Thank you for taking the time to write this. As a millenial from the Balkans I thoroughly enjoyed the story and the similarities of our experiences. If you ever start a blog, I would be very much interested in a retro gaming perspective from China - we don’t get enough non-western human perspectives like this in Europe, and love how similar gamers are throughout the world, which could be a wonderful unifying factor in this uncertain world.

Are you posting these on a blog? Would love to read then in sequence.

That was interesting to hear, thank you. I don’t have anything to reply as of now but a suggestion to make your posts a chain of replies. One comment - reply to it - reply to that: in that manner it would keep them in order next time you’d be open to write something.

1. 1980s–1990s: The Little Tyrant and the “Learning Machine”

Near the end of the Famicom era, a peculiar product appeared in China: the Little Tyrant learning machine. It looked like a keyboard. It could teach simple programming. More importantly — it could play Famicom games. Many parents believed their children were studying. The spokesperson was action star Jackie Chan. It was affordable. So it entered many households.

Today’s casual Chinese gamers might only know Tencent, not Nintendo. But the generation that grew up with the Little Tyrant remembers one catchphrase — the boot-up jingle: “Ah~ Little Tyrant, so much fun!”

The Little Tyrant used pirated cartridges. The chips were cheap, nowhere near as stable as legitimate ones. But it was also compatible with official Famicom carts.

And then there’s a habit unique to Chinese players — some still keep it today: blowing into cartridges. Three puffs of breath onto the gold contacts before inserting the cartridge. It didn’t really help. It was pure superstition. But without it, something felt missing.

Popular cartridges were multi-game compilations. “999 games in 1” sounded like a great deal, but in reality it was the same few games with renamed titles. For a real AAA title, you had to buy a “4-in-1” cartridge for about 1 USD. More expensive, but worth it.

And then there was the legend. Contra’s hidden “Water Level 8.” Kids across the country were whispering: after you beat the normal 8 levels, there were 8 more underwater. On the 6th level, there was an enemy that glitched into a frog-mouth shape. If you jumped onto it, you could enter the hidden stage. We all tried. We jumped. We died. Some kids bragged they had done it. We believed them.

Later, when we got online, we learned it was fake — the Famicom cartridge never had it. But in 2016, a Chinese player went through every version. On the MSX2 version, after beating the final boss, the protagonist really dives into the deep sea. The path underwater really existed. A 30-year rumor, finally proven true. Konami themselves later acknowledged it.

It wasn’t that we loved making up stories. It was that era: no internet, no guides, only word of mouth. And sometimes, the rumor outran the truth.

Pirate sellers were even more ruthless. As long as a game played like Contra, they’d slap the Contra name on the box. Water Contra → real name: Shadow of the Ninja (katanas, not guns). Air Contra → real name: Final Mission (difficult to the point of self-harm). Space Contra → real name: Raf World (great music, nothing to do with Contra). Contra 6/7/8 → all bootlegs (official Contra 4 didn’t come out until 2008 on the DS). Super Contra 7 → a domestic bootleg, literally titled Super Contra 7. You’d buy it, plug it in, and realize you’d been tricked. But you’d grit your teeth and play anyway. Some of them were pretty good. Our generation grew up being scammed like that.

4. 2000s: The PSP and the “Handheld Study Hall”

Many Chinese players think of the PSP as synonymous with “game console.” That’s quite different from the global market — where globally the DS outsold the PSP two to one, on par with the PS2. But China was the exception.

Casual players didn’t buy the DS because it couldn’t function as an MP4 player. Believe it or not, many people bought a PSP not for gaming, but to watch movies, read e-books, listen to music, and even practice English listening. For hardcore players, the PSP’s graphics and performance mattered most. I’m not dissing the DS — its charm and innovative hardware design changed the world. But in China, the PSP won.

Ask Chinese players what they played most, and most will give the same answer: Monster Hunter Portable 3rd. Hundreds, even thousands of hours.

A small story. In spring 2008, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai came to China. He wanted to visit an electronics shop himself, incognito. The clerk didn’t know who he was and enthusiastically showed him how to hack the PSP. Hirai kept a calm face. Maybe even seemed pleased. Back at the company, he had engineers tear down that hacked unit to study how to strengthen anti-piracy. That eventually led to the PSP 3000’s V3 motherboard. There’s a more dramatic version: the clerk knew exactly who Hirai was and did it on purpose for the effect. Realistically, if a clerk really did that, they’d likely be fired. But that hasn’t stopped the story from circulating for years.

Back then, the PS2 was something only veteran players had access to. The PSP was different — it belonged to the rich kid at school. You couldn’t rent a PSP by the hour like a PS2, so owning one was a big deal. Fortunately, I caught the PSP’s late-mid life. Looking back, I still consider myself a lucky player.

The PSP’s influence in China went so far that some people who’d never touched a game console would see a Switch and ask: “Is this the new PSP?” See a 3DS: “Is this the folding, two-screen PSP?” Veterans want to laugh. But newcomers genuinely don’t know.

