Not So Common Podcast #27 - Kelsey Lewin

welcome everyone to this edition of the not so common podcast my name is Pat contry and my guest this week is Kelsey Lewin she's a retro gamer retro collector she appears in YouTube videos she appears on the middle Jesus rocks Channel and she is co-owner of the pink gorilla retro game stores in the Seattle area welcome Kelsey how you doing good thanks for having me on yeah I haven't seen you since Portland retro gaming expo the mecca of the retro gaming scene how did you how did you do out there this past fall you okay yeah yeah I did great that's mostly a show I mean I go because I love it and I would be there regardless of whether or not they wanted me there you know I mean I did a couple panels this year but but I would do it even if they if they didn't want me there so we had a sure in general were mostly there to buy stuff or at least I am I hope to break even a collection or for the store yes is that because there's so much opportunity to find maybe some rare or niche items that don't normally walk into the store or is it hard to keep games in stock at pink gorilla yeah I mean it's it's all of the above the nice thing about the retro gaming expo sometimes you could find people on the last day who you know they like flew in and so they've got boxes of stuff they really don't want to fly back with them so you can usually strike a couple deals that way I mean you know for the most part people are selling things for just about retail or maybe a little bit under there so it's not like it's not like going to a flea market or anything but it's still pretty cool to find some interesting things that we don't see in very often we've got you know a couple regular customers we'll try to look for things specifically for them that they've been looking for and of course for myself and the other employees what was your highlight item what was the big item that you guys you're like oh man this is great well it's got to be the Super Nintendo extra tainment bike which I wanted the auction so you you did win that that's funny because I mentioned that to you when we were going back in our Twitter dreams about you know Mike I think I mentioned not realizing you're the one that won that doesn't remember that being there you actually want it I was I was like a little bit of a celebrity the next day because everyone was like how are you planning on getting that home oh you're the one that won the bike what are you doing with that and I'm lucky that I have a store to shove it in the back of because I definitely don't have room in my apartment for it but did you have to take it apart and transport it in the back we yeah so we had a like SUV with us that we had brought but the I mean even still with all the merchandise we were bringing back we had to take it apart a little bit we had to take the seat off of it and I think that was all we did actually was just take the seat off of it so it's so do you have the B games for it I haven't told you I have just the mountain bike rally one the Speed Racer combo cart is a little too rich for my blood but a little too pricy right let's run a couple grams for the cartridge the organ it's not even any good so sure so that's the prime item that gets into the mind of how insane us retro collectors are right because here's a gigantic exercise bike that is it's esoteric that no one really owned back then probably if you bought it use it like ten times if we realize I'm not getting a good workout it's not fun right so you see this item but it is incredibly rare and you have to have it you just have to own it it's like it's it's in front of you it's you're driven to want to bid on this item but even if you got a pretty good deal like you even said I don't know where I can store this item but now you have a sought-after item I mean so when you see something like that what what's the first thing that pops into your head when you see an item like that option I am definitely I'm a person who collects I would say primarily weird stuff like that's kind of a my bread and butter of my collection as I collect odd things I've got a wonderswan fishing sonar I've got a blood glucose monitor for the DSi have all these like crazy things that probably sold incredible poorly people don't even know they exist because they're just so weird I don't even know who they were made for you know so every time I see something like that I mean it's exciting for me I like that kind of stuff it's like I wouldn't even go after some of that stuff for example the miracle piano I've had probably a dozen opportunities to own that in the box and that's a big gigantic box for that the NES / Super Nintendo piano and it's just so big and bulky and I'm like do it that was I sort like my line or I was like I really needed a miracle piano I mean I have the cartridge it shouldn't that be good enough but for you or like this is like not a one-of-a-kind item but there's very few of these things left yeah they're in its original form and I have to be kind of choosy because I mean like you said it takes up a lot of room so I can't just buy everything enormous and rare and weird I have to be a little bit choosy with it I think they also had the we've an excerpt Ament bike for sale at this auction so I couldn't get both you know couldn't justify having both the Super Nintendo and the one what was interesting about that auction at porn was like that's some of the heavy hitting spenders of probably the US write that show up there there's some I mean I only did on a few things but there was some cool stuff that went for sale like you said the the the week glucose meter which by the way was cheaper currently brand-new online you could find it I was looking at Danny Anderson from antenna which makes me I'm like this is cheaper right then case you find this and like I looked at Amazon you could have bought it cheaper exactly what I did that was another one that I was bidding on and I actually I bought it that same weekend but I didn't buy it at the auction because I was watching it I had an listing up on ebay on my phone and I was like well bid until it's more expensive than this listing on eBay and then it went it went for like twice as much as what it was listed for anyway so I'm like okay I'll just buy this it's that psychology that's psychology in the warned you want it and to be fair it seems like a very rare item and I'm sure that it's one of those things where you know if someone like Jason did a YouTube video about it maybe there's that one guy on eBay or that one guy on Amazon who still has a couple copies of it for pretty but like those will go and then all the sudden there's none left out in the retail well the first person I think of is like that's made by a major pharmaceutical company so they made a millions of them that's like if that's made by like Merck they need millions of those they just pump those out yeah they might have a ton of those still left somewhere there's gotta be new old stock somewhere I think Dan was telling me that he saw him at his local like CVS or rite-aid and clearance or something maybe just to get rid of them because I mean people were even that had some sort of diabetic condition maybe even knew that existed it's like who even knows yeah we're packaging to me doesn't make it obvious what it is like you have to actually read all of the text on it there's not like a nice image that shows it doesn't easily show what it is so I think if you're like a 65 65 has diabetes you come home with this item so it's just like a glucose meter oh I need a what and it's like gamified and stuff I've heard that none of the strips in it you know the actual like reader strips will work anymore I've heard they're all expired by now but I'm sure you could just buy more I'm sure so so how did you get into rich again collecting what system did you originally grow up with so I'm younger so my first the first game thing I ever owned was a gameboy and it was my dad's gameboy so I mean that that goes back a ways but the first actual console home console I had was the n64 so yeah I'm I'm young so that's the nice way to say Pat you're old okay yeah so we'll say n64 was your first home console yeah so you are probably easily at least 12 years younger than me so Kay kind of hold I don't look at this or you know look at one of those one of those - so you grew up with the n64 I grew up with the n64 my my parents were relatively cool about video games but they didn't want me to have more than I think two systems at a time I could have one handheld in one game system so I would always have to sell it off if I wanted the new one so when the Gamecube came out I had to go trade in my gold toys-r-us addition in Tendo 64 for $3 to gamestop not even kidding that actually happened but after that you know I mean I got basically every almost every console that came out I didn't get you know both the ps2 and the Xbox at the same time but I had them both at one point or played them at at neighbours houses or whatever but it wasn't until I was looking at colleges actually that I even realized that people collecting video games and old video games was the thing so I went a visited Seattle and I saw this store called pink guerilla games and I walked in and I was like this is awesome got all of this like Japanese stuff and all of the B's you know old games and I actually while I was there I picked up a copy of Pokemon Stadium I think and and maybe one other game just some games that I played as a kid and I think that's how it starts for most people is you're like you find the games that you played as a kid and then you kind of just get into it from there you're like you know what it's not just the games that I play it how about all the games I didn't play so that was when I first started getting into it and you know once I'm captured I'm sorry you went back and you recaptured the games from your your youth first exactly and I held on to all of my pokemon games throughout the years on at least the Game Boy versions of all of them you know Game Boy Game Boy Color Game Boy Advance yes I had been playing those I never stopped playing games but they weren't really important for me to hold on to until I realized that that was a thing people do and it seemed really fun to me I don't know I wanted to wanted to just try some games I had never tried before and it I thought it would be cool to have a small shelf full of cool get old games that I had never tried so one of the first things I bought when I moved to Seattle was a Sega Genesis which I did not have growing up and just got to play a bunch of the old classics I mean you know I played the Sonic games via like the Sonic Gems Collection on the Gamecube and that sort