What happened to nintendoage?

[GPX | 1,370]

57 minutes ago, doner24 said:

Meh, Dain was absent from the site the last 5 years and the only time he came back to post was to throw the admins and mods (that did all of the work on the front end of the site) under the bus when someone reached out to him directly to complain about something. 
 

He had an open opportunity to work with us more, or even let us make an offer for the site and we were never contacted. When it went down we warned him what could happen, and it happened exactly like we said it would, but somehow Dain is free of blame in most people’s eyes and it makes no sense. Just because you’re blind to something, doesn’t make you less culpable. 
 

As a later member of NA, I didn’t really know the extent of the implosion until VGS came into sudden existence. I do have a theory that with Dain selling off in a hurry to Jeff with the Go Collect mob, I’m thinking there were extra incentives aside from the cash for his collection. Something along the line of the extra positions linking with WATA and perhaps the promise of infamy being the first historically to have a pedigree among video game grading. Of course this is all conjecture, but the fact that Dain didn’t want to sell it to the NA members seems there were other hidden bonuses along with the NA/collection sellout.

 

[guitarzombie | 924]

These last few pages were a fun read.

[Johnnyboy113 | 77]

1 hour ago, doner24 said:

Meh, Dain was absent from the site the last 5 years and the only time he came back to post was to throw the admins and mods (that did all of the work on the front end of the site) under the bus when someone reached out to him directly to complain about something. 
 

He had an open opportunity to work with us more, or even let us make an offer for the site and we were never contacted. When it went down we warned him what could happen, and it happened exactly like we said it would, but somehow Dain is free of blame in most people’s eyes and it makes no sense. Just because you’re blind to something, doesn’t make you less culpable. 
 

No matter what some people may think about this subject, what doner wrote is 100% true. The one thing he didn’t mention that you all should know is that not only did they run the site (for at least the last 5-6 years) and deal with everything, they did it for FREE!
Big shout out to all you guys especially @B.A. I know you tried your absolute hardest to keep NA in the communities hands .

Edited February 4, 2023 by Johnnyboy113

[spacepup | 2,404]

I strive not to focus too much on the drama or negative parts of history - but, what I can say now, is that despite not really liking the WAY things happened, I think in the end, things worked out well.  

Toward the end, activity on NA was significantly declining, and I think a fresh start was helpful.  

We had multiple goals with VGS:
1. To create a place for the community / friends to join each other and continue on our relationships, collecting journeys, and more.
2. To make a fresh start, trying to put aside past grievances and provide second chances.
3. To be more welcoming to new members, embracing the next generation of people who are passionate about this hobby.

Overall, we have tried to take the best parts of NA, while ridding ourselves of some of the worst parts / negativity / history etc.  

We're trying to achieve a good balance here - of supporting the "old" (love for NES, homebrew, and more) while embracing the "new" (modern gaming, new members, etc).

I'm sure we'll make mistakes and adjust how we do things over time, but we'll always try to keep in mind the 3 elements above, and do what we can to foster a good community.

I encourage everyone to try to focus on the future and the ways we can positively and constructively support each other, and try to let go of past issues.  At least, that's what I've tried to do.  

I still want to thank everyone who made the journey and joined us here / supported us, especially at first.  And thanks to everyone who is active in being a part of our community here!

 

[Hammerfestus | 3,847]

I don’t know that many here don’t hold Dain culpable for what happened.  Either way it doesn’t matter anymore.  VGS is just better.  A mature collecting community for mature collectors .  

[nrslam | 476]

This thread has become my favorite daily read.  Keep going.

[Link | 2,713]

1 hour ago, GPX said:

As a later member of NA, I didn’t really know the extent of the implosion until VGS came into sudden existence. I do have a theory that with Dain selling off in a hurry to Jeff with the Go Collect mob, I’m thinking there were extra incentives aside from the cash for his collection. Something along the line of the extra positions linking with WATA and perhaps the promise of infamy being the first historically to have a pedigree among video game grading. Of course this is all conjecture, but the fact that Dain didn’t want to sell it to the NA members seems there were other hidden bonuses along with the NA/collection sellout.

