Chasing Down New Rabbit Holes to Collect

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

My collection consists of games I like or lusted after so idk how it could be a followers collection.

 

I think the OP should be, "do you only collect the dank, nawh?" Bc I can't imagine most people collect games solely based on another person's collection. Seems weird tbh. 

[AirVillain | 490]

17 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

My collection consists of games I like or lusted after so idk how it could be a followers collection.

I think the OP should be, "do you only collect the dank, nawh?" Bc I can't imagine most people collect games solely based on another person's collection. Seems weird tbh. 

This is almost literally my collection. Games I want.... for me.

Yeah.... I sure don't see what others are collecting, then try to get it first. Given the fact that there's a small margin of excellence in these (NES/SNES mostly) games, and I only like a few of the games, collecting based on what others are collecting wouldn't make sense for me. I don't really pay attention much to the subsets or variants, etc. so I can't really comment much on "following the trends", though.

I guess if you were looking to really boost the value of your collection, and wanted to be tracking down all these variants, it would help to be "ahead of the curve" so I guess I can kinda understand what the OP is trying to ask.... albeit somewhat awkwardly.

[DarkKobold | 191]

On 3/7/2024 at 10:30 AM, spacepup said:

I don't really like classifying myself or others as pioneers or followers.  What I can say that is somewhat related I suppose, is that I have a variety of niche interests which have led me to collecting and preserving content that maybe isn't as popular or mainstream.  I have a lot of different interests and I enjoy preserving items that are likely to be lost to time or less documented.  There are benefits in some cases, as often these items aren't ridiculously expensive, compared to super popular NES carts, for example. 

There is absolutely nothing wrong at all with collecting popular stuff or even hopping on bandwagons - really it's whatever makes you happy.  I suppose I do a little of both, but lately a lot of my purchases have been quirky Japanese or international items that most people don't know much about.

However, the thought of calling myself a 'pioneer' feels weird and a bit self-indulgent for me personally, so I can't think of myself that way.  But I would definitely classify myself as having some pretty niche / ecclectic interests at this point.

I pretty much agree with this. I am trying to finish the set of MSX Laserdiscs. I am not "following" anyone, because I don't know anyone who has gone for this set before. However, I highly, highly doubt that I'm the first person ever to say "I should get all these." It's not some novel concept, buying games you want for something you define as a set. Calling it a pioneer feels like self-indulgent tripe. 

Another example: I went for the US SMS + Euro Exclusives SMS set. That's a completely made up concept, where I defined the rules. Did someone else do that before me? Who knows, and who cares? I set out a personal goal, I finished that goal. I don't give a shit if I'm the first or the 50th to do that. 

Even when I started on an NES set, it wasn't because I saw other people doing it... It's because I said "Oh hey, I could like.... own all the NES games." It wasn't a bandwagon, I hadn't seen anyone else do it when I started, it was just me having an idea that hundreds of other people had before me. It doesn't make me a follower, just by 2010 I was late to the party, lol. 

[T-Pac | 7,560]

21 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

I can't imagine most people collect games solely based on another person's collection. Seems weird tbh. 

I imagine most people start out collecting this way, though - since you can't really know what your personal tastes are until you've tested the waters based on others' recommendations to begin with.

At least that's how I began my collection: watching "Top 10" videos on YouTube and picking up the most interesting / highly-regarded titles I saw in them.

[T-Pac]

[T-Pac | 7,560]

I’d say my ROM collection is pretty unique because, due to my views on piracy, every ROM I have was dumped myself from my own copy of the game (excluding digital releases).

Not many people can say that when they’re emulating a game, they’re emulating with the data from their specific cartridge. I would say that makes me more of an “outlier” than a “pioneer”, though - since most people don’t share my opinion on piracy and I don't anticipate much of a "ripping your own games" trend in the future...

[T-Pac]

[GPX | 1,370]

8 hours ago, T-Pac said:

I’d say my ROM collection is pretty unique because, due to my views on piracy, every ROM I have was dumped myself from my own copy of the game (excluding digital releases).

Not many people can say that when they’re emulating a game, they’re emulating with the data from their specific cartridge. I would say that makes me more of an “outlier” than a “pioneer”, though - since most people don’t share my opinion on piracy and I don't anticipate much of a "ripping your own games" trend in the future...

[T-Pac]

A pioneering YouTuber to dump roms from his own physical copies, and to play from said roms! 

You are indeed a pioneer!

[T-Pac | 7,560]

10 hours ago, GPX said:

A pioneering YouTuber to dump roms from his own physical copies, and to play from said roms! 

You are indeed a pioneer!

Oh no! Am I a "YouTuber" now?
Everybody hates those around here - I'm gonna lose all my forum cred!

[T-Pac]

[xelement5x | 66]

On 3/9/2024 at 10:52 AM, The Count said:

 By now, I'm not sure what new paths could even be taken. 

See, this feel like pretty much the case with all game collecting, with the only exception being modern games because well they are new and no one has written about or documented them yet.  That's your only chance to actually be a "pioneer"  in a true sense and contribute new knowledge about game collecting.

Everything else really seems to be pretty well known, maybe not everything, but the odds of finding a system or something from the 90s or further back that no one else has even mentioned on the internet once is pretty small. Oh, and don't fall into the trap of reading something in another language and all of sudden considering it new now that you know it. Someone else has documented it, just because no one took the time to read or translate it to your language doesn't make your own discovery of it somehow groundbreaking.

[Hammerfestus | 3,853]

I definitely wouldn’t ever describe myself as a pioneer but I’m not just following trends and hype trains.  Mostly.
 

