Giving up on parts of collecting from money, time, space, etc...

[kainemaxwell]

Anyone here feel like giving up on parts of their collection, like getting games complete due to time, space, and money (especially with prices nowadays)? Feeling that way with some my boxed stuff now.

[kai123]

It is expensive and it doesn't do anything but help your nostalgia boner. Just play the games you want it doesn't matter if it has a label on the cart or the box. I am not a cat, I don't play with boxes.

[Gentlegamer]

I collect to play, and the inflated collector market has driven me into the arms of flash carts.

[Tanooki]

Felt it, still feel it, doing things about it too.

Between the time I moved back here 2 years ago to now I've sliced a good 100 games off my shelf on top of duplicate things I picked up one way or the other. I used to have this large (I know by some standards on here or elsewhere it's small) list of games that ate at me for just being unused at all or just being bought and barely touched. I kept intending to go back but it just ate at me so I said F-it and just put the stuff up on here and ebay.

I've kind of hit this wall though of resistance at this rate. I know there's probably a few more NES/SNES games I could scrape off, but I'd probably end up re-buying them later to play again so I kind of just don't bother. And then there's the N64. N64 which doesn't work great on non-CRT tvs which I have 20 games for and my original launch system to with the 4MB addon piece and other various parts. I haven't used it more than probably 10 hours in the last 2 years and currently with no CRT, it's in a small box in the closet and the games are tucked on a very low shelf behind a pedal car I restored collecting dust. I am lost between releasing the stuff into the wild and thinking I may just let my little girl have them to play with in another year or two as she's 3 now and SMB is still tricky to even finish 1-1 on since she's no regular with it. My wife does have a lousy small sub-20" spare CRT in her back room that's unused, and we maybe getting her grandpa's huge LCD he'd put little time on here in the next month from him so it'll be freed up. If I did just say goodbye to it though I may not have a lot, but what is there is desirable and some of it kind of spendy so that's a temptation I'm fighting. I'm also still sitting on 5 PS3 games still and will never use them again unless Sony makes PS3 emulation magic happen on PS4 which I seriously doubt. I maybe placing the Uncharted 3 collectors box, Uncharted 1 and 2, Civ Revolution and Dragon's Crown on the chopping block shortly. I'm tired of shelf rot and the money goes to nicer things I do use.

Like gentlegamer the inflated and wrongly propped up pricing we have now has mostly driven me away from buying old games, especially Nintendo branded pre-64 era carts because they've turned into money pits of abuse. As it is I even keep a few of those games on my shelf only because they are expensive because I refuse to pay the crap prices they are now again if I wanted it back. I'm just not going to flash carts, I have self control problems with loading those up with lots of stuff and getting nothing ever accomplished and it also feels hollow and worthless to me with no cash suck into a game (bootleg or legit.)

[Gentlegamer]

You can avoid flash cart induced attention deficit disorder by only loading one game at a time on the cart.

[calgon]

If I had to break it down I probably only buy 5-10 retro games per year now and when the itch hits, price doesn't seem to matter.

We have this thread every so often and it really does just depend on what you're getting out of collecting 30 year old toys in the end

Some what related: over the past few years I floated around the idea of owning a complete genesis collection but after you get the more popular ones it's simply not as fun waiting on eBay or forums to try and pick up some crappy but rare game you don't own

[XYXZYZ]

You can avoid flash cart induced attention deficit disorder by only loading one game at a time on the cart.

Hey, that's a good idea... :?

[Tanooki]

You can avoid flash cart induced attention deficit disorder by only loading one game at a time on the cart.

You don't think I tried that eh? :P It's not just the availability on the flash cart, but the ROMS in general. When it's very easy to go to a Rom hustler or a cool rom type site and have whatever in seconds, it's a problem still. :) I've just learned I'm better off without. The only time it kind of worked for me was GBA flash. I'd load the cart with a few import games I didn't have and then ROMs for my NES games with PocketNES.

I made a sorry attempt at the get em all mentality on the NES for licensed games, not delicensed or unlicensed, and when I got around the 330 point and had trouble storing them at my old condo it became a problem so out they went. It got to where I bought 'shoes under' that shoe storage thing for under the bed from tv to make room and the weight started to cause it to rip. I took it too far down to 50 and I bought back a few after that, but I think without checking I'm below 70 on NES and SNES at this rate.

