Macedonian Video Game History - My Slavic Christmas Holiday Retro Gaming Memories from the Balkans

[@benstylus]

My goodness, this video is a treasure trove. Thank you so much for sharing. Always so cool to see more countries' gaming history

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

Thank YOU for watching it! This video has the worst viewer retention of all my videos but it seems everyone who watched it through loved it, so thanks a ton, bud.

[@Japanalysis]

holy s*** dude you are pumping these vids out. keep it up fella

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

Thanks :) I'm trying to post one video per week, but I will have to slow down eventually if I want to get some work done or play some bigger games. That Visions of Mana has been staying in my Steam Library since the Christmas sale started

[@dozerfan1979]

Great video! Loved learning about all of this

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

Thanks, that means a lot. There's practically nothing online on Macedonia's gaming history and I don't want to just make an informative video and recite it, I'd rather tell these stories as I personally was experiencing them and through my experiences and stories people will also learn our gaming history.

[@MaximumRD]

Great video and story/history! Thanks for sharing!

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

So happy you enjoyed it, friend, thanks

[@rantsolot]

Fire content here, it's so cool that you had games like Sonic 3 & Ristar back then, those are 2 of my favorite games of all time. I know the post-Yugoslav years were quite tumultuous for many living in the Balkans, it's very touching that you have such warm reminiscences of childhood back then. It's also so cool learning about Soviet LCD games from the 80s. I'm obsessed with Soviet & Yugoslav era so this was incredibly interesting for me. Also, love the music choices here, the vibe and editing is so well-crafted.

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

So glad you enjoyed the video :) When it comes to games, we had absolutely everything. Dragon Quest III and TwinBee have "Christmas" like music by default :) Also the 90's in Macedonia were great, we peacefully separated from Yugoslavia so there was no issues here, some internal squabbling sure and the economy wasn't the best but it wasn't anything awful at all. Many of us remember the 90's very fondly. Sadly Serbia, Croatia and such had to deal with that war and everything, so much tragedy there, but Macedonia during the 90's was pretty good.

[@charlessmith8058]

Merry Christmas 🎅 from the USA 🇺🇸

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

Merry Christmas, friend Ours isn't until January tho but thanks all the same :)

[@OriginalMasters]

This is a fantastic video with a lot of heart. I love your Donkey Kong dual screen memories, and I would love to have one of those! Happy New Year!

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

Happy new years to you as well, friend! I'm so glad you enjoyed this video, man you got real far into the video if you reached DK II :D THANK YOU!

[@K9arcade]

Really glad that I found this channel. This is a question that crosses my mind very regularly as I'm fascinated with the tech-side of the history in eastern europe, particularly Makedonija. I try to archive various retro arcades around the world but whenever i ask a macedonian, 9 times out of ten they tell me "sto e toa?" XD so I normally don't get far. Thanks for the video, and Srekna Nova Godina! 🎆✝

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

Wait, wait wait, this makes no sense, Macedonians are asking you what arcades are? Buddy, we had at least 1 usually 2-3 arcades PER Neighborhood here in the 80's and 90's, chuck full of the latest arcade games both bootleg and original. Many Macedonians know them as Flippers (Fliperi) not Arcades tho. How old were these Macedonians who didn't know what arcades were? Arcades were so big here in Yugoslavia and Macedonia throughout the 80's and 90's that even kids who weren't nerds or into gaming would hang out at the arcades and play games. I guess if the folks you talked to are in their 20's/early 20's they don't remember arcades, but we had arcades until the 2000's here tho they were really booming in the 80's and 90's. Please get back to me on this when you can as I find it odd that Macedonians wouldn't know what arcades are. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs was known as Mustafa here, there's no way they haven't played Mustafa at the "Fliperi" lol I dunno what else to say. EDIT: Oh right, I got carried away because I find this subject too important not to nerd out over it I forgot to thank you for watching and enjoying the video, so thanks a ton :D

[@K9arcade]

@@GamingPalOllieMK That's ok I probably didn't word my story well, basically I asked some youngsters but also some much older macedonians that likely would've known them as fliperi yes. Not sure if their generation enjoyed video-games much. Awesome to know that there were booming arcades in the 80/90s because i only have seen 1 video on youtube of a guy playing some great games, and i've been to one arcade in skopje. Was just hoping that there's more out there in present day but so far not much luck :/ Looking forward to watching more videos

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

@@K9arcade yeah just about anyone would go to the arcades back then, in fact they were more often than not places where bullies and teenagers would hang out. I'm going to make a video on this in summer, problem is man, for two years now I've been trying to find photos or videos of that time period to no avail. Arcades were such a normal thing here that I guess nobody thought about taking pics or recording some footage there. Still I am going to tell my story like I did with the Christmas games and will use my home mini arcades as props to do so :) young people know nothing about this, but people my age in their 40's and 30's definitely did go to arcades, a lot.

