I pretty much saw all the old games here come out and still own many of the physical games I bought then. I saw the transition from 5 1/4 -> 3 1/2 disks, and then finally to CD's in the mid-90's. I got a 486 SX 25 (technically the whole family's, but I used it the most) in 1992 and got a Gateway 2000 486 DX4 100Mhz full tower (god computer at the time) as a highschool graduation present a few years later. I even still have my external US Robotics 28.8 modem for it.
- They had entire stores devoted to PC games. My favorite was Egghead Software, where they knew me by name. 100% PC software and a large game selection. Prior to Gamestop turning into the shithole business that it is now, they were known as Babbages and also sold primarily PC games and software. Electronics Boutique had a a good selection of PC games, but also dabbled in console games as well. There was CompUSA, which was a HUGE PC store. Another favorite of mine was Media Play. They had at least 5 aisles of PC games, one of which was purely clearance, where you could get brand-new boxed games for $10-20. Going there was like a kid going to Disneyland. I must've spent thousands on physical games back then between all those stores.
- People into computers was much more savvy back then. Now computers are ubiquitous, and very few people really come under the category as "knowing what the hell they're doing" (I'm saying this as someone who did professional software development for 21 years). Back then, you had to be able to navigate and control DOS, which is a lost art these days, even with people having DOSBox. If you give the average user DOS these days, they just stare blankly at it and drool appears in the corner of their mouths. Granted, PC knowledge is relative. But, even the average user was more willing to get their hands dirty with the guts of the OS than I see typically now.
- Web sites were more tacky and clunky, but had far more personality to them. Back then, you had to know enough to navigate HTML editing by hand and construct something with that to have a web site. So, there was far fewer sites, especially devoted to niche games, but they were much more interesting if you ask me. Now, all the sites look homogenized, though information on pretty much any game is plentiful.
- Games and gamers on PC were much more willing to tolerate and overcome complexity. People read manuals, which were often thick and necessary to actually knowing what to do in many games. Games like MOO et al, along with the deep rich RPG's of the time are indicative of this. For the most part, I don't see this depth very often anymore with very few exceptions (Serpent in the Staglands being an outstanding example of this sort of game's return). Gamers unwilling to contend with even a modicum of complexity stuck to consoles. I knew very few people who did this, given the circles I ran with in high school. Most people I knew played and preferred PC games. A fun anecdote on this; I installed Doom on my high school's PC, hidden in a DIR where the less technical teachers would find it. Technology class became "Let's go play Doom" class. Good times!
- Networks were rare unless you were working in an office at the time, so multiplayer games were much rarer. Or, at least, finding other people to play with and having them also having the PC hardware and willingness to play with you. Internet was nonexistent unless you were willing to brave Unix FTP sites and programs like Gopher as a search tool (search engines weren't out until around the mid-90's).
Network access was via dial-up modems and BBS's (Software Creations, the home of Apogee, was one of my favorites). I had a package of Win 3.1 tools to do Unix tools through a GUI for internet then, but it was too hard to use and you really had to know the sites to go to in advance, otherwise the tools were useless. Later, comprehensive internet portals came along including the eponymous AOL. My friend and I used Compuserve for a few years. Once Win95 came out and Netscape (precursor to Firefox) was released in-stores (yes, you had to pay $50 for your browser; Netscape 1.0, and yes it was worth it), then the internet became a more commonplace thing, at least amongst PC gamers.
My friends back then would trade me booze for fixing their computers. An equitable trade at the time.
When I went to college in the late 90's, we were given 50 MB for our computer account (this is in a Programming curriculum). My friend and I were the top 2 programmers in the school and when we discovered one lab had CD-rom drives, I declared I was bringing Duke Nukem 3D in, and when we could get back into the multimedia lab, we were going to both suck up the 34MB to install Duke 3D on both our accounts and hobble through the semester with the remaining 16MB for programming projects. It took about a month before we could get into that lab again as the door was nearly always locked, but eventually we did.
From that point on, Database class became DukeMatch class and the Windows key became the "teacher is coming key". We'd get to class, start up the Unix command line with whatever our current project was, and then open a DOS windows and bring up Duke. We both were on top of the class enough that playing Duke Nukem 3D instead of paying attention didn't affect our grades. There were times where we were neck-and-neck on frags and the next class was already walking in, but we were both determined to break the tie and walk out the victor. Fond memories!
Here's a few pics of my PC hardware and software collection from then :
[url=http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/ad111/Firebrand9/Old%20PC%201.jpg~original]Pic 1[/url] (Gateway 2000 DX4 100 Mhz, Thrustmaster F-22, and Magic Carpet on the desk in this pic)
[url=http://i927.photobucket.com/albums/ad111/Firebrand9/Old%20PC%202.jpg~original]Pic 2[/url] (Netscape 1.0, Every version of Magic Carpet, Both versions of Tie Fighter, Stonekeep, Tekwar, Falcon Gold, and LOTS of programming software and books)
Post edited December 13, 2015 by Firebrand9
