How long have you been a game collector?

[Armageddon Potato | 124]

Honestly I've kind of always been a collector of sorts/circumstances. We were too poor to buy new games outside of something like a Birthday or Christmas. Every weekend we would go out to the flea market, and sometimes my uncle and dad would sell car parts and various items. When I was out there I would spend whatever I had saved up or earned on any game stuff that took my interest. It started with Atari 2600, and over time moved up the ladder. I was always looking for older generation games as they went for much cheaper. I remember finding Fallout on PC out there for 50 cents. The guy selling it to me told me it was one of his favorite games, and he thought I would enjoy it as much as he did(and he was totally right!) Another memorable time a very old lady sold me Ecco the Dolphin for $9. She told me the game was very special to her and she had played it to completion many times, but she felt it was finally time to pass it on. She asked me if I would take good care of it, and I told her I took good care of all my games! After I got home I realized she had written almost every line of dialogue in the game in a folded piece of paper in the manual, had all the cheat codes, and pretty much documented the whole game right there in the instruction booklet! I still have the game to this day! One last story I'll throw out there is when a rental place called "Movie Time" by my house was going to close down, and my mom asked me what game I would rent if they weren't closing down. Luckily I chose Panic Restaurant, and it showed up two weeks later for my birthday! Movie Time had given her the box and manual as well, and I still actually have it to this day! Even the spot on the front of the box where I dropped birthday cake & ice cream on it, lol.

Back then I didn't sell any of my games since everything I owned had to be found out in the wild. There was little chance you'd ever see the same game twice for a good price if you sold it off. I did once trade TomCat Alley on the Sega CD for Soldiers of Fortune on the Genesis to a kid at 4th R, but that was it. Any CIB games I had were on a small shelf in the backroom because I thought they looked cooler that way.

Edited July 22, 2020 by Armageddon Potato
Edit: Added pictures!

[T-Pac | 7,510]

I started collecting retro games in 2012. I stumbled across an AtGames Sega Genesis Flashback console at the store, and I was so stoked to finally experience some classic console games (I had always wanted to play those original 8-bit and 16-bit games, but never knew how to go about it). I was immediately hooked, and I ran to the internet to find out more about these old games. It wasn't long before I had myself a Nintendo clone console and a handful of NES and SNES cartridges. 8 years later and that collecting-itch hasn't left.

Getting into the hobby in 2012 was a double-edged sword, though. It was right on the cusp of the "retro-gaming" craze, so it was easy for me to dive in with all the YouTube classic gaming channels teaching me the history of games, staples of various libraries, "hidden-gems", etc. But the bad part of all this was that I missed out on the days of epic garage-sale finds or scoring anything cheap. I don't mind too much, though. I'm just glad to have discovered retro-gaming in the first place.

-CasualCart

[Shawn | 31]

I started to collect video games in 1984.

[Tekdrudge | 126]

I like to watch older Youtube videos from 2010-2014. They talk about how much a particular game is, and then I look up the price now. Makes me laugh and cry at the same time. I think about how I passed on certain games because I thought they were too expensive at the time, and wish I would have bought them.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

33 minutes ago, Tekdrudge said:

I think about how I passed on certain games because I thought they were too expensive at the time, and wish I would have bought them.

I sometimes do a similar thing. I think we all do, even if we're not active in the hobby, but you can't really beat yourself up over stuff like that too much. I mean, think about how rich any one of us could've gotten if we hopped on the bitcoin train early on, before the huge cryptocurrency bubble burst. But none of us (or, most of us, at least) did, because we had no way of knowing that was gonna happen. If you could travel back in time 5 years with the knowledge you have now, becoming a multi-millionaire (Hell, probably even a billionaire) and being set for life along with the next several generations of your family would be the easiest thing in the world. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. Just the way life is unfortunately, can't let yourself get too bummed out about decisions you never made, just gotta keep movin' on and hope you make the right decisions in the future.

[Tekdrudge | 126]

10 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

I sometimes do a similar thing. I think we all do, even if we're not active in the hobby, but you can't really beat yourself up over stuff like that too much. I mean, think about how rich any one of us could've gotten if we hopped on the bitcoin train early on, before the huge cryptocurrency bubble burst. But none of us (or, most of us, at least) did, because we had no way of knowing that was gonna happen. If you could travel back in time 5 years with the knowledge you have now, becoming a multi-millionaire (Hell, probably even a billionaire) and being set for life along with the next several generations of your family would be the easiest thing in the world. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that. Just the way life is unfortunately, can't let yourself get too bummed out about decisions you never made, just gotta keep movin' on and hope you make the right decisions in the future.

