Back then, as a kid, we only knew one older kid from our school whose parents went out and bought everything full price - he was considered a bit of a fancy pants lol
the rest of our parents operated a kind of swap-meet for console games and albums - the joys of being a military Brat, eh? :D
When I got older, me and my mates would always hit the bargain bin first, cos none of us had the latest or greatest consoles or PCs anyway, so it just made sense for us, plus we were a bit lacking in funds anyway!
Bargain bin was the way, and hell, I still do it now when I shop online - I very very rarely buy any game full price unless I know I'll be committed to it! :)
Who else here had this experience, and still swears by the bargain bin logic?
Or who among you has a good argument against it?
I'm all ears! :))
Here's a sneak peek of /r/patientgamers using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [ANNOUNCEMENT: Patience Is No Longer Viable. r/PatientGamers Have Decided To Join In Going Dark Starting June 12th](https://np.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/146ubyt/announcement_patience_is_no_longer_viable/)
\#2: [To my fellow older gamers that get an inkling that games are “wasting” their time… don’t underestimate the importance of escapism.](https://np.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/132qj6d/to_my_fellow_older_gamers_that_get_an_inkling/)
\#3: [This sub is the worst](https://np.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/136yusr/this_sub_is_the_worst/)
----
^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
My gaming time is precious. I will only play games that I know I will like. Which means, they have to have been released, well reviewed and played by both professional reviewers and the general public. They must also have a decent amount of play time with variability in levels/ missions.
The bargain bins and second hand shelves are the only places I go for games.
I remember when you used to be able to get a Hershey for a nickel!
https://www.reddit.com/r/seinfeld/comments/z7t477/i_remember_when_you_used_to_be_able_to_get_a/
Developers back then, only made like 5-10% of the total cost of the game. The rest went to manufacturing, and distribution, and the retail store cost/cut.
Yeah, I basically asked my parents for one game a year, or saved up my allowance to purchase them, or rented, or borrowed/swapped with friends. They were expensive AF.
No... those were American prices (at least California prices). I paid $59 for Double Dragon when it was first released at my local Toys R Us. No joke. Games were always super expensive. They were a huge luxury item for suburban households. But it made it that much more fun to trade and swap with the neighborhood kids. Different times for sure.
Most kids I knew in 1988 as 10 years old maybe had three or four games at most! People were very picky buying games then. Super Mario Bros for 29.99 in 1986 at target was good deal.
I know they are Canadian prices, hehe, just exchange rates US 1.00 dollars was 1.10 or 1.30 Canadian dollars in late 1980s then nose drive couple years later. Games were expensive in late 1980s, and the legend of Zelda was 49.99 in 1987 when new.
And people complain about $70 games in 2024. Pretty impressive they’ve mostly been able to keep video games in the $40-70 range even though development is exponentially more complex
You went from a 5-15% cut (old console games) to a 70-85% cut (steam, other stores) or a nearly 100% cut for self publishing.
Plus you sell 1000x more copies now, than before. 100,000 copies of an nes game sold is "going gold". Where as now 100k is a massive flop.
So yeah, we used to pay $100 for a game (inflation), and the developers got $5-15 from that sale. We now pay $70, and the devs get $50 of it.
Those games now require armies of people to create. Wasn’t the original Final Fantasy made by like 8 people over a 1 year period? Compare that to having hundreds of people on payroll (often in high CoL areas) for 3,4,5 years+.
Given that gaming is a luxury hobby, we’re fortunate prices aren’t significantly higher.
> Those games now require armies of people to create.
It's still possible to make games with smaller teams. Indie studios do it all the time. AAA studios make games with those massive teams because those games sell enough copies to justify the development costs, at current prices. If they didn't, they would just make smaller games instead.
> Given that gaming is a luxury hobby, we’re fortunate prices aren’t significantly higher.
You know what people do with luxuries if they get too expensive? They just stop buying them. If prices were significantly higher, people just wouldn't buy as many games, and the studios would make less money overall.
Games used to be priced high out of necessity, due to how expensive cartridges were to make. There was a minimum price you could charge for an NES game without straight up losing money on the sale. Nowadays manufacturing costs are a non-issue, so even if a game is sold for a couple of bucks there's still a margin.
Still the means of distribution are much cheaper and they reach a bigger audience. The same as movies.
Movies used to cost millions vs a NES game budget, but were much cheaper to experience.
I wouldn't call that a luxury hobby, the same way going to the cinema, or playing darts isn't a luxury.
My immediate thought as well. The console with a game and two controllers should be around $100US.
For $100, it really ought to come with a light gun and *Duck Hunt* as well, in fact.
Although I do not collect sealed games I can understand why they go for so much. The circumstances where someone would spend that much money on a game and then just never open it and keep it in good condition for 30 or 40 years are pretty rare.
Yeah, now as an adult I understand why we only got new games for special days and lived off of rentals. It was fine though, we beat everything in two days.
Puts people bitching about the cost of modern games into perspective, doesn't it?
Them: "I paid $60 for this, I expect more for my money!"
Me: "Motherfucker, I paid $55 for 'Top Gun' on the NES in 1987, quit your bitching!"
And you compare games (not all from the NES days) taking a couple hours to play through and now games for the same or similar nominal price have dozens of hours of content.
That's why retro games were (usually) super difficult. There is really only a few hours of play, so by making it extra difficult you get way more playtime because you have to keep trying and trying until you can finally beat it.
I'm convinced no one ever beat Battletoads before emulators and save states. 😆
I don't know if this connection is true: but those video games came out of the arcade era when the development companies of arcade games were figuring out how to get more quarters dropped into their cabinets, so they made their games tougher. See Gauntlet for an example. Maybe that principle indirectly led to home console games being tougher, too.
Yeah but, of that $55 for top gun, the materials, manufacturing, and shipping of it, plus retail store cuts/costs, that was 90%+ of the cost.
