3 year post-pandemic review: how’s your collecting life before and now?

[GPX | 1,374]

Pretty straight forward thread from the title. How have your collecting habits changed since the pandemic? Have you been infected by the WATA virus? Has HA brainwashed you yet? Have you retired from collecting or still going strong? 

Can you guys believe it’s been 3 whole years already?!

[OptOut | 8,892]

Not much change really in the last 3 years, just carrying on the same general track! I'm spending more, as my income has increased, but overall the pandemic didn't really affect anything much regarding my collecting.

[Brickman | 4,014]

Same as OptOut. No change for me either, Japanese games are still super cheap. Just picked up 60 vita games for $6 each and 80 PSP games for $5 each.

[Tanooki | 4,952]

I've 99% sworn off buying domestic online, more so specifically ebay.  Import is another matter, this isn't exactly California here where there's plenty floating around compared.  It doesn't take much even with as skewed wrong VGPC really is just at a glance of the line charts there to see why.  Virus -> shut ins -> no pay -> big gov't checks needed or not repeatedly -> scalper scum into pricing overdrive.

Prices have not recovered per say, some systems are being more ravaged than others and fairly badly still catching on late.  it's utter nonsense and any crap argument that Itsaum-a-n-flation is bs and excuse making.  Couple that with the my lose cart is worth a gold bar because of wata fraud on CIB, new, legit and bootleg goods and it's a perfect storm of hell.

So, did I quit?  No.  I just buy local when it comes to games.  2x a week I have a series of 3 stores I choose to hit, they're retail, one is a local only thing.  I go in, I enjoy the sights as they get interesting stuff them, and if I find maybe something in a game I want I check the sticker.  If it's in fantasy land (ebay) it stays, if it's actually fair (and let's call that 2019 or earlier depending) and under (say 25%+ off ebay) I'll buy it - OR I walk.

There are benefits to this so far.  I'm not bleeding money.  I buy far less.  Buying far less means more time to play.  Avoiding toxic scum antics keeps one less demotivated and turned off even bothering to care/to play.

 

A year ago I did finally go back into Japanese gaming more, grabbed a large amount of the SFC games I used to own, depressingly loose vs CIB though due to prices.  This has been quite nice, did the same on a few FC titles too.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Tanooki

[a3quit4s | 4,126]

Pandemic didn’t really affect me at all for collecting. I’ve slowed down considerably since I knocked out the NES, SNES, N64 sets and am trying to do better to actually play the games I have. I’m not sure I can really relate it to the pandemic but I don’t go to garage/yard sales anymore. It was really more in the area I was in every single one I went to had some reseller there asking about video games, Pokémon cards, Jordan’s, and whatever other fodder they could sell. I may give it a try again in the spring since I moved back to NY. 

I still try to buy local when I can but I have no qualms about buying on eBay as long as the price is right. I’ve ordered from DK oldies and Lukie and JJ games when the price was right when I was completing sets. I do feel I’m done with complete set collecting, the only one I may consider doing is TG16 but even then I wouldn’t shell out for a magical chase so there really isn’t any point. 

[twiztor | 855]

when the pandemic hit, i had pretty much started settling into a spot where i was coming to the end of what i wanted to own. not fullsets, so much, just checking all the ticks that i had been after.

Summer 2020 brought lockdowns and quarantines and time off work. it was glorious, and really was the impetus to get me back to PLAYING games. 

in the years since, i try to stay motivated to play, but it has definitely waned since that point. i'm still extremely happy with my collection, so haven't needed to really change much in that regard.

[Strange | 1,701]

I can say that since 2020 I’ve really been narrowing my focus, becoming pickier when it comes to condition, etc. although I don’t think the pandemic really had anything to do with that. Just a natural progression of my collecting habits.

[Hammerfestus | 3,884]

Semi-retired.

 I used the spike in prices to sell off a lot of the fluff from my PSX collection.  I then used the proceeds to beef up my CIB NES collection.  After I acquired the 4 CIB Dragon Warrior games it inspired me to focus a bit on creating a nice little Dragon Quest collection.  I was working towards getting copies of all the mainline titles both US and Japanese versions.   The prices on those DS games was an impediment though so I kind of lost focus and moved on.  I also completed my Suikoden set: all the US and Japanese releases.  
I haven’t picked anything new up since the summer though and actually slimmed down my NES collection a bit at the end.  I was really getting pretty irritated with eBay.  At this point I’d probably have to stumble into something I really want for my collection at a great price.  Even here I don’t really have the desire any more to discuss the games and all the typical collector stuff and just spend my time with random bullshitting and Werewolf.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,017]

Local acquisitions are completely dead. FB marketplace is saturated with the scum of had previously partolled flea markets and craigslist. This has resulted in my main shift being into more high-ish dollar items and new releases.

