goldenpp72

On 2/18/2023 at 12:05 PM, TrekMD said:

My arrivals over this past week...

 

Don't think I've run into a rotary controller for the Jaguar, what's the story with it if you don't mind me asking?

1 hour ago, greenthunder said:

I think the r/NSCollectors spreadsheet might be helpful?

I'm not entirely sure the best way to interpret this, so I looked up RPG Maker and it says LE available, does that mean a normal would exist?

Hey all, figured I'd maybe tap on some of the knowledge here. I am currently going through a project to sell off my big box Switch games, but I don't want to sell off any that did not have a normal box release (so something like Toki as example). Is there some kind of database I can find to verify what games had a normal standard retail release against their big box stuff? The primary issue I'm running into is the NIS USA releases since I can't find legacy entries on their site, but I assume most of them have one.

I'd say this would be incredibly unlikely, at the time of Goldeneye releasing it wasn't really known that it would become this cultural icon. It was made by some scrappy rookies at Rare where I think it used to be some kind of on rails shooter converted, with a slapped on last minute multiplayer mode. Nothing about its development or the fact it was a licensed game catered to the idea that Nintendo would release anything special about it. It became a huge hit over time, but it isn't like Zelda which would be a known thing before release.

Just my 2 cents of course.

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.

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.

5 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

The collection is looking pretty damn complete! Nice pics!

It's getting there, I'm not confident I'll finish this year but I am more confident than I would have been last year. I do have a lead on 2 of the games I'm missing but I never like to get too excited. It will be very strange to only focus on newer releases even if they are still abundant, the cost and difficulty is just a different level lol. 

Not really a typical sort of thing to post here so not sure if it would be appreciated. While I've been filling gaps in my collection, I've always had one hole in the area decor wise, in that the clock itself was never game related at all.. So I picked up a stupid smart clock that I'd not suggest to almost anyone aside dumb people who are suckers for a theme like me  It was kind of a pain to setup, but I like it a lot more and the coloring/brightness allows my aging eyes to see it from afar still, so that's cool. I'm selecting these manually so it scrambles each time but the auto transition is smoother, just didn't want a 10 minute video.

I removed the stuff from behind and cleaned up the cords and such after, but this is what it all looks like now.

Bonus pictures, I've been redoing some displays, I still have some work to do in each but I won't be able to do anything until the material comes in from various places, so this is where I stopped for now. To try to illustrate, most of these didn't have much (or anything) behind them, but I have a lot of various BS that had no home, so this is what the result was, of course it also meant having to buy extra stuff to then complete that, but eh. 

I'd not really personally buy into the licensing argument there, that's like saying I'm not permitted in my house because I didn't give myself permission, permission is implied when it's my house. Nintendo titles are still the equivalent of a licensed game even if the definition is slightly different, but it is funny to imagine. 

54 minutes ago, FenrirZero said:

That is one of the few issues I had with the "full set" debate. I mean my old findings had somebody say that Bandai's Family Fitness set was a "test market" run. Which makes the argument delve into what variants should be added, etc. With me feeling that if SE is indeed a 'test market' title, it should be part of the same titles that were exclusive to other test markets. Even if that becomes a hyperbole in itself. But it is like what you said, games today have numerous title differences and nobody says you need this or that to complete any sets.

My argument has always been "If it was a standard retail release, it is part of the full set. But if there was a special condition to get it, such as a test market, it is part of that category's set." Which is why I am not treating my current focus as one where I need to go out of my way to get [insert Final Fantasy title here] if it is a "limited to these online stores" kind of release. And yet will hunt down a "early purchase" sticker variant if it is tied to a standard retail release.

It is just that way for me since the rules people put on these things is insane. And I do mean "Trial Edition" releases should be considered part of a "full" PS1 set if SE and NWC is part of a "full" NES set.

Which is one of those reasons why I quit the need to collect Transformers. One group I found talked about how it is impossible to truly build a full Transformers collection. And yet the group I was invited to had an "expert" tell me that TakaraTomy did not expand one of the sub-sets the other group talked about. Where as a Japanese PS4 collector is considered to have a full set even if they have one copy of every title, even if they do not have the deluxe, etc. variants.

