Ahoy, shiver me timbers maties

[Bloodreign]

Yeah, I can't remember the last time I played a Castlevania game, I have so many games now (1,271) in the collection, that I have games that seem to hold my attention more these days. Stuff like the Puyo's, the Magical Drops, the SNK fighters (Mortal Kombat who? Nah don't know em anymore).

https://www.dropbox.com/s/merftyc86w4pt0x/My%20Game%20Collection.txt?dl=0

Basically this is my game collection, very few boxed games as I don't really have the space for them. Some are Wii VC and PSN for old stuff for the PS1, like the SF Alpha PS1 games that were released for the PSN, and the Darkstalker games (which I still bought physical import versions of. My pristine copy of Vampire, aka Darkstalkers 1 is such a nice copy, yet the games music doesn't work on it, so that pristine thought was shot to hell). My collecting has slowed down a ton, mainly because I can't get a ride to either Play N Trade or pawn shop I used to hit up often, plus these places don't exactly carry imports, so I Ebay everything retro gaming these days. From almost weekly visits to these places when my ex-girlfriend and I would hang out, and she knew I loved game hunting, to now maybe 2-3 times a year, and buying in bulk, and $100-$200 a pop hardly gets you anything locally, or on Ebay these days as prices have gone batshit crazy on retrogames due to it still being the cool thing to do. That and it seems people took to heart years ago when people would tell them they'd never be able to make a living off of buying cheap/flipping for an insane price games, and that hurts those of us who collect not for profit, but to build a library to keep, enjoy, and let collect dust.

Not sure how long I've full time collected,probably close to 12-13 years now, had a little over 200 games already to start with, as I never sold any game I ever owned through either my money buying them, or the ones my parents got for me, or friends gave me. My room is small, so space isn't big enough for nice bookshelves and stuff like some of those collectors have in their Youtube videos. I have 4 wall mounted shelves, a CD rack on my wall, my PC desk got invaded by retro games, and I have an old dresser that literally has layers, upon layers of games, mostly on the backside, don't need anything slipping off the front side and breaking, ooh like a CD game for PS1 that I spent over a decade trying to find it's Japanese version from a US seller on Ebay (Puchi Carat PS1, JP version, yes took 12 years of searching to finally get one at the right time, those rarely show up on Ebay, while PAL versions are plentiful, but didn't want the PAL version. In 12 years I've seen less than 15 Japanese copies sell on Ebay, and only 3 of them have ever been from US sellers, but always at the worst time, and the first 2 times pricey. Well the 3rd time was the charm, just a hair over $20. I even saw a nice PS1 copy of Money Idol Puzzle Exchange for $26, it showed up at a bad time, copies normally go for over $100.Ah well, I have it on PS3 via PSN, and it is the PS1 version).

When I started collecting, there were a lot of collectors, but man oh man, so many more people have jumped into the ring, and I feel many of them are only in it for profit. Sure some of the long time collectors might do it for profit, but a lot of them did it for love, now the newer collectors, not so much.

[Bloodreign]

All this typing for a rant about game prices, and I originally put the thing in the wrong section. Clearly thought I was reading English in one of the sections for the native non-English speakers, but instead posted the damned thing anyway without realizing it. Because clearly I thought I clicked Ghost Ship of Fools, then realized after, holy crap, I can't read anything in it anymore. Turns out, I could, just clicked the wrong subsection.

[A-Yty]

I can't say when I "officially" started collecting. I guess buying an extra NES and my first SNES (didn't have one as a kid) back when you could still get them for reasonable prices marked my collector "career". It was during my first serious paychecks. The SNES I bought, I think, was in 2004. Before that my game purchases were really, really normie. I mean, I bought PAL Lament Of Innocence (the aptly named "Castlevania) for the standard price of 60 €. It was also during then I managed to get a brand new copy of PAL Circle Of The Moon (also officially named "Castlevania").

