How many “revisions” have you gone through as a collector?

[GPX | 1,374]

As collectors, we are much more than just “a person who owns a collection”. We adore the inventory in which we possess and often with a painstakingly amount of time and effort put in towards this hobby. Meanwhile, as our collection continues to grow and change, we’re likely to subconsciously change and evolve ourselves as collectors. Putting it into a simple context, who you are as a collector when starting is likely different from who you are as of today. You have gone through “revisions”..

How many cuts and changes have you made in your collecting ethos?

[GPX | 1,374]

I probably need more time to think it through but here’s my brief “personal revisions”:

- I started out collecting for Megadrive games, initially mainly CB/CIB.

- then I branched out into Dreamcast/Saturn/Mega CD, as these were the platforms I had missed out when I got busy with studies. Somewhere along the way, I wanted CIBs only. 

- later focused on NES/SNES/N64, with the aim for full sets CIB, condition standards were roughly 6-9/10. 

- continued collecting for primarily all the above, and during the journey I started aiming for near-mints to mints, including sealed if I could get them on the cheap.

- I joined Sealed Game Heaven in 2015, and my obsession for sealed games blew up. Then those peeps got me interested in graded games and so I’m basically now a CIB-mint/sealed/graded collector through the recent years. 

- my next revision? Stop collecting temporarily and to focus more on the selling of all these damn spares and triples! Sucks to be an upgrade-collector when space runs out!!

[YOURTURN | 1,257]

Let's see...

- I started with Commodore 64 games, as Odyssey2 games were no longer being published.

- Then replaced that with NES games since the home computer limited me to Apple games. I also got into the GB scene during this time, which was fun.

- Then replaced that with Genesis games, which resulted in me trading those in for a used SNES.

- Then I tried to get into PS1 games, which had me trade my first console for a Nintendo 64 and one game.

- Then I returned to the PS1 scene because I could not afford a PS2. This ended because I ended up selling it to buy a scum bag a very nice gift. And that resulted in me buying my PS2 in the end.

- Between my PS2 and PS3 days I tried out the GBA and DS. Both were a mixed bag in the end.

- After I phased out PS2, I tried the PS3 scene. That ended with me reporting them to the ESRB board, and that act had Sony's legal team tell me that they were finally going to investigate the HafuGirl situation others complained about.

- Between my PS3 and PS4 days, I delved into both the PSP scene and Vita scene. But I ended up making the mistake of delving into the toy scene. Which has me wonder if I would have been better off if I didn't.

- Between my PS4 days to my burnout in 2022, I delved into the 3DS scene... Made two attempts to establish a solid Dragon Quest collection... Tried other series... And simply gave up on a lot of franchises.

- Between my return to today... I am solely focusing on physical Japanese Final Fantasy releases on the PS5.

At this point the money I lost during my adult days, more specifically my SSI days, could have been put towards a small apartment in Tokyo. Meaning...

I hope to have no more revisions at this point. 

[goldenpp72 | 1,235]

Interesting question, I'm not sure I'd be able to pinpoint everything specifically, but..

First collector bug happened when I was a child, probably around 8 maybe, I had a real strong desire to collect all the NES Mega Man titles, so I would scan through the Funcoland paper and go to a store called Flipside in Michigan to try and track them all down specifically. I liked a ton of other games but I was adamant to get all of those 6. Eventually I did succeed in doing that, but I wasn't officially a collector since I was a pretty poor kid all said and done. I still took really good care of my games though, even doing some sinful things like cutting up cardboard Genesis boxes later on and putting them in plastic ones (sorry all lol)

From there I'd say funds didn't really allow me to keep much of my stuff, so I did trade things in to get new stuff a lot, but I would always try to hold onto certain vital things, or at least use compilations or even using an emulator if I had to.

The Dreamcast was the first system I really intended to keep everything with no matter what, but money issues struck and I ended up selling a lot of it in its time, but I did hold onto quite a bit and still have it today, so that was in my mid teen era. From there my financial situation got a bit better, not fantastic, but good enough that I could keep hold of a lot of my stuff, so I would just cull things I didn't really care for and buy new things. At this point much of my Gamecube, Dreamcast, Xbox 1 and PS2 collection are originally mine, but I would say almost nothing else prior to that was. I did however purge a good bit from each over time, only to regret that later.