After that last post I made I went poking around, definitely going to move on those PS3 games as they're just getting dusty and a few other things too. I'm finding more fun with steam/gog.com buys and legos at this rate. I won't ignore a nice deal on a game I'd like to try out or if it's stupid low to flip but it's not a priority anymore as the sharks took the fun out of it.

[celerystalker]

In the late '90s, I would buy absolutely any NES game I didn't own that was $5 or under, and at around 500 or so of those I stopped after an evening of trying out new games that included Videomation, Dudes With Attitude, Infiltrator, and Quattro Sports and realizing that I wasn't going to come back to them for years if ever due to how badly they sucked. I didn't start selling, but that's when I stopped collecting and started buying only games I was pretty darn sure I wanted to play. It slowed down my buying a lot and caused me to focus more on what I really would enjoy. I started saving up for specific games I'd always wanted to play like a Neo Geo AES, which was like a myth when I was a kid, or games that I'd borrowed from friends when I was younger and never finished. I started buying imports more as a result of reading old magazines and seeing games I'd wanted to try but got cancelled for their US releases. I stopped paying for most brand new games unless I really wanted to play it immediately on a huge scale or felt like it was going to be tough to get later.

When I met the girl who became my wife, I started working harder and became more affluent so that she could have a better life, and with the increased salary, I changed the way I look at consoles. I stopped buying new systems if there wasn't something just stuck in my head that I wanted to try or at least 10 or so games that really caught my interest. When I was a kid, I rarely had quarters I could waste in arcade games, and I spent a lot of time staring at the attract sequences. I bought a Japanese PS2 when the first Taito Memories came out because at a local now defunct store called Grandpa Pigeon's, they had Rastan cabinet that I'd always wanted to try. The same store had a Time Soldiers at one point, so I bought a cabinet later so I could play it. (This was all pretty spread out, mind you.) Now, if I have a spare $500 I'm not using on home improvement or my family, I'd rather have another arcade cabinet I'd always wanted than an Xbox One, so that's where the money goes. I've picked up 5 arcade cabinets instead of newer systems. My console game purchasing is way more focused, and I spend more of my money to do nice things for my wife or stockpile good stuff for my son for when he's old enough. I'd love to find him one of those old Moppet mini-cabinets to put next to my arcade games. It'd be friggin' adorable.

[Nesmaster]

I've accepted that I won't ever spend the several thousand on SE, CM2, and Myriad to get a "complete" NES set.

Panesians, maybe.

The rest has been a great journey so far.

[ProjectCamaro]

While enjoy having a nice collection it's always been about gaming and not collecting for me. No matter how wealthy I was I would never have a complete collection for any system as all systems have terrible games. I don't understand wanting to pay money for something you know is bad and that you'll never enjoy.

[Tanooki]

I learned that picking up over 300 of the things. I ended up with less than a 100 I actually liked, less that I'd play more than once or twice and the rest were dust collecting space wasters, but at least they all came from a flea market for like $1-5 a pop so I didn't care as I didn't take a loss when they went out the door alone, bundled, or with a spare system. Up until 2011 I'd buy any old NES/SNES and GB(GB/C/A) game I could that was like $5 or less give or take depending on the game and did that going back to 1995. That's why I get sour over it because there was no gradual incline. The parasites that ruined my ability to buy and enjoy comics and baseball cards as a kid decided to fuck up another hobby so it's like a bad flash back. I too have just changed tactics like celery did, imports. I did them in the later 90s too as just a branch of things, but now they're a necessity to get something fun, something unique, and something that's far less exploited for greed. Oddly non-CIB gameboy advance stuff is cheap too so I like snapping them up as well.

As far as the modern goes I don't buy much, most of it isn't worth the sticker price to me anymore. I do like an Uncharted style game with the big moving story and all that action, but it has to have good gameplay balance, but even then they're on rails, much like a wussed out modern FPS which is why I avoid those too. As it is I buy maybe a console game every month or two, sometimes less and same goes with the 3DS too. It just depends on the game and what really grabs me, but my new vice is a return to PC gaming as it's far cheaper and more accessible than all the console walls that have gone up to screw the buyer. I'm tempted to start setting up plans to kill (for shorter stuff) a game a week or whatever and then work on a deeper one on the side. I have been hitting Gauntlet and FF13 at the same time, and currently I'm working on Shadowgrounds Survivor.

