I said I wouldn't mention it, but
00:26:45
Speaker
but you know like Pokemon people said a couple of years ago, oh I can download it from the 3DS store and I can play it on my 3DS and now Nintendo haven't really given people an option beyond either having the physical game or downloading it onto the 3DS before that change took effect. So
Backwards Compatibility and Technology
00:27:07
Speaker
it feels as if because they are not providing an alternative
00:27:11
Speaker
Again, it's the same with their N64 games or, I mean, God forbid, for some of the original exclusive games, like especially for Sony, for the PlayStation, and Nintendo as well. It feels as if it's not the case for all of them, but it does feel as if for the ones that feel as if they're in reach, they could easily port them over, but for whatever reason, whether they just think it's not worth it,
00:27:36
Speaker
Yeah, because it just seems quite an odd decision. And obviously they're not, you know, rubbing their hands in a shadowy room going, haha, the price of the collector's edition has gone sky high and rest. But yeah, it just seems like a weird decision on their part, even though digitising them, because I know Nintendo have technically started that and so have other companies, but yeah, it just seems weird.
00:28:00
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny you bring up PlayStation because I believe it was the CEO of PlayStation. I can't remember exactly who, but one of the higher ups at PlayStation said that backwards compatibility is a feature that's often requested but rarely used. And I think that's just how a lot of companies view these sorts of requests.
00:28:19
Speaker
As much as people say they want it, it's rare that it'll actually have any sort of huge market share. It's just something people want. It's funny to think about that because in gaming history, a big part of why the Atari 5200 didn't do as well as the Atari 2600 is because it wasn't backwards compatible. People who bought and invested a lot into their Atari 2600 collection didn't want to just abandon all that for a console that didn't really offer that much.
00:28:47
Speaker
In that sense, backwards compatibility was a big deal, and I think sometimes companies will understand that people invested a lot in the previous platform, so we should do something to help them transition to the new one. But in terms of just backwards compatibility and accessibility, it's a complicated issue because it is a somewhat niche audience that will want this sort of thing.
00:29:08
Speaker
Obviously, when gaming was, I wouldn't say it's infancy because, you know, we had the 80s, we had the 90s. I'm not that old. I wasn't born in the 80s. I just want to throw that out there. I'm not that old. But, you know, we had the 80s, we had the 90s. It felt as if gaming as a whole was built on innovation. They wanted to have the better graphics. They wanted to have the more fun IPs. And then, of course, when they moved on to the next games, obviously for the N64 to the GameCube, they couldn't really
00:29:38
Speaker
transfer, although they did have some games that they transferred over in some aspects. The one I'm thinking of is the anniversary edition of Zelda. They had Ocarina of Time on it. Oh yeah, the Master Quest. That's the one. Yeah. As the games went on, there definitely was, at least from PlayStation 2 to PlayStation 3 era, there was that
00:30:00
Speaker
not neat as such, but there was definitely more of an emphasis to have backwards compatibility. But you're completely right, when they moved from the 360 to the Xbox One to the PlayStation 4 to even the Switch, there was definitely not as big an outcry from the studios themselves or the companies themselves to provide
00:30:22
Speaker
this service, but you raise an interesting point there that there's lots of people who will demand this. They'll say, I want to play this game that I played for my childhood, but in that world of billions of people, not everybody's going to be a gamer of course, but you know, millions of gamers as a whole. How is like a small handful of people going to influence that in the new generation of gaming?
00:30:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's an interesting point you raise about technological advancement. A lot of issues with backwards compatibility in the earlier generations were that they were such radically different technology from console to console, so it would make backwards compatibility a huge problem. But I think ever since the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation, I think the standard or you know, the technological ability, I guess, of
00:31:09
Speaker
games has kind of, I wouldn't say plateaued, but it's not nearly as big of a leap as it used to be. So I feel like it's more reasonable now to want backwards compatibility because of the similarities to previous consoles, because really a PS5, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot technologically behind the scenes that's different, but it's not like it's a whole new control
Nostalgia in the Digital Age
00:31:32
Speaker
scheme. It's not a whole new operating system that it's running on, or at least I don't think.