When I met my fiancée in my very early 20s is when I encountered that she had a (at the time seemingly) significant collection of DVD's, and I thought it was really cool to see that she had like 4 or 5 shelves worth of movies, I hadn't ever encountered that much 'stuff' up to that point in someone's place. As we got to know each other I realized she played the 2600 and N64 a lot growing up, but didn't play anything in the middle there as well as missing a lot after, so I started buying up some old vintage games to have her try with me in maybe 2008 or so, and I would say that would mark when I decided I would collect officially. I think Sonic 2 and Kirby Superstar were the first retro boxed titles I purchased at the time, and I just kept on going from there. I would still buy, sell, rebuy, and resell, much to her frustration because I couldn't really pinpoint exactly how I wanted to collect, but eventually I settled at around 1000 games I'd dream to get across all my childhood systems, and that was my long term goal, pretty much all A tier level stuff.

After some years I had achieved getting a pretty substantial amount of stuff, but it wasn't until I ended up doing a work trip to Connecticut that I discovered a chain called Game X Change, and we both kept hitting those stores ritually over months, accruing in itself around 1000 more games across the PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, DS, Wii, and some other ones. This kickstarted a pretty significant problem though because I wanted each of my collections to be consistent and fairly represented to my taste, so it meant not only going back to my old systems, but also investigating on a ton of new systems I hadn't planned on collecting for. Effectively I went from being A tier collector, to digging into the C and even rarely D tier depending on the genre, and yet I found a lot of it fascinating to play or experience still.

It pretty much stayed consistent from there, I found my 'bottom tier' that I'd allow myself to collect, with averages applied to genres I prefer most, etc, and then selected all the consoles I'm willing to collect for, which has now ballooned up to a bit over 10,000 games.

The only other phase I can think of, and funny enough one I'm working through now, is that with the birth of the "Limited Run" sorts of things for modern platforms, I went through a phase for many years to just buy everything those various companies would put out. However, in recent times I started to realize not only is that stressful and expensive, but it defies my curated standard as well. I just culled about 50 titles from my Switch library that I am certain I will never buy again, and I will also apply that rationality to all future 'FOMO' style companies, only buy what I think is interesting. I think I need to go through my PS4 stuff a bit as well, but once I do, I'll feel content that my collecting logic is truly consistent and worked out.. 15 years later almost.

Like all collectors, it's a mixture of things I want to play, things that are interesting in some way, rarity, whatever, all with different curves applied, but still truly curated to my sensibilities, so I'm very happy to really 'get' myself in this way, even if it took over a decade to get there.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 19, 2023 by goldenpp72

[GPX | 1,374]

3 hours ago, goldenpp72 said:

Interesting question, I'm not sure I'd be able to pinpoint everything specifically, but..

First collector bug happened when I was a child, probably around 8 maybe, I had a real strong desire to collect all the NES Mega Man titles, so I would scan through the Funcoland paper and go to a store called Flipside in Michigan to try and track them all down specifically. I liked a ton of other games but I was adamant to get all of those 6. Eventually I did succeed in doing that, but I wasn't officially a collector since I was a pretty poor kid all said and done. I still took really good care of my games though, even doing some sinful things like cutting up cardboard Genesis boxes later on and putting them in plastic ones (sorry all lol)

From there I'd say funds didn't really allow me to keep much of my stuff, so I did trade things in to get new stuff a lot, but I would always try to hold onto certain vital things, or at least use compilations or even using an emulator if I had to.

The Dreamcast was the first system I really intended to keep everything with no matter what, but money issues struck and I ended up selling a lot of it in its time, but I did hold onto quite a bit and still have it today, so that was in my mid teen era. From there my financial situation got a bit better, not fantastic, but good enough that I could keep hold of a lot of my stuff, so I would just cull things I didn't really care for and buy new things. At this point much of my Gamecube, Dreamcast, Xbox 1 and PS2 collection are originally mine, but I would say almost nothing else prior to that was. I did however purge a good bit from each over time, only to regret that later.

