what would you do if ALL of your game collection was stolen?

[Steven]

I had read quite a few threads about gamers being robbed lately so I wanted to throw this ? out there to the masses.

Any and everything video game-related, from posters to systems to games to toys to controllers, you name it, the WORKS -- WHAT IF they were all stolen one day and you came home and saw it was ALL gone? What would you do?

To those of you with large collections such as arcade cabinets or Neo Geo's... OUCH. Hey, even if you had a PS1 and 200 games, that would still really really suck.

To be honest, besides screaming and crying, I might take the insurance and use that money elsewhere... might quit gaming for good. It's not easy to amass all the Saturn games I have again... and it just wouldn't feel right sooo... I'd probably step away from gaming for a long time, if not forever. The experience of having been robbed would probably have been too grave to ever forget, that I'd want to stay away from video games for good.

I'd take the large $$ supply and put it into some other form of usage.

Actually, I *might* buy a Saturn again and "just the essentials"... damn, even when I try to quit I can't... LOL

[shvnsth]

buy a white motorcycle, either a ducati or an aprilla

and then go on ebay and buy some games

[anagrama]

I'm not insured, so I'd be fucked. Time to find a new hobby...

[EnemyZero]

id crawl up into a ball and roll into a corner...to cry...for a long...long...time

[mr_jiggles_13]

i had all my stuff stolen just a few months ago.

actually 3 kids teamed up to do it all. they snuck into my room when i was out and took everything. i knew who it was because i live in a small town.


needless to say, i got it all back besides my GTA 3 and VC discs.


one time like when i was little, i kid stole ALL of my pokemon cards, i had like 120 holos and shit. my mom found out who it was and the kid got in so much trouble, his parents gave me all of his cards too so i had double as many cards as i first had............it still sucked because i cried for a long time over it.

[Rogmeister]

I doubt I'd give up gaming completely...but I wouldn't try to get all those systems back. I might go for a new lean collection...just get one system and what games I'd enjoy for that one. No more 15 systems for me...

[The Manimal]

suicide LOL

[max 330 mega]

well first off, i think i might become enraged and punch 50 holes in the wall, and claim the robbers did it, then when i got the insurance money back id once again start buying neo geo games.... i think id most likely only collect for the neo beyond that point.

[Lemmy Kilmister]

I'd be out for blood. :evil: seriously though, I would do whatever I could to try and track down and reclaim my stuff. If that wasn't possible, don't know, I guess start over from scratch.

[SegaAges]

funny thing: i didn't know it until i had some games stolen, but i live with my dad, who has theft insurance. we have to put down a decuctible (i think 300 or something), but then insurance pays for it all. if i got all my games stolen, i wouldn't even try to amass all the games again. i would stick to next gen consoles, probably only have 1 console. i would pay off college with the money pretty easily (i guarentee i could get at least 15k from them). after college is paid off, hell man, i would just buy a xbox, shenmue 2, toe jam and earl 3, and be set

[Quintracker]

Start over again. Part of the fun of being as much a collector as a gamer is finding stuff, which would be pretty easy when you start from nothing. :) Always try to find something positive in the negative.

[joshnickerson]

I would begin an epic journey to retrieve my games, one by one, from various boss characters, while playing amusing mini games in between and trying to conquer the obligatory vehicle levels. Minor enemies would hold normal games while level bosses would be keeping one of my consoles hostage. And it would all begin when I track them to a railway yard...

"STAGE ONE! BATTLE ATOP A SPEEDING FREIGHT TRAIN??!"

[Richter Belmount]

I would begin an epic journey to retrieve my games, one by one, from various boss characters, while playing amusing mini games in between and trying to conquer the obligatory vehicle levels. Minor enemies would hold normal games while level bosses would be keeping one of my consoles hostage. And it would all begin when I track them to a railway yard...

"STAGE ONE! BATTLE ATOP A SPEEDING FREIGHT TRAIN??!"

hmm that so would be a good movie

[Crush Crawfish]

I'd just start over from scratch. Collecting is fun, and I'll never want to stop playing games, even If I were to lose them all. Plus, I figure the less I have, the more I'd appreciate them.

Though the loss of my beloved Chrono Trigger and Earthbound carts would hurt very, very much...

[Vroomfunkel]

Well, I would head straight down the local pawn shop. Chances are that it would all be there.

Seriously - when some freinds of mine had their house burgled I found their CDs in this dodgy second-hand shop. I rang them and told them, and they came over with the police and recovered a fair bit of stuff ...

Vroomfunkel

[slip81]

I would be mad, then sad, and then I would probably start collecting again. I'm not ver materialistic, If all my stuff dissappeard it would suck, but it wouldn't be the end of the world for me, I would just start over, because I like the fun of collecting.