00:31:37
Speaker
I was going to say, what was it that Todd Howard said about Fallout 76? 10 times the processing power. Oh yes, 16 times the detail. Games certainly get bigger, but I feel like they've stopped relying on all sorts of different types of technology now that everything's kind of moving towards a singularity of like using Unreal Engine or something.
00:31:56
Speaker
No, that is very true. Maybe it's just us getting older and sort it out you there to say we're getting older instead of saying me and accepting my mortality as a winner but it is an interesting point that gaming just doesn't seem as magical as it used to.
00:32:12
Speaker
I feel as if the older you get, the more you actually see behind the scenes of gaming and all the companies that are more targeting demographics for whether it's kids, whether it's, well, in the early 2000s with the Xbox, it used to be the dude bros and things like that. You see that a lot more evident when you get older and you see what they're saying and everything. And maybe kids obviously will view this differently when they grow up.
00:32:38
Speaker
but it is weird to think that there was so much innovation. And going back to collecting, there was a somewhat mysticism about it. The reason people found over someone having a sealed copy of Banjo-Kazooie or GoldenEye or one of these games was because, oh, this was an amazing game. It had that nostalgia around it. It had that somewhat mysticism, which sounds so weird to say, but, you know, it had the reputation, it had the backing behind it.
00:33:08
Speaker
imagine that a lot of people are going to gather around and have a copy of, and I know it's digital, but you know, like have a copy of Fortnite or something and a plastic sleeve or something like that, because that's something else that someone brought up as well. The fact that with game collectors, the physical copies, as soon as we had the Xbox One, I want to say generation like Xbox One, PlayStation Four, they stopped making the instruction manuals. Yeah.
00:33:38
Speaker
That is sad. Yeah, so it's like one less thing to include with the actual box, with the presentation. I mean, the thing I was laughing at, and this is something we... I can't remember if we discussed this when through talks about Sonic Frontiers in an episode. Also, great episode. Please go check it out. Yes.
00:33:54
Speaker
But I remember you and I were talking about, I think it was the special edition where you could get the Steelbook, but everybody's Steelbooks were too small when they were the wrong case or something. If I remember correctly, it was that if you pre-ordered the Switch version of Sonic Frontiers, you would get a Steelbook, but it was a Steelbook for a disc copy when the Switch didn't use discs. It just felt very mismatched.
00:34:20
Speaker
Here's a question for you though and I know I'm full of questions tonight. Do you feel as if the presentation in terms of collecting has gone down the more the gaming onscapes advanced? As I was saying before, you would marvel if you saw the big box
00:34:37
Speaker
for the N64 game or the Game Boy game or even some of the games that they presented for the 360 era for the PlayStation. For all of these games, you would have a grand presentation.
Evolution of Gaming and Collecting Habits
00:34:50
Speaker
Personally, I would say that probably happened around 2016. I want to say whenever the Xbox One came out. But would you say that's the case from a collector's point of view?
00:35:01
Speaker
Oh man, there's a lot I want to respond to. Obviously, I'm biased, of course. I love physical copies. I love the feeling of physical copies. I love the fact that I'll be able to keep my physical copy as long as I can. Like, of course, me saying a lot of the magic is taken away when it's just digital. I am slightly biased, but I do find that a lot of people from kind of my generation and
00:35:22
Speaker
older, have a lot of nostalgia for extra parts of the video games. There are plenty of videos where you'll see people talking about how, yeah, I remember the car ride home, I was reading the back of the box, or like I opened it up and read the instruction manual, and kids don't have that nowadays because obviously you can just download the game right there. So to me that magic is gone, but it's also something where if you never grew up with it, it's probably not all that magical, you know?
00:35:49
Speaker
actually raises a very good point because and this is definitely going to make me feel old but you do know what blockbuster is don't you? Oh yeah of course. Oh thank god right okay you know just in case because I'm like oh god I'm about to go into blockbuster territory.
00:36:05
Speaker
And again, for the youngins in the audience who don't know what that is, it was a physical Netflix. That's the way I always describe it. It's a physical Netflix. You had to get out into the cold. You had to go and get a game or a film or whatever, and then bring it back. But I remember the blockbuster we used to have in this area, it was like, obviously, they didn't have the covers. Well, they had the covers on the shelves, but when you gave them over, they gave you a transparent blue one.