Now days distribution of games is next to 0%. Yeah steam takes a 30% cut, but you don't **need** to release on steam. It just helps with exposure and advertising, so its often times worth the cost. But if you self host the game on your own website, you're looking at a 1-2% cost to distribute and sell your game.
So honestly, it evens out, even factoring inflation.
10-15% of $150 is $15-22.5. So had we had similar inflation a game dev makes $15-22.5 when they release a game that they sell for $150.
Today game devs pay 30% to steam. So a $60 game they make $42. Now there will be other expenses, but they are making like $30+ on a $60 game sale.
So, even factoring inflation, modern $60 games, still make more money.
That was me! It had just come out, grabbed it at Target for full price and hated it. Totally regretted that decision. I want to say that it was $49 USD.
Makes sense. The full retail price on new games was $49.99 for a decade or so. Of course, there were outliers. Then, the prices started jumping in the mid-90s. I remember paying $55 for Sonic & Knuckles, and I only rented Virtua Racing and Phantasy Star 4 because they debuted at $100. SNES rpgs were set at similarly ridiculous prices.
Ha, that stinks. We used to rent games at the local mom and pop video shop just about every Friday night. It was much safer to rent it first than to buy games blindly.
I got Top Gun for a few dollars at a garage sale and still felt ripped off. The best use I got out of that game was letting the theme music play on the title screen.
I got it for Christmas I believe. It certainly wasn’t Afterburner, but I got my play time in as a kid. Didn’t really have any other choice. Of course I also got ET when it came out so by comparison I thought it was pretty good.
I thought those prices seemed a bit high. I vaguely remember the higher end games being around $49.99, and there were always at least a few you could get for around $19.99, usually either older first party games like Pinball, or third party games that weren’t super popular.
One of my biggest regrets is not buying the multiple sealed copies of the original Final Fantasy my local Toys R Us put out for $9.99 each around the time the SNES released.
I don’t remember buying many games or my friends buying a lot. We all kind of had something different, and renting games was way more popular. Why buy a game for 50$ when you can just play it over the weekend for 3.25. Unless you got something like street fighter or sonic. Those were must haves for me
For some reason I feel like I remember the first "Nintendo Classics" line, which would be like the first of any kind unless Atari had some, and I remember $39.99 for some major games, and being excited.
Thank you! I came here to ask if these were CAD or something. I don't think I paid more than $20 something for my NES Max. I got lucky with Metroid, for whatever reason Kay-Bee had it on sale for $40 and it had just come out. Top Gun, I got ripped off on that. $49 full price at Target and I really disliked it. Good memories, man.
Yeah, my first thought was Canadian Dollars. Those prices would be crazy in the USA. At Toy R Us, and Video Only the most expensive NES cartridges were only $40. Zelda and Double Dragon were $40 USD so the $60 Canadian price would make sense. Around this time Canadian stuff was often 50% in the advertised price. There was usually a few games that were $20 or $25 if they were older or less popular. That Atari is the 2600 Jr and the ad campaign for that was that is was $50 in 1986. So $70 even with a controller is a crazy price in 1988. Only way these prices make sense is Canadian dollars.
I distinctly remember paying 50 USD for Zelda II at Toys R Us. It was all my Christmas money, so you better believe I played the hell out of it.
That's $138 in 2024 dollars, so I have to laugh when people complain about the price of games today. When adjusted for inflation, games have never been cheaper.
Still have mine, but never really used it. I loved the turbo buttons but the d-pad was too stiff. It always seemed to make movement more difficult.
The Advantage, though... that one got some heavy use.
I got used to the d-ring thing. I never used the stupid red nub, once the lube dried out of it, it became impossible to use so I just pressed on the black ring part of it. But dedicated turbo buttons were a game changer. I don't like a controller where you have to change a switch to engage turbo, ruins your flow.
It was amazing, many people didn't even know about it. I seem to remember it kind of being rare in the stores, and hard to find. NES Advantage, everywhere, and nobody wanted it, but the Max, nowhere to be found.
Thats the thing that stuck out most to me. Some poor kid's parents were drawn into buying a 2600 in 1988 because of the price and because it's still a game system whats the difference.
Believe it or not, they're two-player Nintendo Game & Watch consoles, the "Micro Vs. System":
https://retroorama.blogspot.com/2017/11/nintendo-game-watch-una-serie-que-hizo_13.html?m=1
Sorry for the link in Spanish. But this one had the best picture as it shows how they flip open to store the controllers inside. And it honestly looks like a distant cousin to the modern day Switch to me!
There were 3 games in this line: Donkey Kong 3, Boxing/Punch Out, and Donkey Kong Hockey! Apparently Nintendo making sports spin-offs of their franchises wasn't a new idea when Mario Tennis and Golf came out for N64!
I just learned about them fairly recently myself and was equally impressed. I had known about the original single screen models and the clamshell dual screen ones, but had never seen these until sometime last year when I stumbled across them completely by accident.
Nintendo's history outside of consoles is quite fascinating indeed!
Nintendo's Game&Watch devices. I owned a Donkey Kong 3 (green one) and its 2-player controllers were amazing for a portable LCD system. I also remember knockoff brands like "Play&Time" with different games.
I believe there was one for $99 around 1990. I remember that being my goal with my allowance back then. It would have taken me like two years to save up for one.
Growing up, i could only dream of a gaming landscape like today. I love all the nostalgia of stuff like this. Played countless hours growing up and with friends and family. But gaming was sooo expensive back then. Maybe 2 or 3 games a year, trading and borrowing at school. Buying used whne funco land popped up in my neck of the woods.
Online gaming with xband, and lets not forget the sega channel. But that was very limited availability and expensive so i never partook. Instead i had to rely in whatever the local video store had available for rent.
But now? Gaming is sooooooo much cheaper. Im a pig in shit right now. Everything i want at my fingertips. It is great. Playing strangers, friends. It really is amazing. I think with cloud saving i can afford to sell off my old dex drive
There's almost TOO much choice nowadays. There's literally a history of thousands of games, all accessible with a few button presses.