of thing and there was a Genesis at like a daycare I went to so I had played a Genesis before but if I had never owned one and I did that makes me sound super young I know but you weren't like a toddler at the daycare where you no no I was it was a it was a daycare for like my dad's work so it wasn't like I wasn't a daycare for like children chill or like teeny tiny children it was I think anywhere from like four to eight year-olds there so and I was at the upper range of that so probably seven or eight okay so kind of a similar story to me up around college age or right before you start to collect and get the games you had when you were a child because you had gotten rid of them you got rid of your system I did the same things have I trade money into a funcle' and probably 94 95 I did that before Bri buying again a few years later so how did you make that transition you you've made the the rare probably coveted transition of eventually becoming an owner or at least co-owner of a retro game store yeah it's so where do that's where'd that lead from it's not a very interesting story unfortunately I'm I moved to Seattle I knew that I really wanted to work for this game story that I had visited when I first went there so I applied and eventually got a job there and became a manager relatively quickly was a manager there for about four years or so four or five years and towards the end of that the former owner who had was you know the original owner who founded it in 2005 he was like you know I really just don't want to do this anymore he basically hadn't been doing anything anyways you know he we sent the financial reports to him at the end of the day and that sort of thing but that was that was about it wasn't like going into the storage wasn't working in the stores and so he just decided he didn't really want to do it anymore and so me and one of the other managers just offered to buy him out and that's exactly what we did so not it's not a super exciting well yours you start working for what year did you or your co-owner so I've been a cone or now for about two and a half almost oh I'm sorry one and a half almost two years it'll be two years in June I think or July so 2015 or 2016 I guess was when we took over were you working for them in 2011 or now uh no no 2012 so I mean I'm just getting my I'm getting my years wrong a little bit here sorry okay the reason I asked that because I remember I'm trying to remember every worker but I went to the pink gorilla when I was at PAX Prime 2011 that's when I did the panel with with James Rolfe we we premiered the NWC video we did and the pink gorilla store had one of the things I regretted one of the very few things I regretted not buying that I passed up on and you're gonna slap me today for not buying it but at the time it wasn't that great a deal there was a box complete in box I mean had everything turbo graphics CD system with everything in it had the sample CD it had everything in the baggies and it was only like two hundred dollars which at the time was it was worth a little bit more than that but not that much more believe it or not only six years ago at this point six and a half so it was so huge I was worried about the shipping cost and they said they would have shipped it back for me but I was like it's not worth it then and I'm like getting a deal because the shipping is gonna be more than on eBay so I passed it up and I regretted that ever since well I did eventually while I eventually did get one in the box it was missing like the little top styrofoam yeah they have the promo a karaoke CD which is hard to find so I was like no like that was probably one of a few times I passed up something that got away so I was just wondering if you were working there at the time that's no I I did PAX Prime 2012 but I believe my I'm not great with years but I know I started in 2012 if that helps that was what I moved to Seattle so what did you quickly learn from working at a games like that did you learn something more about the collecting scene about retro gamers themselves you didn't know about yeah well I mean I was very lucky in that the general manager at the time was huge into the game collecting community he you know you had a big collection and he basically just kind of he saw that I was getting interested in it and he base we just did the rest of the work you know just showing me what was cool what I should pick up and so I ended up I mean I spent most of my paycheck for the first probably six months working there just on buying buying fun stuff you know as I was living in a dorm at the time I was my freshman year of college so I didn't have a ton of expenses after I paid you know after food and stuff was paid for so I was just buying games and got really into it I don't really have like a I don't think there was like one thing that really taught me everything there is to know about the game collecting community but just the more I played and the more I saw I got really into the weird stuff and I the first one that I can remember is kind of ironic leaks we were just talking about the blood glucose thing was packing and marlin that came in to the store the Super Nintendo game that's about diabetes and that was just like the most hilarious thing to me I don't know why but at the time I found that to be so interesting I know they made a couple of those and I know that edutainment software I mean I had a PC and stuff I knew that I do tainment was a thing I just was surprised that anyone had actually put a diabetes educator game on a Super Nintendo and so that was the first thing I can remember being like I gotta have that that's so weird that was probably like me like the Bible games on the NES the WisdomTree games that I had no idea existed when the NES was first out cuz how would you know that yeah I discover my heart every single one of those yeah I have to I mean I went to my phone call and every other week until I saw that bright blue bible adventures game on the shelf and eventually they got eggs that's the most common of those seven WisdomTree games and they had it and i was like oh my god I found Bible adventures at a funcle' and I don't have to cheat and buy it on eBay that was a big deal because at the time the game was probably like a three four-hour game I die for $5.00 you know what I mean it was that yeah one of the games on their list that's cuz there was a different feeling back then did Funko actually literally everything I mean I'm surprised that they had the Bible games I don't know I would have to look at I do have a price news letter still or newspaper still where it has stay events for only 29 cents but I'm pretty sure they have a chunk of the unlicensed games on there because they would come in no no they would come in they were they were sold to retail stores maybe not Toys R Us but but the tanging games were sold at toys right but for something like color dreams game or something like that you might have to go off the beaten path go to a mall store like electronic boutique or egghead software electronic software etc something like that in order to find something that was that was that strange but that's what drew me and when I started learning about the weird stuff like wall-e bear in the know gang and weird anti-drug game and that's like oh my god not just do I want the games that like you the games I had as a kid now I want the games that are also weird or things that I didn't even know existed and get into it that way and get like Durrani and gradually yeah yeah that's definitely like a big a big thing for me now it's just the weird weird stuff so you're so you're collecting career let's just say is about six to seven years old since you've been collected I would that that sounds about right okay what have you seen in those six to seven years from say between 2010-2011 now what a surprise you the trends the changes anything that that's you know kind of stuck out to you so mean now it feels kind of predictable honestly I feel like I know where I know which things are going to go up in general maybe not specific games necessarily but I can see where you know the trends have have gone we've got we had NES was really expensive for a long time now the games at least the common ones are starting to settle down a little bit Super Nintendo is probably about the same way right now where the common ones are starting to settle a little bit and we've got n64 on like an all-time high and GameCube going up and it just seems like it's a it's a kind of doing the wave through the generations right play whatever people are about 20 in their early 20s to mid 20s right now what they grew up with that's what's gonna be on the upward swing and anything that's you know like the Wii so I'm trying to pick up a bunch of Wii and Wii U's stuff right now as it's cheap because that's you know if you go purely by that that's the next upward swing and it's not because I'd necessarily want to like resell it or anything it's just that I know that I would rather pay 20 bucks for the last story now than the $60 I think it's gonna be in a in five or ten years right so in theory then the we collecting will get hot like 2024 like something along those lines and I and wheeze a little different because we has a so much shovelware and be sold better than all of those other systems so I think it is gonna be a little bit different but the Wii U is going to be an especially expensive system in the coming decades or so as long as collection just because less people bought it yes as long as collecting is still a thing you know a lot of people talk about the bubble bursting completely and just no one feeling into this hobby anymore and I know that there's some of us who are never gonna stop collecting but you know the sort of upsurge in popularity in the game collecting community as long as that's still a thing I think we use going to be probably the most expensive Nintendo console to collect for but even if they still have brand new old stock sitting everywhere and that you know they never they will they will have some games but I mean there's already some Wii U games that are over $100 that are just trash I mean things like the Croods and Hello Kitty racing and stuff those are over $100 they're shovelware right but there's just so few maybe maybe they well the Wii U library isn't that big right what's elite Wii U library yeah I'm not sure but it can't be let me not have reached 7,000 745 so unlike the Wii this is probably a little bit more if you wanted to be a completionist 745 isn't as bad right then what the we had to me that's surprising I don't think I've ever seen more than a hundred Wii U games in the same place before let's see oh that will never include all