How many of you were "collector" types in your chi

[tylerwillis]

Just a random thought - how many of you collectors also had a collecting personality in your childhood?
By this I mean - the games I owned before I hit puberty are still complete and more or less mint. I grew up in the NES age - most kids just tossed everything but the cart. Oddly, the only game that I ever tossed anything was my first NES purchase - the Legend of Zelda (tossed the box, kept the manual). Good grief, I regreted that forever... until I got a new box off eBay. :)

So, the question - when you were young, did you keep all the boxes, manuals, etc? Is your childhood stuff in mint condition? Or did you develop the collector's habit until later in life?

[digitalpress]

Since day one.

It's well documented. I'm a packrat. The stuff I wouldn't let my parents throw away when I was a kid, the things I couldn't bear to part with even when money was tight, the things that got pushed aside when "real life" took over... I've stll got all of those things. Though there's NEVER enough SPACE in my life, I'm glad it turned out this way.

And every so often I show my mom something from the days when I lived at home... and quote her the estimated value. :)

[kainemaxwell]

As a kid I kept the manuals and games. Rarely kept the boxes.

[sharp]

As a kid I kept everything mint, when my brother grow up more and didn't care about the boxes I stored them in my own room. Sadly in 1992 when I was 11 I wanted a SNES, but didn't had the money so I sold my nes to the toystore with mint copies of all the Castlevania and Zelda games. Still regrad that, but hey I couldn't pay a SNES any other way.

About those kids, I once found a complete box with manual and flyers in the front of a gamestore. The boy which bought the game with his parents just threw away the box already in front of the store. I was really pissed about, on the hand I know a gamer at a gamestore and he also don't give a shit about boxes. If you give him an orginal 80's arcade pcb the first thing do is soldering a converter on the original pinout instead of making a converter which you can remove. So it's not just kids who abuse games.

I want high penalties for game-abuse in the law. You hear always people about animals , but who cares about games. :angry: :evil:

[rick weis]

joe describes my thoughts exactly!

even at age 14 i liked to keep everything like mintly new..

Rick

[tholly]

yea...ive always been a packrat....

...but, my parents didnt understand, so some boxes and manuals got thrown out...im working on replacing them though

but, besides games, ive kept lots of other stuff

some stuff i have seen sent to ebay....my he-men, ghostbusters and transformers collections since i knew i wouldnt keep up with the collections and someone else would be able to enjoy them

i got like $1200 for everything, so i was happy to see it go

[lendelin]

In Grampa Simpsons voice: Well, when I was a youngen, we didn't have videogames in those days...

As a child I kept everything minty mint. My two older brothers drove me crazy when they read my comic books and I had to look for them all over the place.

I put my comic books in order according to volumes, cared for them so they looked good, made even lists, and never threw them away...Exactly what I do with videogames today.

I never 'seriously' collected games, but I never threw anything videogame related away. I kept everything.

Today I'm glad I have all my NES and SNES games and game magazines minty fresh and complete, considering some insane prices for MMX3 and Castlevania Dracula X. Even today I won't buy an incomplete game, not because of collectors reasons, but because it is just against my nature.

[pseudonym]

i was never a collector when i was young. i took the game out of the box, and tossed the box in the closet.

[Mattiekrome]

I never really began keeping everything minty fresh until the SNES was released. I think watching my cousins dad almost beat his ass because he tore the cover off of "Urban Champion" for the NES might have caused my "minty" obsession. Then again, if he still has those NES games now, its probably a goldmine! He had mostly ALL of the early NES black box games and took super good care of em (except for "Urban Champion" of course :) )

So I can now blame my "complete" obsession on my uncle and cousin.

[Immutable]

I never held any of my past videogame systems. I was forced to sell an old one so that I could buy the "next best thing". My dad didn't want my room "clustered with junk". Go fig. Heh.

[Slipdeath]

What age would "growing up" really start/end with, I guess I have grown up in the PS1 era. Since that's when I started collecting, I still have most of my games in good mint condition. Of course I have sold games over the years, and have acquired them once more due to regret. :/

[Arqueologia_Digital]

When i was a child i usually takes care of all my games, but it doesn´t matter to me the boxes/manuals and i usually buy pirate games...i wasn´t a packrat.

In the 2000/01, the insanity begans...

Matías

[Dr. Morbis]

I was actually looking at a family album the other day and there is a pic of my room in grade 9 (1991). Would you believe that I had all of my 11 NES games' boxes lined up on top of my encyclopedias with two bookends to keep them upright! I'm a packrat too, and I've saved every vg box and manual I've ever gotten, but I had completely forgotten that I actually had my NES games displayed prominently in my room long before I ever considered myself a NES collector.

I think the way people deal with their possessions in their childhood says a lot about whether or not they'll be a 'collector' when they grow up. ...or not, but it seems to have been pretty good forshadowing in my case.

