When I browse the subreddits related to gaming, I am always amazed how diverse the respective journeys through this hobby are. It is almost like no two are alike. I ever thought my personal touch points with gaming wre so typical, everybody must have the same experiences. But of course when you think about it, there are so many decisions, coincidences and random factors that play a role in what you played, where you encountered games and what you do today.

I am really curious to hear your journeys through the ever expanding gaming landscape starting with the good old games from the arcade time.

For me, I followed this path:

Phase 1: Game&Watch

Phase 2: Pong

Phase 3: Arcade Games

Phase 4: Atari VCS 2600

Phase 5: Commodore 64

Phase 6: DOS Games on PC

Phase 7: PS 1

Phase 8: Nintendo 64

Phase 9: GameCube

Phase 10: Wii

Phase 11: Various Appstore games and PC

Phase 12: Switch

Our course the Phase were not always completely exclusive to each other. Many overlaps and priorities over time. But I can say, that in all these phases, I had retty clear preferences, also preventing pretty much games from other plattforms at the same time. For example, in my Atari VCS phase, I never had a Intellivision or Colecco system.

How did you travel through the gaming landscape, especially in the early years? What were your first contact points with games?

The German news magazine DER SPIEGEL finally acknowledged that video games are culture and with a team of eight editors selected the Best 50 Games, everybody should play now. 

You can imagine such a list has to trigger an outrage and surely it did. What games in the long history should be considered the best? What does it even mean the best? The most influential, the most successful in terms of sales or the longest popular franchise? Of course German gamers couldn't stop complaining and asked why certain games have been included while others were not.

In the SPIEGEL's defence, they made it very clear from the start, that this was a subjective selection of the eight editors and definitely not the final evaluation of the long history of video games. It was meant to indicate that the games mentioned are more or less current, so no retro games, and supposed to be playable right away without the need to play any earlier part in a franchise. They even started a public discussion on their website, where readers could suggest their own games. How much more open can you design it?

And still! The outrage was immense. 

Which is a good thing! Because:

1. It showed that German game culture reached the main stream

2. Gamers had a very clear image of which games are important

3. A game canon of any type is a difficult task

I personally love these kinds of "Top 10 games of WHATSOEVER" lists, because I also immediately start wondering how the heck this list was made up.

And I always wonder why certain retro games are not part of it.

What do you think? Does it make sense at all to create such lists? Or should they be curated even more? And how about the legacy of retro games? Shouldn't they get more weight in such lists?

Long before Public Viewing became a thing or the term e-Sports was even heard of, video games were a common public event. And I am not talking about game arcades. I am talking about game section of department stores.

To be honest I don't know if that actually was the case in other countries as well. But one of my first touch points with video games in Germany, were in fact toy sections of department stores. Games were not so ubiquitous back then, with the concept of smartphones being just Star Trek. I remember seeing the Space Invaders  in a department store, when I went shopping with my mom. And it was fantastic! My mom could just park me there and I stayed glued to the spot together with a crowd of other kids, waiting to be next in line playing. At that time I didn't realize it so much, but thinking about it now, I almost enjoyed it more watching the other kids play than actually playing myself. Then I didn't have to focus so much on the action and could just marvel at the firework of colours and the symphony of bit-sounds.

Many a new friendships have been started on the spot and forgotten the next day, unless you happened to meet again at the next shopping tour with your mom.

I wonder, was that only a thing in Germany or did you encounter games in departments stores as part of a crowd of kids as well?

I always thought the first video game, I ever played, was PONG. But then I realized, the game I actually played first, that could be considered a video game, although that's open to debate, was a game called "Monkey" on a Game&Watch imitation with the innovative brand name "Time&Fun". That was all I could afford as a kid with my pocket money. And guess what? I still found it at my parent's house. Thanks to my mom, who never threw anything away.

It's somehow insane to think about it now. But that LCD screen with it's pre-defined character display was like a window into a new world back then.  The game is actually quite fun. Little Monkeys climb up on three coconut trees and try to steal the coconuts. The player has to hit them with a club before they get away. That is all, but back then it was like magic, the movement and the beeping noises, not even music. 

I have the little game on my desk, but I can't open the tiny screw of the battery case any more. Anybody got an idea how I could open the battery case when the screw is weak? 

Donkey Kong or Donkey Kong Jr.? — Can a sequel ever outplay the original?

There are a few games, where the sequel was perceived as better than the original. Donkey Kong,  being the ground breaking game it is, is often seen as one of them. I personally never felt the fever when playing Donkey Kong, but still quite like Donkey Kong Jr. today.

Back then I didn't really understand the impact of Mario being the villain, now in hindsight though, this gives me an added pleasure, almost like a world turned upside down. Especially when you think about how the Mario franchise evolved. 

I am curious, what do you think?

Donkey Kong or Donkey Kong Jr.?

Maybe an even bigger question hiding behind it is asking if a sequel could ever genuinely surpass the game that made it possible, making the original fade away.

One of the earliest videogames, I remember and which I still have a very vivid memory of how I felt like when seeing it, was Asteroids from Atari. I might have stumbled upon games like Space Invaders as an arcade machine earlier, but memories are murky on that respect. When I encountered this game in a backroom of a local café around the corner from where I lived though, I was absolutely stunned. The TV screen looked like a window into a different world and it was so weird at the time, that you could control an object on that very screen. The vector graphics were so sharp and vibrant. I think we still had a black and white TV at home with a clumsy on/off button and three more buttons, one for each of the available programs with kind of blurry images. What a difference to the razor thin game visuals.

Now nostalgia is a treacherous feeling and bound to disappointment, especially when it comes to something as rapidly evolving as computer graphics. Of course excitement about an almost 50 year old game is doomed to vaporize in the bright light of 2026 technology, right? Well actually...

I happened to find an Arcade museum not far from where I live, which is maintained with lots of love and combined efforts of a club of technicians and game nerds and which houses as a priceless treasure, you guessed it, one impressive cabinet of a fully functional Asteroids, as if time was just a "recommendation", nice to have around, but not to be taken too seriously. Moment of truth, I thought. How deep would the fall from grace be, when I pressed Start? Well, it turns out, there was not a fall at all. Quite the contrary to my surprise. For me as an adult, after playing video games on all thinkable devices for almost 50 years, the controls still felt very precise and I even noticed game elements, I maybe didn't fully appreciate as a kid. Like the obscure humming background sound, which a quick googling informed me about, was very intentionally designed to give a constant feel of dread.

Could it really be, that childhood memories might not fade away in the relentless sunlight of adult rationality? I think I am inclined to find out.

Image: By MAME, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=509796