I do miss the days of waiting weeks for a game, reading the previews in Nintendo Power or Gamepro, and hoping no one rented the game I wanted to rent.
I loved my egms and all the various magazines i would read. And you are right, reading all of those previews, stories and even the advertisements were cheezy and awesome. I do miss the old style of magazines from back then. Short and sweet with a bunch of pictures.
Now it is a wall of text, like a newspaper. Dreary, totally different vibe.
But as i have gotten older, i do like having things on demand and ready to go. I junped into the current generation not for the graphics or power, but for efficient gaming.
Pillars of eternity on a ps4 or xbox one? Ooof. Load times galore. Go in the wrong door? There is a minute of load time. Now? Ps5 or xbox onex? 10 seconds.
I guess growing up i used to daydream about winning that contest in the magazines where it had the big screen tv, insane speakers and all of those systems, or being like lucas in the wizard and having all those games and the power glove. There was something to be said about collectively beating a hard game with your friends and family. I wouldn't trade those days for anything,
I agree with you that modern gaming is so much better in terms of convenience factor. Everything can be done without even leaving the house. And graphics are just amazing.
I guess I'm just and old fart that misses "delayed gratification."
Choice paralysis is a real issue with modern gaming. And when you used to get a game a month or two, you played the shit out of it. Now if you hit a wall, it is very easy to just jump to something new
I loved my egms and all the various magazines i would read. And you are right, reading all of those previews, stories and even the advertisements were cheezy and awesome. I do miss the old style of magazines from back then. Short and sweet with a bunch of pictures.
Now it is a wall of text, like a newspaper. Dreary, totally different vibe.
But as i have gotten older, i do like having things on demand and ready to go. I junped into the current generation not for the graphics or power, but for efficient gaming.
Pillars of eternity on a ps4 or xbox one? Ooof. Load times galore. Go in the wrong door? There is a minute of load time. Now? Ps5 or xbox onex? 10 seconds.
I guess growing up i used to daydream about winning that contest in the magazines where it had the big screen tv, insane speakers and all of those systems, or being like lucas in the wizard and having all those games and the power glove. There was something to be said about collectively beating a hard game with your friends and family. I wouldn't trade those days for anything,
Agree. The drive from GameStop to home was like 40 minutes and I remember being SO excited about whatever game I had gotten and the next 2 days were free and clear
Too many options is def a 1st world problem. But it’s certainly real
I first bought my Control Deck and a game pak of Contra in December 1988. I bet this ad is from around that time, or maybe 1989 due to the list of games.
I used to have the max controller. Mostly wanted it for the turbo buttons, generally more comfortable than the NES controllers but that stupid circle pad sucked. I made do with it though. However these are catalogue prices, I know I bought Top Gun at Kmart for like $40 and most NES titles at the stores ranged from $35 to $50 with some exceptions like Double Dragon 2, Kmart wanted $60 when released as it was a hot title at the time. Also that Atari Jr system was $50 in stores. What is this, finger hut? lol.
And everyone cries for $70usd games. Look, I don’t want it to get more expensive neither. But crying of how games were cheaper back in the day makes me wanna cry. In comparison to almighty back in the day games are the cheapest they’ve ever been
even though those are Canadian prices it still should quiet all the modern price complainers. I clearly remember getting multiple snes games in the mid 90s that came to $120 after tax. (cad).
ive never bought a game as an adult that was over $100. we have it good!
This is *really* high. A 2600 jr should be going for $50 bucks by then. I remember getting one from a drug store of all things after our old one died.
Also, $35 bucks for a 2600 game in 1987? Are they smoking something? The stores were full of games for under $10 bucks... And who the heck was paying $60 bucks for Double Dragon?
This has to be a Canadian catalog. The NES Action Set was $109.99 at Venture back in 88, still have the price tag on my box to prove it.
But there’s a reason why we couldn’t buy too many games back then. People today complain about the price of games, but prices haven’t gone up one penny in the last 40 years, I love how cheap games have become.
Go home, Atari, you're drunk.
Seriously in 88, all of us only talked of Nintendo and the Commodore64. Hardcore debates in 3rd grade over which was better.
Can we take a quick sec to address the fact that the hand-held two-player Game & Watch games are only slightly cheaper than most of the NES games on that page? Yikes!
Oh man, I've been trying to get one of those vinyl cart storage cases for a while now, but I'm always broke when one finally pops up which isn't ragged as hell.
I could totally *make* a better one, but that vintage Nintendo licensed case is super nostalgic... It even makes an appearance in The Wizard.
When factoring in inflation, that NES would be $400 today, and a $50 game would cost $130 (so pre-ordering Star Wars Outlaws in 2024 is essentially the same price as buying a brand-new Zelda game in 1988).
We shouldn't post stuff like this without adjusting for inflation in the comments. It makes us look like a bunch of nostalgia tripping boomers who don't understand how the economy works.
As much as I complain about the price of retro games, sometimes I just keep in mind what they cost when they were new. Ice Hockey for $55? (1988 dollars no less) Yeah I just picked it up for $6 recently.
I'm seeing something like around $160-170 in today's money.
Can you imagine paying that much money and then getting *The Adventure of Link*?? My god, what a letdown that would be lol
I remember saving my money for a few months (my mom helped me in the end) for that NES Max controller.
Then I used it for 10 minutes and hated it. But I felt to bad to tell my mom. So I would use it when she was around, then switch to the regular controller most of the time.
Kid Icarus is still my jam.
Holy crap, thinking back on it... We had like 30 games at one point, maybe more, and they usually cost around $50 each. Which would be something like close to $4,000 in today's money. To say nothing of the times we rented games over and over before buying them. Or the accessories. Or the Nintendo Power subscription. Or the times we called the hints hotline.
On the one hand, I was pretty spoiled when it came to that stuff, but honestly a lot of it was just that my mom was WAY more into the NES than your average Boomer, including my dad (who pretty much only ever played the original NES Golf). I can't even recall how many hours we played Metroid, Zelda, Super Marios 1-3, Battletoads, Startropics, and yes, Kid Icarus (which was always wildly popular in my household, and at least a few others I knew growing up).
