Imagine, if you will, being a gamer in the 1980s. In order to play anything, you would have had to have exchanged currency for every single play of every single game. And the games in your local arcade wouldn't have been easy, either. Those old school cabinets were scientifically designed to suck quarters from you with quickness; to achieve even a base level of competence at Defender, you're talking at least 15 bucks... and don't even get me started about games like 720 Degrees, that had the nerve to charge two quarters a play... or those rip-off arcades that used tokens instead of coins so they could make the gamer exchange rate three-plays for a dollar.

Thank god our long national nightmare is over.

Imagine going back in time 30 years to a typical arcade and finding a dude in a painter's cap and a Pac-Man Fever shirt and and being like, "Yo, 1980s Gamer Dude: In The Future, you can play arcade games like Asteroids, Crystal Castles, and home console games like Adventure for free. All day long. Without leaving your house."

1980s Guy would be all, "Totally tubular, dude! How?"

You would go, "Just click this link on the web. Atari's giving that stuff away."

And 1980s Guy would be like, "Wait, what's a 'link?' What do webs have to do with anything? Why have you used the ability to go back in time to tell me about video games instead of using it to get me laid?"

Shamed, you would run back to your little time machine or fade into a wormhole or some crap.

Thankfully, time travel is impossible, and you can play a bunch of crusty Atari games in the present... or in The Future, a few moments from now, just by visiting this site. What a time to be alive!