[@K9arcade]

@@GamingPalOllieMK I look forward to the video. Only thing I've seen on KZbin has been this: youtu. be/MIPzAf_7DfE?si=ctJsX6umm7gXEjpA

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

Sadly, I have no authentic footage of the old arcades with the real cabinets and stuff, that's probably the very last remnants of what once was, many of those just seem like arcade sticks and a CRT monitor. All we can do is fake it and I will try to convey what things were like through words and hopefully decent enough video editing :) Oh well, that video is still a long way away.

[@jpzuri]

nice, brother! greetings from Brazil

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

Thank you so much! Brazilian gaming history is incredible.

[@amoretpax199]

Is that Nu, pogodi! at 1:26? Wow, I have forgotten about this show.

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

yes it is and I promise if you watch until the end it will be worth it if you like game & watch and their Soviet counterparts :)

[@IvanSpaceBiker]

I always play supersmash bros on the gamecube with my brother on christmas every year and make burritoes, we live in australia, its interesting hearing other peoples sense of meaningfulness of digital/virtual experiences.

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

Nintendo systems are just made for christmas :) Smash is the perfect game for the holidays to play with siblings and cousins

[@jaimecavazos9090]

Hello Gaming Pal Ollie!!! Amazing video right there, I loved the millennial fair music , great footage of your city back in the day, great game history and gameplay. Thanks for share some of your thoughts, history and life as a gamer!! I’m from Mexico and we have something call “mercados” which is like a flea market , as you described in your video, people selling items in the streets or parks, with tents and tables; I don’t know how pricy games were in Masedonia, but at least in Mexico were kind of expensive until we got to the PS1-Xbox era , that’s where the ilegal game copies were around $20 pesos (like 2 dollars at that time ) but before, everything gaming related, was more expensive. I had a cousin that had a bootleg NES cassette with many games , and every Christmas I used to go to his home and play that :) great nostalgia moment right there :) Keep the good content coming Ollie !! Great work.

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

Thanks, bud, this means a lot. I dunno for how long I can keep making videos before I have to get back to work :) but I will keep at it for as long as I can! Awesome comment, thanks man.

[@jaimecavazos9090]

@ when you go back to work, we will wait patiently for you to come back with new videos, I am already subscribed with notifications, so as soon as you have a new video, I will be here first row to watch it !!

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

@@jaimecavazos9090 Well last time it took more than 5 years :) It's really not possible for me to do illustration AND make videos and have time for gaming.

[@jaimecavazos9090]

@@GamingPalOllieMK 5 years, that’s a lot of time, but no worries, we will always wait for you. Also, if there is any way to support your work following you in social media or other channels, I will definitely do it !!

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

@@jaimecavazos9090 thanks, bro, but no I don't want to turn this into an influencer thing, it's just a private channel for me to share my thoughts and feelings on gaming. I'm still going to be making videos for the forseeable future, at least until September so I should cover my favorite topics like VFD games, arcade games in Macedonia, I will talk about the positive effects piracy had on countries like mine and so on.

[@GotroCode]

Good video make a video with some crt monitors and nostalgic games

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

I mean all my videos are with CRTs and nostalgic games, or do you mean PC Specific? If so I have some stuff in mind I just need to figure out that set up first as I don't have much room for more CRTs. I even bought two CRT PC Monitors recently just for that purpose but they're in the building's basement for now, well packed and secured. I dunno when I'm going to get around to that, for now I stick to console games so we'll see.

[@jeromedado7416]

I luv famiclone, no struggle to connect on modern TV plus replaceable controller has unlike the Japanese Famicom. 😊

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

I personally use the AV Famicom for both my original famicom and famiclone games nowadays, most famiclones are very low quality devices that break easily but the AV Famicom is sturdy and well made, very stable too. You can use standard NES controllers and it has regular controller ports, none of that built in nonsense.

