 They say that if you're a music fan, you will always remember the songs that came out when you were a teenager. But more than the music for me, it's the games. Warcraft, Starcraft, Red Alert, Dark Rain, Grim Fandango, Quake, CS, so many games. And not just the games, but who I played them with. Because my adolescence was right around the time that land cafes were starting to become popular. Even back then we had windows, but nowadays there are better options to activate it. Maraming na kaming na tulungan. Date? I said I'm depressed ako. But now, I'm from the love of my life. Date, ingresan walang purpose ang life ko. But now, I'm a world-class Zumba instructor. So, web developer ako and content creator for a YouTube channel. And ngayon, ganun pa rin ako, pero activated na yung windows ko. Kaya ako naghanap ka ng legit, mura at original software. Check out cdkoffer.com Fragging an AI bot was nothing compared to the rush of using a grenade launcher on your friend. A friend who was seated right beside you and who was still using a keyboard without mouse to play an FPS. This was so early in the genre that mouse look hadn't become default yet. Wild times which are gone. Land cafes because of the pandemic and because of better internet penetration have been rendered obsolete and a lot of the old names and places have disappeared. Just a quick search showing land cafes which are listed as temporarily closed is sobering. For a certain generation, sabrandakas nung demand. Kamusta yung demand ngayon after the pandemic, after everybody has internet now? It's low. So, people just go to the local sales of those guys to meet up or play zila to the major old friends. Even the games themselves moved away from the land format. Starcraft 2 didn't have a land option anymore. But one of the OG cafes remains and we sat down with its owner to reminisce a little bit and also to see if these types of places still have a future. This is of course the immortal Herbie of Blue Skies who looks pretty much the same as I remember seeing him when he was running Skies back when I was a teenager. He started back in 1907. We had internet traffic. Malakas yung demand ng games. So yung mga land games, particularly Warcraft 3, yung malakas. So we had to branch out. So from there, we developed these guys. We were running on U.S. robotics, dialogue connection. For the entire shop, nakadayalap connection lang. Nakadayalap lang. Pali dalo ang dialogues. One is main, one is for tapas. Initially, the kids came in for work, to print, to do school stuff. Puno ang muna, work related. So we wanted to do our homeworks. But that quickly changed. Some of them noticed I was experimenting on games because it kept sighing naman, because there are lax hours. So we tried some networking. So yung mga land games then were like two Warcraft. The evolution to try out games was to maximize profit, to give customers something to do during the lax hours. In short, to make more money. So it was easy to put the day of business. Because there were more people playing than doing web browser. Malakas ko din naman yung web browser. Pero mas nambay naysing turnover sa colleagues. Kasi para siya na, hard pay, certainly do work hard pay. The man turnover, Herbie is a meticulous businessman and he pays attention to the details. Actually we wanted to maximize his pay since it happened. We had a specific measurement on the day. We have a specific measurement for everything. We wanted more view. You didn't have to retire and deal. There's less decoration. We just want to maximize the space. And of course he kept track of his competitors. So by 1998-99, Ken C. Ciber again, Hattie Stop, Ken X, Bester Sopolta, Sili Romania, 129. Yeah, yeah. Parang nag-mushroom sila at one point. Talagang sobrang tayo. Kasi malakas, nag-evalin. And inevitably when you have a computer business, you need to do maintenance and Herbie would basically do it on his own. Who does your tech? Made you have dedicated tech guys na mag-iwaway palit para ma-reformat, para mawala ang virus or kung hardware related, ma-isolate nalang issue. Like the back end of Blues Guys? Back end, ako rin gupantawa. Kasi mabilis lang kung waga meron ng process. For me, growing up Skies was a place to play. But of course for the owner, it was a business whose purpose was to generate income. During the interview, I was struck how my rosy nostalgia for the place, the sight of so many hours of gaming, contrasted with how efficient you needed to be to make a profit. More Henry Ford, less Willy Wonka. Aside from the economics, there are the regulatory aspects also to consider. It's so normal for adults to blame computers for why kids are no good, that it's been summed up into a phrase. Sa kaka-computer mo yan. Plus, the location of Blues Guys is very near several schools. Back to the school, especially for students, especially parents, nag-a-dali, pa-sing-pang-sabi. All the students of our parents. As it may sumugod sa inyo, were there any parents sa laga nag-contact sa inyo directly? No, no. Mostly parents have go to the shop naka sinahanap ang hanaap sa nag-contact sa nag-contact sa nag-contact sa nag-contact. Sa school rin. So, sa school, they started looking for kids in our store there. Sinahanap mo. Matita nila ba si, especially from Costco. Plus, when your primary market is young males, then you're dealing with a lot of this toasteron and all of the bone-headed stuff that can come from that. At mong mura, tapos, mong mong mong mong mong mong gan. So, we had a costumanding speed. Siguro, trash-talk yung sang guests. Nag-alate yung guests, tumawag, kino ko ko siya. So, now, hospitalize. Ah, wow, ah. Si, kanina siya tumawag parang sa tropa niya or sa... Tumawag ng tropa. At taga, anonas. Wilda. And, the fight was on the premises or just right outside. Parang hinanam si Steve. They pulled him down, he was playing. Was that, sorry, was