Anybody Else Ever Fall in and out of Love with Collecting?

[sworddude]

The punishments in the US are more strict with illegally downloading movies and music at least from what I have seen and read

With old videogames I'm pretty sure you would not be punished else items such as the everdrive could not be sold.

I could be wrong though but than again why do people sell everdrives if you could go to jail etc.

I've heard stories about illegal copying music and movies for own usage in wich the original owners sued the people who downloaded them at no costs at all. It is pretty strict in the US with these kind of things. Even stories that swat teams entered the house if they figured out you were downloading movies and music illegally lol 

Never heard the same thing with dowloading old videogames. Maybe if you try to emulate ps4 games etc

[kashell]

Like everyone else, I'll have high energy to get stuff or I'll just take a break. I'm a gamer first and foremost, so priority goes to playing as opposed to collecting.

When I decided I wanted to be a more serious gamer, which was maybe 5 years ago, I made the decision to specifically not spend a lot of money on games, for many reasons. Be it to not burn out on collecting quickly, have space, save money, etc. I definitely just buy games that I fully intend to play, which is why my collection is miniscule 

I don't think yours or anyone's collection is miniscule. Someone can be a collector of whatever and have as little or as massive a collection as they want.

[burningdoom]

The punishments in the US are more strict with illegally downloading movies and music at least from what I have seen and read

With old videogames I'm pretty sure you would not be punished else items such as the everdrive could not be sold.

I could be wrong though but than again why do people sell everdrives if you could go to jail etc.

I've heard stories about illegal copying music and movies for own usage in wich the original owners sued the people who downloaded them at no costs at all. It is pretty strict in the US with these kind of things. Even stories that swat teams entered the house if they figured out you were downloading movies and music illegally lol 

Never heard the same thing with dowloading old videogames. Maybe if you try to emulate ps4 games etc

They aren't a U.S. company therefore aren't under U.S. law. (Ukraine)

The flash cart itself isn't illegal. But selling it with the ROMs already on it, are (in the U.S.).

[sworddude]

The punishments in the US are more strict with illegally downloading movies and music at least from what I have seen and read

With old videogames I'm pretty sure you would not be punished else items such as the everdrive could not be sold.

I could be wrong though but than again why do people sell everdrives if you could go to jail etc.

I've heard stories about illegal copying music and movies for own usage in wich the original owners sued the people who downloaded them at no costs at all. It is pretty strict in the US with these kind of things. Even stories that swat teams entered the house if they figured out you were downloading movies and music illegally lol 

Never heard the same thing with dowloading old videogames. Maybe if you try to emulate ps4 games etc

They aren't a U.S. company therefore aren't under U.S. law. (Ukraine)

The flash cart itself isn't illegal. But selling it with the ROMs already on it, are (in the U.S.).

Dowloading the roms surely in the US it is illegal right?

So if you would follow the law you cannot even use the everdrive carts

[burningdoom]

The punishments in the US are more strict with illegally downloading movies and music at least from what I have seen and read

With old videogames I'm pretty sure you would not be punished else items such as the everdrive could not be sold.

I could be wrong though but than again why do people sell everdrives if you could go to jail etc.

I've heard stories about illegal copying music and movies for own usage in wich the original owners sued the people who downloaded them at no costs at all. It is pretty strict in the US with these kind of things. Even stories that swat teams entered the house if they figured out you were downloading movies and music illegally lol 

Never heard the same thing with dowloading old videogames. Maybe if you try to emulate ps4 games etc

They aren't a U.S. company therefore aren't under U.S. law. (Ukraine)

The flash cart itself isn't illegal. But selling it with the ROMs already on it, are (in the U.S.).

Dowloading the roms surely in the US it is illegal right?

So if you would follow the law you cannot even use the everdrive carts

Yes, exactly. Which is why flash carts in general are such a grey area in the law.

It's like ferrets here in California. It's illegal to sell or own a ferret in the California due to some environmental law about them ruining the ecosystem. Yet every pet store in California sells ferret supplies. Makes no sense.

[ignition365]

The punishments in the US are more strict with illegally downloading movies and music at least from what I have seen and read

With old videogames I'm pretty sure you would not be punished else items such as the everdrive could not be sold.

I could be wrong though but than again why do people sell everdrives if you could go to jail etc.