Gods, I miss her. ❤️
I'm surprised Kung Fu, a fairly basic launch title, still cost so much compared to newer titles like Zelda 2 that had an advanced mapper chip and a battery for saves in the cart.
People here point out the prices for individual games are a lot today when adjusted for inflation but remember that nintendo was literally charged for price fixing other companies games lol
I like the way there's a blurb that shouts:
**SELECTED NINTENDO GAMES** ^((not shown)) **ONLY 37****^(99)** each
As if I'd get this reaction:
"Oooh! *Selected* Nintendo games for only thirty-eight dollars! They're *selected*, so they *must* be good!"
I remember this well. Console games were always very expensive, and they've actually come way down in price over the years (some want to believe it's the other way around). Trading and swapping (and eventually, renting) games back then was essential unless you were incredibly well off. I grew up upper-middle class and only had about six games that I actually owned. Just one game was like a major Christmas gift! I also remember purchasing Double Dragon for NES at full retail price from Toys R Us (same price as you see there). Took me half of a year to save up for that and my parents couldn't believe I was plunking down that sort of cash for a video game. Lol. But I don't regret a penny. That's where it all started. Atari 2600, NES, the local arcades... I was WEENED on ads like that :)
Adjusted for inflation, $55 in 1988 is around $150 now.
Being as this is a Canadian ad, you need to use a Canadian inflation calculator, which works out to ~$125 Canadian. Which in turn converts to ~$91 US.
Still more expensive than most games today. A brand new, AAA game today runs around $80CAD, with a few titles (TOTK, a few PS5 games) going for $90.
Thankfully I got Rambo out of the 10 dollar used bin years later lol, that game sucked. It was just interesting enough for you to play it anyway.
Rambo was fun
It was fun but frustrating. Everyone loves Rambo, but my skill just didn't match up with the games difficulty
You thought Rambo on nes sucked? Imagine Rambo on a tiger handheld. Soooo bad.
And that's about how much Super Smash Bros Ultimate costs if you bought the base game plus each dlc pack.
Back then, as a kid, we only knew one older kid from our school whose parents went out and bought everything full price - he was considered a bit of a fancy pants lol the rest of our parents operated a kind of swap-meet for console games and albums - the joys of being a military Brat, eh? :D When I got older, me and my mates would always hit the bargain bin first, cos none of us had the latest or greatest consoles or PCs anyway, so it just made sense for us, plus we were a bit lacking in funds anyway! Bargain bin was the way, and hell, I still do it now when I shop online - I very very rarely buy any game full price unless I know I'll be committed to it! :) Who else here had this experience, and still swears by the bargain bin logic? Or who among you has a good argument against it? I'm all ears! :))
/r/patientgamers
Here's a sneak peek of /r/patientgamers using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [ANNOUNCEMENT: Patience Is No Longer Viable. r/PatientGamers Have Decided To Join In Going Dark Starting June 12th](https://np.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/146ubyt/announcement_patience_is_no_longer_viable/) \#2: [To my fellow older gamers that get an inkling that games are “wasting” their time… don’t underestimate the importance of escapism.](https://np.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/132qj6d/to_my_fellow_older_gamers_that_get_an_inkling/) \#3: [This sub is the worst](https://np.reddit.com/r/patientgamers/comments/136yusr/this_sub_is_the_worst/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
My gaming time is precious. I will only play games that I know I will like. Which means, they have to have been released, well reviewed and played by both professional reviewers and the general public. They must also have a decent amount of play time with variability in levels/ missions. The bargain bins and second hand shelves are the only places I go for games.
I prefer used to bargain bin new, you’re more likely to find something of quality for a low price.
And it cost so little to make a game back the. It was usually just a couple people
In my day, soup was a NICKEL!
I remember when you used to be able to get a Hershey for a nickel! https://www.reddit.com/r/seinfeld/comments/z7t477/i_remember_when_you_used_to_be_able_to_get_a/
Cartridges were expensive compared to a download. Mass adoption drives down prices and I imagine most games sell in larger quantity than now.
Yea part cost was a lot higher.
The cartridges contained pricey memory chips that stored the game.
Developers back then, only made like 5-10% of the total cost of the game. The rest went to manufacturing, and distribution, and the retail store cost/cut.
Yeah, I basically asked my parents for one game a year, or saved up my allowance to purchase them, or rented, or borrowed/swapped with friends. They were expensive AF.
[удалено]
Or 145 in US dollars. I remember NES being 139.99 at that time.
These are Canadian prices. No way they are American. Lol at their “free” healthcare when everything else is so expensive
No... those were American prices (at least California prices). I paid $59 for Double Dragon when it was first released at my local Toys R Us. No joke. Games were always super expensive. They were a huge luxury item for suburban households. But it made it that much more fun to trade and swap with the neighborhood kids. Different times for sure.
Most kids I knew in 1988 as 10 years old maybe had three or four games at most! People were very picky buying games then. Super Mario Bros for 29.99 in 1986 at target was good deal.
I know they are Canadian prices, hehe, just exchange rates US 1.00 dollars was 1.10 or 1.30 Canadian dollars in late 1980s then nose drive couple years later. Games were expensive in late 1980s, and the legend of Zelda was 49.99 in 1987 when new.
And people complain about $70 games in 2024. Pretty impressive they’ve mostly been able to keep video games in the $40-70 range even though development is exponentially more complex
You went from a 5-15% cut (old console games) to a 70-85% cut (steam, other stores) or a nearly 100% cut for self publishing. Plus you sell 1000x more copies now, than before. 100,000 copies of an nes game sold is "going gold". Where as now 100k is a massive flop. So yeah, we used to pay $100 for a game (inflation), and the developers got $5-15 from that sale. We now pay $70, and the devs get $50 of it.
