(This turned out to be quite blogpost-ish but whatever. There will be a tl;dr at the end.) Sup Yea Forums. I am a rusanon who's lately become very interested in western early video game culture, industry and western gamers' becoming stories. It's a common knowledge that CIS vidya culture and history are very different from the rest of the worlds'. And that's mostly thanks to the utter poverty CIS countries suffered during 90ies. The only way to be a gamer at the time was to gobble up anything cheap that bootleggers manufactured and brought over to street markets. The notorious NES bootlegs commonly referred to as "Dendies" were the only outlet into the world of vidya for most kids here. Luckily I was born to a family of wealthy moscowites and had a SNES at a pretty young age. Thing is neither SNES nor its carts were manufactured by bootleggers here so the only option about those were extremely expensive real deals. That's basically why Nintendo lost CIS as a market (not that they actually tried to acquire it in the first place) and its vidya industry and culture went absolute separate from the west way.
When the 00's hit most gaming audience here had moved from consoles to much cheaper and accessible PCs (with occasional wealthier kid owning PS1 along with a few discs for it). The leap in graphics and gameplay quality as well as accesibility was so great that many never looked back at that point staying ignorant to the existence of other gaming platforms. This also made people believe that all the console games were primitive and one-dimensional and offered less variety and player possibilities with their gameplay compared to PC's. This prejudice still stays strong nowadays despite growing weaker with every year. Thanks to my exposure to SNES, PS1 and PC libraries I wasn't a part of that crowd. I also wouldn't call myself a fanboy of any particular platform taking joy in each of them evenly.
That changed when I got gifted a GBA for birthday and I delved into the world of classic 16-bit Nintendo goodness. Yes, I had a Super Nintendo before but the game carts were so rare and expensive that many of its masterpieces slipped past me. Now with GBA (which was basically a portable SNES) I could finally recap what I missed. The GBA-cart bootleggery was quite common in Moscow and I had no problem getting and playing Super Mario World, Legend of Zelda: LttP, Final Fantasy GBA ports, Pokemon... well I don't really need to name the SNES ports and GBA exclusives that made the platform great. I did not completely disregard other platforms, no, it was impossible not to get acquainted with Morrowind, Heroes of Might and Magic and Warcraft 3 when that's what my peers played and discussed. But still I honestly found GBA the most interesting thing to play day to day despite having access to PC and PS1.That's basically when I became a hardcore Nintendo fan (which I stayed until the end of NDS lifespan). It also made me believe that 16-bit era as a whole and SNES classics were the core basis of western gamer's background.
But now it occurs to me that my view on this matter might've been skewed by my own experience. Over many years of lurking through western video game related resources (mostly Yea Forums though) I've come to mention that 32-bit era (N64 and PS1) seems to be in vastly higher regard among western gamer audiences. Either because N64 and PS1 were the majority's entry point into vidya in the west or the leap from 16-bit to 32-bit was just so overwhelming that people basically abandoned 16-bit era in a "oh yeah, that happened, it was kinda good" manner.
tl;dr: Questions to the western europe and american gamers - What was your entry point into vidya? What was your first platform and game you remember playing? Did you experience the transition from 16-bit to 32-bit? If yes, what era infuenced your tastes, preferences and had you hooked onto vidya stronger? Do you regard 32-bit as a much more important milestone in video game industry history than 16-bit?
t. donated DNA to jewish firm to find out they're 2% german
Asher Morris
interesting read, my story reads almost the same being from the balkans
Dylan Morales
That would explain a lot although be sorta disappointing. I thought SNES and Sega MD were stronger than N64 and Dreamcast.
Zachary Ramirez
Did you have your own kind of "Dendies" over there? What was the situation with different platforms over time? Please respond I'm very curious.
Jason Adams
My first memory is playing Castlevania 2, but the earliest consoles that I really remember are the Genesis and SNES. I didn't (and don't) care or think about that other stuff.
Andrew Rodriguez
Why didn't he just shoot makarov?
Christopher Edwards
Gen 2 may have been stronger but gen 3 made games more mainstream
Mason Wilson
Go to /int/ user you won't get anything here except for a bunch of burgers being retarded. Burgers are shamed out of /int/ which is why you can actually talk about stuff like this
Noah White
i haven't had the perspective of a rich kid so bear with me, this is how me and my friends over the years experienced gaming most consoles were (and to some degree still are) seen as a very prestigious thing, most of gaming was restricted to torrented PC games, in and around my city there were hardly any big name titles, the earliest 2 recognizable games that were popular were warcraft 3 and homm3, and the internet was not that common until like 2008-2009ish, when most of the "gameable" community started playing facebook games and yearly football releases, which left the general public mostly unaware of most consoles even existing i think the ps4 launch (and subsequent mass-opening of establishments that make you pay a fee to pay games on a console for a limited time) was what brought attention to consoles as an alternative to PC gaming, when your average dudebro thought "if this is playstation 4, did the first 3 exist as well?"
Jaxon Cruz
Judging by 2ch's international and political boards those places are immense shitfests. I limit myself to Yea Forums, occasionally /vg/ and fapworthy boards on here.
>when your average dudebro thought "if this is playstation 4, did the first 3 exist as well?" O fug. I never fathomed it could be this bad. >most consoles were (and to some degree still are) seen as a very prestigious thing, most of gaming was restricted to torrented PC games Are you talking about 00s only or did you also lump 90ies in here as well?
Elijah Campbell
My first games were pokemon blue and super mario land 2 on my GBA SP. Still have em to this day, I think that might be what gave me an appreciation for older games. I'm younger, so I missed the 64/PS1 generation. Most of my childhood was shit like melee and jak and daxter. I still fuck with most stuff released today, but PS1 and SNES have my favorite libraries of any consoles. And the PSP started my porn addiction.
the 00s consoles were seen as a prestigious thing, but since communism only fell in 2000 here most of the 90s consoles still remain unknown or at the very best obscure at least that's how it is in my town, which even though a regional center may not really be representative of the entire country
Brody Bailey
>but since communism only fell in 2000 here Wait what? Gonna go read up on that. Can you name the country by the way?
Andrew Brooks
serbia at least, that's the story fed to the masses