When I met my fiancée in my very early 20s is when I encountered that she had a (at the time seemingly) significant collection of DVD's, and I thought it was really cool to see that she had like 4 or 5 shelves worth of movies, I hadn't ever encountered that much 'stuff' up to that point in someone's place. As we got to know each other I realized she played the 2600 and N64 a lot growing up, but didn't play anything in the middle there as well as missing a lot after, so I started buying up some old vintage games to have her try with me in maybe 2008 or so, and I would say that would mark when I decided I would collect officially. I think Sonic 2 and Kirby Superstar were the first retro boxed titles I purchased at the time, and I just kept on going from there. I would still buy, sell, rebuy, and resell, much to her frustration because I couldn't really pinpoint exactly how I wanted to collect, but eventually I settled at around 1000 games I'd dream to get across all my childhood systems, and that was my long term goal, pretty much all A tier level stuff.

After some years I had achieved getting a pretty substantial amount of stuff, but it wasn't until I ended up doing a work trip to Connecticut that I discovered a chain called Game X Change, and we both kept hitting those stores ritually over months, accruing in itself around 1000 more games across the PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, DS, Wii, and some other ones. This kickstarted a pretty significant problem though because I wanted each of my collections to be consistent and fairly represented to my taste, so it meant not only going back to my old systems, but also investigating on a ton of new systems I hadn't planned on collecting for. Effectively I went from being A tier collector, to digging into the C and even rarely D tier depending on the genre, and yet I found a lot of it fascinating to play or experience still.

It pretty much stayed consistent from there, I found my 'bottom tier' that I'd allow myself to collect, with averages applied to genres I prefer most, etc, and then selected all the consoles I'm willing to collect for, which has now ballooned up to a bit over 10,000 games.

The only other phase I can think of, and funny enough one I'm working through now, is that with the birth of the "Limited Run" sorts of things for modern platforms, I went through a phase for many years to just buy everything those various companies would put out. However, in recent times I started to realize not only is that stressful and expensive, but it defies my curated standard as well. I just culled about 50 titles from my Switch library that I am certain I will never buy again, and I will also apply that rationality to all future 'FOMO' style companies, only buy what I think is interesting. I think I need to go through my PS4 stuff a bit as well, but once I do, I'll feel content that my collecting logic is truly consistent and worked out.. 15 years later almost.

Like all collectors, it's a mixture of things I want to play, things that are interesting in some way, rarity, whatever, all with different curves applied, but still truly curated to my sensibilities, so I'm very happy to really 'get' myself in this way, even if it took over a decade to get there.

 

 

 

 

I can only imagine how many revisions you would have made in your collecting goals. I mean, 10,000+ is a friggin’ lot of stuff!

[nrslam | 477]

I started in the early 90's focusing on carts for old computers (C64,VIC20, Atari 800/XL/XE, TI99, and CoCo). This was mainly because I had started with a C64 and was always curious about the path(s) not taken with the other machines, and stuff was easily found. I generally skipped disk/tape stuff as I lacked the appropriate drives and was mistrustful of old magnetic media.

Pivot 1 occured in the mid 90's as I expanded to game consoles, mainly focusing on pre-NES stuff.

Pivot 2, late 90s, I'd become obsessed with thrifts and garage sales and started just buying anything that seemed like a deal. Several times I came home with loads of stuff I didn't even recognize.  Got lots of crap, and most of my best finds, in this period. It was also a prime time for trading.

Pivot 3, early to mid 2000's, the rise of ebay corresponded with supplies drying up and increased competition for what was out there. I tried my hand at both buying and selling online but generally didn't care much for it.

Pivot 4, around 2010. ebay had started down the we-hate-our-sellers path so I stopped using them. Now back to being a local-finds-only collector my acquisitions really slowed. On the plus side, I now had more time to play 20 years worth of pickups.

Pivot 5, 2020, moved to the country. Hardly ever find anything now. Even more time to play.

[Hammerfestus | 3,884]

Actual grown up collecting started sometime in…2011 I think it was.

My collection started as my childhood games (particularly my NES games that survived being traded in for SNES stuff and stuff I‘d acquired randomly from Record Exchange in college) and  a big box of games my SO was gifted years prior.  After we bought a house I decided to go through and see if anything was worth anything.  I ended up on NA.   “Huh, Little Samson?  Never heard of it.  Let’s see, it’s worth…OH SHIT!”