[kainemaxwell]

Like gentlegamer the inflated and wrongly propped up pricing we have now has mostly driven me away from buying old games, especially Nintendo branded pre-64 era carts because they've turned into money pits of abuse. As it is I even keep a few of those games on my shelf only because they are expensive because I refuse to pay the crap prices they are now again if I wanted it back. I'm just not going to flash carts, I have self control problems with loading those up with lots of stuff and getting nothing ever accomplished and it also feels hollow and worthless to me with no cash suck into a game (bootleg or legit.)

Yup. I'm happy having all my tengen unlicensed carts complete, and I'd be happy with my nes black box collection I'm building being carts and manuals only. May sell off a few boxes somewhere. Now to just start getting the game protector boxes...

[Tanooki]

The only one I ever had complete in the modern era was Tetris, but the box was awful and I don't keep them much so I let it go to someone else cheap, but I did keep the manual and I still think it's the better Tetris. I do have very few SNES and GBA boxes, not really sure why other than they just came with the stuff when I got it without added expense. I should get rid of some of them but I don't for some reason.

[Gentlegamer]

Tanooki, here's a story you may appreciate (if you can get past your dislike of Pat) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJO3G5ScCUU

[Tanooki]

I'm watching it now, I can deal. :P The topic alone is worth seeing that go down in flames.

I don't put much stock in the difference between a scalper of new goods to specifically remove them from the market to put them back for more than someone finding a good supply of old games and doing the same. They're still out there in both cases, both in some form of point of purchase, and in both cases are both being pulled just to be put back at a lot more cash just to be a dick and abuse someone else who couldn't get their first. It's all sleazy and they're right, but it's even more sleazy when it's new goods you can get anywhere, except you can't because some cock with no job can go to a store and buy everything while you get a paycheck to then have to turn around and pay that loser 4x the amount because they poached everything in the area.

[Greg2600]

I have mostly loose cart games, but intact CD/DVD games. If push comes to shove, I would probably dump a good # of the carts, since I have flash carts for nearly every system. Space is an issue, which is why I haven't gotten into collecting Saturn, Neo Geo, Xbox 360, or PS3.

[Rickstilwell1]

I just want cart/disc only for what I had during my childhood/teen years. + What actually stood out from my young working adulthood. + complete copies of just the games I have beaten. + complete copies of anything new enough where having the case and manual doesn't make the item any more expensive, just more complete (I believe this begins with the common PS1 stuff but excludes Saturn and Nintendo 64 due to having abnormal cases/still using cartridges/cardboard). The only exception really from then on are just games that had low print runs and high popularity.

[sloan]

On the OP: If having massive amounts of games, systems, and controllers is making your house look like a bad episode of Hoarders, and its bothering you, then for sure clear some things out. If your collection is a little bit organized, still somewhat large, and it is not a bother to yourself or family members, then why? Make whatever choice suits your preferences and/or needs, I say.

[BenG76]

I think I am to the point where I just want cart only of games I actually want or will play. I am going to pick up some Everdrives for several systems eventually to play the games that are getting to pricey for me.

[SpaceHarrier]

Sometimes I want to abandon my entire media collection, move to the Alaskan wilderness and live off the land like Christopher McCandless (except without the starving to death).

[Gameguy]

I just buy games that I manage to come across in person, it helps keep the collection smaller than just buying whatever you want online. If I need more space, I'll look through what I have and sell off what I don't need or want anymore. I don't bother with modern home consoles as I don't really see anything interesting on them so that's less space to be used up.


Sometimes I want to abandon my entire media collection, move to the Alaskan wilderness and live off the land like Christopher McCandless (except without the starving to death).
Tempting but I don't think people are allowed to move to the Alaskan wilderness anymore, not since Jimmy Carter created the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Only people who were already there were allowed to stay. I watched a documentary about the one family still left up there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq0rZn8HFmQ

[Zthun]

At this point, I've fully embraced the digital prospects of games. If it's not flash carts, it's ODE's, and if it's not ODE's, then it's soft modding, and if it's not that, then I'm pretty much into the current gen and I just buy digital copies off steam/psn/xbl.