00:36:32
Speaker
in return. So they would give you that and they would give you the desk and they would give you the instruction manual, but that was it. They wouldn't give you the actual case. I must say in the case people, you know, rented out the store or I don't know what the reason was, but yeah, they ended up doing that. And I remember going home and you saw the game that actually sprung to mind when you said reading the manual.
00:36:54
Speaker
all things, it was Sonic Heroes for me. Really? Because I had no idea that Sonic Heroes was out. For some reason, I hadn't paid attention. And then I was in Blockbuster, I saw Sonic Heroes, I thought, Oh my God, it's a new Sonic game. And then I decided to ask, I don't remember dad, whoever was there, I decided to ask them, could I rent it? They said, yeah, sure. And I spent the whole time in the car journey home just reading the manual, which ironically enough, it was also how I found out that Shadow hadn't been killed. Oh, yes.
00:37:24
Speaker
Yeah, in the game, which is a whole other spoiler discussion in itself. But yeah, I thought that was really, really interesting. Looking back on it, how there was that nostalgia, but you're completely right. If you're not really experiencing that nostalgia, kids nowadays and people going forward, they're not going to have these same experiences. They're not going to be in the back of cars playing with a Game Boy that had to be lit up by the street lamps that you drove by. Oh, yes. Oh, my God. Yes.
00:37:54
Speaker
And even when you did get, because I remember I had one of the, you know, the lights you plug into the side and it was a big layer. I couldn't even see what was on the screen that made it worse somehow. But you know, it's interesting in a, I suppose, a time capsule way in terms of, as you said, it's preserving gaming history. It's preserving those moments of what once was with gaming. And I'm getting all sappy and nostalgic here, but it's weird to think
00:38:22
Speaker
that nowadays we are moving away from that as it were. Again, as a collector, how do you feel in terms of the way that the gaming landscape is inevitably evolving, but in terms of collection, how are you feeling
Original vs. Remastered Experiences
00:38:35
Speaker
about it? Well, obviously it makes me sad that we're moving away from all sorts of things. I'm also a little confused at why people are so okay with it.
00:38:43
Speaker
it? Because to me, if you were to go and say, hey, how about you pay the exact same price, except you don't get anything physical and we can take it away from you whenever we feel like and people would just be okay with that is weird to me. I feel as if it's a slow burn though, because if you look at things like Game Pass, which I'm guilty of, I've got Game Pass as well, so I'm not going to sit here and cry like, oh, it's the worst I've given. No, no, it's a great service.
00:39:08
Speaker
on the flip side as you said on Game Pass you're basically renting these games, you're renting the opportunity to play these games and bar a certain few of them. Well for now you're exclusives for that's a whole other debate but with Halo, with Gears of War you know with all of those games they are probably going to be on a lot longer and probably more permanently but with other games you know they've got a shelf life because I remember I was talking to I think
00:39:36
Speaker
it was Jess from the opinionated luscious podcast and we were talking about the game firewatch and I remember I played it a while ago or rather I started it never really picked it up and then I was talking about it and I said to her oh do you want to review this game and she
00:39:52
Speaker
was like, yeah, sure, let's do it. So I thought, OK, I've got to finish the game first. And then I realized when I looked up the game pass, it was like, oh, this is leaving soon. And I was like, oh, so I literally had two days to complete it before they took it away. And I think now it's back. But that's the thing, though. As you said, you're completely at the mercy of companies deciding when you can and can't play these games. If you've got a physical version, then you're A-OK. But as you said, I feel as if it's the convenience
00:40:19
Speaker
of it. People are so okay, especially with COVID and things. When the pandemic came, that was extreme circumstances and everything. But the fact is, it's a lot easier just to click a button, get it downloaded and beamed, quite literally beamed onto your console or your PC or whatever. And I feel as if that impacts that sense of physical collecting.
00:40:42
Speaker
It certainly has pushed companies to stop making physical copies, which is very sad for me because the availability of physical copies was a huge thing for me. There was something you talked about that I kind of want to touch on for a minute. You were saying, how do you feel that gaming has lost a lot of magic as things have gone on?