If you had seen my Vita topic before, you would see many define that 4 titles that never actually released, but only leaked and only possibly few existing, count towards the full US set towards that library. To me the idea of that is pretty insane to imagine, but that happened. Meanwhile other people don't count LRG or other limited releases because they were never retail releases, etc. That's kind of the issue when there really isn't an official authority on the matter, personally, if it was never able to be purchased in a normal distribution fashion, then it doesn't count. Anything outside of that is an interesting, potentially valuable anomaly. Much like I don't consider new fan games made in 2023 for the NES to be part of a set, it just doesn't make sense to me or fall into the spirit of the purpose.

Just now, the_wizard_666 said:

If you think NES collectors are bad, you should see Atari 2600 collectors.  It's literally impossible to have a complete set because of the metrics they use...basically, if it exists in any form, it counts.  

Yeah I've seen some of that stuff as well, and I think that's why it's important to just define what matters to you and to make peace with it being some kind of subset, because really, anyone can come along and poke holes in your method, but anyone who would require a variant be purchased for a set, is kind of focusing too much on the 'collecting' part and not the reason you collect most of the time, which is to have a thing. It's why I for example don't consider GBA double packs as part of a set, they are the equivalent of 2 movie's being sold in a DVD case to me, I'd rather have them individually, and have that be the set.

That's why I just do my thing though, and don't worry much about the tiny details. If someone wants to say a greatest hits copy of Final Fantasy VII doesn't count, then that's them I guess.

I know this won't be a popular remark, but I've always found it interesting that you apparently 'need' Stadium Events to have a full NES set when it's simply retitled later. While It's kind of endearing, I don't think any console outside of the NES has such rigid requirements for some, unlicensed games, games that weren't ever released, games that aren't even games, or games retitled, all count to some. Today if Too Human on 360 had been rebranded as Human Too, no one would say 'you need both, or the first one' to have it count.

Not that I have a horse in this race as I don't collect full sets generally, but the fact some consider even titles like NWC required is a bit silly to me, but I suppose in the end, it all comes down to what you're talking about. One could be anal and say to have a true set, that you also need every possible variant, insert, or even the original seals as well. Every 'set' is really a subset of some kind in my mind, which is usually why I just put a 'some version of a game, and it was released at retail' as a personal qualifier, thankfully, I only own a few full US sets and those wouldn't be disputed I'm sure, aside the fact they are only US sets of course. 

I think a lot of it just comes from how NES was kind of the birth of the super enthusiast collector base though, everyone cared about oddities with that, but if someone tells you a 360 release has a 2 disc version versus a 1 disc version, or a disc pressed on a gold disc, or something, no one will care.

As I near the end of my retro collecting, I had been combing through to try and fill in any deviations or weird holes I left in my time in the hobby. One of them was that I never found an ESRB version of Asphalt 2 Urban GT and only had the press kit. The official ESRB release only released through mail order which you can see by looking at the sticker on the new copy I got from Atari Age, so not only did I find one but I found one with all the unique identifiers (and sealed) which i thought was really cool. This is the whole US set for this platform, a rare thing for me.

As I near the end of my retro collecting, I had been combing through to try and fill in any deviations or weird holes I left in my time in the hobby. One of them was that I never found an ESRB version of Asphalt 2 Urban GT and only had the press kit. The official ESRB release only released through mail order which you can see by looking at the sticker on the new copy I got from Atari Age, so not only did I find one but I found one with all the unique identifiers (and sealed) which i thought was really cool. This is the whole US set for this platform, a rare thing for me.

7 hours ago, GPX said:

I think what you mentioned is the likely path of most collectors - the intent to collect to game, but then thoughts of “full sets, limited editions etc..”

Ultimately most of us are likely gamers in origin, then we all divert into more gaming or more collecting. The numbers we end up with are just a by-product of our passion/madness.

I definitely have that problem where I procrastinate ever doing something because I always go full on into it, my gaming area is basically the most extreme example of it, but I'm just endlessly determined when I get on with something for whatever reason. Now I'm hoping to channel that energy into something a bit more healthy lol.

2 hours ago, GPX said:

My collection amounts to somewhere in between yours and @goldenpp72. I think the numbers vary generally because some collect to game, whereas others collect to collect (shelf-display, full set achievements etc). Just like there isn’t a right number of games to game, it’s probably a similar line of there isn’t a right number of games to collect. 