territories though too so yeah so it's probably I don't think it's that much time looking at some of that and that listed or unreleased so yeah I think we're getting points a straight point time or I think you'll have less and less collectors go for a complete set of games so you're always gonna have some people that say yeah I want that completely set I mean the first confirmed one just we talked about on the CEO podcast about six seven months ago that you had someone be the first to fully document what's a complete we physical game collection he was like the first guy to really do it right it'll happen with the Wii U it'll happen with the switchy but it's gonna get more complicated as you get towards digital versus physical you know and things of that nature what games only came out of one or both what does it mean to have a complete set if you get in digital but I think at least in my opinion we're gonna get to that point where it's gonna be just less and less people will want a full set of games I totally agree with that because it's the newer stuff is yeah I mean like you said there's thousands instead of what it used to be like you know six or seven hundred games released for a system I mean look at look at the D s there's some games on there that still I think there's an I want to say it's an Animaniacs game that people aren't really sure if it exists or not cuz no one's really found a copy yet but all signs point to have existed so I know a couple people with complete DS collections but they're missing that one that one and maybe one or two more that are like these I think exist but we haven't quite confirmed it yet so it's sort of like the Atari 2600 says no one that has a fault twice I mean what even would because at what point do you draw the line you know if you had to mail-order exactly if it wasn't someone's garage I mean does that count so you have to have a Red Sea crossing and gamma attack what about the birthday card right you know and at that point we're talking about games that there's only a few confirmed to exist for about a handful of games so it's nearly impossible for even one person have one of each of all grace and so one of the biggest collectors is rich twice and heat one of the biggest target 27 collectors in the world it's not the biggest and he doesn't have a complete yeah he does have the literally most complete Atari 2600 collection in the world but I know he's missing your birthday and probably I think Red Sea crossing as well so but he I mean he has air raid he has a couple of the incredibly like there are only three in the world type things oh yeah it's such a weird thing you know he said people people were making them in their basement in advertising in a magazine that like ten people saw that advertisement in like four people worded right so does that really count in essence yeah it's it's a weird question asking gets out maybe the heart of the psyche behind our OCD of wanting to complete a collection right that's why I have never tried oh actually that's not true ever trying I have I forgot I'm going for a complete wonderful on collection but that's that's 220 ish well that's not bad that's like afters yeah there's a couple games in there that are gonna be basically impossible tenori-on which is more like a music program than it is a game there's only a hundred and twenty of those in the in the world and they were sold at an art exhibit in Japan and and the mama meet a Wonder Swan which was a pregnancy tracker for the Wonder salon and I have been told by people in Japan who are big wonderswan collectors to give up you are never going to find it how many do they make of that one no one knows but there have been like a few found and most of the ones that have been found are like yellowed and like really gross one level above a guy making Atari games in his garage in 1983 yeah yeah they were apparently sold in like I guess Japan has pregnancy stores I don't think we have those here like stores that are specifically for you know it's got all the things you would need throughout being pregnant not just like not just stuff for the baby but the pregnancy yeah yeah so I mean like I don't I don't even know what you would find there I guess like vitamins prenatal vitamins and swaddling blanket like you know that sort of thing so I guess that's what they where they were sold that's what I've been told there's very very little information about it online do you see there being more I made the argument with Ian before that I think he kind of agrees that Nintendo consoles in know themselves have a quote unquote more collectability in will going forward and say someone trying to get a whole ps2 collection or Xbox 360 because of the exclusivity of those primary games that everyone knows and loves first party games and the fact that you know a Nintendo is sort of like the Disney a video game so that's always gonna have that special appeal yeah absolutely I mean we had a complete original Xbox collection in the store at one point someone traded in every single game all eight or nine hundred I can't remember the exact number anymore Wow but yeah every every original Xbox game that was released in the States as well as they didn't have metal wolf chaos but they had a couple of the Japanese exclusives so but I mean that was it was neat for people and we sold a couple of the rarer ones pretty quick you know Stubbs the zombie and that sort of thing went relatively quick but you know so much of it sat around and I you know I'm just I'm sure we still have some of the sports games and that sort of thing that we're traded in it you have like two-thirds of the library so yeah I mean it's just not as exciting for people and I try to especially for original Xbox because I think it's a great console I try to turn people on it more often just because it's you know you can get the console with all the hookups for like 35 bucks you can get plenty of really good games for under $10 and you can find them at thrift stores pretty often to you know flea markets yeah a dollar each for Xbox games like they can't get rid of if you go to something like the Portland retro gaming expo you'll see a lot of booths that have their their ps2 and their original Xbox sections with you know the exception of just a couple of the actually rare sought after ones they'll just be like you know pick any three for 10 or whatever pick any you know four for $10 each whatever so even at retro game collecting shows it's still really cheap so I always encourage people if they want to just build a collection pretty quickly I'm like start with those consoles there's like actually good games for them plenty of them and they're cheap along those lines along those lines do you see there being people eventually wanting to collect for example like the ps2 as like 2500 games anyone that would try to do a complete ps2 set or just say oh I want to collect subsections maybe get all of the RPGs or all these certain games do you see there being a love for like a console like the ps2 itself versus just the titles that appeared on it yeah I see I mean there's a ton of people I know who collect just the ps2 RPGs in fact I'm one of them well not just but I have almost all of the ps2 RPGs or all the ps2 horror games or all the ps2 fighting games or something like that because those are genre is that the ps2 is very strong in right but I haven't seen a lot of people going for a complete ps2 collection and you know one because it's really haunting like you said 2500 ish games it seems nearly impossible plenty of those games are like bad and just uncommon to I mean things like you know some of the old or newer sports games on them like Madden 11 came out on the ps2 it's like $12 but why would you want Madden 11 on the ps2 for most people right so although I've seen a couple people go for it I mean yeah it's it's certainly not a console that a lot of people are trying to collect everything for they still may let's see the last game was FIFA 14 is that right so there was a 2013 ps2 game I think that was just in Brazil if I recall correctly yeah it's a daunting library and the collectability to me something like that is is down for a few reasons one we're talking about a mass amount of sports games just a massive amount in general we talk about that yeah we talk about yeah there's like 14 different FIFA games have fun there's you know twice as many baseball games cuz you had more than one company making it yeah it's just insane and plus not just that the love of these systems going back to exclusivity it's like well then what well less than 50% of this library is exclusive oh yeah so you would get to that point what exactly are you saying you're collecting oh I can get this game not just on the Xbox it was on the PC it might also appeared even on the Gamecube so it's just less and less special at that point right if it appears on four to five different types of you know consoles or pcs to me it doesn't make much sense to go for the full library at least in my opinion it's sort of like it's it's lost more and more that sort of special collectability of the system yeah I would agree with that I I really don't see non Nintendo systems at least the common non Nintendo system getting anywhere near the amount of love that the Nintendo does I mean you still you've people going for like full turbo graphics collections and that sort of thing but those are sort of off the beaten path not you know not quite as common yep basically everyone had a ps2 right it sold 120 million units that's insane I mean cheap cheap DVD players yeah you had together so there's so many of them may be true you may be too even I'm not sure you remember DVDs you're kind of young I remember VHS not that young but that was a big draw back then mm-hmm because DVD players to put in perspective when when the ps2 came out I think it was was a 200 or 250 for it and I can't remember too but yet but the DVD players were about the same amount or more so from a lot of people's perspective this is why Sony was smart it was like well you're you're gonna buy a DVD player anyway so you're getting a DVD player with the game console yeah and that was a very large drawback in like 2000 in 2001 and even if you're not a big gamer I mean people who they were gonna get a DVD player anyway and they're not a big gamer but they're like but you know what I really like football maybe I'll just pick up the ps2 and like one Madden game you know I I'll try it out it's the same amount of noise you know I would love to know I would love to know if they ever released it or how they know what the average amount of attach rate of games was per ps2 I could almost guarantee you that light there is so many maybe like twenty