Do you have a couch I can lay on, and talk to you on a weekly basis? Lol.

That was a well thought out summary, that many of us can use.   

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

8 minutes ago, Tekdrudge said:

Do you have a couch I can lay on, and talk to you on a weekly basis? Lol.

Only if you're paying me

[Tekdrudge | 126]

10 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

Only if you're paying me

Do you take rupees? 

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

Just now, Tekdrudge said:

Do you take rupees? 

As long as there's no Rupoors mixed in there. Wouldn't be the first time that's happened to me

[maxlords | 36]

Since 1995.  In '95, I beat my copy of Final Fantasy III for the SNES for the third time and decided it was time to trade it in.  I packed up the whole thing, box, manual, and inserts and took it to the local store to get some cash.

I sold it and used the money to buy TMNT IV at the local department store, which I took home and beat in under a day.  I was immediately bored with it (still hate that game because of this) and went to buy back my Final Fantasy III.  It had already sold.  I swore right then that I wouldn't sell another game that I liked just because I wasn't playing it, and I've been collecting ever since. 

[AlfPogs | 29]

1995ish. Pretty much by accident. I wasn't loving the N64 / PS1 era. Was at funcoland and noticed how cheap NES games were. I still had my NES and all of my games with boxes and manuals (I was one of those). It just started out as a way to play the games I had wanted to play but never could.

Then the collector gene started to kick in. I liked the look of black box games - at the time I called them 'originals' - so I decided to try and get all of them. I started asking kids at school if they still had their games. I bought a few entire collections for $5 total. Not $5 a game. $5 total. I would say that I didn't become a full on collector until I was sixteen in 1998 because I could drive now. I started going hunting.

I had a rule back then. Never paid more than $5 a game. Only exception was for games I thought were rare. I know I paid $40 for my Stack-up and felt really dirty doing it at the time. This is also why I never got a copy of Contra until 2016. Even back then it was I think a $20 game at Funcoland and when I bought collections or pieces of collections off of kids it was the one game that they would always pull back and say "I'm gonna keep Contra."

Things picked up when two friends started working at funcoland. I had the membership card that got me 10% off used game purchases. Plus they would let me use their employee discount for another 10% off. They loved me because I was literally the only person who bought NES games. If not for me, they would just sit there. I would walk in with a twenty-dollar bill and walk out with more than twenty games. It was amazing. I was just stacking games. There was also about a six month span when I was a senior where I delivered pizzas. The extra cash from tips was a boon to my collecting. I would say that during that six months was when my collection went from respectable to whoa. This was when I shelled out the $40 for Stack-Up and acquired my complete, boxed Deluxe Set and other pricier items.

I slowed down a lot once I got to college since I was broke. I would still look occasionally, but by this time I had about 500 games so I rarely found anything I needed. By this point Funcoland was gamestop and my friends no longer worked at the one in my hometown. By now it was also policy to throw away all boxes and manuals, but since there was a weirdo collector who stopped in every now and then they would just put all that stuff in a bag and give it to me every time I walked in. Those were some good days. I got a lot of free boxes and manuals.

Once I finished college I moved across the country and was even more broke. As a result, I did not buy a game or really even think about game collecting for over ten years. Luckily, my parents never moved out of the house I grew up in and I left my collection boxed up in the basement. At one point around 2008ish I considered selling, but a friend talked me down. He was like "do you know how cool that collection is? Don't sell it."

Picked it back up in 2016 once I was in a better financial situation. I was blown away by the price jumps, but was willing to accept them since I had gotten so many games for so little. I felt like even if I was paying current prices for the last 200ish games I needed I was still coming out ahead. I even finally got my copy of contra.

As of today I still need 5 licensed games (including Stadium Events which I'll likely never get), but am in no hurry.

I dabble in other systems, but only going after specific games. I would never try to go for another full set. Not with current and likely future prices.

Some regrets / observations from being an early collector.

1. The lack of knowledge back then really hurt me. I had no idea games like Little Samson were so rare. Otherwise I woulda coughed up the dough to get them on Ebay. The only resource i knew of was the mike etler list. It came in handy, but there was no forum at least that I knew of where I could go and have someone tell me "hey. got get (insert super rare games here)." I definitely would have bought all of them during the pizza days.

2. I passed up on a copy of Bubble Bobble 2 in college because it was $50. Sigh. I really wish I had scraped together the dough for that.

3. I also passed on a boxed (likely complete) Jetsons because it was like $20 and that seemed like too much for me in 1999ish.

But mainly it was the lack of knowledge. I also wish that I had had more money so I coulda hoarded some heavy hitters and bought some games for other consoles. There was a part of me that thought games might be worth more money someday, but aside from the pizza days I just didn't have the extra cash to bet on it. I was in junior high, high school and college during those days.

