The King of Collectors: Full Playstation 2 NTSC Library Sealed

[TonyTheTiger]

I don't understand why it all being sealed means anything. What? Do you think if he had 1,800 opened games he'd be playing them all?

I'm sure he has a solid collection of opened duplicates of the PS2 games he actually cares to play but I'm going to guess that number pales in comparison to the console's total library. Even something like the NES with roughly half the total number, people who have full CIB collections aren't amassing them for the playing experience. That is, unless NES collectors want Action 52 for the greatness that is Cheetahmen.

So if people are going to lambast this guy for having a collection he's never going to use...well...why not rage against anybody who has humongous collections, opened or otherwise?

[calthaer]

Heck, at least spending $40K on games gets that money flowing into the economy and helps to create additional jobs and growth at a time when our economy can really use it.

My thoughts ran something along these lines when I heard all these pious-seeming pleas crying out for this monied bub to use his supposed silver spoon to alleviate the purportedly Dickensian suffering of our day and age in America. "Wanton excess" is a matter of perspective, and like Bojay pointed out, it matters much more how the guy got his money, not really that he has it and how he spends it. I'd much sooner despise a con artist making a modest living ($40k / year) than a hard-working business owner (or even the owner's kids) who built up a profitable and productive business that provides gainful employment to others and nets a million annually.

Who's to say that this spendthrift isn't, by his purchases, helping some poor sod(s), down on their luck either because of their own poor spending habits or the vicissitudes of fate, to pull themselves out of the doldrums of monetary despair and set themselves on the path to fiscal rectitude?

[Oobgarm]

That's the part I don't understand. A complete PS2 collection is VERY cool in my book, but why sealed? I guess that makes it more of a challenge or something along those lines (or maybe he's just into minty freshness?), but now it's become something you can't play with. It's just a 'looking at' thing which doesn't make sense to me.

Tempest

This is what rubs me the wrong way about this collection. If I had the funds, PS2 is the second machine I'd go for a full set, right after NES. No doubt about that.

But all of them, sealed, just sitting on the shelf for all eternity? I know that perceived value is a completely subjective thing here, but I have to question it.

[TonyTheTiger]

This is what rubs me the wrong way about this collection. If I had the funds, PS2 is the second machine I'd go for a full set, right after NES. No doubt about that.

But all of them, sealed, just sitting on the shelf for all eternity? I know that perceived value is a completely subjective thing here, but I have to question it.

But, again. If the idea is to play the games then why go for a fullset at all outside of tiny libraries like the 32X?

It sounds to me that the criticism of "the stuff just sits there unused" is a backdoor argument since it can apply to a ton of collections, not just sealed stuff.

[Aussie2B]

Completely ridiculous and the very definition of hypocracy. Who cares what Suze Orman would say? Does Suze Orman live in poverty? No, she has a net worth of $10 million, a beautiful home and gave almost $30K to the DNC two years ago. She knows nothing about this guy's situation just like you don't.

You are applying a narrow minded moral judgement to this guy when you know nothing about his situation and have what some would describe as an excess of material items with 1200 games yourself. Nobody needs 1200 games just like nobody needs even a single game. Games are luxury items just like anything beyond food, water, shelter and love are. Even if you only spent $5 each on those games (and let's be honest, you probably spent much more on many of them), that's $6,000 that could be feeding the poor, clothing the naked, ending disease, etc...

You also don't need to be rich to give lots of money away or donate lots of your time. In fact, poorer people are typically more generous than the rich as a percentage of income that they give to charities.

Who cares if he came from a wealthy family? Maybe his father or his father's father worked from poverty to become wealthy. Isn't that what many people claim to be the American dream? Are all rich people automatically evil in your book? Should rich parents not share any of that wealth with their kids? Should poor parents present their children with a bill at age 18 for anything beyond the bare basics that they have bought them over the years?

There are a lot bigger problems and examples of waste in the world than this one guy who has only about a third more games than you own and the fact that none of us know his story makes it really disturbing that some people are judging him and assuming facts about him for which there is no basis.

You are making more assumptions and judgements in this topic than anybody else. You're trying to twist my words into things I never remotely said, and I think the members of Digital Press are smart enough to see through it.

I never once said anything bad about the guy. No one did, for the most part, but, for some reason, when a topic like this comes up, certain people absolutely flip out and overreact if anyone does anything other than bow down and kiss the collector's feet. People are entitled to their opinions. All I ever said about this guy and his collection is that I'm more impressed with collections that were built with heart and determination rather than bottomless pockets and eBay, that I'm more interested in collections that people actually play, and that I find his spending habits questionable. I'm entitled to those thoughts, just as anyone is welcome to question aspects of my collection, like, for example, some people think it's pointless importing text-heavy games from Japan, when I have lots of them. Even if I made a topic to show off my collection, I would accept comments like those, but, as I said earlier, if this guy simply made a topic here to show his collection, then he probably wouldn't get any negativity. However, he chose to do an interview and make his collection a subject of discussion, and if he or anyone else can't handle a discussion with anything but praise and worship, then I don't think you're taking our community in the right direction.

