Is it possible to have a complete MS-DOS/IBM PC physical game collection?
no
Anything is possible, anon. Follow your dreams.
>>12120386Why not?
Big box PC game collecting takes a special breed. Im glad some people do it, but I could never. Even if I had a giant mansion and millions
No, because I lost the only existing floppy with the tiny text adventure I made with QBasic as a child.Sorry.
>>12120394I don't mean PC big box I mean all IBM-PC games.>>12120396It has to have had a commercial retail release.
>>12120385me showing my steam account
>>12120394Collecting big box games is awesome as long as you aren't buying every variant of every shitty eGames and eurojank release ever made. Once I got into collecting for PC, I stopped caring and console shit. Some dinky little PS1 jewel case looks so cucked next to a giant box with beautiful full length artwork, and there sometimes extra goodies inside that didn't come console versions.
>>12120406>retailplenty of DOS classics were shareware only and never had a retail release
>>12120406There is no official list of software that "had a commercial retail release." Lots of commercial software was bespoke and only ever sold to one client. Lots of software that was widely used (including games) was never commercially released, but got disseminated anyway. It's likely that the majority of software written before any given date is now permanently lost. So no, the answer is simply no.
>>12120406What about mail-order release? I don't think you understand how much of a wild west 80s computer software industry was.
>>12120432Commercial release in retail stores only. >>12120437See above>>12120440See above
>>12120385anyone could release dos games back then, so there's no complete list
>>12120453A "complete" DOS collection without absolute classics like Scorched Earth would be a joke.
>>12120472It would be on floppies, this is just for the physical game room collection.How many, ballpark? 2000?
>>12120467See>>12120453
>>12120385Just get eXoDOS ezpz
>>12120478Over 9000
>>12120480>Commercial release in retail stores only. gamestop was not the only game store, you could even get dos games at food stores.and there's infinite shareware collections.
>>12120575See>>12120453
For consoles there was a publisher with a retail chain who did quality control and enforced cartridge minimum (in tens of thousands) you had to put out. For PC there was none of that. A teenager could write a BASIC game and copy it to 100 floppies and sell it to a corner store.
>>12120392I mean what is your definition of 'complete'? Like every release from every AAA publisher? Maybe. Every DOS game ever? Nope. Way too many made to even scratch the surface
>>12120696See>>12120453
>>12120385It would require putting a lot of limitations on what you consider complete. It's possible some games with very small print runs have been completely lost.
>>12120480It's not that simple. There were some games that only had limited releases in a few regional stores.
>>12120883Hell, there's some that are not lost but are very difficult to find. It's only recently that I found the full registered version of Bow and Arrow for Windows 3.x. All my life I'd only ever come across the shareware version.
Nobody even has a complete collection for systems that had a 10 year run, like C64/ZX. Previously undumped games for those still keep popping up today. MSDOS lasted for 20 years.
>>12120883>>12120885>>12120886>>12120898See>>12120453>>12120406
>>12120453>Commercial release in retail stores onlyWas Duke Nukem 3D ever sold in stores?
>>12120453>>12120480>>12120814See>>12120386
>>12120974Yes, bought my copy in a store
>>12120453What about those floppies/diskettes they sold in toy stores back in the day? Some of those contained freeware.
just get these two
>>12120453>Commercial release in retail stores only>Lets just drop most of the game libraryEven then it is pretty much impossibleThere is a lot of games that had pretty much artesanal release.Often country specific.If you go digging on obscure games there is hundreds that have only confirmation of existence.>This game was sold only on uncle tom's hillbilly store in bumfuck nowhere>50 copies are said to exist>Last known copy was used as a coaster when developer got drunk
>>12120385That guy literally looks like the 1990s. It's not possible to be more 90s than that.
>>12122774>tfw you will never be best friends with a norwegian-american man with asperger's and sleep over at his house every other month and play old PC games while getting high on oxycodone and chainsmokingit's over.
>>12120385>Pfffh... consoles games ams dildos...
I have over 3000 DOS-ROMs stored within solid state media. I think it's a good collection.
>>12122578What happened to obscuregamers? Why is it dead since 2022? Where do assemblergames people hang out now? Don't say facebook.
>>12121014No.
>>12120385So - you've defined in the comments that you are talking about games that were available to buy in retail stores only - and basically, I'm assuming in big box format so you could rack them up as a library in your picrel.I still think you would need to define your terms slightly - are you only talking about the US? Different games had different boxes for different territories, but there was no real difference for the most part with content; though, interestingly in some places like the UK, Japan and Germany, there were some interesting censorship rules on some more violent PC games that did lead to significant variations on games like Carmageddon, and games with Nazi imagery too.Also - when you say IBM PC, how wide are you stretching that definition? A lot of DOS games straddled the Win 95 timeline, and some games were sort of a hybrid DOS in Windows type approach (see Redguard for instance). When you say IBM PC, do you mean 486 and previous, or are you including Pentiums, 3DFX cards etc. in those definitions? The wider you stretch, the bigger the collection, the harder the task. Is it theoretically possible? Yes, is it physically possible? You'd need to do an insane amount of research to just get a complete list, and then it would be the money, time and space to acquire.
>>12120419>eurojank>>12120419>cucked>>12120419>shit>>12120419>shitty
>>12123363>poorfaggot
>>12123358>You'd need to do an insane amount of research to just get a complete list, and then it would be the money, time and space to acquire.You'd probably end up with a list of thousands of games that have had no CIB ebay listing in the past year
>>12120419Do you run an emulated setup or a bunch of old pc's?
>>12124976I play almost everything digitally on my Win10 PC because I only collect sealed games. I try not to buy something unless I legitimately want to play it though, so I'll buy it sealed, then pirate it to actually play. It's my way of preserving games both physically and digitally while also limiting myself to playing one game at a time, since I usually buy a game and play it to completion until buying another.I do have an XP desktop from 2001 with a small collection of classics that I play right off the disc, but just for an occasional hit of nostalgia.
>>12122868Keep trying and maybe someone will remember you
>>12125724>seething over based archivers
>>12125724I'm going to remember him just to spite you and your effeminate quips
>>12120575Retail doesn't just mean gamestop which didn't even exist then. It just means retail stores, yes a grocery store would count.
>>12126358>>12126361glad to be of service
>>12127782eat road slacker
>>12120385Based big boxes.
>>12120898>MSDOS lasted for 20 years.Legit
>>12120392>Why not?Too many lost and unaccounted games. There's also the shareware market and the big box retail market. Plus all of the different regions and game compilations.
>>12129101Tar toast is my breakfast
>>12120385that's a woman