percent of those one hundred and twenty million people bought like one or two games and just kept it as a DVD player and they were they were satisfied with it I mean me personally I think I own maybe two or three games I got it primarily as a DVD player really and I got one of those weird online deals I was like oh do these like it was one of those things that existed 15 16 years ago and like Internet barely 2.0 where it's a trial of these trial offers and at the end if you complete them all you can get a free ps2 or you get it for only 40 bucks I actually did one of those and it was not a I'm gonna do your credit card info as far as I know did it young plucky college Pat did not get his credit card stolen but you had to like go through and do all the cancellations of like like one of them was like sending you basically speed or amphetamine just like oh this is a weight loss thing sign up and get a free bottle but you got to cancel within 30 days or we'll send you another one for 20 bucks so you got to go in cancer like eight different things but the PIA the PlayStation 2 did come it did arrive and I remember buying one of the Smackdown games I bought like two of the Smackdown vs. raw games like 2003 or something 2004 here comes the pain one of the most famous ones in the franchise like the second or third one they made and there are great games but I'm never saying it's like yeah this is great just to have a DVD player because I know I can have a lot of cash when I was like 20 years old yeah 21 I can blow on just a $200 DVD player by itself and even if the interface was clunky to play DVDs they sold that remote separately you know and that was all you needed to in order to navigate it so so now we're going off on a Playstation memories when people the videogame years comes back did a game years 2000 we'll talk about how that was a big one but uh how did you get into speaking video game years how did you get into the online video creation aspect of what you love so it started out just me and the other owner of pink gorilla we started doing a podcast together we just decided you know we're constantly talking about all of this stuff I mean it's the same way everyone starts a podcast right but we're always talking about this we should just record it and put it on the internet so that's much basically exactly what we did and we we argue a lot like in a good-natured way but we argue a lot so we decided we'd do something where we're just arguing to different sides of an issue and that's not really what the podcast is anymore but that's sort of what it began as I think the first one we did was our toys to life here to stay or is it just a passing fad you know we did some digital versus physical media discussions and you know I enjoyed doing that it was it was going decent enough you know considering I was basically a nobody you know no one had ever heard of me but I got a handful of listens and was doing okay and then Jason metal Jesus had actually started listening to it and I did not know that we were like friendly acquaintances at the time we weren't friends but you know he came into the store we had good conversations you know if I saw him on the street we would smile and wave and that was that was but he started listening to it and he enjoyed what he heard and so he invited me to come do a couple videos with him so we did that those went pretty well I guess because he kept inviting me on that was really my first foray into the video creation part and you know I wasn't doing anything shell creating at the time I was just sort of you know show up with your knowledge and let's talk about this thing but I was really enjoying it and because I had gotten so into like the weird stuff I was buying all of this like we did a video on the wonderswan which is one of my favorite consoles and I had all of this weird stuff and I started thinking you know I I did a kind of an overview video about this but what if I was able to go a little bit deeper into some of these really odd things I own like the Famicom modem or you know the just things like that right so interesting weird things that I didn't see a whole lot of information on online so that was the first thing I started doing was I just wanted to talk about some history of odd objects but I am a perfectionist so instead of just talking about it and talking about what I knew I started doing about 40 to 50 hours of research per video and you know if you Wow yeah you seen my videos they're like 6 minutes long so I do an insane amount of water actin yeah I do an insane amount of work just to bring one or two new facts right like a couple things you can't find on Wikipedia a couple things you would have to actually search through Japanese newspapers and translate to No right so that's that's what I'm trying to do and it's a lot of fun for me but now take a really long time so you have to go find some Japanese periodical website and then get it translated yeah the information I've been lucky because I went to the University of Washington they've got a great great library there so I've been able to search through you know press releases from the late 80s and that sort of thing and you know in the Internet Archive is another great resource I'll go and find old Japanese blog posts and find their photos and stuff of these things and their experiences and be able to to bring some of that over but it's you know it takes a lot of digging but I like the digging part so I don't mean that to sound like oh god it's just so much work for me I really enjoy the dig it it just takes a long time gimme give you one fact that you uncovered from one of your topics that you research that was not known at least on Wikipedia to the larger audience sure let's hear it let's hear one yeah so here's one from a video that has not come out yet so this is a this is I know these are so I'm doing a video on the Super Nintendo Entertainment bike and I first name yeah I know wonder why so I found an article from Arnold Schwarzenegger quote about the excerpt Ament bike from mr. Terminator himself that's yeah it's not that's insane yeah it's not like a super exciting quote but the fact that Arnold Schwarzenegger was aware of the Super Nintendo Entertainment bike enough to have an opinion on it is a fun fact for me I think it's good that the kids are playing these games and they're using their muscles at the same time but that's basically exactly exactly what it was talking about how kids are easily bored with working out and how he was excited to see how this would you know motivate them to work out more that's actually a pretty good take on at the time I like the early 90s that's that's actually not bad so I might ask you I might do maybe bribe you to maybe write something for a certain superintendent guide book talking to people it sounds like you the person I asked about that we should also write Arnold Schwarzenegger though - that would be oh yeah they gave him one and he like he used it once and broke it with his massive thighs and just like crunched it and flies planes Speed Racer on the bike and pedaling right sure that's supposed to even work by the way yours you're pedaling and playing Speed Racer yeah that's great I guess so you so it's not just enough that you wanted to talk about the retro games you actually wanted to add knowledge to the community and to educate you know a lot of topic that you thought that maybe they need to learn more about this yeah so my favorite part actually the last video I did and unfortunately was a couple months ago I again I really wish I was uploading more but it just takes so much time the last video I did was on the sharp NES TV you know TV with the built-in NES and I did a lot of research on it but in the very end there were still a couple things that I could just not find conclusive proof of you know I don't want to just take someone's word for it on a blog I want to see an actual like brochure that proved this existed or an ad or something like that right so as without seeing it was it was it was it the second version no that one that one there's proof would that exists there's pictures of it and stuff but it was a oh gosh I Taiwanese I think I'm gonna make myself sound stupid here shows my own video they've released or they released the TV the Famicom version of it in Taiwan under a different name and all I could find proof of was one size of it one size and one color now there were a couple of blog posts saying that they had seen like a gold one or they had seen a different sized one but I had no proof of that and I didn't want to be like yeah it totally exists because some guy in Taiwan says oh you know some guy said sorry yeah so I said that in my video I said you know this is the only one I was able to find proof of existing but you know if anyone has actual proof that there was more than one color like at you know it's this guy says show it off so sure enough after about two days of that video being up so some guy in Taiwan scanned his brochure that he had of this Taiwanese release of the EDS TV and yeah sure enough both colors existed in two different sizes existed and that was a Famicom the same one yeah so okay so but that was exciting to me because that literally was nowhere on the internet this guy just dug out aperture he personally had and so I was able to by asking this question add I mean you know the most obscure not important knowledge whatever but I was able to add a piece of knowledge to the greater community now by doing that so that's that was like really encouraging for me and I want to keep doing that and asking questions that haven't been conclusively answered to see if somebody just has it laying around right sure so you found that I brochure is that does that mean that I got to market and people bought it I mean that's the name it had prices and stuff on it I mean I guess if there's if there's pictures of prices I'm gonna say that at the very least it was created plant plant at least there's a prototype they plant right enough to do the brochure right so at least I got to that point but now I would say yeah who owned it they won't actually sell any you know if none exist that could be an occasion that maybe they didn't or was very limited quantity you know yeah oh that's a good boy stur I mean be there getting there though you're building the case right it's certainly more than we had at the very least you know it was much better than just some guy saying he saw one which is what always upset me best Dame events forever was that the misinformation and false information that was out there forever about this game was like yeah it was a test market game it's like what is that based on yeah it was recalled by Nintendo really what