[Sanriostar]

Any energy or love left would be put into a MAME/emu Cab. And that would be it.

[FlufflePuff]

I'd take the 15k from my renter's insurance, buy a humvee and a sniper rifle, and find the fucks who took my stuff. But seriously, if they could get all my shit out of here it'd be amazing.

[Psycho Mantis]

i would kil people equal to the amount of games i had. :evil:

if any of my metal gear solid games or any of my metroid games were stolen, i'd kill double the amount because the metal gear solid and metroid games are my faves.

[neschampion]

November 5th last year I was robbed, pretty funny story actually. The only room they took stuff from was the one that I keep all my game stuff in. All in all they took about 150 DVDs, about 15 XBox games, a gamecube with about 20 games and a couple hundred dollar bills off my desk.

It was pretty devastating sure, but the insurance covered it all, and most importantly they DIDN'T touch my computer or any older game stuff including MAGICARD and ELI's LADDER that were sitting right on my entertainment center with the DVDs as I had just received them in the mail.

[cracked8ball]

I'd find those responsible for the theft, capture them and force them to play shit like Hydlide, Amagon, Deadly Towers, and Rocket Ranger on NES for several days straight.

[Maddrox]

I would chase the person down with a hatchet. Nuff said. :)

[maxlords]

I'd hunt them down and rip their throats out with my bare teeth.

Then I'd take my stuff home. And I'd go to the cops (after sterilizing the scene) and hunt down my stuff at the pawns they sold it at...I know every one within 45 min. in any direction.

Sadly, my collection is not insurable, as insurance agents are assholes in Canada. I've tried to have it insured and the companies ALL told me to piss off. They won't cover anything in my apartment for more than $30,000 total, and the combined total of collectibles I'm "allowed" to have is $2000. Hell, I have a mantle clock alone that's worth $1000. They claim that games are too high risk and they won't cover me.

[Flack]

Well, assuming they were actually able to cart off all my stuff from upstairs plus 20+ arcade cabinets ...

I think I'd use the money to built two really nice MAME cabinets, a PS2, and a C64.

[Mr.FoodMonster]

Kill. Really, I would find who did it and litterally stop them from living.

And steal whatever shit they had that I liked.

:D

[qbertandernie]

i got into collecting when everything was still easily acquired. if everything got stolen, id take the cash and pay off the house, then maybe open a game shop so i could maybe get back the same stuff in time and i could pick and choose what i wanted. if it wasnt too profitable? who cares, the house is paid off!

or id get into cab collecting(which im shifting my focus to anyway). there are so few games i see that i dont have anymore its almost no fun hunting...i frequently say 'after today im done' ...then invariably i find some fantastic deal that lights my fire again.
im not one for dropping lots of money(on single games) and not one for buying games on ebay(generally) so it would be quite difficult to replace the stuff i have, and some of the merch stuff is so off the wall i dont think id see it for sale anyways...

but if someone didnt see the people ridding my house of my games, id be very surprised. theres almost 100 systems and over 3500 games( a lot of the systems are extras for sale or stock if i get a shop sometime soon). thatd take a while and wouldnt be too inconspicuous.

[lendelin]

WHAT IF they were all stolen one day and you came home and saw it was ALL gone? What would you do?


Geez, don't even ask a Q like that, it gives me the greebies. :) Such a thing has to be treated like your own death -- you just ignore the issue.

[atomicthumbs]

Well, I really don't know what I would do. There's only so many places you can hock these kinds of things. I would for sure POST A REWARD, like, EVERYWHERE around town and hope that one of their shithead cronies would give them up for it.

That, and I have all the SERIAL NUMBERS from my systems and major accessories on file, just in case there is any dispute. I don't worry too much about it, especially since I have some VERY nosey neighbors around here.




If I caught them, at the VERY least, I would hire out some questionable folks to "BRING OUT THE GIMP" all over their asses!!!

http://rds.yahoo.com/S=96062883/K=pulp+fiction/v=2/SID=e/TID=I013_77/l=IVS/SIG=14554lecp/*-http%3A//us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/miramax_films/pulp_fiction/_group_photos/bruce_willis1.jpg

[vincewy]

I have had my Neo-Geo games stolen before, the problem is, the thief (it was actually my roommate who took drugs) had very few places to sell the games and I recovered them in 2 days. Fortunately I filed police report and had my roommate arrested because he sold them to the only game store in MN that buys classic games with his signature during the sales.

From that point I never want to share apt with anyone, I have my own apt now, once I have a house I'll never rent them out even if I have extra room(s). Another tip of keeping your items safe is to keep yourself low profile, no one in my area knows about my collection, I've heard nearly all the theft occured came from people who knew what others have, from theft of coin collection to others.