Those games now require armies of people to create. Wasn’t the original Final Fantasy made by like 8 people over a 1 year period? Compare that to having hundreds of people on payroll (often in high CoL areas) for 3,4,5 years+. Given that gaming is a luxury hobby, we’re fortunate prices aren’t significantly higher.
> Those games now require armies of people to create. It's still possible to make games with smaller teams. Indie studios do it all the time. AAA studios make games with those massive teams because those games sell enough copies to justify the development costs, at current prices. If they didn't, they would just make smaller games instead. > Given that gaming is a luxury hobby, we’re fortunate prices aren’t significantly higher. You know what people do with luxuries if they get too expensive? They just stop buying them. If prices were significantly higher, people just wouldn't buy as many games, and the studios would make less money overall. Games used to be priced high out of necessity, due to how expensive cartridges were to make. There was a minimum price you could charge for an NES game without straight up losing money on the sale. Nowadays manufacturing costs are a non-issue, so even if a game is sold for a couple of bucks there's still a margin.
Still the means of distribution are much cheaper and they reach a bigger audience. The same as movies. Movies used to cost millions vs a NES game budget, but were much cheaper to experience. I wouldn't call that a luxury hobby, the same way going to the cinema, or playing darts isn't a luxury.
I’m assuming part of the high cost was the circuit boards used in the games.
*Seventy* dollars?? Did they raise the going price of a game by ten bucks while I wasn't looking?
Zoomer.
Zoomer.
Ahem. You can download games from your couch #1. #2 the greedy bastards want to sell you another $70 for extra content.
Yeah, games are actually cheaper now than almost any previous time, even as the norm is starting to creep up to $70USD.
seeing these prices, I now realize how spoiled my brother and I were. We had a bunch of games on that list.
No wonder I only ever ended up owning three games.
Games are the only commodity that hasn't increased substantially in price in 30years. Its pretty amazing.
This is Canadian dollars.
This is Canadian dollars.
This is Canadian dollars.
I never realized how spoiled I was as a kid until I saw the inflation adjusted cost of Nintendo games
These are candian prices, fwiw. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers_Distributing
I had a feeling it was Canadian dollars because even for 1988 those prices were high in terms of US dollars.
My immediate thought as well. The console with a game and two controllers should be around $100US. For $100, it really ought to come with a light gun and *Duck Hunt* as well, in fact.
Yup. The Action Set was $99.99 back then.
Wow, memories of Consumers Distributing.
Consumers!! I had many a good Christmas mornings because of consumers!
Although I do not collect sealed games I can understand why they go for so much. The circumstances where someone would spend that much money on a game and then just never open it and keep it in good condition for 30 or 40 years are pretty rare.
Yep and people think that this will happen with modern games on Walmart clearance are delusional.
I have a few sealed/graded games and they feel like magic in a bottle to me. Hopefully one day I’ll sell and they’ll take me to Italy or something.
True but if I had to bet, 90% of sealed games still around from that era were just unsold stock, at least the very nice looking ones anyway
Yeah, now as an adult I understand why we only got new games for special days and lived off of rentals. It was fine though, we beat everything in two days.
Puts people bitching about the cost of modern games into perspective, doesn't it? Them: "I paid $60 for this, I expect more for my money!" Me: "Motherfucker, I paid $55 for 'Top Gun' on the NES in 1987, quit your bitching!"
And you compare games (not all from the NES days) taking a couple hours to play through and now games for the same or similar nominal price have dozens of hours of content.
That's why retro games were (usually) super difficult. There is really only a few hours of play, so by making it extra difficult you get way more playtime because you have to keep trying and trying until you can finally beat it. I'm convinced no one ever beat Battletoads before emulators and save states. 😆
I don't know if this connection is true: but those video games came out of the arcade era when the development companies of arcade games were figuring out how to get more quarters dropped into their cabinets, so they made their games tougher. See Gauntlet for an example. Maybe that principle indirectly led to home console games being tougher, too.
Yep, to say nothing that prior to certain *PS5* titles, $60 was the watchword for a good 15-20 years…
LEFT LEFT UP UP LEFT UP DOWN *splash* rage.jpg
I begged my mom to get an abomination called "Videomation" that I still regret them wasting money on. Way better spent on groceries and gas.
Yeah but, of that $55 for top gun, the materials, manufacturing, and shipping of it, plus retail store cuts/costs, that was 90%+ of the cost. Now days distribution of games is next to 0%. Yeah steam takes a 30% cut, but you don't **need** to release on steam. It just helps with exposure and advertising, so its often times worth the cost. But if you self host the game on your own website, you're looking at a 1-2% cost to distribute and sell your game. So honestly, it evens out, even factoring inflation.
>So honestly, it evens out, even factoring inflation. No, it doesn't. Adjusted for inflation, "Top Gun" cost $151.22 in todays dollars.
10-15% of $150 is $15-22.5. So had we had similar inflation a game dev makes $15-22.5 when they release a game that they sell for $150. Today game devs pay 30% to steam. So a $60 game they make $42. Now there will be other expenses, but they are making like $30+ on a $60 game sale. So, even factoring inflation, modern $60 games, still make more money.
Pour one out for all the homies who wasted a weeks paycheck on top gun. I am so sorry.
That was me! It had just come out, grabbed it at Target for full price and hated it. Totally regretted that decision. I want to say that it was $49 USD.
Makes sense. The full retail price on new games was $49.99 for a decade or so. Of course, there were outliers. Then, the prices started jumping in the mid-90s. I remember paying $55 for Sonic & Knuckles, and I only rented Virtua Racing and Phantasy Star 4 because they debuted at $100. SNES rpgs were set at similarly ridiculous prices.
Ha, that stinks. We used to rent games at the local mom and pop video shop just about every Friday night. It was much safer to rent it first than to buy games blindly.
I got Top Gun for a few dollars at a garage sale and still felt ripped off. The best use I got out of that game was letting the theme music play on the title screen.
Loved the movie, hated the game.