Well, I definitely collected to 'have games' as options to play, but I also like to try to make them look nice. Though back when I started, that wasn't so difficult to do as it is today either, if I were beginning today I'd likely have a smaller list and not go for boxes either, but I felt compelled to finish since I got so far  I spent most of today just playing Smash Bros on Switch but also played some Gargoyles Quest while waiting for matches to begin, just have to have the time really

Did a bit of creative accounting you could say, so I happily got down to the single digits for the oldies. I'm not confident i'll cut off this list this year tbh, but any game helps for sure!

I don't buy carts with damaged labels, if I did I would want them to be replaced though, but also with some way to know it's a reproduction just in case I ever did need to sell it. 

3 hours ago, TheGreatBlackCat said:

I have to ask you, I'm about 1,000 games into my collection and I have more or less run out of games that I would like to collect, it's curated so there's little to no shovelware. I could easily complete my Sega Saturn and PSX libraries cheaply now because of how I went about it. At 1,000 video games I already feel that it would take a lifetime to play my collection and I own almost every game imagineable for most systems that one would want, which brings me to my question:

How do you justify a collection 10,000 video games deep? You own multiple lifetimes' worth of video games and it would be impossible to play that many games to completion. This is no criticism on my part, I think it's cool that you're that dedicated to your hobby, but I'm already at my personal maximum. I'm interested to read your response!

It's a fair question, I've joked before that the only way I could play everything I have is if I became wealthy and never had to work again. Unfortunately I find as I'm aging I'm actually having to work more, which does leave me with a lot less time to be able to spend with my stuff than I'd like. What you should know is that while my collection is curated, I also have very broad taste as well. I basically like all genres and types of games with the exceptions of sports titles and racing titles, so I have a very small amount of that stuff within my collection, only limited to basically the most enjoyable arcadey types of releases or a few of the prestige titles (Gran Turismo, Forza, etc). I effectively own nothing like Madden and such however, just not really my bag. I do however love tons of genres, I bounce between stuff like Mega Man, Bust a Move, Gears of War, Viva Pinata, Tetris, whatever, without any issue, and I still love to visit old platforms even though I play on modern day platforms, and that's consistent with my child self. I still was playing NES Mega Man as a teenager even though I was also playing Halo 2 or something on XBL as well.

I suppose for me while I always was excited for new things, I never really lost love for older stuff as well, and as I became a collector and more aware of what exist it helped broaden and define my specific taste, things I wanted but never got to have, or things I didn't know about, but think I would like, were all on the table now. One thing to understand is that I grew up playing Atari 2600 despite being born in the 80s, then I went on to Nintendo, Sega, Playstation, and Xbox, usually funded by my own efforts mowing lawns or what have you until I was old enough to have a job, so I've always liked a variety of things even if I had a preference each generation. 

That all said, I collect on 50 platforms total, and with the exception of the most obscure platforms like Jaguar or Turbografx, I actually had most of these consoles growing up at some point or another, so if you crunch the math out, that would actually average out to be about 200 titles per platform, which by most standards isn't all that much in contrast to what others collect, it's just that I collect on a ton of platforms. Of course I have systems with 600 games and others with 20, but averages and all that. I would say of the 50 systems I collect on, I think I only didn't have maybe 15 or so of them while growing up, but I dove into them for the sake of being consistent (I never had an Atari beyond the 2600, but I have them all now, etc). 

I look at it basically as a mood and library, if I feel like playing Atari, I have a library that meets my taste to pick from, but maybe I feel like going back to Gamecube or Dreamcast, whatever mood suits me, I can look through that library and have good confidence that nothing I would really want to play is omitted from my choices, since I don't hold the Atari that high, I don't have many very expensive games for it because I just don't feel it's personally worth that level of interest for me, where as I adore the SNES and sunk serious money into it, so it just depends. You could break it all down to just wanting to make sure all my bases are covered, and with the exception of the Neo Geo, I basically own everything I ever could have wanted. That one I opted against since I already have ridiculous amounts sunk and don't have personal nostalgia for it. My collection is also consistent to child me, in that I preferred buying multi platform stuff on Genesis, or the original Xbox, so I have most of those on those platforms while not having them on SNES or PS2 for example, aside from relevant duplicates in certain series I collect.

