Game Collecting, current collection and the state of the hobby.

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Game Collecting

Video Game collecting can be nasty business.

Game Collecting is weird.  Just venturing through YouTube, there are tons of channels showing off their current collections. Some have complete sets of multiple consoles, some just have a handful of games and some gamer’s are pretty modest about it.

There are also some out there who just want to happily show you what they love.

I respect that we’re all in this for the same reason. The love of the Video Game medium. The love of the hobby.

Which brings me to my next point. Some folks have asked some pretty stupid questions. Especially to people who just have a few games. By a few I mean, like hundreds still. Sometimes suggesting they aren’t real gamers. Not everyone has the ability to just run out and grab a complete set of games for any one console. Especially when it comes to older stuff like the NES. Game prices seem to have skyrocketed the last few years as new folks enter the hobby. Having just a couple of games doesn’t make you any less of a gamer as someone with thousands. It just means you’re getting what you can, or what you like.

As More Enter, The Prices will rise

Bringing me to another point. As more people enter, the more in demand things become. This leads to higher prices. Whether it’s inflated by scumbag resellers or not is irrelevant. People will often pay a few bucks for a bunch of crappy games they probably will never play versus spending more for the better more sought after games just to say they have a bigger collection. Does that really make any sense? It’s fine to just have a bunch of games on the shelf, but if you never take the time to clean them, play them, enjoy what you have, then why bother having a huge collection?

I’ve recently come across The Last Gamer on YouTube. He holds the world record for the largest video game collection in the world. Complete sets of near everything you can think of. It’s extremely impressive. Further, he even says he plays most of them. The man may be rich, but he obviously loves games deeply. Especially to even attempt to play that many games. He, however, has been collecting games since the 80’s. He gets deals somehow that we couldn’t even think of. The man is truly a legend in the world of video game collecting. What’s more, he actively shares the games and he’s excited to share them with YouTube. It’s really cool. That said, there really isn’t much point in trying to emulate what he’s accomplished. Having been doing this for 30 years, he has a pretty big headstart.

Emulation has become a large part of game collecting

Not only are there systems produced by the folks at AtGames such as the Flashback systems, we recently had the NES Classic Edition, RetroPie is pretty huge and cheaply purchased and they can cover all your bases with retro gaming or even some of the newer stuff. I couldn’t imagine actually trying to play ALL of the games I currently have on my RetroPie. It would probably only allow for a playtime of about six seconds on each game for the next 40 years for 24 hours a day. I don’t think it’s possible.

So all I’m saying is, there are other options out there. If you want to have a giant collection taking up a huge room, more power to you. I’d love to have a video game collection that big. However, at the moment I have one bookshelf. There are about 150 NES games, a dozen SNES games, four or five Master System games, the same for the Genesis, Gameboy, and GBA. PS3 and PS4 have a little shelf and I have a handful of games for other systems. Personally, I don’t think that’s anything to sneeze at. This is besides my digital library, which is wildly huge.

Hopefully, everyone out there in retro gamer land has what they enjoy. I’ll keep on collecting and growing my collection. It’s a journey, but I don’t think my destination will be anywhere near that of The Last Gamer. 

 

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