Sorry this post got so long. But I hope it's a somewhat enjoyable read to see how someone collected in the mid-late 90's and early 2000's before the explosion.

EDIT: I feel bad that I wrote this all from my perspective as if I was doing this alone. I was actually collecting with my friend and then neighbor who is on these boards as well as instagram as @8bitsupremacy . Our NES collecting journeys have run both parallel and separately at the same time.

Edited July 27, 2020 by AlfPogs

[Skorp | 383]

I really started into it around 2013. That's when I started to have my own good income lol. When I was a teen, I actually stepped out of gaming for a bit and was in that "skateboarding and stoner" phase for that period. As a kid, I was a gamer though for all of it, but you know becoming a teen and you just want to try new things and fit in. Then becoming an adult I got back into gaming and finally after going through a out of body experience disorder, collecting became my escape and my enjoyment. Should have never left.

[MaddenCollector | 28]

Ahhh the glory days of 2007-2008 when things were just starting to heat up, but not everyone was on board yet. It was almost too easy to find games cheap.

That said, I wouldn’t trade those days for all the advancements we’ve made since then.

[Galdius | 1,507]

I started in 2008 when I bought a CIB SNES with a lot of games but I was in high school and didn't have a lot of money to spend. I would only buy retro games sometimes and I focused a lot on PS2. Sometimes I regret not going for the SNES back then.

Things started to get more serious around 2010-2012 when the Brazilian Real was really strong against the dollar. I would go to the US and come back with lots and lots of games. At that time I managed to complete the Virtual Boy and N64 fullsets.

If I had the money that I have now with that currency rate, I would have a much bigger collection.
Even with today's prices, if the currency rate were better, I would buy a lot more.

[sp1nz | 611]

Well I have owned games since 1992 (I was 4 years old at that point) but I didn't think of them as a collection nor did I ever sell anything during those times. Then somewhere in my teenage years / early adulthood I offloaded most of my games on my sister's family but I have no idea what happened to my Mega Drive games. Then at some point in 2011 I was in some store and saw a PS3 for sale and just went for it. This was pretty much the turning point for me and after playing for a couple of months on my PS3 the year turned to 2012 and I started thinking about the "good old times". I soon ordered a bunch of PS2 games from UK Amazon and some weeks later a bunch of Mega Drive games from a Dutch retro game site. These purchases I consider the start of my collection, so I started actively collecting in the early 2012 and had some games from 2011 prior to that. I did later buy back a couple of choice games from my sister (not for market prices or anything because I would've felt wrong just taking them back, since I had gifted them previously) and at some point my friend returned my Game Boy Advance and my whopping 3 loose games. So I have a few childhood games in my possession, earliest being Scandinavian copy of Armored for PS1 from 1997. So I present to you the only childhood games of mine in my possession:

Bonus: My console/handheld timeline before actively collecting: Mega Drive | Game Boy -> PlayStation 1 -> Game Boy Color -> PlayStation 2 -> Game Boy Advance -> GameCube -> N-Gage (I actually used this as my mobile phone  and only had Tomb Raider for it I think) -> Nintendo DS.

[8bitsupremacy | 208]

1996 I started collecting NES games.  I was 12 years old and everyone thought I was insane at the time...who's laughing now!  I'm still insane though...before collecting I was the kid obsessed with Nintendo.  Played it every day, and it was all I thought about.  My older sister bought an NES when I was like 2 years old so I got exposed to it at an extremely early age...later got a Sega Genesis and loved it as well but the collecting thing hit when the ps1/n64 era came around because I hated the shift to 3D gaming and wanted to stick with my 2D games, so I started exploring those older libraries and gathering carts for VERY cheap.  NES and Genesis are the two main consoles I collect for today, and still play regularly.

Edit: I was collecting the same time as AlfPogs above.  We grew up literally next door neighbors and fed off each other;  would go gamehunting when he got a car...good times.

Edited July 26, 2020 by 8bitsupremacy

[8bitsupremacy | 208]

On 7/19/2020 at 10:44 PM, Tekdrudge said:

Not counting these Covid times, when was the last time you all found a really good deal. When I go game hunting, I always come up empty handed unless I go to a specialty shop. I haven't really seen anything "In the wild" where I live in years. Then again, the last five years or so collectors have sprung up all over the area I live at.

Yesterday.  I got 15 NES games for $20, one of which was Gargoyle's Quest 2.  I was remarking to my friend AlfPogs it felt like a casual "here just take them" deal from 1999.  The guy said $10 and I gave him 20...there are also 99 cent GameStop stickers on some of the carts which probably had something to do with my nostalgic price point deal.  I'm still out there hunting have had some crazy scores in recent times.  Got a Power Blade 2 cart for $5 two months ago...damn it's been a good summer.

