Do you buy games to play or put on your shelf?

[PaleManInBlack]

Play. If there is a game I'm not interested in playing I won't buy it.

Unrelated, but, how do I get my collection in my signature?

[metshael]

Well... both i think, i only buy games that seems interesting to me and that i want to play but, if not on my shelves, where should i put them when i'm not playing with them ?

Unrelated, but, how do I get my collection in my signature?

You have to go to "Profile" on the top then "Forum Profile" and add the link below to your signature (but without the spaces before the url at the beginning, and before the img and the url at the end of the link):

[ url=https://vgcollect.com/purdon][img]https://vgcollect.com/sig/purdon.jpg[/ img][/ url]

[Cartagia]

I buy games that I would like to play, fully knowing that I probably won't get around to it. I used to just buy what ever I could get my hands on, but I've been trying to trim the fat a bit lately.

I'm in the same boat.  I used to pick up anything that was cheap, but now I just buy what I am more interested in actually playing - eventually.

[brazbit]

To play. I don't display my games. I do have some that were bought strictly because I didn't have them but after cleaning them and giving them a test run through a surprising amount have been a lot of fun. I enjoy finding new experiences this way.
I also have a few that are in the collection just for the absurdity of their existence. Take for example BASIC for Atari 2600... You program in basic using 2 linked 12 button controllers... 24 buttons... that is not enough for an English alphabet. You program using preset commands and modifier keys that give each key 4 possible values. WTF? Yeah so I had to have that and try it out. Will I program something interesting with it? Heck no, even if it was possible you can't save it but what a bizarre thing to be able to use and demonstrate. I'm glad it's in my collection even if some '83 shovelware will get more playtime.

[emporerdragon]

I also have a few that are in the collection just for the absurdity of their existence.

I know the feeling. You just see it and go "This is so stupid/horrible. I must have it!". For me, what fills that the best out of my collections would either be my sets of Presidential Pez Dispensers or a set of Star Wars action figures commemorating Hong Kong being returned to China.

[scoobs22]

Both.

+1

I particularly love the look of a tower full of NES games and my spinning CD shelves with my TurboGrafx/PC Engine/SuperCD games. And even though I have all kinds of multi carts and such, there's nothing like taking a game off the shelf, holding the media, thumbing through the book, and jamming said media into the console to get going.

[PaleManInBlack]

Well... both i think, i only buy games that seems interesting to me and that i want to play but, if not on my shelves, where should i put them when i'm not playing with them ?

Unrelated, but, how do I get my collection in my signature?

You have to go to "Profile" on the top then "Forum Profile" and add the link below to your signature (but without the spaces before the url at the beginning, and before the img and the url at the end of the link):

[ url=https://vgcollect.com/purdon][img]https://vgcollect.com/sig/purdon.jpg[/ img][/ url]

Thanks!

[pizzasafari]

Bit of both. A lot of the more collectable games I buy with the intention of playing later and then never actually play properly though. My backlog is pretty titanic.

[kypherion]

Both of them, I definitely collect games or my shelves but I play them too.

[shfan]

Almost exclusively to play, there are games for older systems which I used in my youth that I'm unlikely to play using original hardware as well as a few which are just window dressing, but the games I get are for playing.

There are a few reasons my collection far exceeds my ability to get through the games as of yet:

1) Life's meant I've not had the spare time, or if the spare time exists then the energy to play games as opposed to gawping at Youtube hasn't been there.
2) System life-cycles mean that it's extremely cost effective to pick up games for systems which are 'old but not retro', as someone said here recently, it's time to fill in gaps with PS3 and 360 at the minute, the ideal time to collect obscure Wii games has arguably already passed as that system lost support earlier. The vast majority of my Xbox original games cost 50p, for instance.
3) I regularly go game hunting and am also adept at picking up non-gaming items or gaming items of value and swapping them for games or systems that I want.
4) The net has been cast wide - most action games (excluding sport and racing), RPGs (and hybrids) and anything that's not deep strategy have been fair game, up till now, so that they're there to be tried.

There are some factors which are dragging things the right way though:

1) I'm starting to make time to play.
2) The net isn't being cast as wide with current systems and I'm being much more selective in what I pick up for the systems which are currently cheap (youtube is great for getting an idea of how a game will play) and retro stuff is hard to find in the wild.
3) The way I weigh-up games is changing - in the past and during my childhood for instance, it was very easy to 'wait in hope' that a game will improve. If, after the initial few missions/levels, there isn't a massive change happening (if the game is mediocre) then that's 'it' - that's what the creators settled for, if it's not good enough then it goes.
4) Games in my least favourite action genres are going to be traded in unless they're something special, the Gears of War series for instance is going to get the chop, I've already traded in most of my Yu-Gi-Oh games and all of the Yakuzas.
5) Stuff bought cheap en-masse can be traded-in en-masse for something harder to get hold of, which will be happening.

So it's all good.