DINK Era

Phase 1 - Buying volume NES loose carts. Anything.  Just getting my feet wet so I avoided pricy stuff.  No concern for condition at all.  Naïve.

Phase 2 - PSX collector.  A year or so later I pivoted to collecting PlayStation games.  Prices on PSX games had crashed prior to my pivot which was awesome.  I bought a lot and I had full set dreams for a while.  I definitely felt at the time like I was getting carried away with my purchases.  In retrospect I did not get carried away enough lol.  Over time price-rise outpaced my collecting and I moved on.  
 

Phase 3 - Filling in the gaps/collecting must haves.  This was kind of a poorly defined transition phase.  I collected a lot for all the other systems I hadn’t been collecting for.  Focused on getting what I arbitrarily deemed must haves for other systems.  I also began collecting CIB copies of NES games I had in my childhood collection.  This was the first NES stuff I had bought on years.

Pandemic Powered and Poor

Phase 4 - Pandemic, price rise and a second child.  Second kid was born at the beginning of 2020.  Began selling some of the PlayStation stuff and buying more boxed NES.  By winter I had left my job to stay home with the kids and my collecting became mostly funded by my collection itself.  
Trend continued with my highest collecting activity happening in the summers.  Summer of 2022 I even started to pare down my boxed NES collection.  Tried to do as much selling on VGS as I could.  EBay was really getting irritating.  I prefer my shit go to someone from the community anyways.  Rather that than make a few extra $$ and have to deal with the bullshit.  Someone special here basically single handedly funded that summer’s collecting .  Did I use the money for responsible stuff?  Hell no.  I started playing fast and loose with how much I was willing to pay to have boxed copies of certain games in my collection.  I also became pretty adept at catching deals to try and help me get where I was going.  Frankensteining those loose NES games from phase 1 turned out to be nice. 
 

Phase 5 - Semi-Retirement.  I made most of the easy decisions in regards to selling off the fluff of my collection.  We‘ll see come this summer if I decide to start playing the game again.  
 

That my friends is probably my all time longest VGS post.  Sorry.

[a3quit4s | 4,126]

Rev 1 - I buy everything

Rev 2 - I buy everything except pre-NES, not that I’m a hater just had no interest. Sold off the stuff I had collected

Rev 3 - I focus on full sets; N64, NES, SNES

Rev 4 (current) - I buy what makes me happy instead of just gobbling up everything

Somewhere between rev 2 and 3 I stopped going to yard sales. Just so many resellers around it killed it for me. Bought a lot at local game stores even since I’ve moved back to NY but my main way to get games has mostly always been ebay. Great place to buy, not so great to sell lol  

 

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

I've been an "everything" collector the entire time I've collected.  The most I've done was cut boxes and manuals out for some systems as they got prohibitively expensive, but otherwise nothing has really changed.  I still collect for whatever i can get my hands on.  There's just less chance of me finding anything I still need after 25+ years.

[final fight cd | 187]

• got into collecting: influenced by youtubers like pat the nes punk
• wanted to buy EVERYTHING video game related so I could be like pat the nes punk.  Having video games consume your house looked so cool
• realized having a house consumed by video games isn't cool (not that I ever got close to that point). Questioned if pat the nes punk had hoarding tendencies
• switched my collection to be more focused pretty early on

[the_wizard_666 | 1,325]

8 minutes ago, final fight cd said:

• got into collecting: influenced by youtubers like pat the nes punk
• wanted to buy EVERYTHING video game related so I could be like pat the nes punk.  Having video games consume your house looked so cool
• realized having a house consumed by video games isn't cool (not that I ever got close to that point). Questioned if pat the nes punk had hoarding tendencies
• switched my collection to be more focused pretty early on

The difference between collecting and hoarding is care.  If you keep the stuff in a way that shows you give a shit, you collect.  If your collection consists of 30 year old newspapers and year old pizza, you're probably a hoarder.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

7 minutes ago, the_wizard_666 said:

The difference between collecting and hoarding is care.  If you keep the stuff in a way that shows you give a shit, you collect.  If your collection consists of 30 year old newspapers and year old pizza, you're probably a hoarder.