Back then, most Chinese players bought their PS2s and PSPs as “grey-market imports” — real hardware, but without official authorization or retail channels. Cheaper than legitimate imports, but with no official after-sales support. When it broke, you were on your own. Next, I’ll explain how we got to that point.

2. Arcades: A Youth Paid in Tokens I was born in 1999. After the Little Tyrant, I fell in love with arcades. The graphics were so much better than the Famicom — especially the beat-’em-ups.

One day, a friend said he’d take me somewhere magical. I was shy at first, afraid to play too long. But the games there blew my mind — they destroyed the Famicom’s graphics.

I used to be the only kid in class with a game console. The arcade changed that. Fewer and fewer friends came over to play at my place.

Where I lived, 1 RMB (about 0.14 USD) bought five tokens. The hottest game was King of Fighters. Domestically, the ’97 version was the most popular, despite all its bugs.

There was also a Chinese-made game: Knights of Valour: Vortex of Fire. A side-scrolling beat-’em-up that could stand alongside Tenchi o Kurau II.

Another arcade practice: 10 RMB (about 1.40 USD) for “unlimited continues until the game is beaten.” Two players max. You paid once and kept playing until you finished.

Shen Jian Fu Mo Lu (a wuxia game adapted from Jin Yong’s The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber) I consider the most regrettably overlooked. Short, difficult, and released too late. It never caught fire.

And then there were the “house rules.” Not set by the owner — invented by the players themselves. In Tenchi o Kurau II, there was a steamed bun eating bonus game. Nobody taught us. Everyone just assumed the faster you shook the joystick, the faster you ate. So everyone spun the stick like crazy, the cabinet rattling so hard the owner feared it would fall apart. Eventually, the owner put up a sign: “No shaking the joystick during the bun-eating game.” The game itself never had such a rule. It was pure player invention. But years later, when people recall that game, the first thing they remember isn’t fighting the boss — it’s that bun minigame you nearly tore the machine apart playing.

At the arcade I used to frequent, there was one “treasure cabinet” loaded with classic games. But the owner had a rule: if you turned it on without permission, you’d be fined 10 RMB (about 1.40 USD). Once, I skipped breakfast and begged him to let me play. He joked: “First, watch me clear Metal Slug without losing a life. Then go find me five customers.” I actually did it. Then I got up to play myself — and died in less than five minutes. But the owner brought me a bowl of freshly made noodles with shredded pork, and slipped me a few tokens. To this day, I don’t know why that cabinet had that rule. I’ll never have a chance to ask. But don’t get me wrong — the owner was good to me. He was just having fun.

Frequently Asked Questions

“Born in 1999, why do you write like someone from the ’80s?” This gets asked the most. The truth is simple: I caught everything at the end of its lifecycle. Growing up in a small county with slow information flow, when I finally got to play Famicom, people in big cities had long moved on. When I first entered an arcade, the PS2 had been out for years. So this isn’t “I was always on the cutting edge.” It’s how a child in a small place in the late ’90s slowly caught up through outdated things. That’s the real rhythm for many players from smaller towns.

2. Is any of this made up? To be honest: the stories are real, but not all of them happened to me personally. “Blowing into cartridges,” “Water Level 8,” “the noodle bowl” — these were passed down by word of mouth across our generation. Some happened around me, some I heard from friends or online — but they resonated so deeply that I wrote them in. So this isn’t my autobiography. It’s a group portrait of my generation of players.

3. Why is online gaming barely mentioned? Fair question. Honestly, it’s not that I look down on online gaming — I just played very little of it. I was strictly supervised as a child and rarely went to internet cafes. By the time I had free access to a computer, Steam was already here. My main path was always single-player, console, handheld. Online games — Legend of Mir, Fantasy Westward Journey — belong to another world, huge and brilliant. But I’m not qualified to write that story. To write it would disrespect the people who actually grew up in internet cafes. So I’ll stick to the path I know. Let someone better qualified write the online gaming chronicle.

A Final Note

China did have a few homegrown consoles with big ambitions — the Little Tyrant Z, Battleaxe, Snail OBOX. I never got to play any myself. From what I’ve read and heard, their problems were similar: they approached console making with the mindset of PCs, mobile games, or online games. The result: almost no game ecosystem, weak hardware, low value. In the end, they missed their target audience. It’s a pity. I hope future builders learn from those lessons. Maybe one day the console market won’t be just three giants, but four, five, even more. Looking back, those “failures” might not seem so worthless after all.

Imagine this: for the first fifteen years of your life, there are almost no legitimate console games within the law of your country. No official channels, no store counters, no advertisements. To play games, your only choices are smuggled goods and pirated copies. So when Steam — a legal, convenient, respectful gateway — finally opened, we rushed in with near-frenzy to buy games, including countless older titles we had missed. Not to “atone.” Not purely out of compensation. But because for the first time, we had the chance to be seen and respected by the game industry as ordinary consumers. “Paying back the ticket” was never a cheap moral performance. It meant: when the legal path finally appears, we embrace it without hesitation.

