What was playing video games in the 2000's like? Did people really have to drive to the shops to pick up a game instead of just instantly downloading it?

We can't have the real things out because the usual suspects are so dumb they'll even snatch and grab empty display cases.

>>713333402 (OP)
>game stores in 2025
>its a costco
gamestop literally still does the same shit as it used to except smaller scale and it has more TCG and video game merch shit now I know walmart still has its like video game sections of glass cases and demo units just like in the op

>>713333402 (OP)
>Did people really have to drive to the shops to pick up a game instead of just instantly downloading it?

Yes, and it was overrated. I don't miss physical games at all. In 2025, you can buy a game and install it straight away. A game box just takes up room in your house. Don't be fooled by Millennials or older telling you how great it was. What they miss is being young and not having to go buy games in person.

>>713333402 (OP)
>>713333559
>2000s: playstation had actual games in store
>2020s: playstation has no games in store
What went wrong sony bros?

>>713333402 (OP)
>What was playing video games in the 2000's like?
More fun and varied. No normies, no niggers, no trannies. Private servers and free mods for PC. Easily couch-op and lending games to friends on the console side.

> Did people really have to drive to the shops to pick up a game instead of just instantly downloading it?
Yes, and that was a big part of the excitement and FUN.
Browsing the huge isles of gaming shelves were the highlight of any kid's visit to the local shop. Similarly, going through the game's package and manual on your way back home was the start of your "journey" WITH the game.

>>713333402 (OP)
Why do zoomers suddenly love the 90's and early 00's?
They didn't even experience it.

>>713333691
>Browsing the huge isles of gaming shelves were the highlight of any kid's visit to the local shop

How is that any different to looking at games on Steam?

>>713333732
its always like this, millenials loved the 80s and 70s aesthetic shit

>>713333402 (OP)
That new game smell with the fresh ink from the manual was the best part.

>>713333785
>millenials loved the 80s and 70s aesthetic
I didn't.

>>713333402 (OP)
Costco and Sam's Club have been doing this forever. It's like how Toy's R Us in the 90s would have you take a slip to the register and then they'd get you your game or console.

>>713333402 (OP)
>digital ps5
How do you even redeem that?

>>713333836
cold war shit is cool bro

>>713333845
they don't know what toy's R us is bro...

>>713333785
lolwut? I'm a millennial and always hated the 70's and 80's aesthetics.

I enjoyed browsing the games aisles at GameStop while they were looking for clothes whenever we went to the mall with my mom

Owning physical media was always obsolete and I'm glad it fucked off.
>but muh owning the game
You never owned it, the internet just wasn't advanced enough to revoke your license and if you broke your disc you lost the game forever.
Digital libraries are so much better it's not funny. These nostalgia faggots are seriously pissing me off.
>everything was SO much better back in ye olden days
No, it wasn't. You only think so because you were younger and didn't have to work then.

Thankfully, there's a few small game stop knockoff store around where i still can go pick up games and not just wait for amazon to send me it through mail.

>>713333402 (OP)
I've been pirating since the 2000s so there's no difference then and now from my perception.

>>713333736
>How is that any different to looking at games on Steam?
It was a real experience and not a simulacrum

>>713333402 (OP)
Games were 700mb, there was already downloading but not legally. Kids coordinated on the schoolyard what people wanted and traded cdrs since downloading took a few days. Or you just drove to the video rental and made a copy yourself over the weekend. For anything that was worth to own you actually had to drive to a store and get a box and often because there were buy 3 get one free deals and such. You also could get games in the grocery store because the magazine sections had magazines with a cd of an older game glued to the cover. "Best games" collection boxes were famous, too.

>>713333691
>> Did people really have to drive to the shops to pick up a game instead of just instantly downloading it?
>Yes, and that was a big part of the excitement and FUN.
>Browsing the huge isles of gaming shelves were the highlight of any kid's visit to the local shop. Similarly, going through the game's package and manual on your way back home was the start of your "journey" WITH the game.
Sounds like the type of shit tendies regurgitate to make their stuff sound like the second coming of christ.