I brought up Suze Orman because I believe she's very savvy about finances and usually gives people good advice. My point was simply that I believe his spending habits could be foolish if he's neglecting to use that large amount of money to secure his finances first, and I think Suze Orman would say the same. But maybe he is completely set for life, I don't know.

Again, there's nothing hypocritical about my comments because my spending habits aren't remotely similar. I just don't get how you and some others in this topic don't understand that not all unnecessary spending is alike. Even if I looked only at the 12 years in which I was seriously collecting, that would break down to an average of 100 games a year (obviously the real number is less than that given the 8 years of gaming prior). Most of those games were bought at $3 or less, so we're talking about an insignificant amount of money over the course of one year. Plus, unlike this collector, I don't sit on big hoards of duplicates. I resell a fair number of games each year for more than I bought them at, so my financial investment in my collection is diminished further yet. And beyond games, I don't do much unnecessary spending. I was raised according to the old saying "Waste not, want not", and I'll use most things until they wear out or break.

Lastly, I never said anything about rich people being evil or that I think it's bad for someone to have a rich family or any nonsense like that. You completely made that up. You were the one coming up with all these hypotheses about what this guy's life is like, so I simply responded to that by saying your ideas weren't plausible given the facts. I presented NO judgment in my assessment of what his situation most likely is.

[Bojay1997]

You are making more assumptions and judgements in this topic than anybody else. You're trying to twist my words into things I never remotely said, and I think the members of Digital Press are smart enough to see through it.

I never once said anything bad about the guy. No one did, for the most part, but, for some reason, when a topic like this comes up, certain people absolutely flip out and overreact if anyone does anything other than bow down and kiss the collector's feet. People are entitled to their opinions. All I ever said about this guy and his collection is that I'm more impressed with collections that were built with heart and determination rather than bottomless pockets and eBay, that I'm more interested in collections that people actually play, and that I find his spending habits questionable. I'm entitled to those thoughts, just as anyone is welcome to question aspects of my collection, like, for example, some people think it's pointless importing text-heavy games from Japan, when I have lots of them. Even if I made a topic to show off my collection, I would accept comments like those, but, as I said earlier, if this guy simply made a topic here to show his collection, then he probably wouldn't get any negativity. However, he chose to do an interview and make his collection a subject of discussion, and if he or anyone else can't handle a discussion with anything but praise and worship, then I don't think you're taking our community in the right direction.

I brought up Suze Orman because I believe she's very savvy about finances and usually gives people good advice. My point was simply that I believe his spending habits could be foolish if he's neglecting to use that large amount of money to secure his finances first, and I think Suze Orman would say the same. But maybe he is completely set for life, I don't know.

Again, there's nothing hypocritical about my comments because my spending habits aren't remotely similar. I just don't get how you and some others in this topic don't understand that not all unnecessary spending is alike. Even if I looked only at the 12 years in which I was seriously collecting, that would break down to an average of 100 games a year (obviously the real number is less than that given the 8 years of gaming prior). Most of those games were bought at $3 or less, so we're talking about an insignificant amount of money over the course of one year. Plus, unlike this collector, I don't sit on big hoards of duplicates. I resell a fair number of games each year for more than I bought them at, so my financial investment in my collection is diminished further yet. And beyond games, I don't do much unnecessary spending. I was raised according to the old saying "Waste not, want not", and I'll use most things until they wear out or break.

Lastly, I never said anything about rich people being evil or that I think it's bad for someone to have a rich family or any nonsense like that. You completely made that up. You were the one coming up with all these hypotheses about what this guy's life is like, so I simply responded to that by saying your ideas weren't plausible given the facts. I presented NO judgment in my assessment of what his situation most likely is.

Wow, why not just use a cheesy politician's cliche to make your point? If you really believed that opinion or the facts were on your side or that everyone else saw through my alleged "twisting" of your words and arguments, you wouldn't have bothered to respond at all. Instead you chose to dig the hole even deeper.

Do you even go back and read your own posts before hitting submit? In this post alone, you have accused him of "hoarding" and softened but reiterated your belief that he should seek Suze Orman's advice because his spending habits could be "foolish". Those are very loaded terms that carry a very negative connotation. If you really aren't passing judgement on him, how do things like that have any relevance whatsoever and why bring them up?

If your only point is that his collection is less impressive in your opinion than someone who found it all at thrifts, garage sales and swap meets and paid an average of $3 a game, that's all you needed to say. Apparently, that's how you've built your collection, so anyone that doesn't do the same is apparently not worthy of respect or praise because they haven't shown enough "heart" or "determination". Obviously, someone who works hard to earn a living which they then use to buy things from Ebay or elsewhere has no heart or determination in their collecting, because the only righteous way to build a collection is the way you're doing it.