This is my gaming story. What’s yours?

3. 2000s: PS2 “Host Rooms” and the Underground Living Rooms

Back then, a PS1 or PS2 was only for wealthy families. Ordinary players had to wait at least five years to experience a PS2 — at a host room, where you paid by the hour. Around 3–5 RMB (under 1 USD) per hour.

Many shop owners couldn’t get legitimate PS2 games. Pirate discs cost 15–30 RMB (2–4 USD), sometimes as low as 3–5 RMB (under 1 USD). Those pirate discs often had bugs and cut content. Players who wanted the full experience sought out legitimate copies. Those who didn’t know English or Japanese turned to gaming magazines for guides. Some even learned a foreign language just to understand the game. You read that right — for some Chinese players, a game manual was their first foreign language textbook.

Pirate sellers, rushing to be first, often used machine translation. And thus, legendary translation memes were born: Devil May Cry became “Demonic May Cry.” The Elder Scrolls became “The Old Gunwale” (literally “old man rolling bar”). The “Old Gunwale” meme was so popular that the official team later learned about it. Some devs ended up referencing it in later games. Chinese players still call it Lǎo Gǔn — literally “Old Roll.”

The game that best represents the PS2 host room era is Winning Eleven (Pro Evolution Soccer). That was its final golden age.

Back then, Chinese players’ main concern was “will this pirated copy run?” Even players who could afford many pirated discs were rare. Those who couldn’t afford them read gaming magazines instead. Some magazines hyped the Dreamcast so hard that people bought one — only to find few games to play. I’m not putting down the Dreamcast. I love SEGA. I’ve since bought many legitimate Sonic games — paying back a ticket. I’d like to own a Dreamcast someday. The library was weaker, but the hardware itself I truly admire.

By the PS2 era, China’s unique urban legends had faded. With the internet and magazines spreading, most “rumors” died within a week. But one thing hasn’t changed: those who played the PS2 back then are now middle-aged. Some still only play PS2, spending not a little money collecting rare legitimate copies.

5. When China Fell for Online Games, Why Were Consoles “Banned” for 15 Years?

In June 2000, China issued a ban: no selling game consoles. The reasoning: arcades had gotten too chaotic — fights, gambling, plus parents wanted kids to focus on college entrance exams. A blanket cutoff, simple and blunt. That ban lasted fifteen years. Buying a console meant going through grey-market imports. Some people ran host rooms out of their homes — secret bases for that generation of players.

But here’s the twist: consoles were kicked out, but online games exploded. Legend of Mir, Fantasy Westward Journey, World of Warcraft — all appeared. Chinese online gaming even ran ahead of the rest of the world. Not letting people play games? Then how did internet cafes outnumber those elsewhere?

In 2002, the Blue Extreme Speed Internet Cafe in Beijing was set on fire. Several minors were refused entry, bought gasoline, and came back. 25 people died. After that, a nationwide crackdown on internet cafes began. Minors were banned. The media began calling games “electronic heroin.” Parents were terrified.

Right at that moment, a psychiatrist named Yang Yongxin in Linyi, Shandong, rose to fame. He “treated internet addiction” at his hospital — electroshocks to the temples, confinement, medication. Disobey? Shock until you obey. Parents tearfully sent their children in. Some children, after coming out, would tremble at the sight of a white lab coat. The medical community had long rejected electroshock for addiction treatment. But public panic and media frenzy kept Yang Yongxin in the spotlight for years.

So you see: consoles banned, online games rising. The government wanted to block gaming, but couldn’t stop internet cafes or mobile games. Parents feared addiction, so some sent their children to have their temples shocked. Every decision was made “for the good.” But each one cut deep into the players. The ban was fully lifted in 2015. Online games never stopped. But for that generation, some parts of youth could never be brought back.

That was pretty interesting. Its nice to see how things were in a different part of the world.

6. Steam Arrives, and Chinese Players Begin Buying Legitimate Copies

After the ban lifted, the PS4 got an official China release. The first time I saw a PS4 in a shop, I was stunned. It didn’t look like a game anymore — it looked like art. That game was Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Even now, it doesn’t look dated. The shop owner was patient — taught me how to turn it on, save games, check regional versions. I regret not staying in touch with him.

The PS4 wasn’t cheap. Then I discovered Steam. With China’s lower pricing region and frequent deep discounts, every major sale became a festival for Chinese players. Buy, buy, buy — may not always play, but definitely buy. We know this habit is a bit odd. We’re price-sensitive, we complain about publishers all the time. But when we truly love a game, we still buy a brand new PS4 or PS5 physical copy and put it on the shelf. That’s probably the Chinese way of supporting legitimate games. Not elegant, but genuine.

I’m optimistic about console gaming in China. The numbers are still far behind Steam players, but from CS to PUBG to Black Myth: Wukong, good games never lack buyers. We didn’t play easily. But we played happily. On that, gamers everywhere are the same.

You should go to ML ;) they will care.