[AFGiant]

I've always been a hoarder of junk. My mom has always been a person who likes to keep things neat and junk-free. Obviously that caused some conflict. I found myself keeping rocks with shapes I liked in an ever-growing box under my bed, keeping odd/foreign coins in another box, plastic frogs in yet another, general trash and foil wrappers (stuff that looked cool or I liked) in a bin in my desk drawyer. She hated all that :P
When it came to games, they were strewn about carelessly around the consoles. Thing is, I liked keeping the boxes, manuals, etc. for a reason I couldn't put my finger on. Let's call it fate ;) Anyways, I organized them on shelves as I got a little older, then started including cabinets when I moved into the next gen. When I was directed to DP and started actually collecting last september, I had a good 200+ games ready for entry into the IGN lists. So it guess it all worked out. I kept my boxes and manuals, for the most part.

[Moon Patrol]

I didn't start getting interested in "collecting" for my system, until it hit me a few weeks ago that I have a job, and I can buy whatever I want. I whipped out my sega and started playing it, and a trip to the flea market later, I was hooked. I gave my nephew most of my NES stuff, I still have quite a bit of all of my atari 2600/7800 stuff, and I no longer am in possession of my intellivision stuff. I have a gameboy, that I never play, don't really care to either. I would take a Nomad over that anyday. I remember when I was a kid, boxes and manuals were for pussies! Now its completely different, because you get a sense of pride, knowing that every piece is there, like a really really big puzzle.

[videogameking26]

As a kid I kept everything, still own it today. Also a packrat as I had to keep everything.

[Aussie2B]

My number one gaming concern has always been to get the fullest enjoyment out of my games, not to just hoard, brag, and show off. When I was a kid, no possessions were more important to me than my games, but that was because I loved playing them. I never sold a single one, and I read and kept every manual. Seeing them as useless (and pretty much they are), I threw out boxes. I continued to throw out boxes until around 1998, when I started to talk to other gamers online and started to get into buying older games (I still had and played all the old games I had over the years; I just started to get into buying the ones I missed out on). The one and only box I saved from then was the box to Chrono Trigger, and that was not because I thought it would someday become valuable but just because I loved the game so freakin' much.

Sure, I wish I had all those boxes, but it's no biggie. I didn't take great care of a few of my manuals, but I have no regrets because I was using them. I remember cutting up my Donkey Kong Country manual and Donkey Kong Country 2 box to use the pictures on a school project. Maybe to some that's sacrilege, but I'm much more proud of the finished project and the memories I made than I would be having the box on my shelf and the manual in perfect shape.

[Fuyukaze]

When I first got into games back in 82, I had no choice about documentation. Everything that wasnt the game or the system (or electricle) was trash. Boxs, manuels, and basicly any paper documentation was garbage. I didnt get to decide untill around the time I picked up my DC.

[DTJAAAAMJSLM]

I kept my manuals when I was younger, but I'd usually throw away my boxes. The worst thing I did was when I butchered a Chrono Trigger manual to make CT pogs...

[Tatsu]

I had a nice NES and S-Nes collection after my childhood, then I decided to throw away all the boxes from the S-Nes games (including the box of FF II..) and just keep the manuals and the games. Fortunately I was clever enough to keep the NES boxes but since I've lost most of the NES games to a "friend" I stand with only 3 boxes NES games. Sad but true...

[devilman]

Growing up, I was into Sega stuff and whlie I wasn't consciously making an effort to keep everything in mint condition, it was easy enough to keep the boxes and manuals in pretty good condition. It made things easier when I wanted to trade something in for another game too. I think the only thing that did get pretty tatty was the book to Might & Magic for the Mega Drive as that saw a fair bit of use!

[Videogamerdaryll]

When I was a Young Kid I collected Hotwheels cars..as everybody in my family kept giving them to me.

I used to keep all system boxes..NES games I'd chuck the Styrofoam and fold,crush the boxes and stack them..
(Until I got older x_x )

I recently found a stack of flattened NES boxes in my Moms house from childhood.

[NESaholic]

When i was a kid i only had love for the cartridge, the box and manual were made of paper so even if i would try to keep them they would be in terrible state.

When i started to collect i had 20 carts,i could find any manual or box, i think i threw them all away.
I wish i kept them but cant go back in time!

Nowadays i won\'t buy a game if is not boxed or complete,only hard to find games i buy cart only till the day i get it complete and sell or trade it again.

[lurpak]

I have no idea of what happened to almost everything from my childhood, I dont remember throwing it out myself as I am a horder, maybe thats why my parents must have done it on my behalf.
the oldest thing belonging to me that I still own from my childhood is a pockets knife I found on a park dated 1899 but I have had it since being about 13.. everything else has gone, up until about 23 I still have lots of items from then.

[digitalpress]

My number one gaming concern has always been to get the fullest enjoyment out of my games, not to just hoard, brag, and show off.

For the record, this ISN'T the opposite of a person who's primary concern is getting the fullest enjoyment of their games.

People with crazy collections may be viewed as "hoarders", "braggers", or "show-offs" but most of them aren't. "Proud", perhaps, and if you need a negative spin on it "anal" or "obsessive compulsive" are probably better stereotypes.

We now return you to the thread, already in progress.

[THATinkjar]

DP, you never cease to amaze me. Your use of the english language is second to none. You always find the right words. My hat goes off to you, sir!

