Would you buy a rare game if you knew it would hurt the owner?

[recorderdude]

Okay, before I start this topic, I have to tell a story. It's a story about me, and the reason I am a collector today.

Long before my birth and still continuing today, my mother has dealt with serious mental issues. Growing up with the nausea and spinning attacks of meniere's disease and several other mental disorders a common household occurrence was not easy. I had to watch my mother go through recovering from open brain surgery at six years old. At the same time, I was becoming incredibly fascinated with video games. Mom had two copies of some super outdated gaming magazines from around the time Donkey Kong Country was new. I read those issues from cover-to-cover religiously, and they consumed practically all of my free time. Eventually, my parents got the hint, and, partially as a way to distract me from the brain surgery and partially due to my desire, Santa Claus brought me a super nintendo that year.

As a gamer, growing up. I had the best of both worlds, with a Super NES and all the best titles AND a GameCube with tons of quality retro collections and a few modern games, too.

I spent hours on the donkey kong countries, mario world, yoshi's island and all stars, star fox, link to the past, a ton of quality licensed games and my personal favorite on the system, kirby's dreamland 3, which was also one of the few games mom could actually play with me. I spent equal time on the 4-game zelda collection that came with my cube, various gamecube sonic games and collections (I stopped at heroes, and while I really wanted to play shadow the hedgehog at the time, maybe it was a good thing...), as well as smash brothers melee, spyro, both megaman collection titles. They are the games I remember most fondly, without a doubt. Friends came over every other day to play them with me.

Those were the happiest times of my life.

They had to come to an end.

Around when I turned ten years old, my mother was committed to a mental institution for a little over a year. My father, who despised gaming from day one and still does to this day, decided it was time for me to grow out of the "kiddy video games" and turned to ebay to make what he figured they were worth.

What followed was the biggest heartbreak of my entire life.

My super nintendo, with two controllers and an ASCII fighter stick SN, free from yellowing or smoke damage, bundled with countless classics and a game total nearing thirty, games that, even back then, were rare and sought after like dreamland 3, Yoshi's Island, and so many more...

Set at a "buy it now" of $30.

Snapped up within the hour of posting.

My nintendo gamecube, which, at the time, was still reasonably current, along with two controllers, a 512 memory card and some of the best games on the system...

Set at a "buy it now" of $20.

Snapped up within the hour of posting.

For years, the only video game I had was frogger for the gameboy, and I couldn't even play that with anyone.

I haven't truly played any of those games for YEARS, and only now have I finally begun to reclaim what I lost.

That's why I'm a collector. To reclaim the childhood I almost had.

Now, you may be thinking..."What the hell does this have to do with the topic title?"

Imagine, for a moment, that you're at a garage sale. You see the one thing you've been looking for to complete your collection your entire life. The seller is an unknowledgable looking man who wants $10 for it. All of a sudden, a child runs out of the house, begging his father not to sell it. He informs the child that it's something he has to do, perhaps a punishment for a tantrum or a push to mature.

Would you still be able to buy it?

This is a question I don't expect definite answers for. There is a great possibility that someone else would just come along and get it after you pass it up, or that the father would just turn to the internet or even a goodwill to get rid of the troublesome system. Perhaps you'd try to inform him of the item's value, but that would likely make him even more tempted to sell it.

Personally, I could never see myself doing this. I grew up knowing the pain of losing everything you enjoy and I would never do that to someone else if I could avoid it.

But then, who's to say that lot I bought on ebay for a steal didn't suffer the same fate? Or the massively underpriced wii I picked up two years ago with porn bookmarks and a confused looking thirteen-year-old stuck to the photo channel?

I think what I'm trying to get across is; do we, as collectors, take games away from those who would enjoy them even more than ourselves whether we know it or not?