I'm pretty much done with game collecting. I could afford it, but it's not really interesting to me anymore. I'm more interested in playing and just having games available to me. Fortunately for me, I can focus on a single game at a time with a flash cart/ODE/soft mod, and it's actually helped on enjoying the game rather than trying to preserve its physical value (with digital, there is none).

[Mayhem]

Yeah, I'm gonna be shifting a fair amount of my collection in the first half of this year I think. Most of the Cube stuff, some Wii, some handheld (but not NGPC), some C64/Vic20 tapes and disks, and the Nuon and 64DD sets definitely. Commodore cartridges and Vectrex are going nowhere heh.

[Tanooki]

Good call gameguy. I rarely buy a game online anymore. I just checked it on my ebay purchase history and the last non-Famicom, GBA or PS4 item I got was all the way back in early March when I snapped up Ogre Battle 64 and that I tired of and sold at not a loss, before that was a week earlier DK Classics with manual which I do have. It really goes back in to 2013 when I would buy up games from the abused systems as I got fed up with it, I wasn't blowing smoke. Other than Bonk for Gamecube it was September and July of 2013.

The prices suck and I'm fed up with the predatory garbage that's why if I can't find it local and for a non-ebay value it has no value to me and I ignore it. That's how I did actually get Mario Paint, Arcana and Wolfstein 3D as it was too good to ignore. It's also like I said, I went to where the abuses aren't really happening while still being Nintendo -- Famicom and GBA as you can get goodies there and not feel fleeced buying stuff. Even if I do buy anymore it's to play. And my shrinking supply of stuff is what I wish to really keep and use, a good percentage of it was my original buys of the era or my earlier days (later 90s) of buying old games.

I've found the money I've made getting away from this bullshit got me into a monster of a new computer, a year ago allowed me to restore a 50 year old pedal car, and looking today to go and buy myself a puppy. Let the trolls feed off each other, I'm good with what I have, and what I can have using Steam/GoG sales and the random item here and there.

[WCP]

I don't collect retro games anymore.


I was really into it for a number of years, but once the Xbox 360 and PS3 really started getting going, I just wasn't playing retro stuff all that often. So, started to slowly but surely sell off all my collection. I only have remnants of my collection remaining.


I still collect retro gaming magazines though.

[kainemaxwell]

I'm actually gonna sell of a bunch of my game boxes, and a game or 2 soon. Just wanna get the retroprotector game boxes first.

[Tanooki]

I'm considering it as well, the box thing. I've got a very good Arcana and an ok Wolfenstein SNES box, and then on the GBA there's FF4-6, Robotech, UK Pinball Advance, and Gradius Galaxies ranging form new/like new to average, even have a couple Japanese GBA boxes which is terrible (fzero) and like new (steel empire.) The thing is I hate selling the things only for two good reasons -- I have no good idea of the value on them, and buyers tend to be uptight collectors and I don't like messing with nitpickers with an OCD complex especially on ebay where it's a seller shooting gallery.

I'm just over the whole mess at this point in time. I'm good doing as others have, are or will be doing in ditching the unused and neglected with no childhood attachment or what not to it. I'd rather get some money and put it to good use and put this stressful abuse of the hobby behind me and then come back once the trash is taken out.

[ProjectCamaro]

I'm actually gonna sell of a bunch of my game boxes, and a game or 2 soon. Just wanna get the retroprotector game boxes first.

Same here but I use the universal game cases for everything. Hopefully I'll make a couple bucks off the boxes.

[Rickstilwell1]

I'm considering it as well, the box thing. I've got a very good Arcana and an ok Wolfenstein SNES box, and then on the GBA there's FF4-6, Robotech, UK Pinball Advance, and Gradius Galaxies ranging form new/like new to average, even have a couple Japanese GBA boxes which is terrible (fzero) and like new (steel empire.) The thing is I hate selling the things only for two good reasons -- I have no good idea of the value on them, and buyers tend to be uptight collectors and I don't like messing with nitpickers with an OCD complex especially on ebay where it's a seller shooting gallery.

I'm just over the whole mess at this point in time. I'm good doing as others have, are or will be doing in ditching the unused and neglected with no childhood attachment or what not to it. I'd rather get some money and put it to good use and put this stressful abuse of the hobby behind me and then come back once the trash is taken out.

