The Most Legendary Collector

[sin2beta]

I'd love to have my collection full of titles like Earthbound and Panzer Dragoon Saga. But our budgets limit many of us. We can't all own a Magnavox Odyssey and Neo Geo AES. (And this is also why I don't have all my games complete in original boxes, I buy them to play them)

I'm not talking about just the most rare and prestigous games or anything though, I'm just saying it's better to have a purpose to your collection, y'know? If you love video games, and are buying video games, doesn't it make more sense top buy games that actually interest you, instead of like, 30 Pong clones that will just sit on a shelf and collect dust because they're rare and serve almost no purpose beyond historical curiousity?

You mentioned the Magnavox Odyssey... how many people who own one these days ever actually play the thing, or have a real fondness for even a single game released for it?

I like the guys who own 30 pong clones if they really know their stuff. Not just buying them. But buying them because they find them fascinating and want to learn more about them. They don't even have to enjoy pong. They could just find them interesting. That's what I like about Mike Etler. I don't know how much stuff he owns. That's irrelevant. The thing that made him legendary was his work on cataloging and working and determining rarity. As far as I know, he was the first. That's bad@$$.

I personally don't get starstruck by collections. I get starstruck by knowledge.

Now, I am curious about what Mike Etler owns. Most of the rarity comes from going to flea markets and such. This was in New Jersey in the mid 90s. There wasn't a lot of reason to lie. His list wasn't getting viewed much and this got corrected fast. But his first version had stadium events listed as a B in rarity... I would expect these to be found in New Jersey and the Northeast a little more readily. And they have turned up in flea markets. I'm curious if he ran across a few early on or if it was just a typo... anyways.

[burningdoom]

I'd love to have my collection full of titles like Earthbound and Panzer Dragoon Saga. But our budgets limit many of us. We can't all own a Magnavox Odyssey and Neo Geo AES. (And this is also why I don't have all my games complete in original boxes, I buy them to play them)

I'm not talking about just the most rare and prestigous games or anything though, I'm just saying it's better to have a purpose to your collection, y'know? If you love video games, and are buying video games, doesn't it make more sense top buy games that actually interest you, instead of like, 30 Pong clones that will just sit on a shelf and collect dust because they're rare and serve almost no purpose beyond historical curiousity?

You mentioned the Magnavox Odyssey... how many people who own one these days ever actually play the thing, or have a real fondness for even a single game released for it?

No, I wouldn't own 30 pong clones. I own one, because I'm really into the history of gaming (I own a few books on it, too), and having 1 lets me have a piece of that history. But having 30, yeah, that's overkill. I also don't buy 2 of the same game (unless there's also a handheld version and I want it on the go). To me, buying 2 of the same game is a waste of money that I could have spent on a game I don't already own, and 30 Pong clones falls into that same line of thinking.

However I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to own a Magnavox Odyssey. Who wouldn't want to own the first console ever made? That's like owning the first car ever made or the first t.v. model ever made. That's just cool.

And while a focused library looks cool, it doesn't do much for me for playability. Yes, I'm a game collector, but I'm not the type that collects them just to show them off. I collect to play them.  And as a result, I want a nice, varied collection to play. I might feel like a deep RPG one day, but then after beating it I might be sick of that and want to play a mindless button-masher. Or maybe I'm in the mood for a quick racing game, or a fighting game against a buddy. Maybe I want to beat my high score at Pin-Bot another day. Variety is the spice of life.

[tpugmire]

I don't really care what/how much anyone owns. What impresses me is knowledge. There are three names that stand out to me when I think of knowledgeable collectors. The first one is a person on digitalpress. When reading various posts of his, he really struck me as really knowing what he was talking about. His name on digitalpress is KitsuneSniper, you know him as Foxhack.

The next person, I also became aware of on digitalpress, but I've ran into him elsewhere on the internet. His name is Satoshimatrix, and I am continually impressed with his knowledge of Japanese games.

The third person comes from atariage, and is one of the most knowledgeable people I've ever met when it comes to atari stuff. It only seems fitting that his name is atariboy.

[disgaeniac]

I don't really care what/how much anyone owns. What impresses me is knowledge. There are three names that stand out to me when I think of knowledgeable collectors. The first one is a person on digitalpress. When reading various posts of his, he really struck me as really knowing what he was talking about. His name on digitalpress is KitsuneSniper, you know him as Foxhack.

No shit?!

My good friend, Mike (who some of you know from "Collectors Cards & Games") knew Joe Santulli for years.

The actual brick-and-mortar 'Digital Press Store' is (now) in the northern part of my state (~a 2 hour drive for me) - it used to be *much* closer before moving north.

I've been meaning to get there & check it out for ages...Didn't know that you were involved/had anything to do with it there, Foxhack