Hulk_Smash
Banned
I don't know how anyone else fared, but it was tough growing up poor and gaming. Just so you understand, when I say poor, I mean "no extra spending money". My mom and dad both made sure I was fed, clothes on my back, roof over my head. We were bordering on poverty when I was born, living in low-income apartments and living on food stamps. So we were poor but not homeless-poor.
Eventually, we were able to raise up to lower middle class when my dad got a new job and we moved out of the apartment and into a crime-ridden neighborhood where my dad bought our first house.
Still, I never wore name brand clothes, drank powdered milk with my cereal, never went on a vacation, and a treat for me was going up to a 7/11 and spending my $2 allowance on a pack of baseball cards or a slurpee. Video games were out of the question.
I grew up in in the early 80s so I knew what video games were. They were those awesome things you played at the arcade. I think I played Donkey Kong a handful of times, Pac-man once or twice, and Super Mario Bros (arcade). I had no clue that you could own these games on a home console.
Until that is, I was about 8 years of age and my dad and I were out yard sale shopping. One guy was selling an Atari 2600 with 8 games: E.T., Defender, Circus Atari, Pole Position, Pinball, Combat, Asteroids, and Space Invaders. Dude was asking for $20 and my dad talked him down to $15 and bought it for me. My very first console. Man, I thought it was awesome. It wasn't even my birthday or anything but it sure felt like it was.
And when we moved into the slightly nicer neighborhood, there were a ton of boys my age that lived in that 'hood and they used to love coming over and playing Atari with me because none of them owned video games either. So, I didn't really know how "gaming poor" I was. It didn't feel like it in the slightest.
That is until the Christmas of 1987 when my buddy that lived two blocks down from me got an NES for Christmas and the entire neighborhood it seemed was crammed into his little bedroom watching him place Life Force, Kung Fu, and Super Mario Bros...
It would be 4 more years before I got an NES. Crazy to think about it like that. Now I have a Switch, PS4, Super Nintendo, 3DS, and a beefy gaming PC and I own hundreds of games. If only I could go back to my 8 year old self and tell me just to be patient.
So, if you were to finish the joke, "I was so gaming poor" HOW POOR WERE YOU? "I was so poor I would..." how would you finish that line?
For me? I was so poor I used to pretend all my different Atari games were just different levels in an NES game and when I "beat" one "level", I'd take the game out and put another "level" in.
Eventually, we were able to raise up to lower middle class when my dad got a new job and we moved out of the apartment and into a crime-ridden neighborhood where my dad bought our first house.
Still, I never wore name brand clothes, drank powdered milk with my cereal, never went on a vacation, and a treat for me was going up to a 7/11 and spending my $2 allowance on a pack of baseball cards or a slurpee. Video games were out of the question.
I grew up in in the early 80s so I knew what video games were. They were those awesome things you played at the arcade. I think I played Donkey Kong a handful of times, Pac-man once or twice, and Super Mario Bros (arcade). I had no clue that you could own these games on a home console.
Until that is, I was about 8 years of age and my dad and I were out yard sale shopping. One guy was selling an Atari 2600 with 8 games: E.T., Defender, Circus Atari, Pole Position, Pinball, Combat, Asteroids, and Space Invaders. Dude was asking for $20 and my dad talked him down to $15 and bought it for me. My very first console. Man, I thought it was awesome. It wasn't even my birthday or anything but it sure felt like it was.
And when we moved into the slightly nicer neighborhood, there were a ton of boys my age that lived in that 'hood and they used to love coming over and playing Atari with me because none of them owned video games either. So, I didn't really know how "gaming poor" I was. It didn't feel like it in the slightest.
That is until the Christmas of 1987 when my buddy that lived two blocks down from me got an NES for Christmas and the entire neighborhood it seemed was crammed into his little bedroom watching him place Life Force, Kung Fu, and Super Mario Bros...
It would be 4 more years before I got an NES. Crazy to think about it like that. Now I have a Switch, PS4, Super Nintendo, 3DS, and a beefy gaming PC and I own hundreds of games. If only I could go back to my 8 year old self and tell me just to be patient.
So, if you were to finish the joke, "I was so gaming poor" HOW POOR WERE YOU? "I was so poor I would..." how would you finish that line?
For me? I was so poor I used to pretend all my different Atari games were just different levels in an NES game and when I "beat" one "level", I'd take the game out and put another "level" in.
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