are you basing that on exactly and it wasn't based on anything yeah it's based on absolutely nothing yeah these these stories tend to build like that you know someone someone says it and you say it you know and then someone else repeats that someone else repeats that and eventually that just becomes the story and you say you see that on like an extreme scale with stuff like et ruining the video game industry you know the fact that anyone could even believe that one game can crash an entire market is ridiculous but you know it's just it was repeated enough times that that that's what people think right we talked about et game crash yeah exactly yeah and that was the wrong game to choose I should the chose pac-man they're going to choose one right you know they chose the wrong one hatred they chose they chose one that sounded cool on paper versus the one that made more sense that people were massively disappointed of the arcade version versus the home console you know the game that people are waiting for more so than any other video game yeah probably the mid 80s and then but yeah we talked about that in the video game your segment about that that was a combination of lots of factors oh yes you know one of my that's when it comes to one of my favorite things that the video game history foundation has done just as like you know writing articles or whatever if they actually compiled a bunch of the reviews of ET at the time yeah yeah they like just they found a ton of reviews from different publications and magazines and overall it was the general consensus was like it's all right so I don't think an alright game can crash a whole industry right so anyways let's I mean it's alright for a twenty five girl video game reviewer might be different than that five game mechanics what yeah well no what I mean is like it was all right that's what the people believed at the time what the reviewers of the time the publication's all the way back from you know 1980 to 1983 that's what they were reviewing it eyes they were they said it was pretty good when it came out so sure you know changes this time changes is a story then a certain you know video game reviewers come up and do their exactly that so it changes what there's like for example just because James as AVGN says Ninja Turtles on the NES is a bad game it becomes all of a sudden almost gospel to people that didn't grow up with it this right oh yeah this Reynolds was a bad game what no it wasn't a bad game it was a good game it was and very much enjoy at the time it was a very hot seller yeah when it came out you know it did that's it's revisionist history the same way where people say all zelda ii is such a bad game weird sign a real zelda game now no one thought that at the time yeah no one said Delta 2 is not a real zone you could I mean no Zelda 2 was highly thought of and rated at the same as Super Mario 2 so you have these different generation of gamers that may not have grown up with they're trying to apply their current knowledge to the culture right and I don't even always think it's it's their fault I don't think that they go on there and say everyone hated this it's more just that they hate it now and so people apply that they're like oh well if it's bad now it must have always been bad right well same game they find that echo chamber and chamber everyone says the game's bad they find the chamber or said Oh Zelda twos not a real Zelda game because they grew up with everything from Ocarina of Time on work so they can't go back and play a previous game that doesn't fit with their mentality of what a quote/unquote Zelda game should be right and it's just sort of you know that's why it's one of those weird things but still the tune I loves all the - I I cried waiting a pirate come after school not bad but but you know I didn't grow up with NES games so the the flaws are more obvious to me playing through through later and it's the same way you know like if for people who didn't grow up with n64 they're gonna see the flaws a lot better than I do you know all right there's there's a there's a nostalgia bias for sure but that doesn't necessarily mean that the game is bad it just means the you know a game right we're gonna we're gonna be throwing down over Zelda - I think its flaws I think it's a decent game I just compared these it for me playing playing both the first Zelda and the second Zelda I had more fun with the first and this is as someone coming in you know decades after it was released right so it's it's not fair for me to rate them on the same plane because I enjoy them in different ways and I wasn't there you know had I played the first Seldon been like extremely excited about it in the 80s and you know waiting for you know waiting Zelda - I probably would have had a lot more fun with it I would and you know as a kid again you'd like you just have fun with the games that you like you know you like Zelda therefore of course you're gonna like Zelda too have you encountered anything being a female in the retro gaming community seen that maybe a male would not have encountered whether it was working at a store or doing these videos and you know the the general stuff you'd probably think of I I get a fair amount of people who you know would rather speak to a male co-worker or something like that but it doesn't it's not that it happens super often and they usually pretty quickly realized that I know what I'm talking about YouTube has surprisingly been extremely extremely positive for me I don't get I get some odd sexual comments but I really don't get that she doesn't know what she's talking about thing which is nice and I really strive for that because you know female or not obviously I'm doing all this research I really want to come across as this is as complete of a story as I could possibly tell about this item right like I've done all the research I'm now getting to the point I wasn't doing this in my early videos and I really regret it but I'm now getting to the point where I'm trying to actually source might you know like cite my sources and lists where I found a lot of this stuff now some of its gonna be blocked off you know access to it is limited because I had to use like a university library to get access to some of these things you know press releases their articles from the 1980s or something not everyone can access that for free but I but I try to cite it anyway so that you know if you ever wanted to go inside a librarian and get access to that sort of thing you could and check me no one knows how to use a library anymore I always say I was one of the last generations that had to do research pre-internet and then kind of use the internet for a little bit but yeah it's interesting do you see the range of behavior and reaction towards the female retro gamer being different in person versus on Twitch or on YouTube or is the same sort of range of some nastiness some extent a little bit uh you know on the fringe will just say yeah it's it's hard to say nowadays cuz I mean the last couple of years people have recognized me from doing stuff either on my own on the metal Jesus channel so I don't so you built your shriek right up so there's no okay she's cool she's one of us I think no one really sees me as like random female retro gamer now I'm I'm like a you know they know who I am in in these like niche communities of course I'm no celebrity but in in the niche community of retro game collecting for the most part I haven't run into it a whole lot anymore but I can't I can't recall the time you know I would love to to like be able to play the victim card but I won't I wouldn't love to play the victim story but I can't really I mean I haven't I haven't had a ton of negative experiences the only negative experiences I have are like exactly what you would expect you just have someone who is you it doesn't matter who you are or what you look like they just decided many many years ago that you can't know what you're talking about because you're a female but it's you know they're they're the minority for sure yeah I think we're a slightly different place now where I I think in the retro gaming community there's been less of an overall maybe I'm being naive of less of an overall boys club mentality versus the modern gaming versus the modern gaming scene in general maybe maybe because in general retro gamers are a little older and more mature in general yeah a little bit more yeah who cares if she's a woman if she likes playing her games you know there's like she's we don't the haze or that has a passive sort of like retro gaming IQ test to be one of us it doesn't matter right I mean that's what happened though when we got a bit Ally on the video game years because because we didn't know because let's be honest there's not that many female retro gamers compared to male no no there's not if so what you so win it so when you go to meet you there's very few in general yeah when it's regular gamers it's a much more close split but in the retro game community yeah there's really very very few of us yeah so we went when we got Ally on the video game years and she's fantastic she's funny and witty and she knows what she's talking about you got the reactions well you just have her on that she's a woman or you just want her have her on you know for this and then it's you know it doesn't hurt that she's a woman we'd rather not just have all all men on but she actually knows what she's talking about it is funny I guess I get that occasionally people some people accuse Jason of which is so odd to me they say they that he uses me for clickbait but that's so odd to me because I appear in all of the videos so it's not clickbait and B I'm usually talking more than he is so again not clickbait because you're not like fading anything what you see in the thumbnail is exactly what you're going to see in the video now let's just say what are you paying the fact that you're not a guy so I don't know doesn't that say more about there doesn't say more about the reaction and calling it clickbait versus you being in the video like yeah that's kind of a weak sort of self-centered it never again it never made any sense to me so although although it happens sometimes it's to me it's always so like out of left field and doesn't make any sense and doesn't have any merit that I mostly just ignore it it's like you know sure if you truly think that a video that has my face on it in which i star and do most of the talking is clickbait then like you just I I don't even know how to respond to that yeah I can't refute that you are I could admit I've had clickbait thumbnails done of my videos before so I could admit that like when that's happened but I think it's in general though I think