[jdc]

In all seriousness, I'd start all over again......but THIS time I'd only have an N64. Nothing before or after it. The stuff's readily available and it isn't really a target for theft. I could probably re-amass my N64 collection....at least in loose cart form....inside of a year.

I've often thought of how simple it would be if all that I had WAS an N64 collection to focus on.

[Kejoriv]

i have a security system in my house and live in a nice neighborhood where there are all old people. So, the chances of anything happening are slim. But if something happened I probably would start all over again once I get the insurance money for the collection.

[klausien]

I would be devastated beyond words. The amount of time and money I have put into this hobby would leave me with no other option than to go on with my life and focus on something else. There is no way I could rebuild what I have unless I were to somehow become independently wealthy.

[ec_gamer]

I'm renewing my renter's insurance this week and am double checking on claims for theft or destruction of my collection. It's worth it, costs me $160 CDN a year, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount invested into the games.

That being said, I'd probably drop out of the hobby, maybe get a mame cab or the like, something that I can have the games played on but there would be a bad taste in the hunt from that point onward.

It's hard to quietly sell vintage stuff in my city anyhow, so hopefully I'd only lose GC, PS, N64, etc. As I am more interested in pre-crash stuff I could live with that.

I'm actually more worried about a fire or the the apartment above me springing a leak in their radiator. That's more likely to happen.

[mezrabad]

I don't think I'd be out for revenge, I didn't "collect" 90% of my collection, I just "accumulated" it. While some of it has nostalgia, there's nothing that couldn't be replaced. There's certainly nothing worth the risk of being hurt or killed in a tussle with a burglar. How would my children feel if I got killed fighting some desperate creep over my Odyssey collection? How pathetic would that be? "Your father is dead because he thought his video game collection was worth fighting for. Try to forgive him for being a fool."

I have home owners' insurance. It would actually be a great convenience to be given an amount of money equal to what it would cost to replace every scrap of video/computer game stuff that I have, if someone hauled it off for me. It would give me a "clean slate" and a nice cash resource to seed an organized and much more selective collection. Guess I should really document and appraise this stuff, just in case.

[maxlords]

Another tip of keeping your items safe is to keep yourself low profile, no one in my area knows about my collection, I've heard nearly all the theft occured came from people who knew what others have, from theft of coin collection to others.

Exactly! I don't invite very many people over and I don't tell people where I live or what I have. Simple as that. We just don't have people coming over, so no one sees my collection to know that it's there. Lowers the chance of theft to negligible levels. I still wish I could get insurance for natural disasters tho (i.e. leaky roof, fire, etc). I'm not worried about theft, but it's always a possibility.

[Nez]

If I found out who took it id sneek in there house find my justifier light gun and pistal wip the shit out of the bastard. Then take my stuff back. :)

[Keir]

I don't know how much I could actually get from insurance, but I would probably just put that money toward my house rather than spending it all on games. Then I'd start collecting all over again. I'd probably be more focused the second time around, maybe just buying 2600, C64, Genesis and Playstation (my favorites from each generation). When I first started collecting, I would buy anything and everything game related but that leads to too much clutter. I hate clutter.

One funny thing about these kinds of threads is that I always think about how cool it would be to walk into a flea market or thrift store and know that any games I found would be games I didn't already have.

[charitycasegreg]

Id start collecting guns...until I had 2, then Id use it...a lot. but my games are pretty well hidden besides the ones in my room.

[dracula]

getting the systems back would be easy, i have all the receipts and serial numbers to the systems written down and in the desk next to the title to my car(oddly, the game collection is worth far more).

as for the games, the insurance would cover most of it, i wouldnt replace everything, just the castlevania games. I have already considered getting rid of everything except for my castlevania games. These games take up way too much space.

[Tatsu]

Easy: I'd take the money from the insurance and buy a shitload of hard drugs like heroin and cocain and everything else that would come across me. So I won't have to think about the games anymore!!! LOL

Hehe, just kidding... Seriously, I would be very sad of course, even if my collection is not as big as most of yours. But I love most of the games I have and it would hurt a lot to lose them. So what I would really do is take the money from the insurance and buy new stuff. I guess it would even be a bit of fun to hunt down the older stuff on the internet. But it would also suck because I have some stuff I'm proud of and that would be a bit difficult to find (both limited Lunar titles on the PS1 for example). Anyway, I hope I never happens!

[Mattiekrome]

Start fresh collecting ONLY completes or sealed games, and be really pissed off about it!

[Barbarianoutkast85]

I live in a small dorm and some of my things have been stolen nothing older either DVDs or current generation console games. One of the kids that took some of my things has graduated and moved out while another took some of my cube games i went up to his room with scissors and talked to him i didnt draw any blood tho but did get my games back.