What I hate are mismatched box/cartridge/insert/manual variants because I like to research changes in the production of my favorite games. Selling your boxes alone might create more of those on the market. Currently my most researched for variants is my first game - Sonic the Hedgehog for Genesis. If you have something with everything intact you would be best off selling the CIB and just buying a separate cart only to maximize value. For games I really liked I tend to only go after true completes and shy away from re-bundled loose parts. There are different ways to tell.

[MachineGex]

I have always thought about what would it be like to give up part or most of my collection because of money or whatnot. I seriously considered selling everything I had to buy one of my dream cars(59 or 60 caddy coupe).

I never did it but a 1 1/2 years ago I lost everything. I had a huge collection. Everything from 2600 to modern stuff. I was a few dozen games away from several complete collections. I collected since 1978. I have owned a Gold NWC cart and several other rare games. I estimate 5000-6000 games were lost.

Since then, I went the Flash cart route until I can decide what I can afford to re-buy. The NES market is crazy, no way I am dropping that kinda cash on those games.

[kainemaxwell]

Wish I knew how to work flash carts. Part of why I wish I got an Ouya when I could. lol

[Tanooki]

Machine I lost most of what I once had too a decade ago, a slow painful bleed over a couple of years due to employment/underemployment issues. I had a couple thousand games and dozens of systems/handhelds and I had to piddle all that down to a couple hundred games if that and just my original Nintendo consoles I bought as they came out plus just a GBA since the GB and GBC were expendable. Each system I kept I knocked them down to more or less a top20 list of keepers though the NES/SNES were twice that size. It was so damned painful for the first few months, eventually I got numb to it until I hit a spot where I had to let something go that was on the next level of really caring and it would sting again to a point. The one thing that came out of that was the fact that I can now sell off/trade away crap I'm not in love with and just hoarded like a crank. In turn when I decided to start a recovery of sorts around 2009/2010 I was able to get most of the stuff back Nintendo wise beating out the after market abusive streak of the last 3 years. If I were in your spot and trying to suck it up and deal with it now I'd just say fuck it and quit or get an immaculate system/accessories and everdrives just buying stuff if I could find it cheap slowly as to not get punked by scalpers.

[Rickstilwell1]

Wish I knew how to work flash carts. Part of why I wish I got an Ouya when I could. lol

Target still carries Ouya for $100.

[Dashopepper]

Game Collecting is still pretty cheap, if you have bad spending habits you are probably going to have problems whether you collect video games or do something else. Imagine how much you would spend if your hobby was going out to the bars or strip clubs or working on Muscle Cars? At least with video games you have something tangible at the end, and so far the market has been doing nothing but going up. If you don't like something you have anymore or are out of room, sell it for $$$ and buy something new with the money. There's only profit to be made unless you purchased something for too much money. This all could change quickly but it's a collectors paradise as of now.

If now is the time you have to give up collecting be happy and count your money instead of complaining about prices and resellers. Deals don't just fall in your lap everyday, you have to have tons of patience and recognize them when you see them. As for Boxed and Complete set collectors I feel your pain but you have to know what your getting into.

And yes I like collecting, I like having stuff. I like looking at it and seeing games I might never play. Hell, for the majority of NES games it's probably more fun to look at the Cart then to play them anyway. Owning a prototype and playing one on an emulator is not the same thing. It's like the difference between taking a trip to Egypt and looking at a picture book of Egypt.

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

I am in the process of cutting my collection way back. I have sold off the best condition, highest value stuff already. Now it comes to the not-best condition stuff. I understand that people care about what they are buying, but when trying to deal with online selling, it can be a pain trying to convey information about condition. Photos don't always tell the whole story. I have sometimes entertained the desire to just box everything up and drop it off at my local used game place and ask them, "What will you give me for all of this?"

[Gentlegamer]

I am in the process of cutting my collection way back. I have sold off the best condition, highest value stuff already. Now it comes to the not-best condition stuff. I understand that people care about what they are buying, but when trying to deal with online selling, it can be a pain trying to convey information about condition. Photos don't always tell the whole story. I have sometimes entertained the desire to just box everything up and drop it off at my local used game place and ask them, "What will you give me for all of this?"

http://damn.com/assets/gamestop-be-like.jpg

[kainemaxwell]

http://damn.com/assets/gamestop-be-like.jpg

LOL legit.

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

Actually, the place I am thinking about is an independent place, so I might get $10. Although I could always hope for 2K Monies. :p