with the internet and ocean community we've we found each other more easily because and obviously there's a lot more retro gamers now and collectors and there were even in 2011 versus 2008 and 2004 so I mean when I was collecting I was one of maybe two people I knew like in reality not on the internet that collected games did we just didn't exist Wow and so when you meet more people and it's like I think at least with the retro gaming community when I go to a convention I don't care man a woman whoever if I see someone looking at games and appreciating that day these are 30 real games like I'm like holy I found someone yeah thanks crazy like me that wants to look at this dead old physical media you know and what it collected and appreciated so I'm actually happy to see other people looking at those games and appreciate that we all come out and you know are sharing this love it I'm gonna start singing Kumbaya no it's it's it's great I mean and I think the amount of retro game shows that are popping up around to is really helping the ha because now people are not just doing it from their homes and chatting maybe like you know maybe they're in a Facebook group or something but now they can actually go out somewhere and meet other people who collect like they do so I think that's the biggest strength of the retro game shows to me it's just that it's a lot it's a lot better of an experience than just existing on these collecting Facebook groups or these you know online communities oh sure in-person interactions always nice you know it's always good to sit down like for example segue like we did at retro gaming X but with Frank sovaldi to talk about you know where the future of retro game collecting might be going in physical media and that was a very interesting conversation we didn't always agree a hundred percent but you know it's it's good to I think a dress that not elephant in the room but you know where exactly I'll just ask you where do you like where the future of the retro gaming scene will be in 15 years or so or 20 years and where what will retro game stores look like and will there be as many that exist and to me those are very interesting questions for a lot of different reasons yes I agree it's it's hard to say just because you know it's naive to say that everything is gonna last forever but we do have a really nice community of people who you know even though some people get out it seems like they always kind of come back in a little bit so maybe there'll be less people collecting full sets maybe there'll be more people shedding kind of the bulk and the price of the common games will go down a little bit but I I would be really surprised to see that even after 15 years that this hobby has gone away completely because it's it's been growing since since 1999 really I mean when there was like world of Atari and the earliest earliest gaming Expos or rich Gaming quote/unquote expose its you know it's only grown exponentially from there so I think as for game stores it's going to be important for them to diversify a little bit because I don't think that you know right now we do great selling a bunch of common games and and not common popular games like even common you know on unpopular games things like silent service on the NES and all that like those still sell and I think they're it's a good game I think there may be a point eventually where those won't pay the bills anymore you know those won't be able to move quite so much so being able to offer other things to your customers is going to be important I mean you know we sell like trading cards magic and Pokemon and that sort of thing and even something like that it's gonna is gonna help out the overall health of brought your game stores you know sure sort of following the same trend of game stuff we welcome to a monitor game stop less and less it it's actually video games where you have a lot of things oh yeah thank you items they're owned by same parent company of t-shirts yeah the little little Mega Man 8-bit pixel figure sitting there you're the Star Wars lamps and stuff you know I mean like it's you have to diversify it's a celebration of geek culture in this case I always talked about how something like the retro gaming expo will transform gradually into more of a celebration of the culture of retro gaming not necessarily just collecting physical media that existed 20 30 years ago it'll be oh I love Super Mario Brothers and I love Legend of Zelda I love arcades and right when it becomes it's sort of a gradual shift as children grow older they'll at least love the culture if not the physical media of a 30 year old console which is just as important it's more important to love the art behind I think those games and what it means culturally oh yeah that's for were headed I mean yeah yeah sorry go ahead I was it sailing we're gonna sort the John Hancock he's definitely seen a halt in the progression of prices at least for like NES games and you alluded to that and if he thinks it peaked in like summer 2016 and some of the evidence does bear that out that for a chunk of the games they taper it off and have come down since then even popular stuff like contra for example or duck or duck tails were they hit their peak the frenzy is over now it's sort of leveled off and this was the first year in 2000 I'd say 2017 was the first year that I saw NES games starting to be treated like the common Atari 2600 games that you can't give away it was the first year or I saw dollar bags of NES games or $2 or 6 for 10 first year I saw it happen was 2017 I can say that with multiple Commission's and and that's super new like it like you said I mean that was definitely not you know we're still able to sell it a game store a lot of the really common games just to people who pick up you know maybe they pick up their childhood stuff but some of our collectors and then some of them are like you know what I'm gonna pick up like one random game that I don't remember or something like that and so they still sell okay but you know yeah the fact that you're starting to see them do some of the kind of how Atari games are treated like you said I wonder if that means it's going to hit that place that Ataris hit or if it you know or if it'll still stay a few steps above that my my feeling Atari I mean Atari games are much more primitive they don't have the characters right easily I recognizable Atari's basically dead as a company I don't care how many Atari boxes or watches they throw out there no really truly cares about them you know so you're always gonna have oh it's on the NES it's always said I think gonna mean something because we are more than 2600 because when you think of retro gaming almost everyone immediately goes to the NES as the primary retro gaming system for the most part that might change in ten years but for now it's still the NES but that said there are a lot of games that they made a ton of on the NES that no one refers back to anymore as saying I want to play or collect that game for example silent service they sold a ton of them that was a very popular game in the eighties but no one necessarily wants to go back and play it on the NES no one really wants to go back and play bases loaded or bases loaded - right I had sold a toggle to 80 copies of NES play action football so exactly now these aren't necessarily all terrible games I think I rated play action football two stars and a certain yes guidebook but does anyone want to play it or own it anymore and we once you once you get a bunch of those type of games either either sit up you sit on them forever at three four dollars or you move them at a dollar and hopefully someone buys them like all those copies of Missile Command for 20 sunderer combat that exist right or pac-man you can't sell I do think that will happen maybe not for the majority of the NES library before a couple hundred yes games absolutely it's possible yeah that we'll get to that point not saying conquer is ever gonna be a - of course not I mean there's still plenty of Atari games that are well there's plenty of Atari games that are worth a ridiculous amount and then there's plenty in that mid-range that will probably never dip much below eight dollars or so you know but yes with centipede right so you know there's there's definitely it's definitely starting to skew that direction but but I agree with you that I don't think it's ever like the whole library it's never going to hit yeah Atari levels I think it'll probably just be the silent services and the NES play action football is in the bases loaded you know on that library that are gonna maybe you know wind up in the 50 cent dollar bin eventually I think you might get we might disagree a little bit I think you'll get a little bit above that where you're gonna get maybe those games that might be fun and somewhat coveted but this made soup like just too many of them to exist you know or at least they don't care about anymore like okay like Robocop sure it's like it's not a terrible game there's some value to owning a Robocop but I'm not gonna pay seven dollars for Robocop right no it's because who's gonna do that not many people or like bad dudes like bad guys is a kind of a game people know but is that gonna be a $10 game ever probably not you know it's just there's certain games but yeah I don't think it's gonna be like an Atari though where the majority of the library becomes a dollar or two dollar game where it's like all these common games are not worth anything you can't give them away like when I was in a I was a classic game fest in in Austin and there was literally it had to be over a thousand to twelve hundred Atari games in gigantic boxes that were like four feet high boxes by like six feet there was four of those boxes filled with filled with 2600 some 5200 an Atari computer games a dollar each way drowned in them a dollar each per game I need not for a dollar for the whole boxes are you applying at home to make your money back yeah like a doll but a dollar per game a dollar per game per yeah a thousand games that they've compiled this problems game store over the past ten years that no one wants they just don't want them yeah I feel that when people I feel bad when people bring in Atari games and you know I try to I usually have a longer discussion with them than I do with other people because I in no way want to rip anyone off and I don't want to make anyone feel like what they had or their childhood is like worthless so what I usually do is I bring out one of my giant Tupperware box is full of Atari games and I say you know what like these are cool and if you know if there's a couple games in there like maybe has or Burger Time or something like that where it's