In a Michigan basement decked out in maize and blue, a father sat with his son.

They’d bond over a football video game. One with a story mode that would transport the 7-year-old into a college dorm room, where letters from fans filled his mailbox, the campus newspaper teased a championship and a list of Heisman candidates adorned his computer screen. If he played well enough, his name might even appear there.

It wasn’t real. But who was to say it couldn’t be?

“You know, we’d always joke, because he was a big kid, that ‘Hey, maybe you’re going to be on there someday,’” says the father, Bill Swartout.

Today, more than a decade later, that 7-year-old — Brayden Swartout — is an offensive lineman at Central Michigan, living the story mode in real life.

Countless versions of that game, not made in over a decade, collect dust in basements alongside phased-out gaming systems. It’s the inevitable fate of old discs, gaming cartridges, RCA connector wires and the like. Give it all a good blow, though, and the dust clears to reveal an enduring cultural phenomenon that, in this modern world, is on its way back.