I also noticed the sellers are ebay are generally easier to work with than they were pre pandemic. Before, it was a ton of gutter water drining sewer dwellers trying to squeeze every red cent out of their mouse piss soaked Bucky O'Hare manual. Now, it seems those folks have generally moved onto FB marketplace and the selling pool that is left of ebay is easier to work with like you would expect from surface dwellers.

[goldenpp72 | 1,235]

Good and bad, the pandemic raised cost to pretty prohibitive points, but I also had a career change during that time which allowed me to sort of get ahead of it despite that. I've been doing a deep reassessment of my entire list to add in anything else I think might linger, but even then I'm down to maybe 30-40 games left to find and have mostly chipped off the truly ridiculous items, though it has still put me into some 0 percent interest (for a year) debt that I gotta pay down.

What I would say now is that I love my collection and can't believe I got it to this point, but it has also lost the heart and charm when it comes to the hunt and has become purely work and spending to finish up. What started as something truly endearing and fun over a decade ago is not really fun anymore, I imagine this is a point anyone who gets this far hits though, I'm sure for people just starting there is still great stuff to find cheap, it just isn't near as good as it once was. I plan to essentially finish this year with retro collecting entirely aside whatever games simply don't pop up ever.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,586]

I'd say it made me less likely to buy a $300-1000 Saturn game, and more likely to spread that spending over many months of modern game purchases.

I probably only buy a few retro games a year at this rate.  So pandemic pricing definitely changed my focus.

I'm a gamer first and foremost, so WATA and HA and all that never really registered with my brain.  If it weren't for the topics here I wouldn't ever pay a single mind to the sealed scene...

[Tabonga | 2,341]

No change here.   I have not really actively collected in many many years (mainly because I got pretty much what I wanted at the going rate in the good old days before things escalated.   I had really good working relationships with a bunch of brick and mortar stores so they would hold stuff or let me grab stuff (boxes, maps, manuals) to complete whatever I needed.

I am actively buying on the switch (for games I want to play - if I ever find the time to do so  is another story (one I am sure most folk here can identify with!)).  I initially had to hunt up some OOP early releases I wanted after I actually had something to play them on.  Not collecting them per se - although I will splurge on CEs if they have enough goodies to make it worth the extra cost (and often a longer wait).   

[Gloves | 11,839]

I went pretty hard pre-pandemic, but it's worth noting I didn't start collecting in earnest until I joined NintendoAge in early 2017. Prior to that I had a decent PS3 collection but really nothing major, and I got rid of that collection as part of my going cold turkey on PSN trophies. The bulk of my collection today is as it was at the end of 2019 or early 2020.

Most of my new pickups since have been the odd retro CIB here and there, mostly expensive games made more expensive by time (curse you, time!), and games for less expensive consoles like PS3/4, and new games for PS5. I have a modest Switch collection but honestly I'm not a huge fan of the console so they don't get much use.

Prices do definitely have something to do with it. It's tough to look at a game that's $300 today and think "I could have had that for $100", especially when I prioritized the games I really wanted early on, so many of those now really expensive games I'd mostly consider "nice to haves" with a few exceptions. Good condition copies of key games I still really want have been harder to come by so that's not helped either, not to mention I collect CIB specifically, so price + condition are at an all-time high premium.

[MegaMan52 | 2,461]

Similar, but It slowed down somewhat. Once the pandemic started, two retro game stores I went to since the early 2000's closed. There was also a lockdown, and I couldn't buy games at local stores for a little while. Another store, which sold imported games, opened up in 2021 and I was buying a little more until it closed after about eight months. Sometimes friends have traded or given games to me for free. In 2021, a friend said he wanted to trade his Sega Master System collection for disc 1 of Tales of Symphonia and a Wavebird w/Receiver. A few months ago in 2022, he gave me a bootleg copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 (one that I remember seeing on an NES site called NES Player in the early 2000's) for free.

I pre-ordered Bubble Bobble 4 Friends in 2019 a little before the pandemic started, but as anyone who ordered it from SLG knows, the shipping was delayed and I didn't receive it until the summer of 2020.

I bought Japanese copies of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Luigi's Mansion online in 2020 and 2021, respectively. I got the Pearl White GameCube online in early 2020. I got the Japanese Luigi's Mansion just in time for the GameCube's (Japanese) 20th Anniversary in September 2021. I watched the first Sonic movie in the Theater, right before the pandemic started. And I contributed to VGS by buying a shirt (as well as subscribing three times).

I got some goodies during a closing sale in 2020 at a game store I'd been going to since the early 2000's. I remember Death Race had a $60 price tag on it, but by the time I got it everything in the store was 50% off (the sale was originally 40% off) and I was able to buy it for $30 instead. I also found an orange NES Zapper with the manual (the grey one was bought at an Antique Store with Duck Hunt, seen below).

