The 80's: "Have the Golden Years Passed Us By?"

For a lot of us older gamers "The 80's" was the point in time when the hobbies of collecting toys, and playing video games were at their prime. As a collector from the 80's I bought about every iconic 80's toy imaginable. Things like 'Garbage Pail Kids', 'Madballs', and 'M.U.S.C.L.E. Men' were all the rage, and I definitely spent a lot of my time as well as money obtaining them. They were of top quality, and were interesting enough to grasp the consumer's attention. As a gamer from the 80's I also played, and owned about every NES game made. I eventually amassed such a game collection that I was the envy of the schools I attended. Being able to enjoy said games with family, and friends also had it's pleasant perks. Due to my dedicated love for all these great things you'll often times find me reminiscing about the days of old, and how I wished I could turn back to the retro era, and leave behind all the worries of the modern age. There's a good reason for that. Sadly, only the older generations of gamers, and collector's like myself who grew up in the 80's will understand. For all you new aged gamers, and collectors you have simply missed out on the best times ever. It's just the way it is. Do I, as an 80's faithful think such an era will ever return? Unfortunately not. It's just not meant to be.

M.U.S.C.L.E. MEN (1985)

Gaming, and toy collecting as we knew it in the 80's is a long gone ideal. The quality products, and innovative ideas of yesteryear have been replaced with remakes, carbon copies, and outright corporate greed. In the past, particularly the 80's we had dreamers in Hollywood, and developers who were equally as inspired to create for the sake of creating. Now all of those creators with visions of impressing an audience via their mastery of the arts are a distant reality. They simply see the opportunity for making money, and want to jump aboard the greed train in order to provide products in such a cost efficient manner that it benefits them more than it does the consumer. Everyone is looking out for number one. This is why I think all that we have before us in regards to entertainment industry offerings is the "Dark Ages". Greed will replace originality, and eventually flood it out completely. In doing so the gaming industry, and movie industry will fall.

M.U.S.C.L.E. MEN (1985)

With all that being said you will still occasionally happen upon a modern day game developer, toy maker, or director who has their sh*t in order, and wants to make a proper name for themselves amongst collectors, and consumers. The unfortunate thing about this is that there's not many of these innovators left. Gaming is going mobile, console games are going F2P (Free-to-Play), and toys that are made readily available (not from Japan) are of the poorest quality imaginable. With Japan jumping on ideas such as that of mobile gaming they fail to realize that they too are drowning out hopes for another golden age of gaming. Console gaming is where the gaming industry initially flourished, and is the only place where it will flourish again. As far as toys go you can at least still import high quality toys from Japanese distributors/companies. The only catch to this is that these toys aren't made affordable to US customers, and are not readily available in most areas of the country. Ease of access, and consumer friendly prices are the only things that will keep that portion of the toy industry from eventually failing.

M.U.S.C.L.E. MEN (1985)

To wrap things up ... The 80's are a long lost dream of the past. Entertainment, and viable hobbies are ghosts of the past. Ahead of us lies an age without innovation, and creativity. The only thing left is the greedy companies, and corporate giants who would ruin what was once great. Our only hope lies with the consumer, and the handful of dreamers that remain. Unless we speak with our wallets, and buy only the things that are truly innovative/good for the betterment of the hobbies that we've grown to love we can look back, and kiss our beloved "Persephone" goodbye, because she's gone.

You're Last Samurai,
Brad (OtakuDante)