You can basically boil it down that I like to collect things based on playability rather than having a specific obsession with one or two platforms, and I also have a big collecting bug to collect series sets that interest me, which is the other big driver for me spanning so many consoles, I can't own all the Sonic games without owning quite a few platforms, and that crosses over a lot really. Many people (not saying any of yall) have a sort of elitist, almost weird affection to a certain platform, I literally had a person contact me on Facebook while I was collecting Game Boy stuff saying that I'm the equivalent of a whore and shouldn't be allowed in this hobby, because I can't LOVE my systems the way he loves Game Boy, and it's like, well I do love my stuff, but I don't want to marry it, so you got me there. In the end, it's all just a different vessel for me to enjoy different games to me, while I have a specific fondness for Nintendo and Sega, that's just based on my sensibilities as a player really. I don't collect based on nostalgia primarily, but to actually represent the library I would have wanted play, or would like to play now. In fact I started collecting after meeting my lady friend of 15 years now because she somehow started with the 2600, but then skipped to the N64, missing out on all of the in-between, so I wanted to give her a representation of those eras and it ended up cascading from there. 

My collection was never born from following what others do, or just wanting to chip down an arbitrary list because I just can't stop collecting, which is why I have a final list while others keep going. Many just buy random things or follow trends, I buy what I want and don't care what others are doing. While I collected 'junky 10 dollar games', others were bashing me because it's not Little Samson (which I have now, but that's beside the point), now those games are worth at times hundreds or thousands and have become out of range, but I still get to have them because the driver was quality, not the economics of it. I'm glad I followed my own beat when it comes to collecting rather than ever trend/clout chasing. People buy things, decide they don't want them, trim down, buy back, they are uncertain, or unable to really define why they collect, but I can, which is why I'm truly content

You said you like the Saturn a lot, I do too, it was my first console for that generation since I was a die hard Sega kid, so I assume you know a lot about it. Here is the (US library) list that I settled on, you can basically take that list and apply it across 50 platforms, and get an idea of my style I suppose.

I can't figure out how to spoiler tag this list, any help?

One time my fiancee and I were on a multiple month long work trip in Connecticut and discovered a chain called Game X Change. During our time in that trip we kept going to do a loop of all 7 existing stores at the time and probably accumulated around 1000 games across mostly the Xbox, Ps2, DS and Wii. It was at this point I decided to go much deeper in every console I collect on and spend my life earnings for a solid 8 years. We basically became like gaming pickers during the time, unfortunately it's pretty dry these days. Maybe not a crazy story but it's unique I think. 

We still share a lot of the hobby burden and good together, we made these up today actually, almost sad that it's basically over though. The wallet will thank me however. We live in the same area now as well for about the last 6 years. 

11 minutes ago, MegaMan52 said:

Oh lookie it's Trollpa again, being negative as usual (still haven't forgotten what he said to me in the COVID topic in 2021). Guess he hasn't looked at my Instagram page if he really thinks I posted pics of every gaming item I own. Then again that still wouldn't be every gaming item I've got.

To be fair, I also thought it was a bit unusual, but still cool to see. We have a lot of means to show off our stuff though, I certainly didn't feel this was the place to try and flex, since it's a topic about asking if you're happy with where you are. Not trying to dogpile though, still a cool set, but it makes the topic hard to read if 100 images blow up the pages.

I got in the last CIB thing I plan to get today for the Game Boy line, I'm still missing a cart for Zool but otherwise this is all I plan to get for these 3 systems. I totaled I think 1058 games across them, which is a happy place to stop. Some of the games are my lady friends as she has... Different taste than me, but still 🫠

I wasn't able to keep up with this as much as I would have liked, I mostly only knew about it due to being tagged, but I appreciate all the peeps who liked my room, always nice to feel a bit of validation since it isn't really something most people will appreciate really

Check my signature for more information, but kinda. What I will say is that when I first started, my goal was about 900 games and that was a distant dream, and admittedly that core of 900 games was some really good shit. Since then I learned a lot, figured out my taste and broadened a lot, and now I'm a bit over 10k games with only a dozen left to get off my expanded, expanded, and expanded again list.

What I would say is that I began collecting what I'd call my A tier, then I sunk into B tier, and then C tier. I didn't dabble much into tiers below that unless it had some personal significance to me or was part of a series set. If someone told me I could not ever get the remaining dozen games on my list, my OCD would be upset, but my personal passion as a gamer would not be impacted in any meaningful way, so I suppose I am very content.

Hey if I chip off one more I can probably fit it all correctly in the title at this point