Was Gaming Better Before the Internet? - Retro Bird 

I like the mail carrier lines you did in this. Are you one?

@@t.adamcollins2162 it's quite obvious the uploader was referring to internet as we know it today, an era before it was deeply integrated as well as an era where the vast majority of people did not have an internet connection.

I like that description!

I’m there with retro bird. I will never grow up.

I am going to disagree with looking up assistance. A lot easier now just looking things on the internet & espcially youtube. I agree with everything else you said.

agreeed 1000%!!!

@@tonyp9313 I can see where you are coming from. I just remember being a kid and being stuck on a game and it driving me crazy because I never could get past it and didn’t have permission to call any help line. Strategy guides could help though.

@@gametourny4ever627 Yeah I used to get stuck in a lot of games when I was a kid. I would use magazine guides or figure it out after a long time.

@@tonyp9313 some games were designed to sell strategy guides though. Square got BAD about this in the 90s. I'll take being able to look up stuff for free when I get stuck over having to fork out money for the guide!

Hey, glad you found the channel! Happy to have you here. There will be a new video tomorrow night (Friday) :)

8 months after you, I'm having the same exact experience. I don't go around saying this everywhere, trust me: this is perhaps the single most underrated gaming-related channel I've ever come across!

Yeah, I just found it about a week ago and I'm already hooked. The one about finding time to play games (but running out of time and going to bed instead) is hilarious.

Yeah same here. Retro Bird is my current favorite gaming channel and I’ve been on RU-vid since its inception! The style, the dry wit, the goofiness mixed with thoughtful (and thought provoking) commentary on not only the topic, but the context around the topic…idk how to articulate it completely…just it hits all the right notes for me; pacing, delivery, nostalgia, also I would argue the “POV” style of filming the gameplay segments is somehow much more immersive than just screen caps from the console/upscaler/whatever

Thanks for sharing, I feel you! I remember life around that sweet spot that you mentioned. Late 90’s into the early 2000’s was awesome! Most weren’t walking around with a cell phone in their pocket (imagine that!). After school my friends and I would skateboard to someone’s house to watch the newest episode of Dragon Ball Z on cable tv which started at a certain time. Most of the time was spent outside and getting dirty! We had to use our imaginations. And when we would use the internet, it was for websites like newgrounds or other weird sites that maybe your parents wouldn’t approve of lol A kid wouldn’t spend more than 2 hrs on the internet before getting bored and wanting to go back outside. NOW, it’s the complete opposite. Most people have a cell phone in their pockets. Kids rarely meet up after school and people spend way more than 2 hrs a day on the internet (myself included). It makes me happy when I see my son play with his action figures because it shows me that his little imagination can still keep him entertained during these algorithmic, internet addicted and super fast paced times.

I miss the pre-smartphone days.

Yeah definitely. I feel bad for children now. We need cultural changes towards less use of phones and go back to more in person interactions. Humans weren't evolved for smartphones just like we weren't evolved for processed sugary foods or hard drugs. So we need cultural norms to develop to save us from ourselves

Less social aspect now. Gaming is a lot better now just because you have a ton more options for games.

The internet has not taken away anything at all. It's the people who decided to play togheter via the internet rather than "going to a friends house". Guess why, because it's easier faster and pretty much better.

@@Jomike_Joestar I don't know about better. If your friend has piss poor internet The games lag. For the most part I have other friends who have internet that is excellent & yeah I would say it's better just playing via internet.

If you like driving to your friends houses to play video games then continue to do that.

@@Jomike_Joestar a lot of games have online co-op but not couch co-op so you cant even play many of them if a friend comes round anyways

I never really watch trailers or even much previews for games or movies unless it's a big purchase. A lot of indie games it's fun to get cheap on sale just seeing Overwhelmingly Positive on steam and some favored category tags. Fun to find out by playing Same with movies. Trailers are ridiculous

I agree, but as a 7th gen enthusiast/collector I find most of the games are complete on disk. Although DLC mostly not included. I play my 7th gen consoles offline without a problem.

@@ride4funnomg103 truthfully i never considered most of the 7th gen games complete. i refer to that era as the sub-30fps generation of console gaming because so many games could not hold a stable 30fps. it was an era where the hardware was sorely outpaced by the game engines.

@@davidtran9444 Hi, an N64 player here. ...I was so used to N64 games that I was not fully aware of this fact, until somebody commented this same comment, last year. I found out I am the one in my friend group that plays 30 fps games, because I am used to it. It's not "great", but considering almost every Switch game are 30 fps, ...I adapted well. Anyways, while I understand your point, since 30 fps gaming has been consistently there, since the N64 era... it is not a significant point. \(>_>)/

@@badreality2 well i would say the 7th gen console era(xbox 360, ps3) suffered so significantly from below 30 framerate that there was an entire youtube genre dedicated to examining which console was more playable. Digital foundry is the massive youtube presence it is today because they were the first to scientifically compare how far the framerate dips were of the 360 compared to the ps3. The n64 like its 5th gen competition the ps1 and saturn may not have always performed at a locked 60fps in 3d but most if not all games were able to maintain a minimum of 30fps. We saw all the time 7th gen games falling into the 20s and 10s.