I've heard stories about illegal copying music and movies for own usage in wich the original owners sued the people who downloaded them at no costs at all. It is pretty strict in the US with these kind of things. Even stories that swat teams entered the house if they figured out you were downloading movies and music illegally lol 

Never heard the same thing with dowloading old videogames. Maybe if you try to emulate ps4 games etc

They aren't a U.S. company therefore aren't under U.S. law. (Ukraine)

The flash cart itself isn't illegal. But selling it with the ROMs already on it, are (in the U.S.).

Dowloading the roms surely in the US it is illegal right?

So if you would follow the law you cannot even use the everdrive carts

Yes, and the "expectation" is that you will backup your physically owned games yourself.  That is where it isn't illegal.

Very few people do this given that not many people own the tools to dump ROMs.

Also, the other "expectation" is homebrews and games not released in the US and therefore not subject to the same copyright issues.

[pzeke]

It's like ferrets here in California. It's illegal to sell or own a ferret in the California due to some environmental law about them ruining the ecosystem. Yet every pet store in California sells ferret supplies. Makes no sense.

Probably because they're premium.

Impractical Jokers reference.

EDIT: Dumb joke. Carry on.

[maximo310]

You are more likely to get in trouble for distributing carts full of ROM's, or buying from a company that engages in such practices. I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for downloading ROM's, especially in the last 10 years.

They're not gonna go after someone who downloads 25 year old arcade ROM's, simply bc there are no legal means to buy the product ( w/o huge markup on the secondary market) and there's hardly much of a benefit to do so compared to people who illegally download music or movies.

[ignition365]

You are more likely to get in trouble for distributing carts full of ROM's, or buying from a company that engages in such practices. I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for downloading ROM's, especially in the last 10 years.

They're not gonna go after someone who downloads 25 year old arcade ROM's, simply bc there are no legal means to buy the product ( w/o huge markup on the secondary market) and there's hardly much of a benefit to do so compared to people who illegally download music or movies.

The laws are specifically against illegally sharing the material.  This is why sites get shut down.

The few individuals who have been sued or what have you, the charges were actually about the distribution, not downloading of the materials.  This specifically refers to public demonstration, distribution (regardless of sale or gift), or other methods that potentially damage a copyright holders business or profitability.

A lot of the ROM sites like to say you can only download it if you own the game physically (This is technically still ilegal) and that if you do not, you should only be downloading the game for trial like purposes to decide if you want to buy the game and thus delete the download within 24 hours (Also, still ilegal).

The fact of the matter is that REALLY, Nintendo is the only company that tries to pursue these matters.  Usually a simple cease and desist.  Sony usually only does it for distribution of the BIOS for the hardware, but I don't know if they still do that.  I know for a while GBA games were really hard to find because Nintendo was constantly having sites shutdown or threatened to be shut down.

[doafan]

I guess what I want to ask is if anyone else has ever felt this way? Did you swear off it forever? (Probably not if you use VGCollect, haha!) Go back to it eventually? Or does collecting simply make you happy and you love it and collect because you love video games? For me at first, it was a combination of having money to buy things I wanted and wanting the things I had, but over the past two years I've squandered so much time and money on games I don't use, I don't even care to think about it.

Had the same feeling before I get married and felt worst when realize that at least 95% of my money was not going to be available for purchasing games/consoles, even when at that time had even less stuff I packaged everything and stored at my parents home and for an unknown reason one day I decided that even without money and free time can't live without them, don't get the wrong idea am old with two little girls hoping that at the end of this year can finally have a boy and a beautiful wife that demands a lot of attention but I still manage to make some free time to play even if that means that I'll have to play at 12:00 AM to 03:00-04:00 AM and have to wake up at 06:00 - 07:00 AM

About the money started somehow to save every damn peso as you don't have an idea just to purchase those titles that I and my daughters really want to play, might don't have the latest console/games but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy playing, really want to purchase them and eventually someday even if this took me some years but I'll have them, like almost all fathers I do know my priorities and playing is not the first one but simply can't imagine my life without a controller at my hands, growing/getting old don't necessary means for me to move on and do other stuff, call me stupid but since ever got the idea that the moment I decided to quit playing I'll get older much faster also is so fucking hilarious when I kick the ass of the younger members of my family when we reunite in every game that they bring to the meeting 

Dunno what happened to you but whatever reason just remember why you started collecting, cheers up dude.

[maximo310]

The fact of the matter is that REALLY, Nintendo is the only company that tries to pursue these matters.  Usually a simple cease and desist.  Sony usually only does it for distribution of the BIOS for the hardware, but I don't know if they still do that.  I know for a while GBA games were really hard to find because Nintendo was constantly having sites shutdown or threatened to be shut down.