Dain says after October 2017 his involvement with WATA was little more than giving advice about games and websites to Deniz; and that the name of The Carolina Collection was ridiculous. Believe that or don't, but imo those are odd things to say if it's as you suggest. 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,535]

9 hours ago, Nugfish said:

Anyone remember 'Walmart just got rekt'? 

I think maybe the OP of that thread ended up getting banned as well?

Nirvana.  His brother was a member too.

[a3quit4s | 4,102]

I’d honestly just like to buy Dain a couple beers and just kind of listen to the story of NA. All the bullshit aside the documentation and the cataloging that people did the for that site is truly amazing. To everyone that is a member here and even those who aren’t, thank you. It’s fun to Bs and throw conspiracy theories around and poke fun but I feel like people new to the scene may get the wrong impression. It truly was an amazing place full of just the most useful and random information. The people there and here just knew so much stuff and it’s still interesting to this day to learn new things. I hope VGS continues to strive towards that in their own creative way. 
 

Ok I’m done with that positive shit, f*ck you Jeff. 

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

28 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

I’d honestly just like to buy Dain a couple beers and just kind of listen to the story of NA. All the bullshit aside the documentation and the cataloging that people did the for that site is truly amazing. To everyone that is a member here and even those who aren’t, thank you. It’s fun to Bs and throw conspiracy theories around and poke fun but I feel like people new to the scene may get the wrong impression. It truly was an amazing place full of just the most useful and random information. The people there and here just knew so much stuff and it’s still interesting to this day to learn new things. I hope VGS continues to strive towards that in their own creative way. 
 

Ok I’m done with that positive shit, f*ck you Jeff. 

I was not an active member on NA until literally the final few months before the site went down, but it was an absolute treasure trove of information for NES collecting. I used it for years anonymously to guide my collecting and it's existence is responsible for a lot of what I know. That being said, almost 100% of that information is now better organized and freely shared here instead of tucked away in hundreds of obscure threads. So I am very thankful for NA and those who kept it up long enough for me to really dig into this hobby, but I think VGS has allowed a more mature userbase to give all that knowledge a better home. In fact, that reminds me that we still have a few NES threads that we've beem building for years that really need sharing soon. 2023 is the year!

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

8 hours ago, Armageddon Potato said:

I just realized there was a lot of speculation in this thread of what happened with Dain and NintendoAge. I found out he did not actually get "that" much for NintendoAge and his collection. Honestly by today's value based on what I believe he had in his collection he barely got 10 to 15% of what it would be worth today, let alone speculation of the sites value. NintendoAge itself may as well of just been a freebie throw-in. Once he found out what they did to the site, and his collection he deeply regretted it. I would guess he saw himself as entering his 50s and basically thought it was time for him to personally move on or his personal interest waned. Dain never meant for any of this to happen, or for people to be mad at him for doing so since he thought the site was going to be reasonably well taken care of. I know I don't blame him for anything since he gave us so many great years and such a great site.

If anything we can observe this as a lesson. Be very careful when you make big life milestone decisions.

Is it opposite day?

 

[Gloves | 11,783]

2 hours ago, Hammerfestus said:

I don’t know that many here don’t hold Dain culpable for what happened.  Either way it doesn’t matter anymore.  VGS is just better.  A mature collecting community for mature collectors .  

Yes... Mature...

*goes back to playing My Little Pony Werewolf*

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

1 hour ago, a3quit4s said:

I’d honestly just like to buy Dain a couple beers

Might want to make those Coors Cutters as I'm pretty sure he gave up alcohol quite some time ago.

[Tabonga | 2,318]

2 hours ago, captmorgandrinker said:

Might want to make those Coors Cutters as I'm pretty sure he gave up alcohol quite some time ago.

IIRC Sir Francis Drake circumsised the world with a 40 foot cutter - nor sure if it was a Coors though.........