I think the 7th generation is the last best era

Well said! 👏🏻

Also RU-vid gaming

I know what you're talkin' about!

Yeah I did that once only with X-Men. I didn't know it was a 4th wall thing when they tell you reset the computer.

My dad would have had a meltdown when the phone bill came!

Probably the most trouble I ever got into as a teenager. $30 phone bill from the game hint line. My parents were furious. And I did much worse stuff quite often. But to my parents they acted like I had committed the ultimate crime.

Forgetting passwords is a huge problem. That's 1 major thing I don't like about online...So I wrote mine all down today.

Remember Metroid passwords..... Lol

@@Dilemina fair point lol

Actually The New Day just beat the old Days. Here's how. Back in the day you were limited to video games. Buying options were little to none. 80's you were buying games at a mom & pop shop very small stores. 90's Bigger stores like Toys R Us, Zellers or whatever U.S store you have there. It was still stores though that you had to go & buy. With the limited amount of games. You probably bought maybe 5-10 games total for that Generation. Lack of research meant that you didn't know if a game was good or not. So you had to hope the game was good that you bought for $80-100 back in the day. Now there is emulation & way more options to buy games. Just for the fact you have emulation on all 8 bit to 16 bit games makes it that much better. You now have access to 100's of games for free. Not only that, Now you can play these games with save states. Which makes a huge difference. So lets say you couldn't beat Sonic 1 back in the day because it was hard & you had to restart it a lot of times. Now with save states you can beat the game on 1 try in 1 sitting. That makes a huge difference. Back in the day I was only beating 5% of games because of the limited lives.

@@tonyp9313 I don't disagree with most of your points. But today, there are more negatives that unfortunately outnumber the positives. Buying options are, I would argue, even more limited today. Walmart, Amazon, and GameStop are pretty much the only places you can buy physical games at retail prices (Target too, but I went there recently and the selection is terrible), and all the toy stores and mall shops that sold video games are gone. When buying digital, you really can only buy from one or two places depending on the platform you game on, and when games disappear from online stores, their pretty much gone for good. Not sure how you came to the 5-10 games a generation. I only got 3-5 games a year and could always gather around 20 games per system, sometimes more. I knew people who got a ton more than that. When it comes to research, I can't help but assume you mean gaming journalism. To them, pretty much everything is the best or worst game ever. Or they'll spend an entire review lambasting all the flaws of a game, then hand it an 8.5... I'd say word of mouth is always going to be the best bet, whether it's through the internet or people you know IRL. Yes, game prices were expensive back then (not all of them, but several big games did have large price tags). Compare that to today, and games are costing more and more. DLC (which often was supposed to be included in the base game (Assassin's Creed did this on more than one occasion)), microtransactions, battle passes... Need I go on? If you want the full experience, better get ready to shell out. Games are easier today. That is true, and there are many who would argue that's not necessarily a good thing. Emulation is good, don't get me wrong, but there's a downside when some people exclusively pirate games (like certain game jernos were recommending people play Metroid Dread on an emulator over buying it on Switch, which could canablize the sales and kill the Metroid franchise) it can raise the price of games for all of us if they don't turn a good enough profit. Not sure how old you are, but speaking as someone who's been around gaming as long as Nintendo has, I've seen the good and the bad from both eras. I just prefer the old one.

@@Level1Sword I grew up in the 80's. Ok so you played 20 games in your generation I only played 10. 20 is not that much more compared to like what 100's of games through emulation or ever drives now. I have the option to play a game with a save state or without. Back in the day you can't do that. You had to play the game the way the developer intended it. Buying options you can order online through those stores you mentioned or even buy places like ebay, facebook market etc. Digitally. Or they come in the mail. Research I mean you go look up walkthroughs on youtube & see if you like the game by what's being played. This helps me a lot because a lot of modern games I don't like (Last of US 2) so I don't buy it because I saw oh ok the game is like this. DLC & micro transactions are really bad. I agree with you 100% on that. Example today: I needed an N 64 expansion Pak. So I looked on 5 sites to see what was the cheapest. Then found my local store online & they were selling it the cheapest. So I called them & asked them how many they had. They reserved it for me & I went to pick it up. Back in the 90's I couldn't just research that & I believe at the time you had to get that with DK64 if you wanted the expansion Pak. The fact that now you have google maps & a GPS so if you don't know where places are that helps you out a lot where as in the 90's if you didn't know where stores were it be so much of a hassle to find that address. Old days is just good or great for socializing video games with your friends. The social aspect of it. If you are actually talking about what's better in terms of video games, it's now because you have so many options to choose from when you game now.

I'm with you @level 1 sword. I had access to much less games but my fondest memories are playing those games, bad or good because thats all I had. I played the latest RE game there recently and it was great, but there is no real replayability, it loses that appeal after a few play throughs. Back in the day those games had so much replayability, even if the game was finally completed we would still play it again. For games themselves, you had to try absolutely everything to get past a part you were stuck on. These days, at the first instance of resistance......"quick look up a guide!". Magazines were so much fun for information on what was coming out, cheat codes etc. I do like that they are more accepted these days. I am also not a fan of games being interactive movies now instead of just being for fun. I even miss the kiosks they used to have in some stores to try out consoles. I do appreciate that being a kid back then probably has an effect on my view but things seemed better back then.