00:41:01
Speaker
And I feel like it's a complicated answer because, you know, gaming is still relatively new as a concept. It's a recent art form. So in the early days, a lot of it didn't have any sort of best established practices. There were no classes you could take on it. You just did what you thought and that had its own charm.
00:41:20
Speaker
And that's what we grew up and got used to. But now that we live in an era where they do teach classes on it, there are best practices and there are a million people online who will criticize every little detail in your game. I'm not trying to say that it's bad, but it definitely makes games a lot more homogenized in a way. You know what I mean?
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, last month there, my friend and I, Martin McAllister, we did our Pokémon Month together where we were talking about the concept of Pokémon rumors, Mew under the truck, Bill's garden, that kind of thing. And it was amazing how despite the internet not being this prevalent back then, that we were still in our kind of small social bubbles
00:42:04
Speaker
all of these rumours spread like wildfire all around the world. Everyone knew about Bill's garden, everyone knew about you under the truck and everything. And you're right, it feels as if nowadays with the internet being as connective as it is, you know, it's a double-edged sword because on the one hand, you have a lot of people who are giving you more information than ever.
00:42:28
Speaker
You can find out how fast the game runs. You can find out someone testing the frame rate. You can see this and that. Digital versus physical. You can see all of these comparisons. Yeah, on the other hand, there is this huge discourse of people who try to emulate others. And I'm saying that in the nicest way possible, but they'll try to emulate others in the way that they critique things and the extent that, you know, they're not really saying anything substantial. They're just adding fuel onto the fire.
00:42:57
Speaker
essentially and you know it's not really productive but because it's encouraged by other people you know people saying why would you want physical media oh digital's the way to go you know I don't want to say it's like groupthink but you know it's like that collectiveness of some people who are loud enough might say oh this is the way forward for gaming and then other people might be slowly lulled into that and I'm not saying digitally it's
00:43:22
Speaker
All bad, but as you said, you had a great point. It's quite worrying how people just kind of woke up on the inside. Yeah. Let's just accept the digital because it is more convenient. It's just here to stay, as it were. A big part of why I collect video games is that I find value in experiencing things as they were, even if you liked a particular game and think there's a way better version of it.
00:43:50
Speaker
remastered or whatever, I still think that there is a reason to play it as it originally was. I still think there's a lot that can be learned, so I like being able to pull it up and experience it as it was.
Highlighting the Game Collection
00:44:02
Speaker
And I feel like a lot of that's kind of going away. There's been a remaster and a remake of The Last of Us, you know? It's a game that came out on the PS3, but how many people play the PS3 we're gonna nowadays? So...
00:44:14
Speaker
It's one of those things where I think it's worth playing the PS3 version because it is the game that essentially pushed PS3 over the edge to outsell the 360 in the end, and I think that's worth examining, but you wouldn't really get that same effect if you were playing the PS5 remake where they've optimized it and changed the graphics and all that.
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah because I mean you can probably apply it to any of the remasters or remakes because one of the ones that I'm just thinking with you and I that we constantly talk about is the Sonic Adventure series where when it moved from Sega's Dreamcast all the way to Nintendo's GameCube
00:44:52
Speaker
there's a lot of people who seem to have issue with the ports and things but at the end of the day that is the only port you can actually get that and that's the only one I've really played. I mean I played the Dreamcast one of the first one but I've not really played the same
00:45:08
Speaker
taking more as far as I'm aware. You know, you hear people who have created mods and things and they've said, I want to relive that same magic trauma when played out versus the poor port that they're brought over. And I mean, going back to one of the games I mentioned earlier, like with Mass Effect, the definitive version, I think a lot of people play nowadays, myself included, of course, is the Legendary Edition, which is like a compilation of all three. It's been upscaled with graphics and things.
00:45:36
Speaker
Yeah, and they redid a lot of lighting and stuff. But as you said, is that better or worse? Aesthetically, to an extent, obviously, it is better. But at the same time, you kind of look at it and you think, is this going to become the definitive representation?