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

1 hour ago, Tabonga said:

IIRC Sir Francis Drake circumsised the world with a 40 foot cutter - nor sure if it was a Coors though.........

Based on the description, I would have thought a "Coors Cutter" was someone who self mutilated due to their apparent poor taste in beer, as I've always heard the folks I know who drink describe Coors as "warm piss."  How they're able to determine that as an accurate comparison, I'll never know. 

[Tabonga | 2,318]

Just now, darkchylde28 said:

Based on the description, I would have thought a "Coors Cutter" was someone who self mutilated due to their apparent poor taste in beer, as I've always heard the folks I know who drink describe Coors as "warm piss."  How they're able to determine that as an accurate comparison, I'll never know. 

I can't drink anything made by Coors - I drink more than one and I get a headache. (Normally I do not get them.) Mrs.Tabonga would get them too.   Apparently there is a small percentage of the population like that and they never have been able to figure out what there is in the brewing process that causes it.   I was alway more of a Pabst fan in any event.  

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

19 minutes ago, Tabonga said:

I can't drink anything made by Coors - I drink more than one and I get a headache. (Normally I do not get them.) Mrs.Tabonga would get them too.   Apparently there is a small percentage of the population like that and they never have been able to figure out what there is in the brewing process that causes it.   I was alway more of a Pabst fan in any event.  

Based on all of the memorabilia scattered around my grandparents' house, my grandfather and uncles were apparently quite big fans of Schlitz until they Schlitz the bed and tanked the company by trying to cheap out on ingredients and ruining the flavor.  I think the only people I ever saw drink Coors were a divorcee that my dad worked with, and the occasional person I went to school with because it's what they could sneak/steal/buy and didn't know any better.  I personally wouldn't know either way, as I don't drink, so I'm forced to jokingly chime in based on the weight of public opinion alone. 

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

33 minutes ago, Tabonga said:

I can't drink anything made by Coors - I drink more than one and I get a headache. (Normally I do not get them.) Mrs.Tabonga would get them too.   Apparently there is a small percentage of the population like that and they never have been able to figure out what there is in the brewing process that causes it.   I was alway more of a Pabst fan in any event.  

For me, that's Miller Lite or Diet Pepsi.  No idea why.

[B.A. | 1,139]

59 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

Based on the description, I would have thought a "Coors Cutter" was someone who self mutilated due to their apparent poor taste in beer, as I've always heard the folks I know who drink describe Coors as "warm piss."  How they're able to determine that as an accurate comparison, I'll never know. 

You are supposed to wait until the mountains turn blue, then you know it's cold. That must have been their problem!

[Gloves | 11,783]

5 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

I was not an active member on NA until literally the final few months before the site went down, but it was an absolute treasure trove of information for NES collecting. I used it for years anonymously to guide my collecting and it's existence is responsible for a lot of what I know. That being said, almost 100% of that information is now better organized and freely shared here instead of tucked away in hundreds of obscure threads. So I am very thankful for NA and those who kept it up long enough for me to really dig into this hobby, but I think VGS has allowed a more mature userbase to give all that knowledge a better home. In fact, that reminds me that we still have a few NES threads that we've beem building for years that really need sharing soon. 2023 is the year!

If there are ideas you or anyone else has for doing an even better job organizing, pinning, whatever, any of the really knowledge-heavy threads to be more upfront resources, let me/us know and we can work on structure. I think one of our main benefits here is that we HAVE the power to organize and reorganize and sometimes do custom stuff to elevate everyone's hard work. 

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

2 minutes ago, Gloves said:

If there are ideas you or anyone else has for doing an even better job organizing, pinning, whatever, any of the really knowledge-heavy threads to be more upfront resources, let me/us know and we can work on structure. I think one of our main benefits here is that we HAVE the power to organize and reorganize and sometimes do custom stuff to elevate everyone's hard work. 

