Does anyone go for full sets anymore?

[Fleck586 | 300]

I'm still grinding away at the SNES. Still have a few big hitters, but I'm down to mostly <$50 games left. All great except there's 200 of them left. Lol! I'd still like to complete a few other sets like Virtual Boy, ColecoVision, Fairchild Channel F, and maybe a couple others. It's a very slow grind for me. I mostly buy Switch games these days and I'm creeping up on 1,000 titles, but I don't know if I will ever complete that set without getting a divorce. Lol!

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

3 hours ago, Bonanza125 said:

Based on the people I have been talking to and just looking at my personal numbers there really isn't anybody looking to complete a full set anymore. With every year that goes by less people are into physical copies. The newer stuff and retro stuff have both taken a hit. The people who want stuff just want a few games and with everything digital it's much easier for people just to purchase that stuff direct. Back in the NA days I would get tons of response from people who want to start a collection. Now just individual games here and there.  When you ask "am I the only guy here who just wants to have a giagantic library of physical games to pull off the shelf and play?" That really varies from person to person but I can imagine that a lot of stuff in collections just sit until a person decides they want to cash out and get rid of stuff. I've seen a lot of that going on. More people looking to sell collections than buy them.

I’d like to believe the last part. But if there was more selling then buying happening I imagine the prices would dip a lot more than they have and a lot faster then they are.

[goldenpp72 | 1,234]

This is something I never really partook in, but I did end up doing a few that were small. It always just seemed kind of tough to have so much shit in your library, but if you only really love one or two systems, I kinda get it.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

A lot of people mention all the “crap” games you end up with. But here’s how I look at it:

A console is a story and that story has books and chapters, the games. If your really into Harry Potter your not going to just skip, or rip out, chapter 6 of book 5 because that chapter sucks do you? No of course not because it’s a piece of the whole story. 

That’s why like going for full sets. I want the whole story

[G-type | 2,481]

7 minutes ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

A lot of people mention all the “crap” games you end up with. But here’s how I look at it:

A console is a story and that story has books and chapters, the games. If your really into Harry Potter your not going to just skip, or rip out, chapter 6 of book 5 because that chapter sucks do you? No of course not because it’s a piece of the whole story. 

That’s why like going for full sets. I want the whole story

I don't think its comparable because its not a story and you aren't missing anything by skipping crap games other than not being able to say "you got every game". It's not even like missing a piece of a jigsaw puzzle because the only one who would know a game is missing is you. Some people just have an urge to 100% things and that's fine.

[Brickman | 3,985]

1 hour ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

A lot of people mention all the “crap” games you end up with. But here’s how I look at it:

A console is a story and that story has books and chapters, the games. If your really into Harry Potter your not going to just skip, or rip out, chapter 6 of book 5 because that chapter sucks do you? No of course not because it’s a piece of the whole story. 

That’s why like going for full sets. I want the whole story

For me it’s the unknown. How do I know a game is rubbish until I play it? Watching a video or reading a review only gives me their opinion.

I’m also way less picky in gaming and enjoy sports titles, fighting games and racing games.

I get why people like to curate but if I did that I would be forever wondering if I missed a good game because someone else said it was awful or I unfairly judged it by the cover/a video.

Plus there’s just something so satisfying about looking at the whole library together.

[goldenpp72 | 1,234]

3 hours ago, LeatherRebel5150 said:

A lot of people mention all the “crap” games you end up with. But here’s how I look at it:

A console is a story and that story has books and chapters, the games. If your really into Harry Potter your not going to just skip, or rip out, chapter 6 of book 5 because that chapter sucks do you? No of course not because it’s a piece of the whole story. 

That’s why like going for full sets. I want the whole story

 

I mean, sure, but this is also not how most people experience a medium, like having to go buy Spy Kids because you enjoyed The Matrix on DVD doesn't really make a lot of sense. In the case of collecting, most people collect based on personal experience or interest first and foremost. As such the 'story' of the console is usually not littered with bad religious games, Barbie games, and various other bad games. These games largely sold badly because no one cared, and weren't even cliffnotes in the broad scheme of things at the time.

