Your first memory going to a video game store/store with games

[Kane99]

Nostalgia is a big thing, and oftentimes I am reminded of the places I used to go to buy video games. Back when I was a kid there was this place called the Bargin Bin near me. They sold NES games and that's where I got a lot of my NES games as a kid. Wish the store was still around today, because I would walk to the store often as a kid. He had old sports cards, weird knick-knacks and other junk, but I always went for the games. 

That was my first memory of going to a game store, well it wasn't a game store, but it had a lot of games. The next gaming store I went to after that, was probably a wal-mart or something, but I remember that being fun too for having the PlayStation kioski. 

It's why I love going to mom & pop style gaming stores, because they always have a wide selection of retro games, and it always reminds me of the bargin bin back then. 

What about you? 

 

Also, if you had more history with rental stores, you can talk about that too. 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Kane99

[m76]

I didn't go to video game stores. First because they didn't exist before the iron curtain fell, and after that they were so expensive that only the 0.001% could afford them. If I remember correctly a game's regular retail price was equivalent to 2 weeks of the average salary of a full time job. I didn't start to go to video game stores until the mid 2000s.

The first retail game I ever had was a budget re-release of Cyberia:

 

I convinced my parents to buy it for me, this was probably around 1995. And it cost about $15, which was still not an insignificant amount even though we were a relatively wealthy upper middle class family at the time. For comparison our entire shopping could be done from around $40, and usually we bought 3-4 cases of beer and tons of sustainable food.

 

I never liked the idea of renting games, even back then didn't want to rush through them, I wanted to enjoy them at my own pace. Some stores offered renting in the 1990s, but they stopped once cd-writers became more common and people could just copy the games after renting.

instead of retail game stores, I was raised in a culture of piracy. For us that was the norm. There used to be a lot of black market dealers, who would operate in the open in flea markets, some even out of their homes. I don't know how they obtained western games but they had them and we got the games from them for a price we could afford. They asked about $1 for a floppy, no matter how many games were on it. This was around 1989-1994.

Edited February 15, 2021 by m76

[Patrik]

I remember there was a guy near us selling games for different consoles, he used to own a store, the best part was when he shows you the whole collection of games which makes you feel so excited and impressed as a kid, then you pick 2 or 3 games to play them at home and come back later to buy more ❤️

[killamch89]

I remember Blockbuster used to sell and rent games and I used to spend a good amount of time in there eyeing up those games lol. It was too bad that most of the games were so bloody expensive!

[Heatman]

Over here we have game houses too where we can easily go and play any game of our choice. I did frequent these game houses more than I could ever remember 😂. 

[Shole]

I was amazed how many there are and how expensive some were XD, I was used to buying cracked games until then.

[Heatman]

On 2/17/2021 at 3:08 AM, killamch89 said:

I remember Blockbuster used to sell and rent games and I used to spend a good amount of time in there eyeing up those games lol. It was too bad that most of the games were so bloody expensive!

Yeah, I actually rented some video games back then, although I always had issues with the games cracking and hard to load.