I think that a decent idea to keep track of stuff like this would be to create a separate page, perhaps under the "Databases" tab from the main site menu bar, then just park links there for all of the primary/major knowledge threads.  Pinning stuff can be great, but someone pointed out a long time ago that if you pin too much stuff, you clutter up the top of the forum listing and crowd out new content.  Unless something is immediately relevant (such as holiday contest posts) or "hot" for multiple days, I wouldn't think it necessary to keep it permanently or semi-permanently pinned versus just making a link to it in a separate index of such topics.  Depending on how such an index page was laid out, descriptions of each topic could be added to help clarify what each one addressed specifically, which could further aid folks looking for a specific tidbit of information or facet of a topic prior to needing to make a "Hey, does anybody remember/know X-Y-Z" post.  Just a thought.

[fcgamer | 4,725]

13 hours ago, Armageddon Potato said:

Once he found out what they did to the site, and his collection he deeply regretted it.

Yeah, I imagine he did deeply regret it, as the prices shot up...

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

58 minutes ago, Gloves said:

If there are ideas you or anyone else has for doing an even better job organizing, pinning, whatever, any of the really knowledge-heavy threads to be more upfront resources, let me/us know and we can work on structure. I think one of our main benefits here is that we HAVE the power to organize and reorganize and sometimes do custom stuff to elevate everyone's hard work. 

Honestly, I'd love to see a collecting-focused variant of the site with the forums divided by console. Standardize and pin collecting guides at the top of each console page (Games List, Variant Guide, CIB Guide, etc). Maybe even add some wiki-like function, if possible, but retain the forum setup we all know and love. I'm not a UI or web designer, but having those pinned, standardized guides at the top of each forum seems like it would provide a consistent user experience for each console. It would require us to go back and apply console labels to old threads to migrate them over which seems like it could be a lot of work on your end, though.

Of course I'm coming at this from a collector's perspective rather than a player's perspective because that's where my focus lies with retro games. But I think it would be really cool to say "I am going to start collecting Game Boy games" and immediately have all this awesome information from seasoned collectors in conversation form at your fingertips. As it currently stands, just tracking down accurate games lists for older consoles is a huge pain in the ass.

Edited February 5, 2023 by DoctorEncore

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

53 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

I think that a decent idea to keep track of stuff like this would be to create a separate page, perhaps under the "Databases" tab from the main site menu bar, then just park links there for all of the primary/major knowledge threads.  Pinning stuff can be great, but someone pointed out a long time ago that if you pin too much stuff, you clutter up the top of the forum listing and crowd out new content.  Unless something is immediately relevant (such as holiday contest posts) or "hot" for multiple days, I wouldn't think it necessary to keep it permanently or semi-permanently pinned versus just making a link to it in a separate index of such topics.  Depending on how such an index page was laid out, descriptions of each topic could be added to help clarify what each one addressed specifically, which could further aid folks looking for a specific tidbit of information or facet of a topic prior to needing to make a "Hey, does anybody remember/know X-Y-Z" post.  Just a thought.

My biggest issue with the database approach is that you lose that conversational aspect where known information and expert opinions collide. Those conversation add so much value to the investigative work that you need for this stuff. Without context for the lists, collecting just isn't as fun or fruitful. It also gives people an opportunity to challenge an idea and get incorrect information changed.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

Just now, DoctorEncore said:

My biggest issue with the database approach is that you lose that conversational aspect where known information and expert opinions collide. Those conversation add so much value to the investigative work that you need for this stuff. Without context for the lists, collecting just isn't as fun or fruitful. It also gives people an opportunity to challenge an idea and get incorrect information changed.

I'm not saying that the information should be databased, but an index of the various topics created.  People would still be able to go to those threads and comment, discuss, etc., it would just make finding them much easier for someone to find them (as not all such topics started out with the intent of being a repository for all the information that it churned up).  Doing it that way would just leave space at the top of the relevant subforums for other topics to get pinned, instead of all the primary info threads being pinned, then maybe one or two other things, if there was room before everything got too cluttered.  Think of it like the truly old school "landing pages" that places like Yahoo and AOL used to offer, basically lists of relevant links pre-vetted and laid out for ease of access.