It should be noted that there are different ways of keeping stuff that shows you give a shit.  I've never had the space to properly display any of the stuff I've collected since I moved out of my parents' house, so it's all been in various tubs/bins and boxes most of the time, save when it's brought out to be enjoyed (or inventoried).  I don't have them in any special place, and some bits that have been used more than the rest have ended up in separate containers being stored in a different place, but they are all kept safe, clean, etc.  If I died tomorrow, someone pulling out boxes of my stuff might immediately jump to the conclusion "hoarder" since I don't have everything nicely displayed on a shelf, or some sort of dedicated case, even though I know what I have, where it is, etc.  Don't forget that those outside of the hobby, including mental health experts, have drawn similarities between collecting and hoarding, and not all of them can tell the difference.

[goldenpp72 | 1,235]

13 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

It should be noted that there are different ways of keeping stuff that shows you give a shit.  I've never had the space to properly display any of the stuff I've collected since I moved out of my parents' house, so it's all been in various tubs/bins and boxes most of the time, save when it's brought out to be enjoyed (or inventoried).  I don't have them in any special place, and some bits that have been used more than the rest have ended up in separate containers being stored in a different place, but they are all kept safe, clean, etc.  If I died tomorrow, someone pulling out boxes of my stuff might immediately jump to the conclusion "hoarder" since I don't have everything nicely displayed on a shelf, or some sort of dedicated case, even though I know what I have, where it is, etc.  Don't forget that those outside of the hobby, including mental health experts, have drawn similarities between collecting and hoarding, and not all of them can tell the difference.

Sure, but you can usually tell when someone is displaying care despite the method of storage or display. When people showcase their setups and it's just a bunch of shit all over the floor with wires everywhere next to a box of tissue, it's like, well alright. Space limitations can still be handled with care as you said of course, I had to do that for about 6 years so I couldn't even use my stuff, but I did have a long term plan. If anything it taught me how to move my stuff as well, since I've had to move it 4 times in my life up to this point. I can't tell you the amount of times I've seen people storing boxed games on shelves or in boxes in a way that is getting them crushed/damaged, real shame.

Edited February 19, 2023 by goldenpp72

[Tanooki | 4,952]

Too many to count with focus, change, direction.

Before the great losses I had in 05, I went from first ownership into buying used locally largely and early pre-national ebay even(my account is over 25 years old now there.)  When N64 got hobbled by propaganda and costs, the first change was multi-hardware support with a Duo, got a second hand game gear, and then helping a long ago aussie gf who was a sega goddess of sorts netted me a Genesis3 and a box of complete games along with me getting Nomad about the same time.  Later came a SMS, the only NEW sega ever was Dreamcast.  Working at Midway I branched into Sony, got the psone+lcd and a ps2 too, then since MVS/AES still blew price wise as NGPC too.

80%+ of that was gone come 2005.  I kept just Nintendo systems, skimmed it to top 20 on this, top 40 on that.  It was demoralizing and the largest shift.  When I could afford to slowly rebuild a year or two later, I couldn't stomach going for it all again even if prices still were correct in that era for old goods.  I was fine owning second hand hardware and games, but also was fine not sticking to the never sell, never trade...I'd net what I could.  When the shit hit the fan starting in 2012 on the NES+TG I rode the wave staying ahead of the corruption.  I'd snag whatever I could cheap, then turned it to the next keeping what mattered.

The toxicity of it all got to me, a re-run of a horrible childhood memory of a small allowance going to games, comics, baseball cards and grown man-babies buying up all the comics and cards in town(this is 1991-92 pre-internet) before I could get off school and pricing me out.  Now it hit the third thing, the games a lifetime hobby, and I didn't take it well for years.  I'd say I'm still a bit in recovery, probably always will, so much fun was sucked out of the room with the skullduggery and d-bag antics it made me go down to playing maybe once a week or two on things because it reminded me what was robbed away.  I still have hard days where I can't motivate myself to use games even if I want to, can't pull the trigger.