>>713334058
Not him but Steam is a blessing because I don't need to be near losers such as yourself when I'm picking my games.
>muh experience
Are you interested in video-games or the act of purchasing it? Because you sound like an apple fanboy.

>>713333974
>You never owned it
Wrong. Not only did I own it, I could *resell* it when I was done with it, and there's a specific legal protection to ensure that was possible ("doctrine of first sale").
"Owned" vs. "licensed" is a meaningless distinction when I hold a physical piece of media you cannot remotely control or confiscate. "Oh that's still my intellectual property, you can't use it now because I hate you, lol." "It's my disc in my house. Come get it, faggot."

>>713333914
Ya I suppose you may be right

>>713333732
They literally have no culture. I'm serious. They grew up when physical things and counterculture or any kind of culture were wiped out by digital corporate web 2.0 gay shit and personal politics. The only cultures that exist now are oppression olympics and us vs them.

>>713333857
You pick up that piece of cardboard and take it to the register, they go to the back room where they keep the consoles and games and bring it to you.

>>713333785
Yeah I fucking LOVED 8 track tapes... actually nope. No, the entertainment culture has taken a nosedive since the 2000's so it's very understandable anyone would feel that way when looking back to that era. This shit was tangible for the average man, not some high class culture.

>>713333974
Practically you did own it. It was made to work just like any other item. While you have it, you can use it. You sell it, you lose. Used market was thriving.

>>713333736
>How is that any different to looking at games on Steam?
Everything was PHYSICAL.
The package had to captivate you. Devs had to put thought into the description, slogans, promo art and the few screencaps they could fit.

There were no "communities" to tell you if the game sucks or not. You could easily stumble upon a game no one in your tiny town had ever even heard of, and it could be the coolest shit ever, or a waste of fourty bucks you could recycle later on.

Just like video rental stores, the game shelf browsing itself was a simple, fun little socializing experience.

>>713334198
>Are you interested in video-games or the act of purchasing it?
NTA, but OP literally presented a question about the matter of purchasing vidya from physical brick and mortar stores. Obviously people will reply to such inquiry as well; does not mean they are underlying the importance of said action.

However, since acquiring ANYTHING required physical activity, and people were NOT bombarded with information (or ads) 24/7, there was always a true sense of adventure and discovery whenever your family took you to the local mall or super market with vidya.

The true holy grail of game stores however were all the 2nd hand stores, especially the non-franchise ones like the FGS (Fucking GameStop). Stumbling upon some super classic, old or new, for 15-20 bucks was always a exhilarating experience.

>>713334729
Fuuuuuccccckkkkk there is too much S O U L in that photo

>>713333736
Holding a game, flipping it over, reading the back cover, it's a more enchanting experience than the minimalist, utilitarian nature of Steam where you get the game instantly, but there’s no tactile memory tied to that moment. No receipt to keep, no car ride home full of anticipation, and no physical extras or inserts that might come with a box like a map or lore sheets. No ability to trade or resell it later either.

>>713333402 (OP)
The digital cope, as always, is incredibly delusional. Nintendo could wipe my digital library at any time and for any reason, provided I had one. There isn't jack shit they can do about my bookshelf of carefully vetted games. And don't think you're safe just because you use Steam as games have been removed from peoples' libraries there too. We live in a corporate dystopia, yet you trust your shit being tied to an account? Get real.

>>713333402 (OP)
At least you can get a hot dog at the 2025 game store.

>>713333652
>In 2025, you can buy a game and install it straight away.
Disagree about this being a good thing and goes along with my opinion that even the process of installation for a game was better back in the day because it was more than just some technical process. You would have concept art, stylized progress bars, unique animations, character quotes, game tips, theme music, etc. It was foreplay for your imagination. Now, it's just a bland gray bar moves from left to right that happens in the background, no deliberate actions needed beyond one click.