Give me a break, if you and a few others weren't making negative assumptions about this guy, there would be zero discussion about his finances, charity, what constitutes "excessive" collecting, etc...All of it is completely irrelevant and is you and a few others imposing your personal belief system on something that has nothing to do with the interview he gave or his collection.

[Gameguy]

The dude is 23 and has been actively collecting for 7 1/2 years. What kind of high paying job could he have got at age 16? Just saying for those still thinking he earned all the money himself. Without knowing him personally he would just come across as someone spoiled who just had everything handed to him whenever he wanted it, like getting literally every video game he wants as soon as he finds a copy of a game for sale. Maybe he's a nice guy in person, who knows.

I'm not even sure if spending $40,000 on games would really help the economy that much since a large number of games would have been bought from private sellers after the games were out of print. How many jobs would really have been created because of his spending habbits?

As for judging him, he agreed to take part in an interview and display photos of his collection for the public to see. Since he wanted to be seen by the public, people can think whatever they want of him. I doubt he really cares anyway.

I really don't care so much what this guy does with his money(or parents money) as it doesn't affect me, I'm just not overly impressed with a collection of modern stuff built up by throwing lots of money around. At least not the PS2 collection, most of the games aren't rare so big deal. Spending money to get really rare games(like the few he has) or prototypes is more impressive since those games are much more interesting. It would be funny if his next goal would be to get every sealed game he has graded, if anything just to annoy more people.

[Tempest]

It sounds to me that the criticism of "the stuff just sits there unused" is a backdoor argument since it can apply to a ton of collections, not just sealed stuff.
Not at all. I'm not knocking him for doing a sealed collection, it's just that it's something I don't understand. I've been making that argument for years now. I really can't complain too much about buying games you know you'll never play, almost everyone's collection has those games. But at least I can open up the game, look at the manual, and heck even pop it in and watch it load up for a chuckle. You can't do that with sealed games, you just stare at the outside of the box. You might as well collect sealed empty boxes at that point since you'd never know the difference.

To each his own though. :)

Tempest

[TonyTheTiger]

Not at all. I'm not knocking him for doing a sealed collection, it's just that it's something I don't understand. I've been making that argument for years now. I really can't complain too much about buying games you know you'll never play, almost everyone's collection has those games. But at least I can open up the game, look at the manual, and heck even pop it in and watch it load up for a chuckle. You can't do that with sealed games, you just stare at the outside of the box. You might as well collect sealed empty boxes at that point since you'd never know the difference.

To each his own though. :)

Tempest

Fair enough. I think we all have our little quirks when it comes to what we appreciate and how we appreciate it.

But I guess what rubs me the wrong way is how this thread degenerated into a study of somebody's finances and implicitly tried to establish some kind of value system based on how something is acquired. Let's say this guy's parents dropped 40K on him and instead of getting a BMW he got a complete, sealed PS2 collection. Now let's say he worked for however many years and spent 40K of his own money. Now let's say he won the lottery. Now let's say he's an expert card counter and sticks it to casinos on a regular basis. Now let's say he got a massive dowry from marrying the daughter of a wealthy aristocrat.

Is there really a substantive difference to any of it? Outside of theft or other morally repugnant behavior, does it really matter where the money came from? Does it necessarily affect how he values it? Does it make him "lesser"?

Shit, by the time I was 6 or 7 I had a pretty extensive collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Ghostbusters action figures. And, shamefully, every single one of those items was bought by my parents or close relatives. I can tell you I loved and enjoyed every single minute spent with those toys. But I guess that collection matters less than it would have had I got off my lazy ass and got a job?

[Rob2600]

I don't have a problem with how the guy got all that money. My problem is what he did with it. Money is a very powerful tool. This guy chose to use that power to buy a sealed PS2 video game collection that he'll never touch, instead of doing something more constructive and responsible like helping people or saving it for the future.

Of course, he's allowed spend his money however he wants. I'm just expressing my personal belief.

[duffmanth]

How the fuck can someone afford to do this?!

[PapaStu]

How the fuck can someone afford to do this?!

Because they had the money?

How can someone afford 20k on a sealed Stadium Events? How can someone afford 7k+ for a NWC Gold, 55k for Kizuna Encounter and the other AES game? How can someone afford to 90 bucks on the DNF: Balls of Steel edition? Because they had the money.

How can someone afford to drop 500-600 a month on games, buying more than they could play a month, let alone the 7,200 on games spent that year, and do that for close to 2 1/2 years? I did that when I was in the 21-23 age range.

I had access to a great indy store, and pretty much all income was considered disposable at the time and I disposed of a good chunk of it at a game store. PSOne games, PS2, XBox, GameCube, some GBA and other older stuff here and there. I paid the bills and things I needed to, but the rest, it went to games.

How is that potentially any different than what he's done (besides the 2.5x scale if my spending was dragged out over 4 years).

[kupomogli]

How the fuck can someone afford to do this?!

Better management over personal finances. Even if you're working minimum wage at 40 hours(or not even that) you should still have some money left over after paying bills and for food.