How has your game room evolved?

[Goblin]

When I was preparing to buy my house I had daydreams about MY game room. It was to be a grand place, multiple uprights, pinball machine, and every console hooked up and ready to play. I spent hours designing the custom shelving unit, interfaces to the TV, the cable management. At the push of a button you could play any console you wanted to. Over the last 2 years I gradually, scaled things back, and now it consists of a single upright, and 3 consoles (2600, NES - top load, and my DC). Multiple closets in the basement house the rest of the collection (about 25 other systems and close to 500 games.) When I get an urge I pull out a system and set it up, then after a week or so it goes right back in the closet.

Now today I finally got NesterDC to work on my Dreamcast, and once I burn a new disk with all the roms I play, I'm going to put my toploader safely away in the closet. Now I have no intention of getting rid of my collection, but I do have less of an urge to display it around. Is this normal? I seem to play games now more than I used to so I don't think growing up has anything to do with it.

Anyway, what are your experiences and how has you game room evolved: is it larger or smaller than you started? And is that a good thing?

[christianscott27]

i started out with a shelf in the guest room, which became shelves and more shelves. eventually we shuffled rooms and the smaller bedroom became "the gameroom" it still feature a futon for guests though. my mother stayed in it and marveled that her son who grew up with a messy room could actually maintain a room with 1000's of alphabetised games. now every shelf is filled to the gills and i've added wall mounted racks to take the overflow. i've maxed out on arcade machines with four (1 upright, 1 cocktail, 2 countertops) filling the corners. i guess i have an irrestible urge to have it ALL on display at once, for me theres a guilty pleasure in showing off.
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[WiseSalesman]

Funny thing...i have a desperate urge to show off all my gaming stuff, especially after viewing the game rooms section, but three things stop me...

1) I simply don't have enough stuff to show off. Most of my NES stuff was collected during my youth and I threw out the boxes....the other boxes are in storage, and I don't have nearly as many games as most people here do (my total collection totals under $150 games).

2) I don't have the space. Currently my "game room" is my bedroom in my parents' house (see the "How old were you.." thread in OT), but even when it was a dorm last year, the space was extremely limited.

3) I still have some leftover feelings from last year at college that, somehow, displaying all this stuff makes me more of a dork and will make me less popular. The funny thing is, my girlfriend and all my friends are gamers, and some are anime freaks, and I still feel this way! Who am I trying to impress? Who knows, but I can't seem to shake this feeling of shame that comes over me whenever I sart to display my gaming stuff.

[TRM]

I kept all of my consoles hooked up at once, I store my NES boxes on the bookshelf. All of the other games I don't really collect...I just play. So I don't have enough to display.

When I get something, it's rare for me to get rid of it. My game room is my bedroom in my parents' house. I really can't keep all of my stuff out, I just organize it neatly under my bed and in the closet and so forth. I don't even mention it to my friends, they think my game collection is insane (and mine isn't even as large as a lot of the collections on here, if they only saw some of them)

[Six Switch]

Well I am only 15,so I don't have much space or the money to get a whole lot of games.But I never throw anything out,so you can't see my floor.All my boxes are lined up on the wall,the place where there is room for them.But I like to think I have a good collection for someone who is 15. :D x_x 8-)

[GENESISNES]

My sega genesis games were in a small drawer until i had about 25-30, then they evolved to a large bookshelf if my room. My mom later cleaned out the larger bookshelfs downstairs, and put them in my room. I am running out of space, and my mom said she would install shelves if i needed them.

[Arrrhalomynn]

my mom said she would install shelves if i needed them.
tss tss, letting your mom install shelves. Shame on you :/

I'm in the same situation as several people above. I still live in my parents' house and have to keep my stuff in my small small bedroom.
Luckily the ceiling is quite high, so I can put a lot of shelves. There's no space left for a decent kabinet or closet (I need all floorspace for my sega mega tech, couch, desk, bed, clothingkabinet and tv kabinet), so I have no other choice than to display it. I could of course put 2 games in front of each other, but as long as I have more space for shelves I rather install those :)

When I just started collecting I was mainly interested in genesis and master system and had planned to get as many boxes with the tabs still on them, so I could hang them on the wall. Later I decided to concentrate on the saturn first, but I still have about 45 genesis/mastersystem games hanging on the wall in display. It looks cool, but it's not exactly as in my dream of a wall full of these games.

[Dobie]

For right now, my game room is the spare bedroom in our two bedroom apartment. Due to space constraints and whatnot, I have four systems hooked up--NES, SNES, N64, & gamecube. When I got married, my roomate moved out, and I just took over the spare. I plan on getting a house with a basement in a couple of years, and yes--the basement will be mine! >)

[batmanlivesatmyhouse]

Got a 36" TV (need to upgrade...) with Sega Genesis with Sega CD and 32X, PS1, PS2, Xbox, Dreamcast (Go Sega!), 3do, NES, DVD player with component video, VHS, and Digital Cable. My SMS blew up, so no 8 bit Sega goodness (well, there is Mame...). Computer in the same room with the cable modem. Of course, a pair of beautiful dance pads for DDR (or for Britney's Dance Beat for the kids. By the way, does everyone else know that the Dual Shock PS1 controllers work on PS2 games, or am I just really slow finding this out? Found out when, unknowingly, I was playing DDR Max with my beat up PS1 dance pads). Being a 2d fighter fan, must eventually get a Saturn (anyone have a spare one out there?), and a Gamecube (I don't think I can resist the temptation that is Animal Crossing for much longer....)

[IGotTheDot]

Slowly!

[Sylentwulf]

My problem is I bought too many shelving "systems" that I didn't like, spent too much money on them, and now I woul dfeel guilty if I threw them away and bought new ones. If you look at my gameroom pics... I want to get rid of those black shelves, and build something like a cross between my game storage units, and the display system in Smash Bros. Melee for all of my systems, I have it all planned out, but I don't want to throw away the $200 I spent on those shelves, AND it's a lot of work to do all that cutting, routing, staining and polyuerethaneing.

Yes, I'm sure polyuerethaneing isn't a word, and isn't even REMOTELY spelled right, but what would YOU call it?

[Kroogah]

http://www.angelfire.com/il/licemonkey/collection/mysetup.jpg

The latest incarnation of my video game setup. My space heater kind of snuck into the picture...^_^

http://www.angelfire.com/il/licemonkey/collection/nintenbig.jpg

I've never made something like this before. The scary thing is, that's NOT all of my Nintendo stuff...

[hades]

Well my collection has evolved a bit... It started on the top shelving of my dorm room... then when I moved to this apartment it looked like ...

http://www.sconnolly.com/shite/old.jpg

once that top shelf on the rack started getting warped it was crying for me to do something else with it. So it ended up looking like this now...

http://www.sconnolly.com/shite/new.jpg

I only live in a 1 bedroom apartment, so I have to pray every night that my girlfriend (I live with) lets me keep it setup. She's been a good sport so far. ;-)

[KnightNo17]

Funny thing this topic came up since I just cleaned and rewired my whole setup.
Its still lacking some cables (Component from the AV Switch to the TV) but looks great.
The huge ass TV, about 80 centimeters across, sits on top of a too small wooden shelf with little steps to the left and the right, on these steps sit the GC and the PS2. The steps have lil drawers in them to hold the controller of each system.

Hooked up are the Sega Mega Drive, the N64, the DC and the SNES, either on top of the TV or in the compartment underneath. To top it al off I actually UNWRAPPED *gasp* the Mitsurugi Action figure and put it on top of the TV as well. All games are in a shelf next to the TV, I just ceaned it out to make more room for games, so slowly but surely my collection is growing....