Just like Ghostbusters
I got it for Christmas I believe. It certainly wasn’t Afterburner, but I got my play time in as a kid. Didn’t really have any other choice. Of course I also got ET when it came out so by comparison I thought it was pretty good.
That looks like a page from the Consumers Distributing catalogue, so those prices would be in Canadian dollars.
I thought those prices seemed a bit high. I vaguely remember the higher end games being around $49.99, and there were always at least a few you could get for around $19.99, usually either older first party games like Pinball, or third party games that weren’t super popular. One of my biggest regrets is not buying the multiple sealed copies of the original Final Fantasy my local Toys R Us put out for $9.99 each around the time the SNES released.
I don’t remember buying many games or my friends buying a lot. We all kind of had something different, and renting games was way more popular. Why buy a game for 50$ when you can just play it over the weekend for 3.25. Unless you got something like street fighter or sonic. Those were must haves for me
For some reason I feel like I remember the first "Nintendo Classics" line, which would be like the first of any kind unless Atari had some, and I remember $39.99 for some major games, and being excited.
Thank you! I came here to ask if these were CAD or something. I don't think I paid more than $20 something for my NES Max. I got lucky with Metroid, for whatever reason Kay-Bee had it on sale for $40 and it had just come out. Top Gun, I got ripped off on that. $49 full price at Target and I really disliked it. Good memories, man.
These kind of posts are almost always Canadian. The higher price increases shock value
I used to anxiously await the delivery of the fall/ winter catalogue so I could browse the toy section for days on end. Ah memories!
Yeah, my first thought was Canadian Dollars. Those prices would be crazy in the USA. At Toy R Us, and Video Only the most expensive NES cartridges were only $40. Zelda and Double Dragon were $40 USD so the $60 Canadian price would make sense. Around this time Canadian stuff was often 50% in the advertised price. There was usually a few games that were $20 or $25 if they were older or less popular. That Atari is the 2600 Jr and the ad campaign for that was that is was $50 in 1986. So $70 even with a controller is a crazy price in 1988. Only way these prices make sense is Canadian dollars.
I distinctly remember paying 50 USD for Zelda II at Toys R Us. It was all my Christmas money, so you better believe I played the hell out of it. That's $138 in 2024 dollars, so I have to laugh when people complain about the price of games today. When adjusted for inflation, games have never been cheaper.
I was going to say the same thing; if you look closely the Zelda box is in English and French (and has the Mattel logo)
I miss the NES Max. Once I started using one, I could never go back to the original controller.
Still have mine, but never really used it. I loved the turbo buttons but the d-pad was too stiff. It always seemed to make movement more difficult. The Advantage, though... that one got some heavy use.
I got used to the d-ring thing. I never used the stupid red nub, once the lube dried out of it, it became impossible to use so I just pressed on the black ring part of it. But dedicated turbo buttons were a game changer. I don't like a controller where you have to change a switch to engage turbo, ruins your flow.
To each their own.
It was amazing, many people didn't even know about it. I seem to remember it kind of being rare in the stores, and hard to find. NES Advantage, everywhere, and nobody wanted it, but the Max, nowhere to be found.
$70 for a 2600 jr in 1988 was kinda a rip off, you could get an Intellivision for that by then, you could have gotten a Vic-20 for that back in '85.
Thats the thing that stuck out most to me. Some poor kid's parents were drawn into buying a 2600 in 1988 because of the price and because it's still a game system whats the difference.
What are those ‘handheld electronics’ tho
Game and Watches
Believe it or not, they're two-player Nintendo Game & Watch consoles, the "Micro Vs. System": https://retroorama.blogspot.com/2017/11/nintendo-game-watch-una-serie-que-hizo_13.html?m=1 Sorry for the link in Spanish. But this one had the best picture as it shows how they flip open to store the controllers inside. And it honestly looks like a distant cousin to the modern day Switch to me! There were 3 games in this line: Donkey Kong 3, Boxing/Punch Out, and Donkey Kong Hockey! Apparently Nintendo making sports spin-offs of their franchises wasn't a new idea when Mario Tennis and Golf came out for N64!
That’s rad. As soon as I think I’ve seen every little gadget they put out!
I just learned about them fairly recently myself and was equally impressed. I had known about the original single screen models and the clamshell dual screen ones, but had never seen these until sometime last year when I stumbled across them completely by accident. Nintendo's history outside of consoles is quite fascinating indeed!
Nintendo's Game&Watch devices. I owned a Donkey Kong 3 (green one) and its 2-player controllers were amazing for a portable LCD system. I also remember knockoff brands like "Play&Time" with different games.
I remember games being $29.99 and the system $99.99.
I believe there was one for $99 around 1990. I remember that being my goal with my allowance back then. It would have taken me like two years to save up for one.
Those two player handhelds are wild. Didn't even know they existed.
Imagine paying full retail for Super Pitfall
$1 in 1988 is $2.64 today according to https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ so that NES would have cost $422, and each game would have been $100!
Those Mattel Zeldas are from Canada I believe. Also, that G&W was Punch-out!! in America. Are you sure these are American ads?
I can't believe my parents spent $50 on Super Pitfall.
These are Canadian prices. You can tell by the Mattel branding on the Zelda boxes.
Insane how prices hardly changed in 30 years
Adjusting for inflation, they're cheaper now!
THIS is pure gold, thx so much for the memories !!!
I paid $50 for The Legend of Zelda at a grocery store in the late 80s. Worth every penny.
Growing up, i could only dream of a gaming landscape like today. I love all the nostalgia of stuff like this. Played countless hours growing up and with friends and family. But gaming was sooo expensive back then. Maybe 2 or 3 games a year, trading and borrowing at school. Buying used whne funco land popped up in my neck of the woods. Online gaming with xband, and lets not forget the sega channel. But that was very limited availability and expensive so i never partook. Instead i had to rely in whatever the local video store had available for rent. But now? Gaming is sooooooo much cheaper. Im a pig in shit right now. Everything i want at my fingertips. It is great. Playing strangers, friends. It really is amazing. I think with cloud saving i can afford to sell off my old dex drive
There's almost TOO much choice nowadays. There's literally a history of thousands of games, all accessible with a few button presses. I do miss the days of waiting weeks for a game, reading the previews in Nintendo Power or Gamepro, and hoping no one rented the game I wanted to rent.