 Back when I was first building a loose NES collection I was definitely prone to getting all hyped up on NA threads about whatever was that weeks topic and running out and snagging it.  I also like having the dank games for a system in my collection.  I think it makes a nice base from which to explore further.  

A few years later and I got really heavy into PlayStation collecting.  That collecting definitely had more of a Wild West feel to it than the more mature NES collecting scene.  There was something of a price crash for PSX stuff in… I want to say 2011? And I jumped on in the cheap afterglow of that crash.  While actually collecting it, it was not as well documented as what NA had done for Nintendo stuff so there was a lot more pulling a direction to collect for it out of my butt.  I actually spent a lot of time combing through old digit press stuff to do it.  From time to time I’d sort their rarity chart tool by the different rarities starting at the top and I would check and buy anything that came up cheap/as a good deal.  I wanted them all .  

I remember one day on PlayStationAge some dude showed up who was into those rare Greatest Hits releases (Im thinking Toy Story and Blitz 01 specifically). Spent a good amount of time watching those bad boys on eBay because back then you could still catch people that didn’t realize they were anything special.  

I’m still waiting for the day people come clamoring for my Lightspan stuff.  Any day now.  Any day.  How the hell did I end up collecting these damn things?  It’s not like you ever actually see any of the damn rare older discs.  Like Bigfoot.  The only traces are what you can find on game-rave, some old digitpress threads, and there’s videos of a mentally handicapped guy who apparently has them.  
 

And that’s the closest I’ve ever been to being on the cutting edge.  oh I also bought some ps2 lots before it was cool.

Not exactly Neil Earhart.

[twiztor | 851]

i wouldn't say i'm "creating new rabbit holes" of which to build my collection, but i also concede that nothing that i'm collecting is brand new. Like a few other people have said, i collect what i like. 

For me, it started with series. i grew up owning Mega Man 3 and 6. I rented 2 and 4 regularly. When i started buying games, some of the first games i tracked down were Mega Man 1, 2, 4, and 5. I have a similar story for Adventure Island, and Double Dragon, and Ninja Gaiden. Along the way, i admitted to myself that i was a Nintendo fanboy, so wanted to grab all their first party titles. That took me across a lot more systems (and series). Then i found that i really enjoyed the stuff on the quirkier side of gaming. ROB, with his games and accessories. Virtual Boy (fullset, even later including interesting homebrews). 32x (fullset). Nintendo Power's Canadian cousin, Nintendo Power Flash (i'm not even Canadian! but i knew i had to snatch up all of these issues). the Valiant Nintendo Comic Series line. 

i certainly don't think that i'm a "follower". I've been discovering these games and enjoying the journey along the way. Most of the time, i think i've probably brought my game collecting journey to its completion. But then i find out about another game that i NEED to have (last week, it was the game Ehrgeiz for PS1. a 3d fighting game featuring FF7 characters? Plus a single player adventure quest? How did this not cross my path 20 years ago?!?). So there's always new branches to explore. But if somebody tried to label my as a "follower" because i didn't 'discover an entirely new subset that nobody had considered before', then that person has too much judge-y time on their hands.

[The Count | 527]

I think it'd be neat if someone actually took time (all the time) to fully start documenting old rental labels. That would be a major time sink, but I think everyone would actually appreciate it.

[Hammerfestus | 3,853]

22 minutes ago, The Count said:

I think it'd be neat if someone actually took time (all the time) to fully start documenting old rental labels. That would be a major time sink, but I think everyone would actually appreciate it.

Like old mom & pop rental places?

[Mega Tank | 964]

41 minutes ago, The Count said:

I think it'd be neat if someone actually took time (all the time) to fully start documenting old rental labels. That would be a major time sink, but I think everyone would actually appreciate it.

I think someone had already started one to show off rental labels

[xelement5x | 66]

2 hours ago, The Count said:

I think it'd be neat if someone actually took time (all the time) to fully start documenting old rental labels. That would be a major time sink, but I think everyone would actually appreciate it.

I love this idea.  I've got a number of items with Blockbuster and Hollywood video stuff on them, but finding local stuff from the area I grew up in when I was a kid would be amazing.  Hell I might even pay a premium for them!  My CIB Chrono Trigger is from them when they went out of business.  The box is faded a bit and the manuals are rough, but the memories alone make me cherish it more than if a random sealed graded copy that might come my way.

Edited March 11 by xelement5x

[The Count | 527]

On 3/11/2024 at 3:38 PM, Mega Tank said:

I think someone had already started one to show off rental labels

I believe so as well, though I don't think it got very far, IIRC.

[Chaos Control | 70]

On 3/7/2024 at 9:42 AM, fcgamer said:

This one has always come easy to me, gotta be a pioneer rather than a follower. So many times I spot something and think to myself, "Now that is something worth collecting" whether it be a variant, some kind of hardware revision, an obscure, overlooked console, or even a sticker set of variants. The best part is, generally a few years later I see other people become interested in the things that I initially began chasing down, though by then the supply has dwindled, the prices have gone up, and it has become trendy.

This whole situation had just come to me tonight when I made a purchase for the latest subset of Famicom games that I'm going for. So I wonder, how many of the VGS collectors are pioneers, and how many are just followers? For the pioneers, what sort of things make you chase a set that no one else ever went for or documented?

I'm the pioneer of the CD-i longbox path:

... and what made me do it was the realization that nobody else had done so. I guess everyone else had just assumed that it had been done long ago when it hadn't, and even still other parts of the CD-i library still haven't been documented.