that one of the worst, parang yung asaran, trash-talk, and then it led to violence? So, sometimes we have customers, ma-anak ng generals, and then, for example, naniwan niya, Facebook niya, kaya kailangan ang other customers. Post from, ah. Post siyang pinakita yung nag-alate. Pero, at the end, cool down. Yung, pinakaitan ang staff ko. Kailangan, ah, parang yung nag-alaro, tapos, pen-susumap. Siya nang, it's weird, it's a bit of a shock. It's a bit of a shock. Any event that costs damage to the computer? Siya nga, kong sumuka, or parang nagsuntukan, tapos, di, wala naman. Mostly, the worst weekend, siguro, natalo, inagisan yung monitor nabasa. Natalo na inis, hinagis yung monitor. With all of this mayhem and noise going on, inevitably, the people of Blue Skies know their barangay officials really well. Yes, the people of Blue Skies know their barangay officials. So, sa kanong po-face sa kailang, we follow them. We want to friendly with our neighbors also. And when customers aren't busy wrecking things, you have to be worried that they might be stealing things. Delicium bakta, because screwdriver, tapos, when you get a call, no-how. Tuna lang, nangyari yan, we had also a theft sa Windows cash, panas mo lakaw, da lawang 1060, yung processor ka-5, 1112, nangyari lakaw. So, we reported it because it was a lot of metal. After this laundry list of headaches of running a land cafe, it's clear to me now why there isn't a rush to resurrect them. It's a hard business. The business of enabling the fun of other people can crush you. But amidst all of the frustrations, there are some light-hearted moments too. Herbie himself is a gamer. Ever since gamer ka na? Sorry, MMO? And being in a land cafe allowed them to add to the gaming experience. One of the long-time voice of Skies is Marlon who is still there. And if you ever played CES and Blue Skies, you might recall Marlon's voice which was saved over the original voice commands. So, instead of hearing go, go, go, you would hear Marlon saying stuff. Stuff which is not exactly appropriate anymore. So, I'll reminisce about it at the very end of this episode. May nag-mod sa kanya na yung voices. Parang linagay yung voice di Marlon. I ask him to do that. We did that according for one night let's take all the voice commands. We recorded him. Very nakamait lang siya. Apos, you know, you say all these lines of course didn't want to add more lines. Just kept on adding more lines. So, the idea came from you. Parang ikaw na ganang voice talent. Okay. Before naging uso yung call-outs from Dota 2 yung shout casters, parang the origin, like at least for my generation, the origin would be Marlon shouting, sugood na. It's a CS game in Blue Skies. Sadly, I lost my talk pass. If you didn't catch it also, Herbie mentioned that he does not have the recordings anymore. Another piece of culture gone. The evolution of the land cafe is circular. Bilog ang bola, ikang anang basketball fans. Cafe started out for business, evolved to cater to gamers, and now that the gamers have mostly left, it's back to considering the business market. Students who go in to have their reports printed so, you know, we still can take our business aspect. And there are signs of life for the internet cafe for this type of business at least outside of the city. The land cafe of my teenage years, though, is effectively dead. Probably never to be resurrected. Good riddance may be. They're not needed anymore in a world where everyone's phone or computer is connected. The internet has made the world now one big land cafe. But there are moments which can only happen in a land cafe. Mas, ano siya, everything is more genuine for seeing your reaction time to my reaction especially in USA. We were playing Diablo for the first time of two-mating supporters, talaga at wawala siya players. Who's that? Tapos tisigaw siya tisigaw si Putra ng fresh meat because everyone is surrounding Everyone is talking Mas genuine ang mga computer tapos sabay-sabay ka e mga reacting to Putra. In places like Blue Skies you didn't need to type out GG after a game because you would physically reach over and pat your friend on the back or more likely winner loose because that's how guys express affection. The internet connects, but it also sanitizes. It can't transmit the smell of cigarettes, the sounds of cursing, laughing, crying, threats, the griminess of the mouse, the stickiness of the floor, the joy of knowing there's nowhere you would rather be at one in the morning than in this cafe virtually trying to murder your best friends. And for the rest of my days, I'll always remember one of Marlon's recorded voice lines for CS. So good na mga ba ding! That's not something you can get away with anymore. Not in modern CS, which is a very tactical game which punishes headlong rushes. And not in modern polite society, which is hyper-aware of slurs. It was a different time. Perhaps backward in some respects, but it was a time I am happy to have played through. This was Tech Show But Friendly, Hardware Sugar's podcast. I'm your host Anton, and we were produced by Nana Nadal. Join us in two weeks for our Valentine's episode where we explore why women becoming more assertive and dating turned out to be a great thing for men. Paminsan, may nagtatanong kumikilala ba kaming computer shop na trusted yung hindi kalolo ko hin? Actually, meron kami. Full-service PC store ang Hardware Sugar. Nagbabenta kami ng PC components. Nagbabenta rin kami ng fully assembled rigs. We clean computers. Kasama na rin yung excellent table management namin and CPU cooler repasting sa cleaning. We also clean and repaste GPUs. Nasamakati yung physical store namin and you can also buy from our site, www.hwsugar.ph, na 100% palaging up-to-date yung inventory dun. Kung instock yung item sa amin, available yung sa site. Thanks for watching and maybe one of these days, magkita tayo sa shop.