As for the topic, I voted "kept some". Because that's what I did. I ended up selling my PS, Saturn, SNES, Mega Drive, GameBoy Advance and all the games. I'm making amends now. But I kept older PC games. And I kept my little GameBoy collection until recently.

[stevec1636]

when i first started playing video games i was around 8 or so playing the intellivision. now we kept all the boxes but the games were never in them. the boxes were kept in the bedrrom closet and all the games and overlays were in a shoebox.

A few years ago i was able to go back up to NY and get all my old Intellivision stuff and found all the games in the same shoebox covered in dust in the attic but the boxes were still in the closet in almost brand new shape. since they were never opened and closed a million times.

[Putney]

For some reason in my 2600/7800 days I really didn't care and tossed a good deal of manuals and boxes. However, once I got into the NES, I kept all that stuff (and still have it). Unfortunately, I didn't feel the same about consoles and accessories, so I tossed my system and controller boxes. I was pretty anal about the game boxes though, made sure I kept the original styrofoam and bags the carts came in.

Once I hit the Game Boy phase, I kept everything, and still do.

[robotriot]

Well, I got into gaming really late (at 11), but I kept everything that came with the game, only occasionally I filled out the registration cards, but left it in the box.

[purelunatic]

not me, i was a little too ignorant when i was younger, and that has become one of my biggest regrets. it wasn't until i was around the golden age of 18 that i began to seriously collect games. no i won't even look at a game unless its complete.

[Ed Oscuro]

I've always kept everything LOL

[lendelin]

My number one gaming concern has always been to get the fullest enjoyment out of my games, not to just hoard, brag, and show off. When I was a kid, no possessions were more important to me than my games, but that was because I loved playing them.

Your love for playing games is the number one reason for the vast majority of collectors to 'hoard' games as well. Almost every collector is a game nut, an avid game player. The only difference to an average avid game player? The collector wants past gamestores in his home so he has the most and best variety of games at his fingertips, ready for him to get played whenever he likes.

Collecting is about the option to play whatever you want whenever you like, not necessarily that you actually play it.

The love for gameplay and collecting games are not contradictory, they fuel each other.

I believe that in every avid gameplayer sleeps peacefully the potential collector. Sometimes the collector awakens, sometimes he doesn't.

[Aussie2B]

I wasn't trying to start some sort of flame war here. :P I mean, just about anyone has to admit that some collectors are in it for all the wrong reasons. There's no reason for anyone to take offense from what I've said unless he/she is insecure about the reasons for why they collect.

My main point in saying what I did is 1) being a packrat and/or keeping everything mint as can be doesn't mean you care more about games than someone who doesn't and 2) sometimes you may get more enjoyment out of your games if you "damage" them a little (like I did with my DKC manual and DKC2 box or my Chrono Trigger manual from using it for reference so much that it got a bit worn). I have a friend who is a collector (not of games, but of music CDs), and I know (and he knows) that he could get more enjoyment out of his stuff if he wasn't so worried about it. Some people can honestly be obsessive-complusive and anal to the point that it's not healthy. He keeps everything wrapped in plastic, wears latex gloves as he handles them, so on and so forth. I find it very sad that he can't just pop in a CD and relax like I think he should. It's all about balance in life, and when it comes to collecting, one should balance the desire between having everything complete, mint and perfect and actually enjoying the games like one would as a child.

[Emily]

As soon as I got my Gameboy when I was 5-6, I wanted every game for it. I generally kept the box/ manual for a while...then tossed them. I ended up holding onto a couple of older boxes, but they are in poor condition.
The few SNES games I could afford back in the day are all pristine.Mostly because I could only ever play them at my cousins house, but I think the boxes servived because of their cool box art.

[Ed Oscuro]

I wasn't trying to start some sort of flame war here. :P I mean, just about anyone has to admit that some collectors are in it for all the wrong reasons. There's no reason for anyone to take offense from what I've said unless he/she is insecure about the reasons for why they collect.
As times goes on, I see the truth behind this more and more. There's some similarities to other collections, but games are simply more interesting than most other collections in that you can interact with them - and really should, else you aren't getting full worth out of your "investment" ;) For me, getting the most value is in getting the widest range of games, instead of simply variations and sealed copies of games I already own.

[syd]

I kept the manual and cart for all of my games mostly. I had two older brothers as well so between all of us most of the manuals and boxes didn't survive that long! Besides after moving around a couple times some stuff either got lost in the move or got to be in pretty bad shape. I think I may still have a few boxes around though...

[ubersaurus]

I'd keep the manuals, but my parents made me throw out the boxes most of the time.

I did go to the store to buy the cheap atari games with my allowance money though, just because I didn't have them yet. So I suppose I've had the collector mentality for a long long while ;p

I also kept my backings to the ghostbuster and ninja turtle toy lines, although I think I finally threw those out a while ago.

[Mianrtcv]

I really only kept manuals and carts/discs. My parents at the time were more easily swayed by seeing less space taken up by my games. So it was in my best interest to ditch the boxes. This way I was able to amass way too many games. 8-)