Well...
This is actually a topic I really wanted to discuss when it was actually front-page news of news sources that don't have anything better to report on, but what can you do? Maybe you remember a few months ago when the US Supreme Court announced that selling used games is so totally illegal, and if you do remember that announcement, you're likely wearing sweatpants and a wolf-print T-shirt and are currently dusting the Chee-tos powder off your fingers so you can post a response telling me how psychic I am.
What I'm saying is that while this news isn't exactly on par with the current debate regarding the constitutionality of the health care bill or Glorious Leader's righteous war against the Capitalist Pigdogs in the South, it still struck a nerve with me, because I'm a mushroom hunter.
I know what you're thinking: "Merican, I know exactly what mushroom hunting is, but I need a simplified way to explain it to my significant other/life partner. Can you provide one for me?"
Of course. By mushroom hunting, I mean that a hobby of mine is buying games--used ones--for long-dead video game consoles. The thought of that suddenly becoming a thing of the past makes me sad. Wistful, even. Being that I'm stockpiling my wistfulness for evenings spent 50 years from now with an old basset hound and a glass of brandy, staring at a picture of my recently deceased wife, I can't afford to waste any of it now.
Gamer culture is more united now than at any point in its short history. The Internet not only makes shopping for games effortless, it disseminates gaming news faster and more reliably than print, it facilitates finding a myriad of reviews, it allows gamers to play across great distances easily, and other things you already knew but I'm mentioning for the sake of parallel syntax.
And yet, for all the 21st century harmony, we are, now more than ever, a house divided and with distant occupants. The Internet has given rise to a bunch of two-bit know-it-alls talking out of their asses about gaming, and everyone hates those smug burger-eating, toe-injuring cuntknuckles. With the rush of being the first source to review games, many websites refuse to give poor ratings to deserving games, for fear that studios will stop sending them advance copies. XBox Live makes people assholes.
Literally seconds away from becoming a racist, sexist, homophobe
Buying used games was one of the last vestiges of a bygone era. I'm eleven again, leafing through an old issue of Nintendo Power. A game piques my interest. Downstairs to the kitchen I go, bottom left-hand drawer, Yellowpages. Back up to the bedroom. Throw the thing on my comforter and peel it open. It had some heft to it, that book. Character. Musty, curling pages and thick, smudgy ink. You could always tell when the mushroom hunt was on--black fingertips.
Turn to the games section. First entry: Babbage's. White Sony 800Hz cordless telephone in hand, I dialed the number. $40 in my teddy bear coin bank, mostly rumpled ones and fives--yardwork money--and I'd trade it all for a copy of Chrono Trigger. Babbage's comes up snake eyes, onto the next number.
You meet a lot of Zacks and Chads this way. A couple Gregs. I think that's how they hire these people.
"What's your name, son?"
"Leonard."
"Get out of my store. Next! You! With the glasses, what's your name?"
"Le-, um... Chad?"
"You start Monday."
Finally, about halfway down the page, I find a place that has a copy. Pay dirt. Now the hard part: begging my dad to give me a ride. It's a hard sell, but he finally buckles. My father was a sly time-salesman. He not only traveled through time selling things to people door-to-door, but was an expert at getting me to trade my time away in exchange for these little rides. This one in particular costs me two lawn-mowings and a deck treating. One minute of drive time equates to roughly 10 minutes of odd jobs. I never get a very good exchange rate.
Worth it.
I stride confidently through the parking lot to the Funco Land, pull the door, and stand in front of the store looking like an idiot.
It was a push door.
One very disappointed father later, there I stood at the counter.
This was the first result on Google Image Search for "disappointed father"
And there it sits on the counter: Chrono Trigger. It's an impressive package (I'm talking about my 11-year-old penis). Also the game was in fantastic condition: clean box, intact maps and posters, and the instruction manual was in pretty good shape. Squaresoft really used to put together a damn good collection of extras in every box. A collector's dream. And for $35? Not bad.