>>713334964
>as games have been removed from peoples' libraries there too.
But i buy my games on GoG

>>713333402 (OP)
There was no instant downloading
You either waited a whole day or two for game to download
Or saved the hassle and went to the store instead

>>713334964
Not to mention you can still backup your files digitally as well from a CD obviously while still getting all the benefits.

>>713333736
>How is that any different to looking at games on Steam?
PC games were once the absolute best physical game purchase you could make. The boxes would be packed with extras like an actual manual, lore books, notepads, posters. Steam killed all of that.

>>713335069
GoG can also stop you from downloading installer again.

If physical games are being abandoned, then consoles must ship 2TB+ as standard

>>713335142
lol you're going to buy the overpriced proprietary hard drive thats 10 years out of date and you're going to like it, goy.

>>713335069
You're fine for that very reason. I'm not a fan of digital in general, but my "war" stops at anything that doesn't require an account to function. You effectively have the same benefits I do.

>>713334207
You can copy game files to a disc now too.

>>713333732
They know they live in hell and want it to no longer be the case.

>>713334964
Except the only way to truly own something is through digital by pirating everything.
Cope seethe dilate.

>>713334292
Oh, sorry I don't live in a low trust society.... yet.

Zoomers are so gay

>>713334198
Imagine going back in time and showing the great grandfathers and prior this image of their descendants. They'd probably kill themselves to prevent such shame from ever existing.

>>713334729
I miss the treasure hunt aspect of physical browsing.

>>713335526
You own both, retard. That's the point. Do you think the day will come where Sony will knock on someone's door to confiscate their PlayStation games? They can't legally do that. So long as the game is fully on the disc and supports offline play, it isn't going anywhere. "Disc rot" only occurs when stored improperly or when using a CD-R.

>>713335526
>Except the only way to truly own something is through digital by pirating everything.
That's literally the only option where you don't own anything.

>>713334964
>Nintendo could wipe my digital library at any time and for any reason, provided I had one.
You picked the one company that doesn't use the drm that can do that

>>713336219
How so?

>>713333732
>suddenly
It's here since about 2017. COVID just made people extremely nostalgic, thus accelerated the trend.

>Remember le 00s? Remember le Windows XP Lucky Star Frutiger Awesome Face? S0VL
2000s were literally a pozzed zogged corporate Zionist Jewish wet dream compared to the 90s. 9/11, Israel wars, financial crises, "made in China" outsourcing, neoliberalism/neocons, SUVs, blingshit pop wiggerdom (50 Cent), ProTools mallcore buttrock, "reality TV" degeneracy, Walmart, McDonald's, chemtrails, fluoride, trucker hats, popped collars, GMOs, American Idol, women tattooing logos on their asses, etc.

>>713336647
Most of the nostalgia-craze of zoomers is from late 90's to 2006.

>>713334198
>the guy with the beard and the yellow shirt
guarantee he posted on /v/ at least once

>>713336647
This made me laugh. Thanks lol.

>>713336889
The entire 00s were highly zogged and that includes 2000-2006. Bush was the goodest goy ever president.

>>713337209
The zoggening was a gradual process over that period.
I'd say it's he absolute cutoff would be around 2007 or so.

>>713337209
>goodest goy ever president.
Not while Zion Don is in office lmao

>>713333402 (OP)

Looks like a costco. Walmart did this for a bit not to long ago, thent went back to past and brought everything back out into locked cabinets.

>>713337209
Besides, if you want to really claim when things went wrong, it'd be the passing of the civil rights act.

>>713335716
This. It's so much fun going to flea markets and find games now

>>713333402 (OP)
i mean when i was young there was a novelty to having all those game discs and going to the store but really digital is just better. discs now are practically symbolic anyhow with day one updates, necessary patches, drm, etc etc. i think people are just nostalgic for the days when they were young and the games were better

>>713334964
>And don't think you're safe just because you use Steam as games have been removed from peoples' libraries there too.

This has never happened.