 

Update 8/5/20 :  Just found Die Hard on NES in the wild last weekend.  Been quite the hot streak and this is very out of the ordinary for me all in one summer.  Maybe people are having more free time to dig up their old stashes around the house.  Idk.

Edited August 6, 2020 by 8bitsupremacy

[AstralSoul | 502]

Officially, about 2001 when I started driving and working and going to college and I was able to hunt for games at local stores. But officially I'd say 2011 when I officially identified as a collector.

Edited July 27, 2020 by AstralSoul64

[Tekdrudge | 126]

On 7/25/2020 at 10:44 PM, 8bitsupremacy said:

Yesterday.  I got 15 NES games for $20, one of which was Gargoyle's Quest 2.  I was remarking to my friend AlfPogs it felt like a casual "here just take them" deal from 1999.  The guy said $10 and I gave him 20...there are also 99 cent GameStop stickers on some of the carts which probably had something to do with my nostalgic price point deal.  I'm still out there hunting have had some crazy scores in recent times.  Got a Power Blade 2 cart for $5 two months ago...damn it's been a good summer.

From talking to different people, it seems there are some good deals still out there. However, it seems it really depends on where you live. People I know that live in or near major cities seem to score stuff more often. If you live in a smaller, more rural area you tend to come up empty handed.

[Penguin | 198]

I started in around mid to late 2006.  I guess I collected a bit when I was a kid too, but I sold all my NES games when I wanted some new Gameboy color games as a kid.

[8bitsupremacy | 208]

17 hours ago, Tekdrudge said:

From talking to different people, it seems there are some good deals still out there. However, it seems it really depends on where you live. People I know that live in or near major cities seem to score stuff more often. If you live in a smaller, more rural area you tend to come up empty handed.

Absolutely.  I'm in Chicago.  Smack dab in the middle.  Very densely populated and people are constantly moving/purging stuff.  I even have friends a mere 40 min away in the burbs that say it's super dry where they are.

[hakota | 4]

I started in the first great wave of 2007 after watching this neat new show where a guy would play shitty games from my child hood and get angry.

Then I moved to Japan in 2013 and after finding some amazing deals at local hardoffs started collecting Japanese counterparts for my collection.

[hakota | 4]

On 7/27/2020 at 3:31 PM, Penguin said:

I started in around mid to late 2006.  I guess I collected a bit when I was a kid too, but I sold all my NES games when I wanted some new Gameboy color games as a kid.

This. Except I sold my entire childhood collection for next to nothing to a local game store so I could buy some magic the gathering packs.

[Nes Freak | 584]

16 years ago for me (2004).   it started as a joke really.  my friend got me pokemon sapphire and i thought it would be funny to keep the box and packaging in perfect condition to surprise him with it next year.  between that time i realized it was fun to collect video games and started  going to garage sales and thrift stores to get more.

 

hunting for video games then was hard though  5am  get up and just go.  my mother would come along and help since i couldn't drive at the time.  i did the garage sale thing for a short time but i quit when some old korean man kept beating me to it.  like every time no joke lol.  i actually followed him and we talked on the side of the road and he explained hes just buying for fun.  hes still alive today and still out there doing this  i just have him find me stuff and he usually gives me good deals on what hes finds  hes a friend of mine now.

 

its pretty hard to find any thing now though. a few times a year i i find something good at the thrift store.  the heyday of collecting cheap is gone now.

[Nes Freak | 584]

On 7/25/2020 at 8:02 PM, 8bitsupremacy said:

1996 I started collecting NES games.  I was 12 years old and everyone thought I was insane at the time...who's laughing now!  I'm still insane though...before collecting I was the kid obsessed with Nintendo.  Played it every day, and it was all I thought about.  My older sister bought an NES when I was like 2 years old so I got exposed to it at an extremely early age...later got a Sega Genesis and loved it as well but the collecting thing hit when the ps1/n64 era came around because I hated the shift to 3D gaming and wanted to stick with my 2D games, so I started exploring those older libraries and gathering carts for VERY cheap.  NES and Genesis are the two main consoles I collect for today, and still play regularly.

Edit: I was collecting the same time as AlfPogs above.  We grew up literally next door neighbors and fed off each other;  would go gamehunting when he got a car...good times.

i didnt start till 2004 but  as a kid i remember my mother buying an employees video game collection in 1995 from our local electronics repair shop  i got 50 nes games for 100 dollars  which i still have today.