[@jeromedado7416]

@@GamingPalOllieMK for 5$ dollars, it's was not a big deal.it's cheap, but it's works for me. I have 3 famiclone, the quality is not great, but it's really worth it for my daily used for more than 2 years now.! 😊

[@striderskorpion]

It's fascinating to see, even if it's just personal anecdotes, the history of video games in "Eastern Bloc" territories. Particularly, how the market evolved after the fall of the communist states and the transition from bootleg products to official releases as the market opened up. I wonder if anyone has covered the history of video games in these countries (aside from Russia). If not, I think it would be an interesting project for a video game historian.

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

I am covering it but since I lived through it I want to tell this history through personal experiences like this video. I think a less personal video will come eventually, but I'd rather take people on a personal journey through Macedonia's video game history first, then we can summarize it all. You can't find a better "historian" than the people who lived and experienced all this first hand, those of us who were around for the countless arcades and all the amazing games we had here. As you can see, this video talks about the freedom of choice we had in the early 90's and the enormous choice of games we had during the early 90's. Things only get better from there. As I said, even before the fall of Yugoslavia we had a ton of games here, Arcade games and home computers were flourishing here in the 80's.

[@striderskorpion]

@GamingPalOllieMK Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed what you created. I wasn't trying to dismiss your personal anecdotes. As I said, it was fascinating to hear your story. I want to encourage you to continue this, at least as long as you enjoy doing it. I only mentioned historians because I would like to see the broader context for other countries of the Eastern Bloc that might get ignored for the USSR. Edit: I just want to mention that I was using the definition of Eastern Bloc that I was most familiar with, which includes Yugoslavia. I know they had break with the USSR and weren't a part of the Warsaw Pact, so I apologize if I offended (definitely not my intention).

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

@@striderskorpion Oh you meant the Balkans and Eastern Bloc in general, yeah I get you now. You are right, I can only really speak for Macedonia and my own personal experiences in my country, I can't speak for the other countries in my part of the world really. Heck I don't even know what Serbia, a neighboring country was like then for sure, I know they too had these games but I can't speak for them, they were dealing with war and what not while Macedonia peacefully left Yugoslavia so aside from some financial issues it was peaceful here and we had time to game, a lot, as kids. What I can do is speak for Macedonia, tell stories of things I've experienced and through that tell my country's video game history.

[@belstar1128]

18:40 i had something similar but mine claimed it had 9999 games because they viewed every level and speed setting as its own game. Macedonia is a very interesting country i wonder what it was like seeing your country being founded in real time but i guess you were not old enough to care about such things yet. i used to wonder what the point of these bootleg games were since they just seemed like scams but now that i know Nintendo was not active in most of the world i realised they were very important .

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

I was 8 years old and at the risk of starting an all out Balkan Smash Bros brawl tournament here, I'll tell you that my country wasn't so much as founded but simply separated from Yugoslavia. There was never a time when I wasn't taught that we are Macedonian first and that we are simply a part of Yugoslavia like the other nationalities and countries/republics were. My grandparents and great grandparents had a very strong Macedonian identity, my great grandpa, my grandma's dad on my mom side was a teacher and very well educated. Both him and my great grandmother were identifying themselves as Macedonian as far back as they could remember. The same goes for my great grandparents on my dad's side albeit they weren't as highly educated they still held the same identity and values. Both sets of my grandparents clearly remember having gone through Bulgarian and Serbian time as they called it, depending on who occupied or took over our country at the time and having to specifically learn both languages during these times at school. Our languages are similar but they're different enough that they still had to actually sit down and properly learn them. So for me and many others, Macedonia wasn't so much as founded but rather gained its independence, it always had its own identity, nationality and language. Macedonians have been striving for independence from as far back as Ottoman times, separate from Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs and so on. We were part of Yugoslavia, sure, but we were acknowledged as a separate nationality with its own identity and we peacefully separated from Yugoslavia. I have a lot of nostalgia for Yugoslavia, I was born 1983, so I remember both Yugoslavia and the USSR which I visited a few times very fondly.

[@GamingPalOllieMK]

Now to get back to you on the gaming side of things :) On the tetris side of things, I believe tho I could be wrong the 999 in 1 tetris handhelds came out later, initially we'd get just plain ol' tetris with maybe 2-3 variants so they'd be called 2-in-1 or 3-in-1, then Tetris handhelds like the Apollo here came out with 12-in-1 games, some had 20somthing and so on. As for Nintendo and SEGA, neither were officially present in Macedonia and to this day you can't make an eShop account with Macedonia as your country and they will never support us. Even so, thanks to bootleg games, we had just as much exposure if not more so as countries where Nintendo officially offered support which is really cool. Same goes for SEGA :)