It's all about the graphics nowadays, back then companies were trying to win you over with the actual gameplay.

Well-stated!!! Games in the 80’s/90’s we’re still (lightly) buggy and in rare circumstances, you’ve had to mail-in your cartridge in order to get a corrected copy, but the games were complete and did not have many, of any, game breaking bugs.

Yeah, I agree, though I think a large part of that has less to do with the internet itself and more to due with the way companies evolved. In the late 80s and throughout the 90s before internet became solidified, companies were a lot less corporate minded and allowed a lot more creativity. Nowadays corporations are way more corporate minded, wanting to play things safe by franchising series until they're well past dead or stale. In my mind the internet has just become a tool in this process and not a root cause.

bad games also didn't get attention

I respectfully disagree. Having the wonders of internet and digital gaming are two different things. Bad business practices is not the internet's fault, but consumers themselves. So companies will keep feeding on that. It's nice being able to try a demo and see if you actually want to buy the game, demos were exclusive to gaming events leaving out gamers you know. People will always be to blame for companies keeping these trashy behaviours, not the internet. It was the same back then, take off your nostalgia glasses and see the real picture. The only reason it "felt more special" was because eveything was local, that's the only reason.

@@octo6829 i can get with that. Let your wallets speak for you people

It wasn't better. Lack of a selection & you were very limited to video games. Now you can have emulation for free and play 1000's of games. Just the fact you can choose them is a lot better. Also save states with emulation. You can now play 90% of games & beat them. 8 bit to 16 bit.

@@tonyp9313 Too many choices creates an illusion of choice; which in today's case seems more true than ever. Especially when companies think that that solution to the issue of having too many games to chose from; is to remove the choice of buying them; since the internet allows everything to stream everything.

@@enriquepinero707 I still buy my physical games at said stores like Walmart, Best buy, Amazon, Gamestop etc...This is a choice as I do not stream or buy digitally. Which I can have the option to do that.

That must have seemed like the coolest thing ever! I imagine you had some fun saying "I told you so", when SMB3 turned out to be just as you described.

That one harder the Famicom version. You get small when you get hit even if you have a racoon suite, Fire balls etc...Also you can swim in that boat level under the boat either World 8.

@@tonyp9313 I was able to swim under the boat and climb up at the back in the SNES version, which is a mix of Japanese and US releases. But it was difficult to pull off! It probably works on NES/Famicom as well, with a bit of luck. Another difference is that the US NES version fills your inventory with P wings after you finish the game, which was unfortunately never carried into the SNES version.

@@3dmarth oh ok I never knew that. I thought it carried over in the Snes Version. Yeah original Mario 3 u.s they chopped off a block for Mario to easily jump on that lower step.

Digital games are too expensive. It's not because I love owning a physical copy, I rather own digital because it's a lot more convinient. Then when I see $80 for digital & then $30 & sometimes it'll go as low as $10. I buy physical copies.

No it doesn’t I personally find out games I never heard of thanks to the internet

Well said!

Yeah, being able to not only know about but also try out games is huge.

Yep! Great explanation too!

Completely agree. It's why I don't watch let's plays or walkthroughs unless I have to. I like to play the game even though I could same my time/money it isn't the same/as fun. Otherwise Retro Bird videos mailed and on tape/disk would be interesting but not the same. ;) Played tons of PS3/360 games campaign co-op. Action RPGs or Lego games with single screen or split to single screen is something at least not the same. At least some big companies have split screen (Borderlands 3 has campaign co-op, Gran Turismo 7 arcade split screen even were big surprises for me having it still I never expected) and Nintendo keeps it alive even with the Switch. Never experienced it on Switch or Wii U but glad it's still an option even if I play singleplayer these days. But yeah the 'online' way has most killed that in most companies eyes.

I miss the magazine experience personally. It was cool to anticipate it coming every month and then dive in. I suppose something like a Nintendo Direct sort of gives me the same feeling in a way.

@@RetroBirdGaming That is true. Never thought about that like that. Still prefer Nintendo Power though, you can't beat it. Also, RIP SEGA Neon light.

I agree that Sonic 3 feels like it's own game. It was just for the sake of the joke.

Thank you and welcome to the channel!

Ah, that's a great idea!

Now on the other hand, the internet is responsible for at least 3 good things: -Bringing awareness to older, less well known games (Psychonauts, Mother, etc.) -Team Fortress 2 -RU-vid (sometimes)

Thank you for sharing. Interesting perspective for someone who has never experienced gaming without the internet.

I can totally understand your viewpoint.

Yeah I agree with you.

Yeah, someone tricked me into believing there were orange, purple, etc Yoshis in Super Mario World.

Glad to hear and much luck to you with your paper!

That sounds like a cool paper! Hope it went well 👍🏻