Visited Antique Stores fairly often in 2020 and 2021 and got a bunch of gaming and non-gaming goods, including a 5-screw copy of Duck Hunt and Mega Man ZX.

Collecting sped up a little in 2021 when I visited a new retro game store selling imports. I also found From Russia With Love and was able to complete my James Bond set for GameCube, an issue of Nintendo Power, a PEZ Dispenser, and some Japanese candy. Unfortunately, the store closed after only about eight months.

A friend gave me a copy of Adventure Island II in 2021 from Hollywood Video, a video store I used to go to (exact same location), as well as a modified NES that can play PAL games and unlicensed games that my original unmodified NES doesn't play. He removed the screws, so the cover can be taken off and Famicom cartridges that normally wouldn't fit can be played. He traded me his Sega Master System collection for disc 1 of Tales of Symphonia and a Wavebird Controller w/Receiver in 2021. A few months ago, in 2022, he gave me a Super Mario Bros. 3 bootleg for free.

Those are only some of the things I bought during the pandemic.

I've continued to buy imports and harder to find games online in the last year, as I did before the pandemic, but not quite as often because, honestly, I've got too much and am running out of space. I also continue to buy locally at Antique Stores, Thrift Stores, and classified ad sites if I find something I'm interested in. Despite the rising costs I've gotten a few really good deals, such as a copy of Metal Slug Anthology for $5.

The last few years were tough and at times slowed things down, but they also brought on some good things every now and then. I came across some gaming goods that I didn't think I'd get anytime soon.

Edited January 15, 2023 by MegaMan52

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

My interests tend to be much narrower than most, so I can't say that the pandemic really did much to slow down my collecting, as it was already at a crawl when it started.  I can echo @RegularGuyGamer's thoughts regarding the pandemic basically making local non-store purchases an absolute nightmare.  Although local stuff tended to be far and few between even before the pandemic, since its onset it's gotten 1000x worse, with it being beyond laughable to even bother.

I have taken the occasional opportunity to supplement or upgrade my gaming setups, snagging stuff like a couple of RetroTink units (a new Mini and a used Pro), a RAD2x cable for my non-NES Nintendo consoles, some HD Retrovision cables for my Genesis, and a few flash carts (v1 Mega Everdrive, Game Boy and N64 Everdrive clones).  This is the route I'm likely to continue on unless something seriously changes in the "gaming-sphere," as I'd much rather play what games I have or game on a PC versus spending $600-700+ for the newest consoles that don't offer anything of particular interest to me.

[Abelardo | 154]

Slowed down almost to a halt, previous to the pandemic I was focusing on arcade games because there were still plenty of deals around, and also always had a few things for sale so the sales motivated me to keep finding deals, at the beginning of the pandemic I delisted everything and stopped looking for deals, nowadays I wouldn't mind going to the post office once in a while or meeting people to make deals for that matter, now it's not really that appealing anymore for me.

Edited January 12, 2023 by Abelardo

[DefaultGen | 5,434]

I FOMO'd so much crap. My collection is way better across the board. I finished a couple sets, got all my biggest fanciest wants, and was pickier on condition than ever.

I have more "random cool shit" than any human could ever need, so I'm super focused now on my remaining highest wants and not getting distracted by deals and shelf filler swag.

[Tanooki | 4,952]

Seeing all this since I posted, it makes sense, relatable.

I've slowed but also as some pointed out, I've narrowed the scope.  This year I've bailed on the NGPC, last year I bailed on the PSone and the PCE since it got toxic as the US basically, offloaded a few other systems that were clinging on, and screwball things like r-zone for one.

The way I see it, it got so bad, it caused so much demotivation, and the online pricing was a kick to the teeth to where I just felt enough was enough.  To me, the best resort was to take out the knives, slice slice slice.   With the fed up feelings going back I went nuts using that supposed last tax year and ditched heaps in 2021.  I've narrowed to just NES, SNES, GB family, DS/3DS(on hold but unsold), and Sega Genesis along with the MVS which I'm set on for now.  All the other Sega, Sony, misc, ngpc, various handhelds, multiple tabletops, my cocktail 60in1.. OUT.  It was a relief.  I brought in an Astro City, I brought in a PCE Mini to satisify that (and then got a cheap SNES CE and hacked it with the full PCE&TG library), and I brought in of all things a watara supervision and a multicart with the full library (cost $60) to avoid the scalpers there too.

That made for such a change, a relief.  Despite what I listed is there, *actively* I don't hunt as a catch all anymore which is huge.  It has to be a game I want.  It has to be something I'll actively want to use.  It has to NOT be near the ebay paid price unless it's like an already cheap ($5-15?) title.  I have rules, and they work for me.  I'll wiggle a bit in a rare case, with enough going out gave me cushion to take in, such as Rescue Rangers 2 for 40% off ebay prices or Sparkster for a fair rate too on SNES but they're fairly wide spread apart by months so that works giving time to appreciate it.