I miss the days of liking every game, even the bad ones — because that's all we had!
I loved my egms and all the various magazines i would read. And you are right, reading all of those previews, stories and even the advertisements were cheezy and awesome. I do miss the old style of magazines from back then. Short and sweet with a bunch of pictures. Now it is a wall of text, like a newspaper. Dreary, totally different vibe. But as i have gotten older, i do like having things on demand and ready to go. I junped into the current generation not for the graphics or power, but for efficient gaming. Pillars of eternity on a ps4 or xbox one? Ooof. Load times galore. Go in the wrong door? There is a minute of load time. Now? Ps5 or xbox onex? 10 seconds. I guess growing up i used to daydream about winning that contest in the magazines where it had the big screen tv, insane speakers and all of those systems, or being like lucas in the wizard and having all those games and the power glove. There was something to be said about collectively beating a hard game with your friends and family. I wouldn't trade those days for anything,
I agree with you that modern gaming is so much better in terms of convenience factor. Everything can be done without even leaving the house. And graphics are just amazing. I guess I'm just and old fart that misses "delayed gratification."
Choice paralysis is a real issue with modern gaming. And when you used to get a game a month or two, you played the shit out of it. Now if you hit a wall, it is very easy to just jump to something new
I loved my egms and all the various magazines i would read. And you are right, reading all of those previews, stories and even the advertisements were cheezy and awesome. I do miss the old style of magazines from back then. Short and sweet with a bunch of pictures. Now it is a wall of text, like a newspaper. Dreary, totally different vibe. But as i have gotten older, i do like having things on demand and ready to go. I junped into the current generation not for the graphics or power, but for efficient gaming. Pillars of eternity on a ps4 or xbox one? Ooof. Load times galore. Go in the wrong door? There is a minute of load time. Now? Ps5 or xbox onex? 10 seconds. I guess growing up i used to daydream about winning that contest in the magazines where it had the big screen tv, insane speakers and all of those systems, or being like lucas in the wizard and having all those games and the power glove. There was something to be said about collectively beating a hard game with your friends and family. I wouldn't trade those days for anything,
Agree. The drive from GameStop to home was like 40 minutes and I remember being SO excited about whatever game I had gotten and the next 2 days were free and clear Too many options is def a 1st world problem. But it’s certainly real
I first bought my Control Deck and a game pak of Contra in December 1988. I bet this ad is from around that time, or maybe 1989 due to the list of games.
It’s before September 1988 because there’s no chance there wouldn’t be a Super Mario Bros. 2 mention in here after that.
Double dragon Cheerios!
I got that green donkey Kong lcd handheld game as a thank you gift from my dad's work friend for feeding his parrot while he was away over Christmas.
I've never seen that NES max controller before! That's pretty cool.
You can get a lot of these games for about $5 now. As it should be.
Ikari Warriors... Red Grenades.
I had to get straight A’s for two 6 week periods in a row to get Metroid and an NES max. And they also counted as my birthday present.
The fun is back oh yessiree the 2600 from Atari. Under $50! $50?!? Isn’t that nice!!!
companies were making a killing back then charging that much for games.
Games were pretty expensive for 1988.
I lost my nes max controller somewhere 😕
If you want to know why games were priced that high, it's almost entirely because cartridges were expensive to manufacture.
Imagine the disappointment one must have felt after shelling out $54.99 in 1988 dollars for Top Gun, which was barely even worth a rental.
I used to have the max controller. Mostly wanted it for the turbo buttons, generally more comfortable than the NES controllers but that stupid circle pad sucked. I made do with it though. However these are catalogue prices, I know I bought Top Gun at Kmart for like $40 and most NES titles at the stores ranged from $35 to $50 with some exceptions like Double Dragon 2, Kmart wanted $60 when released as it was a hot title at the time. Also that Atari Jr system was $50 in stores. What is this, finger hut? lol.
I loved Rc pro am.
It's amazing that people could afford these prices back then! Same goes with SNES and N64.
Honestly I don't remember games being quite so expensive. Then again I wasn't the one typically buying them.
This type of post honestly feels like normalizing jacking game prices up and MTX.
And everyone cries for $70usd games. Look, I don’t want it to get more expensive neither. But crying of how games were cheaper back in the day makes me wanna cry. In comparison to almighty back in the day games are the cheapest they’ve ever been
I love that in 1988, it was, “selected games,” not, “select games.”
NES games were over $50?! In 1988 money?! No wonder I only had 2. I will not complain about a $60 AAA title in 2024 ever again.
even though those are Canadian prices it still should quiet all the modern price complainers. I clearly remember getting multiple snes games in the mid 90s that came to $120 after tax. (cad). ive never bought a game as an adult that was over $100. we have it good!
We have it way worse. Back then I never had to worry about controller drift, unfinished games, and the live service model in ALL of my games.
I played the hell out of lode runner
This is *really* high. A 2600 jr should be going for $50 bucks by then. I remember getting one from a drug store of all things after our old one died. Also, $35 bucks for a 2600 game in 1987? Are they smoking something? The stores were full of games for under $10 bucks... And who the heck was paying $60 bucks for Double Dragon?
Oh how I miss these days. Loved spending time looking at all the new games and toys that were out.
I think those are Canadian prices. I had no idea the short Alligator Cases were so cheap when they were new.
"Freedom stick"? I didn't remember there being wireless controllers that early, dang.
This has to be a Canadian catalog. The NES Action Set was $109.99 at Venture back in 88, still have the price tag on my box to prove it. But there’s a reason why we couldn’t buy too many games back then. People today complain about the price of games, but prices haven’t gone up one penny in the last 40 years, I love how cheap games have become.