>>713334198
Sounds like I hit a nerve
>Are you interested in video-games or the act of purchasing it?
Your zoomer brain can't conceive the fact that the act of purchasing it is part of the experience of playing videogames. You're like a jeet, arguing that shitting on the street and shitting in a toilet are the same thing. "Are you interested in shitting or in the location you find yourself in?".
Your whole life is a lie, and the "digital world" you live in isn't real, it's a simulacrum that prevents you from realizing you're already dead.

>>713337765
I think it has but only in extreme situations, like Valve gets a court order extreme. Might be wrong but I think some Sherlock Holmes games or dev that made them had some falling out with their publisher and the game had to be removed from people's account.
More often it's just a game no longer being available to buy but still available to download if you owned it before.

>>713336647
None of this has changes except for Napster and 50 Cent.

Old man here.
>Did people really have to drive to the shops to pick up a game instead of just instantly downloading it?
If you had a PC with internet, you knew how to pirate. If you were on consoles, you had to get it physically unless you lived in the perceived techno-utopia of Japan.
>>713336647
Pic is right on the money. Even as a kid you knew shit was wrong and clung hard to escapism, but even looking past the reality of the situation of the world, I still think there are things worth remembering and preserving. If I could transplant a few aspects of what that experience was like into today's time it would be.
First would be that when you bought a game it was a complete, relatively bug-free experience, at least on console. That was a lot of the appeal of consoles. It meant not having to go through the tinkering of getting the game to run like on the PC. The other thing would be $49.99 AAA game price. There's just something autistically satisfying knowing that $100 covers two game purchases, even if it's only before you get fucked by taxes. Unless you're based and live in Montana or something.

Everything else is Nostalgia goggles.

>>713337765
It's rare, but it does happen. Here's one I found with a quick Google search:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-removes-game-order-of-war-challenge-from-user-libraries/#40cb7972a29f

>>713338015
Pic is wrong, Malcolm would be PC and Francis PS3

>>713337961
Yes you can still buy keys for games that are no longer available on the steam store they're just stupid expensive.

>>713333974
>If you smash your TV you lose it forever!
No shit fuck stick kys please

>>713338083
Based choice of pic.

>>713338186
I've always hated that argument. Anyone without kids can take care of their shit with a modicum of common sense.

>>713333402 (OP)
>DS, Wii, 360
some of those are at least mid 2000's

>>713333402 (OP)
>Did people really have to drive to the shops to pick up a game instead of just instantly downloading it?
Bait thread, nobody is this stupid, but ill bite anyway because nostaaalgia.
But first, instantly donwloading isnt a thing, even with gb internet.
Next:
It was cool, my dude. Like you had stores that didnt give a fuck about launch dates, so my local Saturn(rip) had shit like bayonetta 1 a whole 2 weeks early.
Stores also competed with price, so you could look around for a good price, but this is still a thing today with online retailers. Like MKW is 90,- in europe, but you can easily get it for 75,-.

What was also cool was that games just werent common to find, so sometimes you'd walk into a store and find that 1 game and its like 10 bucks or so in clearence
>games not being there with a push of a button is bad
On paper, yes, but in practice it gives the games more percieved value and its fun to find them. You dont need everything that was ever made with a single click, shit makes you depressed.

Good times, enjoyed, sad its sort of gone, happy I was there

>>713336343
Read his post and you'll know.

>>713338473
>You dont need everything that was ever made with a single click, shit makes you depressed
Hunting is built into our DNA. The importance of going out to find something cannot be understated.

>>713333652
My physical games:
>keep going up in value as they become rarer
>can't be stolen from me by a publisher revoking a licence
>were shipped as complete packages, not depending on a huge day 1 patch to be playable. Just insert and play.
>make a fun and easy hobby to share with my friends, since we have shared fond memories with these games

>there's already /v/ posters that have never touched a physical game disc/cartridge...

>>713333402 (OP)
I once drove 10 minutes to gamestop and bought Dragon Age 2, drove back home, put it in my 360 and played it for 15 minutes and then drove back to gamestop to sell it for a $30 loss. Yeah we bought most shit at retail. Amazon existed the whole decade but it was still the online book store for the first part of it and the only way you could be sure you had the game at launch was getting it yourself rather than relying on Amazon.