 

On the FOMO stuff, DONE...DONE, LRG and even more SLG and their crap they pulled I'm over their BS.  I don't *need* it, I want it, but if I can get it from another region without their BS being involved game on, they're now the last and only resort if it's only them and english.  Or in the case of like Avenging Spirit and Shantae which LRG peddled, that was fine too.

[Friendsfa35 | 35]

just started again with buying stuff last month,

first games i bought in general since late 2019.....

[fcgamer | 4,753]

I likely peaked, and then slowed down.

At the end of last year the local reseller moved to Australia for working holiday. Since then, I've been finding more bits and treasures at the local junk shops, but I think the damage has already been done regarding some of the other shops. 

In the end, I guess I can say that by now I have more games than I'll ever play. Pairing that with less local finds, and less online locally, and of course the growth will slow down.

I know some collectors buy stuff online from other countries and what not, but unless it's homebrews or something of a similar nature, I generally just tried sticking to local purchases for the bulk of my collecting journey. For me, it's always fun to see what I can find locally, rather than just placing a large order online.

[Renmauzo | 1,205]

No change for me; it was hard before, it's hard now. I've got just under 100 titles to go, and I'm done (although the Sharp X68000 and MSX are calling to meeee).

It's always been hard, even moreso the last 5 years since I moved from the Toronto area. I live on an island in Atlantic Canada, so I've got no access other than buying online or air travel to a convention, our dollar drops a quarter to USD at any given time, so I have to make more to buy the same stuff (and tend to have to get from the US which is its own challenge the last few years), and pricing is at an all time high. Many have challenges with some or all of these types of things, so I don't have any business complaining like it's just me and simply plug away.

That being said, I choose to not be deterred and look at it with 'the cost is the cost' mentality. I have no interest in full sets, so that helps, I love to play (when time permits...the Backlog Challenge has been a lot of fun!), so that keeps me motivated, and I love the stories and history that come with being a fan of games. I have a LOT of sealed games, but not by design (just haven't gotten to experiencing those adventures yet), so the grading part of the community hasn't really crossed my mind much other than a headline here or there. I'm not so naive as to think it hasn't had a trickle down effect on the market...as someone who only goes CIB, the trickle-down economics affecting that space are real, but I haven't let it dictate what I want to do (although I think a big part of that is that there are far more games behind me than there are ahead).

I think all in all, the only thing that bugs me about the last 3 years is how changes in the landscape have led to people being priced out who want to be in this but can't/won't (financially or on principle) and genuinely care about original, physical media. If I was thinking about starting here and now in 2023 and hadn't already been in it since the 80's, I don't think I could do it...in my mind it would be like standing at the foot of Everest and trying to visualize myself at the peak...that's a lot of work and a looooong road to travel.

Anyway, this is a topic I could go on about for a while, so I'll just leave it at the abridged version  

[Quaze | 345]

I just kinda tried to work around it for the most part. My game-collecting habits and focuses shift with time anyway, and 3 years is a long time in a "collecting life", so I'm sure things would look at least a little bit different in my collection with or without the pandemic.

Most of my game collecting is done through the mail or delivery services in one form or another anyway, so aside from a slight increase in the sheer volume of mail and parcels I was receiving, I wasn't impacted all that much. I still did several FB Marketplace meetups w/masks etc, and went to local game stores when they opened back up, restrictions and precautions abound.

The real shift over the last few years has been in the focus of my collecting. At the start of Covid I was definitely most focused on Switch, Gameboy and GameCube collecting, with a strong emphasis on the Switch. 3 years later, my Gameboy/Gamecube collecting has slowed to a trickle (acquired most of the games I want), my Switch collecting has slowed down significantly and become pretty selective (the shovelware floodgates have really opened), and these days I'm pretty much putting all my collecting funds into signs and displays etc. Since they're so damned expensive, it doesn't leave much room in my collecting budget for anything else lol. 

[Nintegageo | 582]

I was pretty steady going into 2020, but have since slowed with the purchasing. I even sold like 500ish games! Only one retro console at this point that I look into buying games and considering a complete set with it. The CAD sucks so atm not even buying things I'd have considered in the past.

[Code Monkey | 2,014]

I decided to focus my collections and sold almost everything that wasn't NES / 2600 but collecting for those 2 systems specifically hasn't changed at all. If I need it I just get it.

[The Count | 531]

I'm still collecting, but it's so hard for me to find stuff at reasonable prices. I'm winding down on Genesis and I also collect GG CIBs, so that tuff doesn't come up very often as it is. I pick up other games when I see them, but I haven't searched the wild in years.