like worth six or seven dollars instead of I can't give it away then I'll pay fair on those but everything else I'm like I I like at this point can't even pay you for combat like I have like 200 copies that I will never sell any of them they don't even sell it 50 cents like I cannot you know you don't need Atari Circus you have enough of those yeah it's a mineral it was back yeah so and for things that I have less than five copies of all still I will totally still pay for them and stuff it's just you know for stuff like combat I I'm at the point where I can't justify spending really anything on them anymore and so and I tell them like hey you are under no obligation to like you know please by all means try to go find someone who will pay good money for these I just you know here is what I have here's what I haven't been able to move for years and years so I can't I can't I'm sorry you know but I understand it just start yelling at 99% of the time it goes well and they understand you you know you have the occasional person but I try to be as fair as possible and sometimes it's just it's just not super possible with tari games and and that's really the only system at this point that that is like that I mean even for 5,200 games like there's there's still some worth in some of those or even the crappy nes games with you know just a couple exceptions I can still well I'll pay something for any NES game of course but you know there's almost everything else even the common stuff even Madden 94 all of that stuff I can still totally pay people for it's fine but Kombat 4 2600 but but but each system though has their own combats right so I mean are you getting really gonna accept like World Series baseball 2003 I'm ps2 I mean I mean it's not gonna buy that you will well I don't I am under the light I my policy is not to turn away anything but I do try to tell people if you know if they come in and they think that what they have is worth a lot of money and it turns out it's a stack of sports ps2 games although I will still buy it from them I again try to give them the same like hey you know I sell these for a dollar and they never sell type thing you know so like just don't expect to be getting rich off of this I'm still going to give you something for it I'm not going to just give you no hand you a paperclip and expect you to walk away but you know the land funcle' funcle' and they give you ten cents for Mario hunt and like the mid to late 90s I said yeah I mean I'm definitely a lot better about that cuz Mario at least Mario is still popular like yes do I have thirty copies of it yes but that's okay because people still buy it you know so I can certainly still afford to pay people you know four or five bucks for it because it's something that still still sells and maybe I'll be wrong and you know one of these days like like you're saying that'll be one of the can't give it away games but I I just kind of doubt it because it's Mario and people are always gonna want always going to want you know I think they're always gonna have those games where I mean my this is my always Pat's theory about looking at the games that collectors want versus the modern culture and I always maintain that the game like state events a hundred years from now not many people will care about but you know what if someone has a sealed first edition original Super Mario Brothers that could be it like that could be the culturally significant piece that is worth a million dollars 100 years from now like that could be the game because people will still care about it hun years from now and they won't care about Flintstones dinosaur peaked that much or staying events or you only mean like it's just what does that mean like who cares oh wow the game was rare a hundred years ago it's like okay why don't why should I care if it was rare back then if the games not that good yeah that's a great point because the culture is certainly shifting the way that that the the market is working you know I mean not to say that prices on popular things have necessarily gone up a lot or at least not any more than anything else but you are definitely getting a lot more people who are in it just for kind of a short-term hobby they want to play you know they never go into the actual collecting part they do just want to pick up what they had as a kid maybe pick up one or two other games to try them out and then and then they're done maybe they sell it back maybe they keep it around for when they have friends over and they can be like hey remember banjo kazooie and you know bring it out but but not everyone in fact most people entering this hobby I would say are probably not collector which it which again goes back to maybe people getting as the popular games or the sets like you'll have maybe on each system the core 40 or so games that these are what 90% of the people want right the ones the papa games that they want like you can even boil it down to n64 there's probably only 15 to 20 games that people actual and it's true tire library yeah and then 50 years from now who cares about that rare variant because I didn't grow up with it maybe my grandfather did but he didn't care you know like so yeah I'll play ocarina of time 75 years from now yes I regard as a classics no that's completely right I mean unless a game is actually really uncommon or really rare even on the n64 which right now is you know a very popular system most of the non Nintendo games or non rare games like prayers of the company not rares and its rarity you know most of the not fondly nostalgic you know childhood remembered games are 10 bucks or less you know sure so it I mean it's probably just gonna be the way it stays with a lot of with a lot of systems you see the really rare stuff that's for collectors and those are you know 50 to 200 whatever $1000 those are gonna be really rare then you've got things that hold their value pretty well because people still like them including non collectors things like you know on the n64 Ocarina of Time and banjo kazooie and those type of Goldeneye Mario yeah and then you have just the random it doesn't even necessarily have to be sports games it can be like our Marines or you know there's a couple that are kind of in that mid area like cruisin USA or something like that where some people fondly remember it but there's still just so many of them out there that it doesn't really make it expensive but yeah I mean there's there's tons of stuff on every system that's like that that's just gonna fee sub $10 forever maybe that's where it plays out going forward for all the systems even now so you know like you talked about we you're gonna have the 20 games that people cared about and the shovelware will be worthless right where you won't give it away plus there's there's a couple and there's a couple like rare shovelware things that as long as there are still collectors those games might still have some value but they might care about them sure your if you have a weak collector 20 years from now trying to complete a set they're gonna search those out so those might maintain the value but you're gonna have 80% of the games just drop yeah well who's really searching out after the Shoveler that they produced a billion of them where if i go to the swap meet next week you still find like sometimes boxes of shovelware new like because they just made so bad yeah anyone put the game out was almost like the Atari 20 to make money put out that cheap game you know just that's all this how it was kind of crashed the Wii U a bit yeah are you excited speaking of oh no go ahead all this are you excited by this resurgence of Nintendo with a switch oh absolutely I mean like most people you know I don't want call myself like a Nintendo fanboy or anything but I I certainly grew up with Nintendo and like everyone have fond memories of Nintendo games so of course you know I'm gonna be excited that they're still doing well into a 20-18 but the switch is a console for me personally that feels like it was built for me it feels like it was built I know like like all the Nintendo stuff it's for everybody it's for all ages but in my head the switch is really built with like the adult in mind someone who doesn't have a ton of time to spend in front of a TV every day has lots of places to go to and from maybe they've got like a doctor's appointment they've got to go on the bus all these things in their daily life but you know they still there still gamers they still want like a good a console that's gonna be more powerful than you know like a DS or something right so I love the switch so much because I play things primarily in handhelds mode if I can because I'm on the go so often and so although I like that I can dock it like my switch is mostly in handheld mode and I just I love that I can take it with me and it's an actually pretty powerful console as opposed to you know all the other handhelds we've seen so far I mean the the Vita is decently powerful but but it's been really exciting for me to see that handhelds are getting sort of like the adults treatment they're not just like a toy that you take on the go they're like no we're gonna put real full games on this we're gonna put doom we're gonna put Skyrim we're gonna put a full Zelda that's huge on it you know I think it's interesting that they tapped into a market that everyone forgot about basically but yeah like the handheld market was always strong the 3d s right you know but then they managed through the marketing to go back to maybe a generation ago that hasn't had a Nintendo system since maybe the Wii or even GameCube or even before that and say hey Nintendo's around still check out what we got now check out the Zelda game check out Mario Odyssey so you got 30 and 40 rows like hmm interesting I want to buy this system it's got the little docking thing and I haven't seen that before so it's almost to me it was almost like the Wii you had to fail miserably for the switch to be a success yeah and there's one without the other right and there's still plenty of things wrong with the switch I mean in sendou still behind on the times when it comes to online play they haven't launched their their online service really yet yeah you know there's so many features of the Xbox one and the ps4 have that this which doesn't which is disappointing but but for me I mean the biggest thing about game consoles is always the games right I mean that seems pretty obvious but I think people forget that sometimes they get lost in the specs and the in the features and that sort of thing but you know games are really what's the most important draw for most people getting a console so the fact that they're bringing these sort of adult not necessarily adult