That’s wonderful, Brian. When you’re done whining about things you have no direct control over, maybe we can talk about the aspects of the project we actually can influence.
It might be good if one of the developers did a short playcast of SF1 or SF2 with developer commentary. That could really stoke some fuel. This would be “new”, so places like PC Gamer, which did a story on it 2 weeks ago, could do a new blurb on it to bring it back into gamer’s short attention span.
I did. Twice. Did you forget?
Just got the email for this. Looking forward to it.
I knew it existed, but I could never, ever, find it in a retail store. Yes, that was a real problem back then. There were many games I would have loved to play but they were never stocked, including many SSI wargames of the era. Just finding a game you wanted was an achievement back then.
Anyway, very happy to support this funding campaign, even though I haven’t played the others, I’ve been reading about them for decades. I actually bought Star Control 2 at release because I heard it was like Starflight, before SC2 was well known. Happy to now own the Starflight games through GoG and maybe I’ll finally play them in the future.
Sorry if the facts have upset you.
Yeah. You ended up bouncing from computer store to computer store. Because there were no dedicated game stores. Only mom and pop computer shops with game sections. I remember watching as the Commodore 64 sections shrank and the IBM PC clone games sections grew. I saw the writing on the wall.
Huh, the Starflight and Ultima games are ones I definitely remember buying* though I forget where I used to get my C64 games in the mid- to late-80s. They had stuff like Electronics Boutique and Software Etc. back then right?
*yes, I was a damn dirty pirate in those days. I’ve worked to amend my indiscretions in the decades since.
The time I’m thinking of was between 1980 and 1984.
Not in Canada. EB came to Toronto (only) in 1993, and gradually expanded from then. In the 80s, the only place to get computer games were in single store computer shops, which also sold games, as well as department stores or other non-specialty stores that stocked games, usually as part of their toy sections. The best store in Canada for games was probably Toronto’s World Biggest Bookstore, where you could get games like Ultima IV for a mere $80 or so (equivalent to about $300 in today’s dollars). Every purchase was a significant investment, and there was no such thing as rentals.
We didn’t see either of this in the town I grew up in until like 91-92. In fact we had a Walden Software before anything else (later morphed into an EB). There were local places that sold software - I remember seeing some of those “software in a bag” offerings - but you could easily run into the problem Desslock mentioned. They would have some things in stock but that was a small slice of what was out there. There was a period in the mid to late 80s where my town was fortunate to have a software store that kept a large selection of games on hand. I was a regular enough presence at the store (even if I was getting no more than 3-4 games a year, sometimes less) than the lady who ran it gave me some review copies of games and had me write up reviews that were posted in the store.
It closed before Pool of Radiance released, sadly, and I had to order that via SSI catalogue. It took a year for me to get the game (oh so worth it, though).
Anybody remember Egghead Software? I hated EB, but Egghead was cool.
Absolutely. Both bought Starflight 2 and Sentinel Worlds: Future Magic Volume 1 there, among many others.
Stop and Save Software was my all-time fave, since they sold used PC games.
Egghead was my fave in mid eighties to early nineties, they had alot of sales. I remember all the EA album cover games like for 10-20 bux… like Starflight,7 Cities of Gold and Bards Tale. Plus they had a release date sheet that sorta reminded of when music stores had album release date board. I remember waiting for the release of Microprose F-19, was a game i read about and was really excited for… the graphics looked SO GOOD at the time. plus the meaty manual. Nostalgia…
I don’t thing Stop and Save was in Chicago area. Closest thing to discount was some mom and pop stores that had used software around my area… back when there was an actual market for this… one place I used to go to the family had a cat in the store…and it smelled like a pet store!
I think Stop and Save Software might’ve been a northeast thing only.
I don’t think there were any Eggheads in the south when I was growing up. Don’t remember any, at least.
Not surprised, I think besides EB, many stores were more regional, like Egghead, Babbages and the like.
Egghead had physical stores? I had no idea. I remember them as a catalog company.
They did, and places like Target carried c64 games for a while.
I only bought PC games. I bought my mid-80’s games (Ultimas, Starflights, Gold Boxes, etc) at, believe it or not, Leachmere’s, which was a New England-area department store that’s long gone.
Then EB mostly, some at Egghead.