When looking at a shelf of games, it can mean many things, and the intent of the collector matters to the context of the set. A fullset can either be cool because you just adore that system and wanted it all, or it can express you have no focus or specific taste to identify against what you buy. Since I like curated sets, I often times get people looking and going, but you don't have THIS? That is correct, I don't because I don't want it, and it is meant to represent my own taste.

One of my favorite elements of my collection is when people who are savvy to a specific console comb through it and come to the realization that based on their most known console, the set they see is very dense with quality and hidden gems, and when they realize that mantra was applied to everything they usually get pretty excited, but if it was a bunch of "I bought everything idk whatever" then it doesn't say much in my mind.

You often see people who 'collect' and by collect I mean they just buy whatever and throw it into corners and have no regard for placement, effectively they are just addicted to hording and half the time don't even care about the item they just decided to horde. On the other hand, people who collect fullsets can also be extremely knowledgable about the system to the point they are experts, and to that end I find their method very fascinating, showing a true expertise on something they love, which is very admirable.

Context is king as always, there aren't a lot of wrong ways to collect, but there are some questionable ways, but the beauty of the hobby when it comes to dealing with other collectors is to learn about what drives them, and I say if it's coming from a good place then that's great even if it's not my way. Of course, most of us are limited by financial constraints, and that in itself is a big moderator. Even if I wanted to go for some fullsets, it would be at the sacrifice of things I wanted more.

[goldenpp72 | 1,234]

1 hour ago, Brickman said:

For me it’s the unknown. How do I know a game is rubbish until I play it? Watching a video or reading a review only gives me their opinion.

I’m also way less picky in gaming and enjoy sports titles, fighting games and racing games.

I get why people like to curate but if I did that I would be forever wondering if I missed a good game because someone else said it was awful or I unfairly judged it by the cover/a video.

Plus there’s just something so satisfying about looking at the whole library together.

I would say if you can watch a video and not be pretty sure it's not for you, then you haven't really defined your taste for yourself that much. Obviously you can't tell how a game feels without playing it, but you can usually knock out games just based on other qualities. Like I know games like Captain America on the GB aren't going to be good by just watching it, but I'll still often try just in case. For the other uncertain ones, that's what emulators work for I remember years ago just sitting down with an everdrive for the GBA and loading it up with a bunch of 'maybe' games and playing a game of collector survivor with it. I would say maybe 1/3 of them ended up being bought, but the rest, eh. 

This works against me sometimes too, when it comes to extremely expensive games I am actually hoping they will be garbage, so when I try them and determine I actually enjoy them I start getting upset at what's about to happen to my savings.

That being said, I suppose my range of knowledge is most robust when it comes to quality releases, including many obscure games, which is why I got in on a ton of great games when they were cheap well before they blew up in value, but when it comes to other areas, other people grossly outstrip my knowledge base, we all just do it a bit differently. Even if my sets are mostly curated, I still end up between 1/3 to 1/2 of a systems library often times since I do have very broad taste as well, the only really good games I tend to ignore would be sports games simply because I don't care about them.

Edited January 3 by goldenpp72

[elprincipe | 142]

I do enjoy full-set collecting on occasion, for my very favorite systems. I just completed my U.S. GameCube set in November, a journey that began in October 2001 when I got the system on release with Luigi's Mansion, Rogue Squadron II (still one of my favorite GameCube games), and Super Monkey Ball - I think I chose pretty well among the launch games! It was fun to collect it and to finish it.

However, if I had to do it over again there's no way I would have collected that set. Now the games are insanely expensive. Gone are the days when you could get 20 GameCube games for $30-40 from someone selling them off to fund their Xbox 360 purchase or something. It's kind of discouraging to think that era is over since it was a lot of fun.

At this point I've completed the sets I want to complete, except perhaps one where i need about 40 more games for the set that I may pursue, and also some variants/imports/etc. I'm interested in for GameCube and other systems. I can't imagine collecting for modern systems with all the download-code-in-a-box, digital-only, or useless-without-a-10GB-download games, plus the proliferation of re-releases ("Complete Edition," etc.) and so-called collector's editions.

