Rebirth 86: I use games to kick open the door to the world

Video games have become the most popular entertainment in Japan now.

Especially in children’s circles, discussions about various games are almost everywhere.

"Super Mario is the most fun!"

"No, Pac-Man is probably the most fun!"

"You are all weak, Bomberman is the most fun."

The kids argued so much that even in class they passed around little notes arguing about which game was more fun.

Notes would be passed one by one to the boys in the class, and they would write down what they thought were the best games on them and show off the games they had played.

Soon a note was filled with various contents.

At this time, the note was also passed to a girl.

She didn't pass it on to other boys without thinking like other girls, but opened it and took a look at it herself.

The other boys couldn't help but be stunned.

"Mario... Pac-Man... Bomberman... Tank Battle... Donkey Kong."

One by one, the little girl watched the games introduced by the boys.

"I've played all these games before, but these boys don't seem to have played as much as I did."

The little girl shook her head in disappointment.

Among all the girls, she is an outlier.

She doesn't like to play with the things that girls usually enjoy.

She doesn't like hairpins or dolls.

She prefers reading comics and playing games.

And he's a very senior one.

She has played almost all of those very famous games.

So when she saw the game content on this note, she felt that the games played by these classmates were just like this.

Well, since they don’t have any games to recommend, I’ll just recommend them.

The little girl read the game on the note carefully again.

"Huh? Isn't there Contra? This game is very fun, why doesn't anyone seem to play it?"

The little girl was very puzzled.

The quality of this game is quite good. Of course, she doesn't understand that in addition to seeing the game as fun, these children also want to see who made the game.

The cover of the Contra cassette is indeed not very good.

"Then write Contra."

The little girl wrote Contra on the note, folded it carefully and passed it to the boy behind her.

The boy was very curious about what the little girl wrote. Could it be that she was causing trouble?

So he opened the note and looked directly at the last line.

Um?

He actually recommended games, which was really rare. They really didn't see girls recommending games very often.

Contra?

The name was somewhat familiar to him.

Oh, yes, I saw this game name in a video game store.

But there were other more attractive games at that time, so he ignored this one.

The reality is that most kids don’t play all the games.

They usually only choose those they like best or those recommended by others.

At the end of get out of class, the boys got together and they were discussing the contents of the note.

"Have you ever played Contra?"

"No, I saw it in the video game store, but I didn't buy it."

"I wanted to buy it, but it was no longer available at that time."

"Me too. I actually wanted to buy it before because I saw it recommended in the latest BEEP magazine."

The children had a heated discussion.

What they least expected was that the recommendation for this game turned out to be a girl in the class.

But now they don't dare ask.

Because they would find it rude.

However, they had already written down the name of the game and planned to go to the game store in the evening to see if Contra was on sale.

After school in the afternoon, several children made an appointment to go to the video game store together.

A wide variety of game-related products are displayed here.

Most of them are NGS game consoles and game cartridge products, and only a small part are games from other brands.

And that small part is almost ignored by these children.

It seems that NGS is almost synonymous with video games now.

A teller was happily sitting behind the counter playing games with a controller. A small TV was placed on the counter.

When the children rushed in with cheers, the teller just glanced at them but did not stand up.

These children like to come here every day. Even if they don’t have money to buy games, they still like to stay in this place full of games.

To them, this place is like their happy fortress.

Generally, these children can be expected to bring benefits only when some big games are released. In other cases, it is difficult to get a penny from these children.

When these children rushed in, they did not choose to look for their big brother at first. Instead, they patrolled the shelves first, looking for the game they wanted.

Games are usually easy to find, and this is not a big video game store.

But today, the group of children searched for a full ten minutes, and there were more than a dozen boys searching together, but they couldn't find the game they wanted. Then they gathered again and came to the counter.

"Brother, do you have a Contra game here?"

"Contra? It seems...it seems to be gone."

"Ah? Are there many people buying it?" These children were puzzled.

Before, they had played Super Mario and many popular games.

These games all have one thing in common, which is that they were very difficult to buy in the early days.

Most people in this world obviously don't understand the term hunger marketing. They really think that this game is very popular, but in fact there are also some games that fish in troubled waters and make money by relying on hunger marketing.

In response to the children's question, the young man replied: "Maybe, I have purchased a few batches of goods before, about a hundred boxes, and then they were all sold one after another. There is no stock this week. "

The store manager originally wanted to continue to restock, at least to ensure that the game would be available at any time, but starting last week, Contra cartridges could no longer be provided from the source, and he was helpless.

The children looked slightly disappointed.

They thought they could play the game today.

"Okay then, let's go somewhere else?"

"Okay, let's go look elsewhere."

The children left the video game store together again, and in the end no one was left.

The teller was stunned. Are these kids here just for a game?

This has obviously never happened before.

But when it came to Contra, he really remembered another thing.

There seems to be another piece of game information about Contra in the BEEP magazine that was just purchased today.

He immediately walked to the small magazine shelf and took out a recent BEEP magazine.

"Contra's sales puzzle?"

The teller was mumbling something.