Indonesia is actually kind of racist (at least if your non-Indonesian). For Chinese, especially so. I probably wouldn't recommend going there at all. Perhaps I'm naive, but I think Canada's doing just fine. It's basically like the US with all the freedoms, space, and benefits you'd come to expect, but you get universal healthcare and have to worry less about monetary issues (Bad currency, funding wars, debt, etc). The only problem I see with Canada these days is this stupid idea of multiculturalism. I'm a firm believer that sure, if you want to practice or do whatever you do, that's just fine. Just don't expect everyone bend over for you to do it. When you come to a country, you should respect the laws and people and integrate with them. Otherwise, why are you here? Just go back to your own country if you think it's so great.
Generally, uneducated Mexicans will emigrate to the U.S., and educated Mexicans will emigrate to Canada. I've only heard wonderful things about living there. It was my second option when I was considering leaving the country, like everyone my age has at some point. I'm with Trenton on this one - Canada is in a better state than the U.S. right now, for someone to migrate. And my Korean friend who lived there told me that pretty much everyone in Vancouver is Asian, so there's that.
Unfortunately I know the feeling well, although I am still collecting PC Engine games I generally don't have a lot of time to play. Dam work gets in the way ;-) ASSEMbler, I hope that you don't pack away all of your collection...
Understand even if I don't work often... When you work full time each week, then majority of the time you passed is at work so that make you live far from videogames. Activities is the key to be in health and so you certainly feel like don't care much when you go home.
If I was really forced to, no question: I would migrate to New Zealand. Isolated enough to survive WW3 with a self-sufficient agriculture.
My gaming ended years ago. I think priorities change as you get older, and the patience or lack of free time is the major difference in deciding to play games or not. Now days, friends get together to drink, have cookouts, and talk shop. I returned to the gaming scene about a year and a half ago and have sold almost my entire neogeo aes english collection, aes japanese collection, mvs collection, cds, and tons of collectibles. I stopped playing games about 10 years ago and I got tired of looking at one room filled with gaming items (colecovision, turboduo, etc...) Plus the extra money and space I gained from selling out was a nice bonus. I also see a decline in almost all countries due to the new age of everything having gone global. The United States is still a great place to be, but changes need to be made in how a person thinks about living (what is really needed or not needed). Smaller towns may be the new place to move to. Quiet peaceful living. And as cyberguile said, New Zealand is definitely a great country. As for me, since I'm Greek, I have pondered the idea of moving to an island in Greece. The market economy in Greece has already collapsed, and they will be the first to work through it and get back to basic living. Plus, you'll never go hungry in Greece (if you like seafood). But these are serious times and 2012 seems to have something big lurking in the horizon. .
I think you're over reacting. Every country is struggling one way or another. Every country goes through economic bubbles. Guess where a lot of people go to once their country's economy goes to the shitter? The USA. Just go back to school but try not to get into a lot of debt... Get into something is likely to get you to start making money. I'm 28 and I'm making over 40k/annual salary. You can be an entrepreneur in any country, but in my opinion, it's still easy to make in America or in any country. You just need the skills. As for gaming... I own 32-bit consoles all the way to PS2/GC/Xbox. I don't own the current generation consoles because I really don't have interest in them. I barely play my consoles, however, as I currently don't have the time. I tend to play more PC than consoles. Overall, as I've gotten older I don't gravitate towards games like I used to. I'm still into RPGs and FPS but my attention span has shorten lately and current gen FPS tend to get boring, even the multiplayer ones. Heck, I bought BF3 when it came out... and have yet to play the multiplayer. I see a growing interest in me to learn new things, things that benefit mentally and possibly monetarily but do it in a way that it doesn't cost me money. So yeah, priorities change as you get older.
I think having the down and outs in regards to gaming is natural for those in their late 20's and beyond. Life, it kind of gets in the way of hobbies more often as we age. My closet is full of gaming gear, all of which has gone virtually untouched over the past decade. I dare not get rid of any of it, because the moment I do, there might be a break in schedule that would allow me to play them. :banghead: Hmmm, I've never left the main land, so I can't think of any other country worth living in. Even though things are tough now and for the foreseeable future, I'd never flee my native land so easily. I'd prefer to save the globe hopping for when I'm at the retirement age.
I guess you could leave the country. Not sure what good it will do. The worlds economy tanks if ours does. And in the case of civil unrest id rather be nowhere else than the US. We still have guns and can defend ourselves. Its kinda cheesy to bail when the going is tough but you had no problem staying during the boom. Unless your just looking for change. Id also think about spending to much money on more school. Doesn't seem to be doing much these days. You can deliver pizza and newpapers and make 40k. Yeah, the scholars of the world may have to relegate themselves to service jobs or manual labor to make a living. Oh the horror. All kidding aside, just chill, things will turn once more and more people start waking up to its overspending overbearing government. Its happening right now. As for video games, its something ive done for 30 years as well. Im just over it, it got me through tough times as a kid, it was a lot of fun watching the tech and graphics advance but now its seems games are a commodity. New games i drudge through for a couple hours only to put them down, bored and looking for something else to do. Ill load up an old SNES game on the HTPC and play for a few mins but its just not the same.