[Link | 2,710]

6 hours ago, Brickman said:

How do I know a game is rubbish until I play it? Watching a video or reading a review only gives me their opinion.

I usually just watch gameplay videos. I can skip around and decide for myself if it looks fun, rather than sitting through somebody's whole 10+ minute review structured into paragraphs. 

[Brickman | 3,985]

1 hour ago, Link said:

I usually just watch gameplay videos. I can skip around and decide for myself if it looks fun, rather than sitting through somebody's whole 10+ minute review structured into paragraphs. 

Videos usually aren’t enough for me. I like to play the game to get a real sense of it. Also having a huge library of a system is interesting to me. The bad games have a place as much as the classics in the library.

I tend to do the same with movies and book collecting. I mainly focus on collecting Criterion movies and books from certain publishers or lines like NYRB and Penguin Classics. 

[Tulpa | 3,494]

8 minutes ago, Brickman said:

Videos usually aren’t enough for me. I like to play the game to get a real sense of it. Also having a huge library of a system is interesting to me. The bad games have a place as much as the classics in the library.

I tend to do the same with movies and book collecting. I mainly focus on collecting Criterion movies and books from certain publishers or lines like NYRB and Penguin Classics. 

Yeah, but it becomes a question of priorities. Do you want to actually devote the shelf space to the dreck? Especially if there's a lot of it?

Some do, some don't. For those that don't, just because they don't collect those games doesn't mean it magically disappears from the library. I can know The Last Starfighter exists as an NES game without that turd sitting on my shelf. And yes, I have played it (on an Everdrive, I don't need the piece of shit on a real cartridge to get a sense of it.) That's time in my life I'll never get back.

Edited January 4 by Tulpa

[goldenpp72 | 1,234]

6 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

Yeah, but it becomes a question of priorities. Do you want to actually devote the shelf space to the dreck? Especially if there's a lot of it?

Some do, some don't. For those that don't, just because they don't collect those games doesn't mean it magically disappears from the library. I can know The Last Starfighter exists as an NES game without that turd sitting on my shelf. And yes, I have played it. That's time in my life I'll never get back. 

Imagine going for a full DS or Wii set. As great as they both are, they are filled to the brim with horrible trash as well, you have to dig through tons of crap to find the real stuff, even if both have great libraries the ratios are just too aggressive. 

[Link | 2,710]

1 minute ago, Brickman said:

I like to play the game to get a real sense of it.

That totally makes sense. But I feel like I can filter out a lot of stuff that I wouldn't like by looking at a certain game before getting to the point of acquiring it.

4 minutes ago, Brickman said:

Also having a huge library of a system is interesting to me. The bad games have a place as much as the classics in the library.

I really get this too. When I first got into emulating on a console, a friend gave me a disc with about 1700 NES and Famicom titles. I tested that out for a few years, narrowing down  what I wanted to keep. That didn't include Japanese text-heavy games, but I did hang onto ones I didn't like yet still wanted to have on hand because they were popular or significant,  games that I thought were interesting, groundbreaking or unusual for their time, or weird yet compelling in some way.

[Brickman | 3,985]

27 minutes ago, Tulpa said:

Yeah, but it becomes a question of priorities. Do you want to actually devote the shelf space to the dreck? Especially if there's a lot of it?

Some do, some don't. For those that don't, just because they don't collect those games doesn't mean it magically disappears from the library. I can know The Last Starfighter exists as an NES game without that turd sitting on my shelf. And yes, I have played it (on an Everdrive, I don't need the piece of shit on a real cartridge to get a sense of it.) That's time in my life I'll never get back.

Yeah I don’t mind if the dreck is there, it completes the set. I do steer away from libraries like the Wii and DS though. They’re a bit too big for the space I have.

I don’t mind that people curate their systems. I’ll might do that for the Switch. Us full set collectors are well aware we are insane and have a sickness 

[GPX | 1,369]

I’d argue that full set collecting is more a collector mindset. There will be some “fillers” which just by looking or playing it for a quick few seconds you know you’ll spend a painful, torturous time if you’ll keep proceeding. Then there will be some that you’ll know will be bettered by superior games within the same genre on the same platform. With some games having obvious inferior graphics, sounds, game mechanics and poor hit detection, what incentives would make you want to play out more than stage 1? 

