reactordev parent
It was impossible to compete with blockbuster at the time. They had walls of games to rent and rent we did.
In addition to rentals, around maybe 1994-1995, some stores (I don’t remember where) would have bargain bins or racks with some older games that were really inexpensive on CD-ROMs, and this continued for years. I remember snapping up some great old games this way.
Much earlier, as a kid I’d sometimes get games on cassette tapes in the bookstore and Radio Shack. Later it was great going to software stores that had games on 5 1/4” floppy diskettes in boxes. That stuff rocked.
I have had little interest in the games since then. Everything seems the same: mostly FPS / 3D crap. I don’t see any escape from this in the world building AI space either; they just added goggles.