00:45:52
Speaker
It's a thing I think games should do a lot more of, but you know the Halo Master Chief Collection? They've got a mode, at least for the first and second game, where you can alternate between the Anniversary Edition or just the original edition and that is just some
00:46:08
Speaker
a darn great idea because you can either preserve what was or if you prefer the updated graphics which is perfectly fine you can switch on to that you can toggle it whenever but nowadays more and more games seem to be quite intent on trying to preserve the newest version if it's popular enough. Obviously for games like Mass Effect or any Nintendo game here or The Last of Us they are trying to preserve this golden version of the game
00:46:37
Speaker
game, whereas the old versions are, I don't want to say dying out because they're still there, but you know, they're becoming more and more obscure. Because I think in a couple of years' time, people are going to go, oh yeah, the last of us, that PlayStation 4 game. And you're like, no. Or even for Sonic Adventure, people would say, oh, you mean the GameCube game, you'll rise from your grave about like 200 years in the future. I'd be like, no. No, this world, it's evil.
00:47:02
Speaker
I agree with you that I think the game companies are trying to preserve the best version, but I also think that even if you do think it's just an objectively better version than the previous, I think the previous still existing is important because imagine if somebody were trying to make another game and they were trying to learn from you.
00:47:21
Speaker
Obviously, a remaster of a remake of, you know, an ancient game is gonna have a lot more thought through ideas. Your example for Mass Effect, where like, they upscaled it and did all these things, it's like, even if that's the case, it didn't start like that. And if you were making a new game trying to learn from it, you would be holding yourself to a somewhat unrealistic standard because it's like, well, it took
00:47:44
Speaker
you know, a remaster and port or whatever to get to the point that it is now. That's a big reason why I will still buy the older, worse versions of games, because I still think it's important to experience. Yeah, before we wrap up, I've got one final question for you, because I know we've kind of been back and forth about positives and negatives, but what are some of the games that you want to shout out in your own collection? Like, what are some of the games you're proud of to end on a positive, as it were?
00:48:12
Speaker
I was very thankful that a friend of mine gifted me a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga for my birthday, so I am very, very thankful for that. I mean, I have a ton of games that I'm very glad to have, but I do own one game that basically just doesn't exist anymore. It is called Trials of Battle, and that game is probably one of the best examples of why I think physical copies should be made, because
00:48:36
Speaker
You can basically find nothing about it online, and the only thing I found about it, aside from the developer's website that hadn't been updated since the 90s, the only thing I found was a guide to emulate it, but it was only the demo version, and the guy was like, the full version just isn't available anymore. It's one of those things where I'm glad to have a physical copy of it, because who knows what would happen to it if I didn't. I think those are the two biggest ones that come to mind.
00:49:03
Speaker
That is crazy, though, isn't it? People can spend all that time making a game and, you know, I can't speak for whether that game is good or not. I'm about to defend this game and there'll be like the one fan listening to this episode going, what the hell, that game was terrible. But you're completely right. It's just how... And I was going to make another joke about it being a creepypasta, but I'll refrain. But yeah, it's just it's crazy to think how people worked in that game exists physically. And then all of a sudden, as you said, because there's no demand for it, there's no interest.
00:49:32
Speaker
Yeah, it just basically doesn't exist anymore. You know what the back of the box says about it? It describes itself as a fusion of mech warrior and quake. But I think it's hilarious. It is a really good game though. And seeing that note, Shadow, thank you so, so much for coming on and shading your passion for collecting.
00:49:52
Speaker
Yeah, thank you so much for having me on again. Thank you for letting me talk to you about game stuff that I feel like I don't generally get to talk about a whole lot, but thank you. And yeah, before we wrap up, where can these lovely listeners at home and the one fan of that game
00:50:24
Speaker
to listen to more episodes by our lovely selves or you just want to listen to more Chatsunami content you can check us out our website Chatsunami.com. I also want to thank our Pandaloon Patrons at home Robotic BattleToaster and Sonya, thank you so so much for supporting the show and if you want more exclusive content from ourselves head on over to patreon.com forward slash Chatsunami. Until next time stay safe, stay awesome and most importantly stay dehydrated.
00:50:32
Speaker
Where can they find