In regard to strat guides

[maxlords]

Yeah, I'm at around 150ish too. I mostly buy either the clearanced ones or guides for obscure games and RPGs. I'm pretty selective about which ones I'll pick up, but I have a LOT of obscure ones, especially RPG guides. I buy em mainly to accelerate my RPG progress...as I don't have time to muddle about anymore like I used to But I also buy em for collectibility, as a lot of guides seem to get pretty short-printed.

[DonMarco]

A fair chunk of mine are penny guides, yeah. The rest I got for a buck or two from a friend. Maybe even a game if they had a stack to trade me. Later on, people just started giving me their old guides, just to help me build my collection. Yard sales, eBay...

It's odd when every so often you find out that one of them has become a "rare collectible". The Resident Evil Archive, for example, was a terrible buy. It was expensive, had factually incorrect information, translation errors, sloppy editing (and possibly no editor). I was happy to take one home, after it dropped to a penny. Now, three years later, it goes for $55-100 on eBay.

The DoubleJump guides I try to buy new, though. For one, I want to throw them the money. And for two, there's a good chance they'll be more expensive down the road. Paying $20 now for a guide that's $50 later *cough*Persona 3*cough* makes good sense to me.

[maxlords]

P3 guide is back down to about $25-30 now

[Gamebrain]

It depends on the game. I usually dont like buying it with the game (because I don't want to spoil any of the story for myself). If, like others said, it has cool art and features along with it, I'll probably buy it after I beat the story.