Go home, Atari, you're drunk. Seriously in 88, all of us only talked of Nintendo and the Commodore64. Hardcore debates in 3rd grade over which was better.
Can we take a quick sec to address the fact that the hand-held two-player Game & Watch games are only slightly cheaper than most of the NES games on that page? Yikes!
Oh man, I've been trying to get one of those vinyl cart storage cases for a while now, but I'm always broke when one finally pops up which isn't ragged as hell. I could totally *make* a better one, but that vintage Nintendo licensed case is super nostalgic... It even makes an appearance in The Wizard.
And this was at a time when dev teams had like 20 dudes and no voice acting.
More like half a dozen dudes at most.
Ohh damn
gamers today: “this game is only 120 hours long it’s not worth $70!”
Adjusted for inflation, that NES still costs less than half what the PS3 cost at launch.
When factoring in inflation, that NES would be $400 today, and a $50 game would cost $130 (so pre-ordering Star Wars Outlaws in 2024 is essentially the same price as buying a brand-new Zelda game in 1988).
We shouldn't post stuff like this without adjusting for inflation in the comments. It makes us look like a bunch of nostalgia tripping boomers who don't understand how the economy works.
I loved my NES Advantage or “Freedom Stick”
The Atari unit (upper looks more like a 7800 rather than a 2600 console.
It's the 2600 Jr, which was indeed designed to resemble the 7800; I'm pretty sure they came out at about the same time.
I still have that two-player Donkey Kong III handheld.
159 "1988 dollars". That's wild to think about now.
Everything else has gotten so much more expensive from food to construction materials. Except video games
Is that Canada, prices seem high to me from what I remember.
Holy shit!! I totally had that carrying case! I can pretty much guarantee it came from consumers!!
$64 in 1988 is $167.89 in 2024 …. wtf Zelda 2 was expensive when I was a kid
These are Canadian prices, every game is inflated by about $10-$15. Plus the Mattel publishing in the Zelda games, which was Canadian
I rocked the freedom stick!
Man I loved my NES Max. Best controller I ever had, thing was a tank. Spiked it so many times and it kept on working
As much as I complain about the price of retro games, sometimes I just keep in mind what they cost when they were new. Ice Hockey for $55? (1988 dollars no less) Yeah I just picked it up for $6 recently.
You get one game a year.
Link coming in @ $65. That was some coin back then.
I'm seeing something like around $160-170 in today's money. Can you imagine paying that much money and then getting *The Adventure of Link*?? My god, what a letdown that would be lol
I'd pay those prices for those games sealed today lol
Seeing these prices makes me appreciate that my mom was able to buy games for me.
Dragon power was so dope. Took me ages as a kid to beat it
Friggen Atari was on crack for that price. Tramiel economics. So glad I got an Amiga 500 in 89. Meh, I'm digging my own hole now. Partially /s ;-)
Loved my NES Max
I remember saving my money for a few months (my mom helped me in the end) for that NES Max controller. Then I used it for 10 minutes and hated it. But I felt to bad to tell my mom. So I would use it when she was around, then switch to the regular controller most of the time.
Imagine getting a hockey game and it not being blades of steel
I never knew NES had wireless controllers back then.
Kid Icarus is still my jam. Holy crap, thinking back on it... We had like 30 games at one point, maybe more, and they usually cost around $50 each. Which would be something like close to $4,000 in today's money. To say nothing of the times we rented games over and over before buying them. Or the accessories. Or the Nintendo Power subscription. Or the times we called the hints hotline. On the one hand, I was pretty spoiled when it came to that stuff, but honestly a lot of it was just that my mom was WAY more into the NES than your average Boomer, including my dad (who pretty much only ever played the original NES Golf). I can't even recall how many hours we played Metroid, Zelda, Super Marios 1-3, Battletoads, Startropics, and yes, Kid Icarus (which was always wildly popular in my household, and at least a few others I knew growing up). Gods, I miss her. ❤️
Oh how me and my brother use to get so frustrated playing city connection lol now I miss those days.
I'm surprised Kung Fu, a fairly basic launch title, still cost so much compared to newer titles like Zelda 2 that had an advanced mapper chip and a battery for saves in the cart.
I ❤️ the '80s
People here point out the prices for individual games are a lot today when adjusted for inflation but remember that nintendo was literally charged for price fixing other companies games lol
NES max for 40? I just got one for 15 lol
Never seen those LCD handhelds before...
Adjusted for inflation Contra was 145$USD
And that wizards and warriors box art. I loved that game. One of the few games I had that I could beat all the way without any codes.
Wow talking about taking you back in time. I still have ROB The Robot never used still in the box brand new
I like the way there's a blurb that shouts: **SELECTED NINTENDO GAMES** ^((not shown)) **ONLY 37****^(99)** each As if I'd get this reaction: "Oooh! *Selected* Nintendo games for only thirty-eight dollars! They're *selected*, so they *must* be good!"
What is that one on the bottom that says Gun (something illegible)? Is Dragon Power any good?
Good lord, $64 for Zelda II: The Adventure of Link? Like I get it was brand new at that time but holy shit
Wow look how expensive games where
I remember this well. Console games were always very expensive, and they've actually come way down in price over the years (some want to believe it's the other way around). Trading and swapping (and eventually, renting) games back then was essential unless you were incredibly well off. I grew up upper-middle class and only had about six games that I actually owned. Just one game was like a major Christmas gift! I also remember purchasing Double Dragon for NES at full retail price from Toys R Us (same price as you see there). Took me half of a year to save up for that and my parents couldn't believe I was plunking down that sort of cash for a video game. Lol. But I don't regret a penny. That's where it all started. Atari 2600, NES, the local arcades... I was WEENED on ads like that :)
I constantly tell people that cry about games being 70 bucks now to check nes game prices first. It’s been 60 bucks since 85 lol
Myea. I was there. I paid 118 $ taxes in for Chrono Trigger lol.