 

Given how the virus sent the a-holes into overdrive, and with the tax changes on strict reporting now for a middle class crushing low level I re-directed again, and this one, now the one I stick to I like and works for me.  I knew if I didn't do down this route it would be back to that dark place again.

Buy on ebay only if it can't be obtained locally ever (like imports or some systems just not in the area.)  Buy local, buy only if I want to actually use it and can justify it. Do *NOT* pay the online price on anything around $20 or over because at a certain point whining about $2 isn't worth it.  The benefit?  Far less in, far less going out, and due to this, more time like a kid on a budget to focus on the games to actually use and enjoy and not run onto the next a day or two later.

I'm not doing catch-all anymore.  Nintendo and Sega (GG+Genesis) only, no exceptions, less is more.

Edited February 19, 2023 by Tanooki

[DefaultGen | 5,434]

Same general path as many I think:

1. Bought everything. Garage sales, flea markets, etc. Would come back with a huge haul every time because there were so many checkboxes to fill. Back then owning everything felt almost possible, because the groups I hung out with really only cared about Atari through SNES.
2. Focused on sets, largely loose sets for affordability
3. Became much more condition sensitive and only wanted good stuff and the best version.
4. Now I only buy specific games I want and really don't care about the chaff. I have all the random cool stuff I could ever want, so a random rarity or variant is cool, but I don't need to own them all.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,586]

Revision #1: I need all of the good games for every system.

Revision #2: Well, I guess I don't need all of my old systems and games.

Revision #3: Wait, I DO need all of the old systems and games.

Revision #4:. Why the fuck do I own Nancy Drew for DS?

[Reed Rothchild | 9,586]

On 2/18/2023 at 10:46 PM, FenrirZero said:

Let's see...

- I started with Commodore 64 games, as Odyssey2 games were no longer being published.

- Then replaced that with NES games since the home computer limited me to Apple games. I also got into the GB scene during this time, which was fun.

- Then replaced that with Genesis games, which resulted in me trading those in for a used SNES.

- Then I tried to get into PS1 games, which had me trade my first console for a Nintendo 64 and one game.

- Then I returned to the PS1 scene because I could not afford a PS2. This ended because I ended up selling it to buy a scum bag a very nice gift. And that resulted in me buying my PS2 in the end.

- Between my PS2 and PS3 days I tried out the GBA and DS. Both were a mixed bag in the end.

- After I phased out PS2, I tried the PS3 scene. That ended with me reporting them to the ESRB board, and that act had Sony's legal team tell me that they were finally going to investigate the HafuGirl situation others complained about.

- Between my PS3 and PS4 days, I delved into both the PSP scene and Vita scene. But I ended up making the mistake of delving into the toy scene. Which has me wonder if I would have been better off if I didn't.

- Between my PS4 days to my burnout in 2022, I delved into the 3DS scene... Made two attempts to establish a solid Dragon Quest collection... Tried other series... And simply gave up on a lot of franchises.

- Between my return to today... I am solely focusing on physical Japanese Final Fantasy releases on the PS5.

At this point the money I lost during my adult days, more specifically my SSI days, could have been put towards a small apartment in Tokyo. Meaning...

I hope to have no more revisions at this point. 

Dude... may as well get a jump start on your next revision: burn it all down and focus exclusively on Estonian GBA games.

[portabello | 99]

2010 - Was hit by a huge nostalgia bug after finding Sonic 2 CIB for $2.99.

2011-2012 - Bought everything I used to play as a kid… mostly NES, SNES, Genesis, etc. lots of carts, some CIBs

2013 - Branched out hard in NES home brews, carts, consoles, CIBs, etc.

2014 - My “peak” in collecting… most items in total I have ever owned. Hunting often, doing trades, meeting folks. 

2015 - got into everdrives and modded consoles. I stopped buying physical games for the most part.

2016 - sold off most of my collection and only kept the favorites.

2017-2021 - went dark, played what I had and was content. Re-purchased items I had sellers remorse over.

2022-2023 - slowly curating a modest collection for the long haul.

…while I feel like a true collector at heart, I can fully acknowledge that my path was very much a “bandwagon” one. Hey, I’m happy with the jewels I collected along the way. These past 10+ have been fun