I don't enjoy video games much anymore. I play Killing Floor for 15 minutes every day or so but that's about it. I have 115 games on Steam that I haven't even installed or played yet. I have/have had almost all consoles with modchips/flash carts with the full game libraries on CD spindles or binders just incase I ever do want to play them in the future.
I didnt read that you were asian. I can see being a little worried about the state of things in the US. So sorry about my bailing on the US comment. I might be a little worried myself. But i dont see something like that happening. If anyone is going to be rounded up its right leaning libertarian constitutionalists ron paul supporters. The government has no interest in people who dont make waves.
I'm a very lucky person because my girlfriend who lives with me enjoy a lot video games. I'm 24 years old and this is the last year I'll be living with my mom. I did my entire graduation (university) here in my city because it's the best literature graduation in Brazil, so I was lucky, besides my mom works in the same university and that was nice, to study where I grown. My mom travelled for almost a month in the new years eve, she went to Europe and me and my girlfriend had my house just for us. We finished Uncharted 1,2 and 3, Alan Wake but the most special ones were Donkey Kong Country 1, 2 and 3. I have a corner of my living room just for old video games (when it's finished I'll post a picture of my set up) the christmas three was there, we got some beer and sit down in the couch. The couch have 3 spots, one for me, one for her and one for my dog: Preta. This was the most intense and care moment of my entire summer vacation. I did travelled to the beach and other kind of stuff but this was so nice. I remember the feeling of doing the same with my friends but now they all work, have girlfriends and left no more interest for games. The sad (and happy) part of the story is that in june i'll be moving to France to study and make a living there, so this might be the end of my gamming life. To be honest I could move my entire collection to Europe, it would cost but it would worth it but the feeling of having a NTSC collection in a PAL country is kind messed up. I don't have a good feeling when I get a PAL game in my hand compared to the "standard" NTSC release, I know it's all in my mind but PAL seems like a bootleg. It will be very sad not to go to flea markets and get 30 snes games for 10 bucks but that's the price for a better life. You should move to Europe, Assembler. If you do, we can hit some old school arcades, I bet there are a few in France.
very sad indeed, I know how you feel about friends moving on and becoming busier and busier and you see them less, though to be honest when I was a youngster playing my games in the 90's everyone thought I was a wierdo recluse and I never had any "Gaming Friends" until the days of the Dreamcast, but none of the people I played with on PSO are around today, though I still have good friends on DC via DCTalk that I play with sometimes. My "Gaming Friends" now consist almost entirely of people I know via COD on Xbox Live, and they are all my age and at my stage in life so for me its kind of almost the oposite!! though I think it was sad that I never had any gaming friends while I was growing up sorry to hear about your business on ebay mate, I know how shit they are, I used to enjoy selling things I no longer wanted on there but now its a ridiculous chore and there's actually no way of making money after paying fees and postage, its a pretty sad state of affairs
You bet your ass it is, and it is no exaggeration. Plus we have 80% taxes on everything imported, unless they're books.
I can echo the sentiment of not selling off one's collection, as I have been working to rebuild mine. Assembler, I know you're in no danger of doing this. This thread seems to be a good place to raise a mug (of, in this case, coffee) to you. Here, we see that everyone here supports one another, and understands both the fantasy of video gaming, as well as the (sometimes harsh) reality. Now that I think about it, this is the most down-to-Earth gaming forum I've ever seen. You know, I don't think I've seen the word n00b once. Being more topical, I think Canada is a great place, but, by the time leaving America becomes an absolute necessity, there's a good chance the rest of the planet's economy will also take a dive.
If I created a gaming timeline with 9 being the most time available for gaming and 1 being the least, it'd look something like: 9999999911111111111111111111119999 or something like that anywho. My gaming time died from about the early twenties and stayed that way for some time. Now kids are doing GCSE/A-Level's and their own thing, I've found a new lease of life for gaming. It helps to have an understanding husband/wife/partner of course. Like most I sadly don't game with old friends anymore. Those relationships tend to go south along with the gaming time.
100% avoid the UK as Mr Cameron is systematically destroying our country, for example petrol/gas prices are roughly double that of America. Although I've lost all my old school friends as gaming buddy's I've had my four little brothers and now my own kids to replace them...even if the classics are wasted on them lol.
Good luck with University. I still play WoW / Age of Empires II with my friends. Not joking, AoE2 is really popular, we were 3 playing it the other day. But it's still really sad outlasting all your gaming buddies. I'm the 2nd last of 12 friends that used to play RuneScape. Now there is only 1 / 13 left.