Nah, PS2 BIOS have been pretty easy to find in the last 5 years or so. In Nintendo's case, they screwed up with their 3DS system basically allowing homebrew users to access the whole system, and get any eshop game for free as long as you don't update Nintendo's firmware on your system. The Wii U and Wii have similar situations, but are harder to utilize since you have to do some more hunting for ISO's, but it doesn't seem too difficult from my experience.

[burningdoom]

You are more likely to get in trouble for distributing carts full of ROM's, or buying from a company that engages in such practices. I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for downloading ROM's, especially in the last 10 years.

They're not gonna go after someone who downloads 25 year old arcade ROM's, simply bc there are no legal means to buy the product ( w/o huge markup on the secondary market) and there's hardly much of a benefit to do so compared to people who illegally download music or movies.

Except they do. Like I posted further up the thread, I know a guy personally that it happened to. It's just rare, and the people that it happens to are made an example of. And it wasn't Nintendo, it was the FCC.

A few years back, you could probably say that of old games and not having access to said games. But nowadays, retro gaming is a big business between Nintendo Virtual Console, Steam, GoG, PlayStation Network, compilation discs, even XBox Original games coming soon. Companies are indeed losing money when you download old games in 2017.

[maximo310]

You are more likely to get in trouble for distributing carts full of ROM's, or buying from a company that engages in such practices. I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble for downloading ROM's, especially in the last 10 years.

They're not gonna go after someone who downloads 25 year old arcade ROM's, simply bc there are no legal means to buy the product ( w/o huge markup on the secondary market) and there's hardly much of a benefit to do so compared to people who illegally download music or movies.

Except they do. Like I posted further up the thread, I know a guy personally that it happened to. It's just rare, and the people that it happens to are made an example of. And it wasn't Nintendo, it was the FCC.

A few years back, you could probably say that of old games and not having access to said games. But nowadays, retro gaming is a big business between Nintendo Virtual Console, Steam, GoG, PlayStation Network, compilation discs, even XBox Original games coming soon. Companies are indeed losing money when you download old games in 2017.

It was never explained in detail how this guy got nailed. The vast majority of cases ( 99.9% of people downloading) will get ignored bc it is not worth the FCC's or RIAA's time unless its a big enough operation ( like redistributing flash carts in a business) that gets their attention.

Besides, companies are more focused now on selling their products than worrying about people downloading ROM's. It is simply not profitable for them to invest significant money and effort into stopping it when their efforts cause more people to pirate them in the first place.

 In addition, it is the only way that I can play certain games such as F/A (27 years old arcade only release) that will absolutely never get any additional releases on modern platforms ( this happens to many games still). Game companies only care about certain old releases that they can milk; its up to other people to preserve the rest ( which ofc means you break our poorly constructed ip laws due to the confusing parameters of fair use).

[bikingjahuty]

I don't know if I fell out of love with collecting, but I certainly realized how much of a money and time sink it has been in my life for the past decade. What caused me to come to this realization was being forced to downsize earlier this year in order to fun various unexpected expenses that came up. While it was initially hard to let go of many of the games I sold, I can't say there is even one that I miss or regret selling. More or less if I ever wanted to obtain anything that I sold off I could get it again with relative ease by just going on ebay. After coming to this realization I started seeing that there were other things in life that I'd rather focus on and so far I have been and it feels great.


Someday I may get back into collecting heavily, but it will really only be if the price of games crashes hard and they become plentiful again for cheap. Gone are the days where I spend ebay prices or close to ebay prices for older games, just to throw them on my shelf and maybe get to play them in the next decade. Ironically, getting rid of a bunch of my games has made me appreciate what I have a lot more, and I have been far more motivated to actually play my games than I have in years.


I have a video game collection, but I am definitely not a game collector anymore.

[aliensstudios]

Thanks for the replies everyone! Glad to know I'm not the only one who feels this way. Sure it got a little off topic but there were several quality responses.
Well it seems (for now at least) I'm moving on from game collecting, at least until I sell off and actually use the things I have so I will be mostly absent from VGCollect for a good while. If you see me relatively active on the site again, it'll mean I'll have gained a newfound appreciation for gaming and can collect in moderation but for now, I feel so happy just not worrying about collecting and spending money I don't need to spend on things I'll never use.
You guys rock! Happy game collecting!