>>713333402 (OP)
It was pretty cool. You used to get in the car on friday and go down to Blockbusters and pick up a game for your console of choice and spend all weekend trying to beat it. Buying PC games was cool because you really felt like you were buying something. You got a big cardboard box, a bunch of extra stuff like physical manuals, a gem case with the game disk in it.

>>713338702
Now that's genuinely scary. They probably have never seen an instruction manual bigger than 5 pages either.

>people born in 2007 are now adults
>people without any conscious memory before 2011 are now adults

>>713333732
tiktok memes

People overly romanticise this shit. Everyone fucking hated gamestop for good reason. Blockbuster nostalgia is even more retarded, these days you can buy decent quality full price games for the cost of a 2 day rental from there not to mention gamepass.

>>713334141
look at this fucking retard he thinks Nintendo was the only console until recently lol

>>713338473
Plus you had "your games". It was almost like what books you have on a bookshelf. They defined your tastes, which genres you enjoyed or were good at, it was yours. Not some data on a hard drive that you have to delete to free up room.

Meet a new person and see they have DOA2:Hardcore and Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution. You can talk fighting games with him. You already know he's competitive and likes to duel. You know his personality by his choices. He had to go out of his house to try arcade fighting games, discover he likes them, and then invest serious money ($49.99 is about $85 today) to play more fighting games at home.

There was substance to it. It took many actions that didn't involve an internet connection to get the point where you had a favorite genre. Then it took a serious investment to find and purchase those type of games.

>>713339172
Yeah, everyone has that faggy memory of the car ride home eagerly reading through the manual before you got to play it.

Now, rentals and demo discs? Those were good.

>>713333402 (OP)
>Did people really have to drive to the shops to pick up a game instead of just instantly downloading it?
Considering I lived in a remote area and was pirating all my games since the 80's, the only real difference was that the downloads were far from instant.

>>713339172
>decent quality
>full price
anon you're fucking retarded renting games from block buster didn't cost $60. and the games weren't propogandized woke slop

>>713339571
It's $70 + tip, now

>>713333691
>No normies, no niggers, no trannies.
God I miss when my comfort hobby wasn't full of niggers, trannies and normies.

>>713336620
90s nostalgia has been around since 2010 really

>>713339172
Maybe an indie game you could get for the price of two days rental but a full price AAA game is slowly creeping its way up to 100 dollars for an empty box with a cardboard disk in it with a code on it for a game.

>>713338753
>I once drove 10 minutes to gamestop and bought Dragon Age 2, drove back home, put it in my 360 and played it for 15 minutes and then drove back to gamestop to sell it for a $30 loss.
This is shit, to be sure. But still not as bad as buying something one the PS or Xbox digital store. All you get there if you don't like something, is a middle finger.

We had all sorts of methods, broadcasting over the radio/tv, typing in code from magazines/books, cassette tapes, bbses, floppy disks, CD-ROMs, etcs.

>>713338937
iPad babies will be going to college in 2028, raised on Apps, Covid and AI.

I miss when vidya stores had bimbos as clerks instead of soiboi retards.

>>713333691
>Isles
Aisles. Fuck me, this place.

>>713342813
???

>hear about cool obscure game
>go to game store
>they don't have it
Ignore the nostalgic retards telling you that pre-digital was better, it wasn't. Finding shit could be such a huge pain in the ass.

>>713344563
There are conveniences and trade-offs. Now we live in a world where no one goes anywhere or does anything or makes anything new and it's complete shit. BUT it's all complete shit that you can do without leaving your chair thanks to your phone. At a certain point, you've got to realize that the convenience isn't as beneficial as we thought it would be.

>>713344563
>>they don't have it
>ask if they can order
>come back next week
>happy game

>>713333402 (OP)
you can still do that, and when you're finished playing the game you can sell it again for the price you bought it. It makes gaming free.

