contributing writer @wearemel, @ringer, & @splicetoday. seen in @theatlantic, @parisreview, &c. repped by @inkwellmgmt. co-host of @whatisleftpod 
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what i loved about the 8-bit era was how terrible most of the games were, how absolutely awful they were. you could pay $60 and be saddled with the worst game imaginable, a game that bore no relation to its license or box art.
the games of that era reminded me of the plymouth colts my father sold by the dozens. these were horrible products, irredeemably horrible, marketed to people who didn't know better by people who couldn't care less. it was perfect.
my dad, who owned a chrysler dealership but only drove nissans, could never stop laughing about how terrible the 80s-era domestic "k cars" and other offerings were. "you might change the same starter on this car a half-dozen times," he'd say. "how about that? amazing."
"you've got to sell this stuff because otherwise no one would buy it. i'm selling some of the worst shit in the world. meanwhile these nissans sell themselves. why do they even employ sales people? they're beating our brains out. and i love it!"
he always loved a terrible deal, a birthday gift you'd throw away immediately, clothes that didn't fit right after the first wash, new fast food products that turned his steel stomach within seconds. "this was real life" is how he would characterize all that.
he thought the best products were the ones that gave you immediate buyer's remorse, remorse so overwhelming you couldn't even remember why you bought the thing in the first place. it was almost like your brain went hazy and you had to buy it, but why? why not?
$100, $1000, $10,000...what difference did the price make? you probably didn't have it when you bought it and you certainly wouldn't get it back after you did.
There was a certain wonder to it. If Nintendo created it, you had a decent shot of interest in repeated play.
it was true then and it's true now: the only nintendo games worth playing are made by nintendo
I read a piece when I was a kid in a game mag- covering a kid that was able to beat levels of a game without the TV turned on. The writer thought this was proof the kid loved the game. Any actual kid knew this was the opposite, this was a kid burdened with a shit game for months
that's just perfect, "that's real life" as my father would say. so many of these methodical neurotic habits that gave birth to speedrunning and other dumbass activities grew out of the intense boredom and regret we all felt with such awful shit around us
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