is in like you know rated M games but games that really feel like they can be enjoyed by you know the same way that you're enjoying games on Xbox one or a ps4 these really long complete games they don't necessarily have like I mean I play a lot of JRPGs but you know you can fit the anime graphics and that sort of thing on a 3ds but something more intense graphically intense than that something a little bit more yeah adults is the word I keep using but I don't know if that's the right word but it seems like it's it's kind of grown up a little bit with the switch oh sure that makes sense and it's something that is a new party system with the joy cons and so Nintendo hit upon that but the other major competitors were totally ignoring in person party console that really hasn't existed in a long time and yeah it's it's been the gigantic hit and Nintendo along those lines has recognized the retro gaming community in the value of producing more superintendent classics and bringing back yes classic and then also offering an online sort of Netflix service with their when they eventually roll it out on the switch so they're learning more quickly than I thought they ever would have and I know you're correcting errors which is yeah good news for us that's the important part I don't mind you know I don't cut off a company forever when they make a really horrible mistake I mean everyone remembers that Xbox one e3 announcement right but they corrected everything that you know people were pissed and they went okay people are pissed we're going to go back on all of these things then and revise them so as long as you're doing that then I mean I can't really ask for anything more right just just listen listen to the people and what they what you know the frustrations they have and try to correct them yeah I still think I picture myself ready with the baseball bat like negan going over to channel Japan just smashing it down with cable say you're gonna make more superintendent classics you will make more NES classics yeah and they said okay Reggie alright crazies nuts because he's more into they're more in tune into America where you are with what's going on here versus in Japan so I think these days how to communicating they probably button heads for a while and plus the shareholders probably got involved and said we're we're throwing away money not making as many of these as we possibly yeah like that's what we're doing like they would have sold 10 million NES classic editions if they made him less Christmas in 2016 they said they made two they've made two million yes like come on man so what's what's next for you on your channel besides your your your you all you reveal some of it what's going on yeah so the next couple videos are gonna be that and then I also went to the National videogame Museum in Frisco Texas over over like the Christmas time I went a little bit before Christmas so I'm gonna do interesting yeah have you been there no I always forget when I go to retro Palooza Darlington it's not too far not Partington at all you might have seen someone shooting a certain documentary out there cuz I think they were out there around Christmas or right afterwards it could potentially I got I met John Hardy who is one of the museum's founders at Portland yeah super nice guy and so I just I basically just emailed him when I was you know a couple weeks out and I said hey I'm coming in town you know would love to see you and see the museum and that sort of thing so he ended up giving me just kind of like a full tour showed me a little bit of the like secret backroom area which is sounds really cool and exciting but you know it's it's mostly just storage right so but but I'm so I'm doing a video on that about you know what the museum is like it's not a full tour because I obviously don't want to take away anyone who's like on the fence about going if you can see absolutely everything what's the point in going so I'm leaving leaving some of it out of course but showing off some of the exhibits and some of the really really cool stuff they have there and then talking a little bit about what I saw in the the back room he obviously didn't let me film back there but but there were a couple interesting things back there I picture it being like digital press in New Jersey Mike one of the largest in one of my most favorite retro gaming stores I've ever been to downstairs you have enough stuff downstairs they open probably two more retro gaming stores just in storage it's insane well that's that's Joe Santo a store isn't it he also is also one of the founders of of the national video game museum so that's cool him in him and Sean Kelly yep yep so I know Jesse Johnson totally for like almost 10 years you really wow he seems like really I have not met him but he seems like a really nice guy oh he's he's an OG of the collecting scene yeah open game stores and yeah he's great he lived down he was helping he was helping live in Texas and he went back to to run the shop yeah and I think a year or two ago yeah it's now just John down there but but it seems to be oh that that's good and you'll be streaming on Twitch as well some stuff in the future yeah I'm streaming once a week this is a totally new thing for me I've never streamed before and I'm definitely still getting the hang of it I mostly I started the stream because I really want to stream Monster Hunter when it comes out so it came I've been playing for a long time in the new one it is especially awesome got to play you know the demos that have come out the last couple weekends so I think that's sort of what it's gearing up to cuz that's a more exciting game than what I've been playing recently which is mostly just like JRPGs don't stream very well but yeah so once a week streaming it may increase eventually but the reason I got into streaming was because I know my youtube video doesn't or my YouTube channel doesn't put out videos very often so I want to make sure I still have something I'm doing that people can engage with so I'm not you know I'm not just someone who pops up every month or two with one video is that the future you think that's the future where even you have someone like me on YouTube that you know like the stay in Venice video will come out some like that Kaelyn come out once every two to three months because of all the time goes into it so well that's going on you just go to you just go to twitch and hang out and play games yeah see your face and well I know you've had norm on your the gaming historian on your podcast here and I think that's sort of what he does because his videos also you know similarly take a very long time to research and write and produce and I know he streams now too and I'm not sure if that was his motivation for doing it or not but I would imagine it's I mean it seems likely right like for someone who can't put out a video every single week or twice a week that it's just another way to make sure that you're putting your face out there and and getting probably a little bit of extra income to I haven't I I have not made a whole lot of money on Twitch yet but you know it was I've gotten a handful of donations and I'm thankful for that so it was it was something right something to motivate me to continue going it's also a good excuse to play games for fun I mean I'm used to in my line of work and for working on these books like it's it's fun but it still works right so at least with twitch I mean people there's all people treated as a job but at least you're playing games for fun and you have an audience they're there in the chat there have fun it's actually appeals to me a lot more than I originally thought about it even a couple years ago where I was like for example I was always kind of down in general on let's play videos you know uploaded a YouTube because to me the value of those wasn't there wasn't like to me an inherent value of that but with twitch where it's a live performance of people were hanging out that at least means something to me and that's something I always like doing going back to all these NES marathons with you once a year I actually like playing these games it's just you know maybe you make it more of a regular part of your life you build a community that way off of YouTube and the twitch community by and large is far more positive at least in my estimation and knowledge than the the youtubes maybe they can be a little nasty on YouTube so yeah yeah I've only had positive I mean again I've only streamed twice but so far it's been nothing but positive so you know knock on wood but but it seems to be going well so far well great where can people find you on Twitch and on YouTube so I wish I had kept it all all the branding consistent but it's a little bit different so my my YouTube is just Kelsey Lewin so it's you know youtube.com / Kelsey Lewin or you can just search my name on twitch I am twitch TV / tentacles so it's like the word tentacles but it's but ke LS like my name okay and then on Twitter I'm at Kelsey Lewin so similar to my youtube channel it brandings all over the place unfortunately how I wish I had been a little bit more consistent oh I'll put a link or two down there why and of course you are running the awesome pink guerilla games in two locations in the Seattle area so if you're around there you know check out pink gorilla they're good people and there's certain NES guy book is the effort say it is and I work there like five days a week so sometimes people are surprised to see me there I'm like not this is this is my job I do have to be here so that's how you make that money so you can buy those weird weird esoteric exercise tender bytes yeah otherwise you can't do that well Kelsey was great great great talking with you I hope to see you again at a convention or two this year and yeah I'll keep up with your work on life awesome thanks so much for having me on and that's it for this edition of the not so common podcast thanks again to Kelsey for speaking to me this week if you enjoyed the podcast please subscribe on youtube or on your podcast platform of choice whether it's stitcher itunes google play pod bean or whatever you use to listen to them you can like the podcast leave a comment to help give it a boost and also feel free to share your experience on social media follow me at pat the nes Punk on twitter and also I have a patreon if you want to help directly support me in my work it's patreon.com slash pat contry thanks and I'll see you next time

Channel: Pat the NES Punk

Views: 76,723

Rating: 4.7855105 out of 5

Keywords: kelsey lewin, pat contri, not so common, podcast, metaljesusrocks

Id: YswhALkS1dk

Length: 90min 33sec (5433 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 13 2018