[shvnsth]

Id start collecting guns...until I had 2, then Id use it...a lot.

that was the best thing i have ever read here

[pr8cjb]

I'd be seriously upset - I don't have anything ultra rare or worth hundreds of pounds, but it's my stuff and I'm a typical possessive only child. After that I'd start the hunt again. And fit a better alarm.

A couple of serious questions to those have have been in this situation though - what kind of proof did your insurance companies ask for? I've got pics of loaded shelves and text file lists but that's all - a lot is from eBay, car boots etc. so it's not like I have receipts and it does worry me sometimes whether I should invest a day in taking pics of everything. Secondly, has anyone ever actually had Genesis, NES games etc. stolen or did the theiving scum just take current gen stuff?

[imanerd0011]

If my collection was stolen , I would probabley cry my eyes out, and then go looking for the person who stole it to get some REVENGE ! :angry:

Seriously though, I am thinking about getting my collection insured, has anyone else here done this? How do you come up with the price to give your collection. Going by the digitpress guide, my collection is worth around $2,500 (NES only, not including my other systems) , but would the insurance agency believe me if I told them that?

[SkiDragon]

Remember that game called "Hitman"?

[Castelak]

I'd do all I could do to get it back. If I didn't get it all back, I would just collect RPGs. Maybe I'd even get into the world of RGB! Mmm....

[Ed Oscuro]

To those of you with large collections such as arcade cabinets or Neo Geo's... OUCH. Hey, even if you had a PS1 and 200 games, that would still really really suck.
I don't have 200 PS1 games...but what I *do* have is worth a couple pennies, I'd warrant.

I'd be very angry. Then I'd buy some stuff over again, I suppose LOL

It'd definitely be very hard to get back to where I am now, though. Lots of stuff I've gotten through lucky timing or giving forum members money when they had to get money or get rid of stuff (i.e. moving out of Japan - two members have done that and I've bought some of their stuff), and I don't think I'd be able to find stuff of that quality on, say, eBay.

[Ed Oscuro]

Remember that game called "Hitman"?
Is he the long-lost cousin of that old dude strummin' on his banjo?! Say it's so! LOL

[FlufflePuff]

Remember that Simpsons where Bart and Lisa have superpowers and have to stop Comic Book Guy from kidnapping Lucy Lawless. Well Comic Book Guy pulls out his phaser and trys to vaporize the thieves of his collection. I'd invent a phaser so I could fry someone.

[-hellvin-]

I'd sit down....sigh...and start collecting all over again.

[Kamino]

i would go totally fucking ballistic.
Seriously. I'd be one of those psychos going cross country hunting down the person who wronged him. this is a scenario I would NOT be able to deal with in a civilised fashion.

[Gemini-Phoenix]

Well, I have spent pretty much all my money earnt from my working life on games. That's over 7 years worth (Since I left school), so I would say I have spent around £60,000 + on games Etc...

None of it is insured (Although I think it should be) so I would be well and truly gutted if my collection went missing or got damaged...


I would, quite possibly, do something very very stupid indeed!


If I ever walked in on someone attempting to steal my collection, I can assure you that there will be nothing left of them to be identified at a later date!

[Tatsu]

A couple of serious questions to those have have been in this situation though - what kind of proof did your insurance companies ask for? I've got pics of loaded shelves and text file lists but that's all - a lot is from eBay, car boots etc. so it's not like I have receipts and it does worry me sometimes whether I should invest a day in taking pics of everything. Secondly, has anyone ever actually had Genesis, NES games etc. stolen or did the theiving scum just take current gen stuff?

Interesting question, I'd also want to know that. I think after the burglary a police report has to be made and because of this the insurance pays?

Another question: what about the worth of the games? I mean if you are not into videogaming you don't see the value of NES or Atari 2600 games. For "normal" people a NES games might be worth a few bucks and that's it. Do insurances pay something like the amount it is really worth (means the amount you will have to spend to buy it again) or something they think those games ar worth. Means 5$ for every NES game, 10$ for every PS1 game and so on or do they count the rarity of a game?

[AlanD]

Well it would be next to impossible for someone to steal my whole collection. The neighbors would find it unusual for a tractor-trailer to be parked out front for 12 hours loading up stuff :)

But if it happened the insurance I have would pay off to a nice figure and I would probably pay off my house and start collectin for just the more modern systems and do a lot more emulation instead.

As for my insurance company I didn't have any problem declaring a value. I have an archived copy of my database sent to them on occasion for inventory purposes. They pretty much took my word on what the value was when I showed them my name in the front of the Digital Press Colector's Guide. :)

[chrisballer]

I would start over and just get mint complete games, dont know if i would try and complete anything again.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Though this situation, in my case, is nearly impossible. They would have to get by 10 dalmatians to cart my stuff off (yes they are house-doggies :D ). I only have one word to describe what would become of this VG larcenist - MANHUNT.