Or you can pirate if it's digital only. Either way, free

>>713333402 (OP)
>get a demo disc in a magazine get to try out a bunch of games
>games were finished and mostly bug free
>pick games based on cool box art and the description on the back
>no retarded faggots on social media glazing/flaming/reviewing the game
>industry wasn’t filled with women, trannies, or niggers
>no pretentious, fart-huffing story games
golden age of gaming was 95-05. give or take a few years

>>713333402 (OP)
You can often make a copy of the disc, grab a no-cd crack and never worry about "disc rot" and scratches.

>instantly downloading it?
HAHAHhahaha
You fuckers still don't have fiber broadband in most of the country! There's no instant download!

>>713333402 (OP)
Games used to have little books they came with that you could read in the car on the way home.
I think I miss them the most.

>>713333974
>this thing SUCKS because I can’t take care of it
I absolutely love reading people bitch about Gibson guitars they don’t have because the headstock can break if you drop it like a retard

>>713333669
Is playstation the only console you know? The only console with games is the switch these days.

>>713334964
I live in Europe, the one good thing is that they sometimes yell at companies if they fuck over customers too much.
A company mass deleting gaming libraries would get them yelled at.

I also live in reality and in that reality I have lost most of my old physical games over the years, but never lost a digital game.

>>713345758
I can’t name a single nintendo IP that didn’t substantially deteriorate on the switch

>>713344925
You're free to take your phone and go on a little hike before you press the download button.

>>713333458
Society no longer being high trust is the thing in life that I'm most depressed about. Fucking retards making stealing acceptable need to be tar and feathered along with the thieves.

>>713345758
I have access to pretty much every single Switch game and I only ever played one of them - didn't even enjoy it.

>>713345984
This is why i'm very strongly against immigration and firmly believe that every single brown born into their host nation or not should be deported to their land of origin. A change this drastic is what is needed to make things high trust again.

>>713338643
It's so bad that I kinda miss day 1 patch, nowadays you need 1-2 years worth of update before the game start feeling like it's completed

The best thing about it was the way gaming was a self-selecting hobby. We didn't have places like Discord to discuss games easily and online news sites tended to be more specialized. If you wanted to keep up, you had to read magazines or check ign/gamefaqs frequently. This meant that everyone was generally knowledgeable about gaming culture as a whole, as opposed to the way communities are now built around single genres or titles (mmorpg fans stay with mmorpg, trannies ruin Earthbound, cozy-life-sim fans are women, etc.). There was also way less development time, so you could get sequels in the same gen with substantial improvement between them. KH2 and KH2 played like completely different games as tech improved.

In some ways it was worse, since even first party titles like Pikmin were extremely obscure if you missed the print run. My favorite games growing up were Kirby Air Ride and Paper Mario. Even my best friend didn't know what those were. But it also made the hunt for good games really exciting. A nerd couple moved on our street and I fondly remember them letting me play their imported version of Katamari Damacy, which was mind-blowing. And gathering at gamestores for midnight releases of tentpole titles was equivalent to a con experience. The buildup with the Smash Dojo and midnight Brawl release at Gamestop was a super big deal-every geek in my town went.

I am a late Millennial, so I only got the last bit of that time. I think the late 2000s kind of sucked because you could see how the industry was maturing in a way that focused less on evolving the genre and more on profit. The Wii and Guitar Hero really pulled in casuals. But up to the end of the PS2 and GCN era, things were so unique and different. And you could sense that just by how game stores displayed products and advertised.

>>713333402 (OP)
>Did people really have to drive to the shops to pick up a game instead of just instantly downloading it?
correct. We decided either by checking the box, word of mouth, magazine or internet if you were a nerd, often you buy shit that sux ass, watch avgn to know what that was like

>>713346445
I used to enjoy going to a game store and just browsing.

>>713345970
Yes, but there's only so much one can do. That's why third places aren't a thing for younger generations. For example you can still go to the movie theater, but it might be harder to get the same experience if no one wants to go with you because it's easier to just stream a movie at home. Society has changed and the culture has changed.

>>713346570
me too man

>>713346724
oh man I wanna go back I don't belong here

>>713333402 (OP)
Toys R Us did this in the 90s.