Question for Dads and Moms about gamer rooms

[TDIRunner | 2,744]

4 hours ago, Boosted52405 said:

On the absolute flip side, kids also look up to their parents tremendously.  Let's say a parent has a full NES set and is quite passionate about their collection and gaming - it's inevitable that the children are going to start to pick up on the the obscureness/rarity/value of the items.  Odds are the parent will attempt to get their kids into the hobby too.  Furthermore, odds are they are going to brag to their friends about it.  Yeah you can see where it could quickly become problematic with friends of kids running thru the house.

Here is a mild example:

Son - "Dude, here it is, quick check it out before my Dad gets home."

Friend - "Oh, this is the Stadium Events game you talked about.  Looks soooo boring from the back of the box, why is it worth so much?!?" 

Son - "Idk, let's open it and see what the game looks like...shit the cardboard ripped a little my Dad will kill me!!!!"  ***quickly puts the game back with hopes Dad never finds out***

They should remake The Sandlot, but instead of baseball, all of the kids are playing World Class Track Meet on their NES.  When one of the kids accidentally breaks the game, another kid says he has a copy of the game at his house.  He then goes to take his Dad's Stadium Events and opens it to play it with his friends.  Then they spend the rest of the movie trying to replace the game.  

[AdamW | 713]

20 hours ago, GPX said:

Simple solution:

A. Sell the collection 

or

B. Sell the kids

Wow, jeez, there's no need to be all medieval about it.

Just follow the example of the Victorians, who figured out a much better system. Send the kids to boarding school until they're 18, then send them to university a long way away.

Solves all kinds of problems for you! Might cause one or two for the kids, but what the hey, you'll never see them again, so who cares?!

[Tanooki | 4,940]

Unfortunately I have an unsecured room, but mine isn't even 10 quite yet.  I work from home, and we don't have friends over here really, so it's more a matter of her trying to take without asking which gets consequences.

When she's old enough to have people over, possibly with someone out, we shouldn't be in this house anymore.

Since I've been dumping stuff left and right, keeping what matters, adding only what I care to use/about my plan isn't that big.  I'll just get a room unlike now that's door-less and open, to have one with a door, one where I can pop the handle off and install a lock, but where it locks from the OUTSIDE, to keep out trouble when I'm away.  If I want to be left alone on the inside, I'll add a sliding lock or one of those flip over things like in hotels that allow like 2" of space max and stops on the frame.  I'll also add one of those RING like cameras, have that sucker into the network and tied to my mobile.

I figure if someone breaks in, I got them.  If it's a friend or my kid trying something, then I'll handle them personally, my kid dire consequences, friend, go to the parents and if they don't handle it then the cops.  I don't abide by or tolerate borrowing without permission, even less so of the permanent nature.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

I'd just lock the door when I'm not around. I'm a gentle parent and love and trust my kids, but I'm not interested in showing my collection to the whole neighborhood and I don't care if they think I'm a cool parent.

If they love retro games that much, they can tell me about it and I'll gladly give them a guided tour. I'll also gladly set up an everdrive and an nt Mini and they can go to town.

[aarthurn | 15]

If you have a sizable collection then document it extensively, and discuss with your insurance company.  It is what insurance is for.  If properly insured then you can take reasonable precautions and relax a bit about it.  Good practice anyway as there are also other things that could damage your collection that will be covered as well.

 

Hope you find a solution.

[OptOut | 8,889]

My kids are way more interested in the Switch than any of my old games. I often spend time in the game room with the boys, they are playing their Switch lites while I'm on the N64 or XBOX, and they know which games are theirs and which are mine.

I don't want them unsupervised digging into stuff in my room, but I'm happy to share the spoils with them. If they ever fancy giving the old stuff a go, I'll more than likely set up a spare system downstairs for them to play, in which case they can really just do what they like. At the moment, they seem happy enough with just the Switch and 3DS tho, and I don't really feel much need to push anything else on to em.

The game room is absolutely MY domain tho, and if it ever came to the point that a lock seemed necessary, you can bet your ASS I'd be drilling that sucker on there YESTERDAY!