A
Anonymous01/24/26, 12:29No.12339073
How did people get used games outside of yard sales and pawn shops before Funcoland and the internet? Were you simply fucked if you wanted a game more than 2-3 years old?
55
Replies
A
Anon01/24/26, 12:32No.12339075
In the case of 80s microcomputers, games had a longer shelf life and were also often rereleased (sometimes in packs/compilations). Otherwise you could just copy the tape from one of your mates.
A
Anon01/24/26, 12:38No.12339079
The used game market didn't really become a big thing until the late 90s or so. I've read blogs from guys who used to work at Electronics Boutique and they had a very flexible return policy - to the point where people took advantage of it and basically used the store for free rentals. I believe they'd just put returned games back on the shelf and sell them as new.Anyway if you wanted something out of print, yeah your best bet was probably flea markets or maybe something like a K-Mart which would often have outdated merch sitting on the shelf for years. Toys R Us had a huge selection and you could sometimes find older stuff there. Generally though it was pretty tough. If you played Mega Man 3 and decided you wanted to try out the original, you might be fucked.
A
Anon01/24/26, 12:43No.12339082
Borrowed games from friends or rented them at Blockbuster
A
Anon01/24/26, 12:45No.12339083
I bought an NES game, brand new, in 1998 in a regular store which had a video game aisle.
A
Anon01/24/26, 12:45No.12339084
mom & pop game stores and mail order.
A
Anon01/24/26, 12:54No.12339089
local stores were happy to give you $10 for your 50 stack of old games that are now worth $1000
A
Anon01/24/26, 13:00No.12339102
>and the internet?
Was everyone here born last year or something?
A
Anon01/24/26, 13:03No.12339110
i found a wet plastic bag full of ps1 games from blockbuster in an alley once.
A
Anon01/24/26, 13:04No.12339114
You could buy them from people you know. People used to do a lot more inter-personal sales among each other.
Now it seems to have become a bit strange? Maybe I'm out of the loop...
A
Anon01/24/26, 13:22No.12339140
The 7 mile fair was a giant flea market that had a used video game store that predated funcoland and was where my family got it's copy of SMB2.
A
Anon01/24/26, 13:24No.12339141
>Were you simply fucked if you wanted a game more than 2-3 years old?
No because the 2-3 year old games were still being sold new
A
Anon01/24/26, 13:41No.12339152
A
Anon01/24/26, 14:39No.12339213
>tfw born 2003
>tfw never got to shop at funcoland
A
Anon01/24/26, 16:16No.12339337
When the Playstation and Saturn were out and N64 looming, I was still on an NES. I'd scour any local video store for NES games they were selling. It's how I was able to pick up Starship Hector and Totally Rad-- by that point the store was asking like a dollar for each game.
A
Anon01/25/26, 20:27No.12341873
Pawn shops and friends saved the day.
A
Anon01/25/26, 20:44No.12341897
I bought final fantasy IV from a used games bin for $10. Electronics Boutique is think. Was 1993 or 1994
A
Anon01/25/26, 23:14No.12342171
renting , piracy, buying from friends, hand me downs
A
Anon01/25/26, 23:58No.12342258
People did that thing where they used their vocals chords to generate sounds, which we now call linguistics. Using linguistics, the human being, living in the time before the internet or crony capitalism, simply used words to communicate with their friends and or extended circles. Given word of mouth, someone selling a game that another wants to buy, wouldn't have been hard considering the human being speaks, and typically keeps a social circle. To think no one knew how to function or communicate, to solicit sales, before cringe-insta or ugly mug book.Is this the zooms thinking?
A
Anon01/26/26, 03:59No.12342673
pawn shops. that's how my dad found me a SNES in like 1998, and they had games.
A
Anon01/26/26, 04:13No.12342686
You could also do direct from manufacturer. My parents bought me brand new Colecovision games for Christmas in the early 90s directly from Coleco/Adam computer. Some of the games came in original boxes, others had generic labels.
A
Anon01/26/26, 04:49No.12342737
they stole them
A
Anon01/26/26, 05:07No.12342759
>the entire thread is full of larping zoomers
I don't understand why they feel the need to do this. Very strange behavior.You got used games and movies from the same places that rented them. When a new game or movie came out, these places bought a bunch of copies for the initial surge of demand. After demand started to die off, they would have more copies than they needed and they would then sell the excess used copies. Any store that offered rentals would also have used games for sale.
A
Anon01/26/26, 05:44No.12342787
Telegames USA sold everything from 2600 to NES, Lynx, Coleco etc mail order. They even developed new games for orphan systems like the Lynx later. Sadly their classic inventory was lost when a tornado hit their Texas warehouse in the 90s. They actually had the rights to colecovision and made new carts from old parts, identified by the lack of color printing on the labels, photocopied manuals and so on.
A
Anon01/27/26, 04:34No.12344948
I remember just going friends houses after school and on weekends with a bag of games you thought would be fun. Some of them you would ask to borrow to play them; some of the games you never took back, some of the games you lent out were never returned. It was like musical chairs, nobody cared who ended up with them since they were were just video games and friends. There was always at least one kid who wanted them just to steal them, nobody ever lent games to these thieves but the games somehow disappeared regardless.
A
Anon01/28/26, 03:37No.12347489
We had friends and we traded carts, you incomparable ass. We got to play pretty much everything in existence because there'd always be at least ONE kid with a copy somewhere.Can genz even comprehend this concept? I literally don't think they went outside and talked to other children, ever.
A
Anon01/28/26, 03:49No.12347513
Flea markets and pawn shops were pretty much it. I remember going to pawn shops in late 90s and asking for NES games and getting looked at like I was fucking retarded for even wanting them but them digging a box out from the back and being like "Buck a piece". I got so many good games for next to nothing in late 90s/early 2000s. But you just had to go out and find them. When you did they were cheap as fuck.