Zach counts out the wad of bills on the counter as Zack sees what I'm buying.
"Chrono Trigger?!" Zack says. "That game is awesome. Have you ever played it before?"
"Yeah!" I say. "I've rented it a couple times."
"Dude, wait until you get to the last boss. The battle's, like, 30 minutes long."
"Oh, and you have to target the guy on the right?" I say.
"Yeah. That's so cool, though. You think you have to aim for the guy in the center but-"
And on and on we go. Zack turns to Zach and says: "Man, I wish I had known we had that in stock. I totally would have bought it."
Clutching my prize tight, my father and I head for the car.
But it's true what fat, ugly people say: "it's what's inside that counts." I guess it would stand to reason that the only thing ever to come out of their mouths would be true.
I rush up the stairs and into my bedroom, pop the game into Supes and flip the power button. Black screen. Blow into the cartridge. Black screen. Rub contacts with alcohol and Q-tip. Black screen.
Disappointment. Long ride back to Funco Land.
Goodbye, Chrono Trigger.
Back to the Yellowpages. The rest of the stores are a bust. Next is pawn shops. Look for the ones that mostly trade in old VHS and LP records. Best chance of them also carrying games.
Next, start eliminating anything that takes more than 15 minutes to get to. Any more trips like the last one and I'll be re-shingling the roof next weekend.
More calls. Fewer Chads.
A hit.
Back on the road.
It's a rougher part of town, that's for sure. The cast-iron bars on the window tells me that much. Inside, an impressive array of VHS tapes almost entirely obscures the nicotine-cured wallpaper. Bad movies, mostly. A lot of Conan the Barbarian knock-offs. An older gentleman stands up from a frayed, upholstered rocking chair and greets us and I tell him I'm the one who called earlier about the game. He reaches into the dusty case, leathery fingers riffling through the plastic cases until he gets to the "C"s.
He pulls out my game.
"Can... you pop it into the machine and make sure it works?"
He nods slowly, wordlessly and settles back in, takes the game and drops it into a yellowed Super Nintendo behind the counter and picks up a controller. The thing looks tiny in his impressive mitts. I cross my fingers as I hear the contacts click into place and he flips the power switch. Black screen. It might as well have been a boot to the gut. And then...
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Except the last two lines weren't in Finnish
Mowing the lawn never felt so satisfying.
Looking back on it now, I try not to think about what that complete package at Funco Land might have been worth today.
My best friend who is currently working for Telltale Games said it best: "games aren't art. They're something better: they're experiences." The obvious irony of him saying this to me over the Internet aside, the man has a point. They're more than that, even. They're shared experiences. In a previous installment, I quoted Shigeru Miyamoto who compared games to playgrounds. The places that we've been shape us, obviously, but I think there is something beautiful in the fact that, in some small way, we shape them, too.
That night, I went home and popped the game into Supes. That's when I found the magic of mushroom hunting for the first time.
That night, I went home and popped the game into Supes. That's when I found the magic of mushroom hunting for the first time.
I later found it again a couple more times in college
Three save files from the previous owner. I still remember the names he or she (but probably he) gave to the characters...
 |
| Scott |
 |
| Jules |
 |
| Tim |
 |
| Ribs |
 |
| Amy |
 |
| Penis |
Magical. Truly magical.
Even now, some fourteen years after buying that game from that smoky pawn shop with the vaguely homoerotic taste in movies, I still can't bring myself to delete the last of the previous owner's saves. The party of Scott, Ribs, and Penis stares me proudly in the face every time I fire up Chrono Trigger for a victory lap through memory lane. That's what mushroom hunting means to me, and why it would hurt so bad to see it become just another relic of a simpler time: losing the chance to share a game, a playground, that for one enduring moment in time with someone, somewhere, miles and years apart.
No box. No manual. No posters. No maps. Just a game.
A beautiful, working game that I hold tight all the way home.
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