Collecting for the sake of it?

[langley]

I had a thought the other day, am i collecting for the sake of?

I like most people on this site have been buying / playing video games for many many years - done the usual get a good collection together of consoles with the relevent games. Then got bored or traded in for the latest machine only to regret selling that PC Engine or Neo Geo, then a few years later when you want it back realising it will cost a fortune to get it back with all the games you new and loved!!!

But the last couple of years i have decided to start collecting and actually keep the stuff i am buying - I have converted the spare room in my house into a games room, am getting the start of a nice console collection ( aside from the ones in my launge ) and about 360 games across various formats.

It started as just buying my fav games for each format, then came the buying all the big releases coming out on the current formats, then the trawls through the bargin bins / car boots for bargins and i am now at the stage where i have "little Projects", current one being JAP MD games, i am even rebuying titles i already have for the sake of the box art.

But then it hit me the other day, why am i buying so many games, i have so many games that are sealed / never been played cos i dont have the time ( and prob wont have ), so am i buying for the sake of it? Does anyone else have the same syndrome?

[asnozz]

yeah i know what you mean. I had my grandfather pass away over christmas and the whole possession thing has really gotten to me. I addmit i collect for the sake of it.... although i constantly find myself asking why? why not spend the money on holidays, adventures instead of something that means nothing to you when you die (unlike good memories). Although saying that... i havent found myself stop collecting.... it has merely slowed over the last few months.

[buster_broon]

did it with the Neo

but i play my games now - havent got around to playing them all yet, but i'm not afraid to actually play the games

but still guilty of it from time to time

[sj33]

I went through a phase of collecting games... but I soon found that I didn't like my game collection. It didn't reflect ME and MY tastes, only what was considered a 'must have' at some point.

These days I regulate my buying, but I do still collect for game series' that I am a fan of. For example, got that Biohazard Collectors Box the other day from a forumer dispite me owning the individual games. Why? Because it's something that I actually want to own, something that I want to have in my collection. And there's the key difference. I find no pleasure in collecting games I do not like.

[fragmast3r]

i have the following formats

psone
ps2
ds
psp
gameboyadvance
gamecube
xbox
xbox360

Ive now limited myself to 10 games per system, and to buy 1 i have to sell 1, well tbh that was my wife who said that, but hey she's right......











ok i have a bald patch from her thumb

[sj33]

i have the following formats

psone
ps2
ds
psp
gameboyadvance
gamecube
xbox
xbox360

Ive now limited myself to 10 games per system, and to buy 1 i have to sell 1, well tbh that was my wife who said that, but hey she's right......











ok i have a bald patch from her thumb

Sounds painful man. I can see what your going for here (or the wife!), but I could never sell a game I love.

[thebuddahman]

Ive recently realised what the hell am I doing with random collecting.

It makes much more sense to focus on things I actually will play, or want to collect rather than just getting anything and everything just for the sake of it.

[fragmast3r]

Sounds painful man. I can see what your going for here (or the wife!), but I could never sell a game I love.

i know what you mean, have to say personaly im ok with 10 on all the consoles, except for ds and cube, way to many games i love on these sytems

[langley]

I am so lucky i have an understanding wife, damn lucky she plays games too. when i set up my games room ( and this will sound bad ), i swapped my son into the smaller bedroom so i could have the second double room for my games room - it is now basicly a second lounge, a 32" wide screen tv, new sofa etc.......but with plenty of shelving for games / collectables!!!

[Kubrick]

Guilty as charged. I could probably get rid of half my games and never miss them .

I especially like having the complete series of a personal favourite if there's many sequels, so I have quite a few games I could easily do without.
Common sense should tell me that I only need the newest version of Winning Eleven, or one version of Biohazard, Street Fighter II etc, or that older versions of Ridge Racer are redundant since I have RRV, but no, I've still got to have them...

[Samurai Matt]

aghh i used to do this a lot too, then I ran out of shelf space so gamestationed all the games I didnt like much, it was amazing, i had a whole empty bookshelf, and ign collection list average score went up from 5.4 to 7.9

The same happened to me with books and dvds aswell

[feelgoodwhale]

sometimes when i see bargains i feel like i could just grab it for the sake of it: "because it would look nice with the others" or something

but i've never been into serious collecting... i only keep the games that i really enjoy or enjoyed... and sell everything else.... they just seem useless when they're sitting there doing nothing

[moonwhistle]

I used to just impulse buy all the time, across loads of formats. I wound up owning way too much **** that never got played. It's hard to moderate oneself so now I just have one block of shelving and I don't buy more than will fit into it. When I buy new stuff, I sell something to make room for it. I also bought pointless rubbish like the Virtual Boy and the Jaguar which I'm now very keen to get rid of and stick to the stuff I really enjoy like JP MD, Neo Geo, PS1, Saturn etc...

[langley]

I think some of the problem comes when your mind-set changes from gaming being an enjoyable pass time to a collection. When you get into that collecting mind-set you look at things differently, i am for ever looking on ebay / bargin bins and seeing games for ?1 or ?2 and thinking thats not much and it will increase the collection, but when buying for playing you tend to take a more considered approach - because you will be playing it. I have bought 9 games in the last week, and out of those prob only 2 will get played!!!

[Light]

I usually only keep those games that I've really enjoyed... the rest are sold off to fund future purchases. As a result, I'm left with a rather manageable collection, although at times I wish I had much more so that I'd always have something to play. At times I do however buy games just for the sake of boxart or limited edition packaging or what have you. I mean, I only pre-ordered Shadow of the Colossus today because of the special packaging the PAL game will have, even though I've already completed, and subsequently sold off my previous NTSC version. Something similar happened with RE4. I went through about a third of the cube version back in may... hated it and forgot about it. Then when the premium edition came out for the ps2, I got very excited because of the metallic casing and the laser cell, that I couldn't resist and ended up buying the game and loving it (at least in part for its metal case... lol). So... yeah, sometimes I'd buy a game primarily because it will look good in my collection... at least make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside , but I will always play whatever I buy... I don't leave sealed games on my shelf. To me that just seems rather pointless.