I can understand trying out a game out of curiosity might be a goal for some. But trying it and actually spending time playing it, is not quite the same motives.

[O.G. CIB | 415]

6 hours ago, goldenpp72 said:

Imagine going for a full DS or Wii set. As great as they both are, they are filled to the brim with horrible trash as well, you have to dig through tons of crap to find the real stuff, even if both have great libraries the ratios are just too aggressive. 

You have over 6,000 games if I recall correctly, do you actually think you will get to play them all? Not a chance and the same applies for the trash on DS and Wii. When you have reached the stage you decide to full set collect for multiple systems your goals are different along with the expectations that every game you’ll have a chance to play. Set collecting is for fun like anything else. Sometimes the beauty is assembling the trash nobody else wants.

Edited January 4 by O.G. CIB

[Estil | 1,264]

16 minutes ago, O.G. CIB said:

You have over 6,000 games if I recall correctly, do you actually think you will get to play them all? Not a chance and the same applies for the trash on DS and Wii. When you have reached the stage you decide to full set collect for multiple systems your goals are different along with the expectations that every game you’ll have a chance to play. Set collecting is for fun like anything else. Sometimes the beauty is assembling the trash nobody else wants.

Games on the DS and Wii are not trash.  Zack Morris is trash.  NO FEAR.

[Kguillemette | 1,544]

I tried the full set route for GameCube. It was fun to hunt for the especially rare titles, but my gaming budget has me changing my collecting priorities to games I would actually play.

[T-Pac | 7,544]

Full set collecting isn't for me, but I definitely see the appeal of it.

Like @GPX said - it might not make sense from a "player" perspective, but it's a really cool achievement for someone who likes video games as display pieces and historical curiosities.

I was once considering going for one or two Atari 2600 publisher sets (like Imagic and 20th Century Fox), but I've since buckled-down on "curating" my collection - which doesn't leave room for filler or superfluous stuff like that.

[T-Pac] 

[goldenpp72 | 1,234]

8 hours ago, O.G. CIB said:

You have over 6,000 games if I recall correctly, do you actually think you will get to play them all? Not a chance and the same applies for the trash on DS and Wii. When you have reached the stage you decide to full set collect for multiple systems your goals are different along with the expectations that every game you’ll have a chance to play. Set collecting is for fun like anything else. Sometimes the beauty is assembling the trash nobody else wants.

I have a bit over 10,000, and of course I'll never get to play through them all, but as a selection of games you can rest assured most of them are good to great games.  When looking through my shelves I'm not greeted with Imagine Babies and what have you by the thousands, and that matters too.

Edited January 4 by goldenpp72

[Reed Rothchild | 9,526]

8 hours ago, Estil said:

Games on the DS and Wii are not trash.  Zack Morris is trash.  NO FEAR.

Have you looked at those libraries as a whole? 

[O.G. CIB | 415]

21 minutes ago, goldenpp72 said:

I have a bit over 10,000, and of course I'll never get to play through them all, but as a selection of games you can rest assured most of them are good to great games.  When looking through my shelves I'm not greeted with Imagine Babies and what have you by the thousands, and that matters too.

Proves my point

[Tulpa | 3,494]

15 hours ago, Brickman said:

Yeah I don’t mind if the dreck is there, it completes the set. I do steer away from libraries like the Wii and DS though. They’re a bit too big for the space I have.

I don’t mind that people curate their systems. I’ll might do that for the Switch. Us full set collectors are well aware we are insane and have a sickness 

I'll admit that some systems have endearing dreck, but others just have a shitton of shovelware. I mean, the Wii was notorious for recycled games and questionable licenses.

In any case, I'll still never tolerate The Last Starfighter anywhere near me by at least a ten mile radius.  

[Tulpa | 3,494]

26 minutes ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Have you looked at those libraries as a whole? 

I imagine Estil has both Anubis II and Ninjabread Man, not to mention all the fucking DS horse games.