After that there was my most "serious" phase of retro collecting that lasted about 8 years. Got myself a N64, a brand new GameCube (sold now, unfortunately), Mega Drive, Master System and a whole bunch of Playstations (I have probably four of them). I started with Nintendo and expanded on to others, including home computers. I own a couple of MSXs, at least one Commodore 128 in original box and at least one Amiga 500. There's some exotic ones in there as well. Like some Casio mini computer, if I remember correctly. I've been meaning to do an inventory of my whole collection, but first I'd need to get them all in the same space. Perhaps sell some of it too (you only need so many of the same hardware before it's just silly hoarding).

My serious retro phase kind of stagnated after the work ended and studies were more important. There was little extra to be spent. At this point I bought less retro and more collector's editions of modern games. I never had the illusion most of them were going to be actual collector's items (Dead Space Ultra Limited Edition is probably one of the few LEs that actually live to their name). Instead, I liked their aesthetics, the extra stuff like figurines and such. Repro re-releases also caught my attention more than the originals. I got a little frivolous with it too; I think I paid about 145 € for the Mortal Kombat X Kollector's Edition for PC. I do like the Scorpion figurine that came with it. That's on the top of my shelf still.

My latest retro purchase was probably at least three years ago. I think it was a CIB Off-Road for NES. Since I live in a tiny rented apartment, there's hardly room to keep anything unnecessary. If I ever make it to owning my own house, all of it is going to be properly and lovingly arranged and looked through for clean-up and maintenance.

I never collected for profit foremost. It's a pretty fickle market to begin with. Besides, if one has the savvy and skill of selling things for more than you pay for them, there's probably many better markets for such things. I prefer the idea of preserving something. Being like a custodian or archivist. This idea of preserving isn't just towards games, per se. I have lots of "weird" interests, like digitizing old VHS and Betamax tapes for old commercials, television channel visual styles, layouts and such 

I prefer CIB, because the package and the manuals are part of the experience. This is also why I haven't really been able to buy that many NES games.

[Bloodreign]

I think the only Limited Edition that I have that is truly limited edition, is the Metal Gear Solid 3 one, though the MSX games did eventually come out again on the PS3 in another Metal Gear collection, though I'm not sure if they are on a physical like the ones on Subsistence on PS2 were. That and the fact that not everyone who ordered the LE ever got one from my understanding.


For me, the collecting bug hit me after 30, while I was in my 20's I wasn't playing that much retro stuff outside of emulation (and that was in my late 20's) and all I cared about is the latest greatest thing that was coming out at the time.Once games started losing that arcade feel,I started going backwards with my gaming desires.

[Q]

I used to have a collector's mentality until I practically stopped buying games several years ago. Without much income in the past, I often had to sell the stuff with less sentimental value to buy new collectables (or more like games I would actually play). But around the time I stopped buying games, the small profit I might have earned from selling the items I owned had also become meaningless. So that left me with the remains of a collection, a large part of its contents being such games that I still occasionally play, such as Gradius V or Master System games.

[Bloodreign]

I tend to not buy as often, usually relegating buying just twice a year due to my purchases mainly being imports, something none of the Play N Trades or pawn shops in my area carry. Game prices rising may also play a huge part in when I stop collecting, and just hold on to  what I own, as it is now I am trying to squeeze as much as possible into the times I do purchase during the year. I always look for the cheapest price, though if a game that is in really bad shape, I try to either look for another copy for around the same price, or just go a little higher in price for a nicer copy.

[Bengr Hausve]

Hi there, Bloodreign! It's-a-me, Froggy!  Just wanted to insert myself into this discussion without a reason, except wanting petty attention!   

[Bloodreign]

Attention received HA!

[Bloodreign]

The collection has now hit over 1,300 games (1,314 to be exact), and it's getting harder to get more games in the least amount of money I'm willing to spend in one shot. Only 8 picked up for Christmas time, including having to buy another Namco Museum Vol 4 PS1 as the first one I bought only had Pac-Land (the reason I got the compilation) and Assault/Assault Plus worked, leaving Return of Ishtar (Tower of Druaga sequel), Ordyne, and Genpei Toumaden never loading on the disc. The replacement one, bought years after I bought the busted one, has all the games working on it.

Broke the 200 SNES/SFC game mark this year, my Genesis collection is at 185 games.