VGCollect Forum
General and Gaming => General => Topic started by: bikingjahuty on July 10, 2019, 07:56:17 pm
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Coinciding with the 4th of July, I enjoyed an extended 4-day weekend where I had planned on doing various things, one of which was rearranging my game room in order to make room for various collections which are on the verge of running out of space. Given how large my collection of games is this was no small undertaking, but it was something I was genuinely looking forward to. However something happened while doing this that I would have never expected in my wildest dreams
While moving this shelf over there, and transplanting that collection onto that other shelf, and while moving those other three collection to another shelf I had a bit of an epiphany; why the hell do I have this many video games? Sure, I love video games and always will, but the reality of how many I actually have sort of hit me in a place it never has before. I continued to rearrange my game room, but the feeling was still there; I had amassed way more games than I ever intended or truly originally wanted when I first began collecting back in 2008. Originally I had just wanted to get games I was familiar with from my childhood, but this eventually became games that I'd never heard of, then games that looked like they might be cool, and then at some point it had devolved into meeting a certain quota of games I could say I had in my collection. While this never resulted in me accumulating a bunch of shovelware or outdated sports titles, it certainly has led me to purchase literally hundreds of games that I had minimal interest in. On top of that, the reality of knowing that even if I quit my job and dedicated my life to playing video games, I still wouldn't be able to play and finish all of them, and that's just what I have right now.
I continued through my game room project, and while out and about I discovered that Gamestop was doing a B2G1 sale on all used games. Since recently I've been working to expand my PS4 collection even more I jumped right into this sale and purchased a bunch of titles. However, while buying these games I felt little joy in doing so despite knowing that I would be adding about a dozen cool PS4 games and about 3 Wii U games to my collection. I couldn't help but think how this is essentially how I've felt about 95% of my game purchases for probably the last 4-years.
By Sunday evening I was left with all this on my mind and wondering what to do with it. Not getting anywhere with it on my own, I decided to talk to my girlfriend about it who is also a huge gamer. To my surprise she mostly felt the same way I did, and maybe even more so. She said that outside of new releases that she is super hyped about, she doesn't have that much interest in amassing so many games like we'd been doing since we moved in together back in 2010. As for retro games she felt like we had everything she'd ever really wanted about 5-years ago and that almost everything we bought since then was somewhat superfluous; I couldn't help but agree with her.
We looked at our PS2 shelf which is still our largest collection and between the games she was really attached to and the games I was attached to, it ended up being about 25% of that whole collection, while everything else was stuff that we could do without. I thought about a lot of other console collections we have and it was about the same where anywhere from about 10% to 50% of the overall collection was stuff I wouldn't necessarily miss if I got rid of it.
Since Sunday night I've thought a lot about this and I've decided that this coming weekend I am going to start the process of significantly downsizing my video game collection. I never thought in a million years I'd feel this way, but I honestly feel that I've lost sight of why I began collecting in the first place which was to recapture the nostalgia of my youth. Instead it became this lifestyle, which I don't necessarily regret, but what I do regret is how much money and space it has taken up for far too long. With all that said, I will certainly still buy games and play games, but unless it's a game I am very fond of either because of how amazing it is or because it has significant sentimental value, I am no longer going to buy to collect. I'll still be an active member of this site as well since my passion for video games hasn't changed, just my passion for collecting.
One final thing is that I just feel like everything that has happened around me as it relates to me collecting games just sort of confirms that I want to do this. Many of my old hunting grounds where I'd find amazing deals back in 2012 and 2013 are either long gone or they've become dried up or incredibly overpriced. All my favorite game stores around town are now gone, and what's left is a combination of overpriced stores or used media shops that barely get anything decent in, and when they do it costs a fortune. Essentially the thrill of the hunt and the fun of looking for games is mostly dead to me, and has been for years now despite a few noteworthy exceptions. Likewise, the enthusiasm and excitement in the hobby decreased dramatically over the last couple years, and sadly I don't see it ever picking up again.
It's funny how radically your opinions and feelings can change on things that you once were so passionate about.
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We both have a similar feeling, I stopped buying video games myself and been spending my money on Music CDs for almost 2 years now, I realized that each and every video game I have should be played to it's fullest, and mastered, problem is? the truth of why stopped buying video games is
I realized their is other things in my life I can do with my time instead of just playing video games.
I have many many compilations and I am guessing over 1500 games most are not in my collection on this site.
If I were you I'd get rid of games that you have more than one copy of first, before getting rid of anything else in your collection, but remember you might regret downsizing your collection I know I would, games make me happy but other things in my life do as well.
I know I said I was jealous, but I am over it. and I realize that I was wrong to complain since I do have so many retro games I never even played and almost none of them are duplicates
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Definitely put your happiness first. If it isn't making you happy, I'm glad you are deciding to make a change.
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Definitely put your happiness first. If it isn't making you happy, I'm glad you are deciding to make a change.
It just wasn't doing anything for me anymore. I felt like for a long time I did it just because it's what I was used to for so long. I used the occasional high of a great deal I came across or finally buying a rare game I'd wanted for a while and the excitement that came with it as justification for continuing on with collecting. There was also the fear that if I didn't buy certain games now that either I was never going to be able to find it again or the next time I did find it it would be worth way more. Fear as a motivator for collecting is certainly not a reason to continue on with it.
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Yeah, I've been on that path on and off for a while. I sold about $1k worth of games over the last few months. Still listing stuff on ebay.
I've also realized in a lot of cases with retro stuff that if I were to play the game, i'd probably opt for an emulator anyway.
The problem I have, and maybe you'll find that too, is that there are a lot of cheap games I'd like to get rid of, but they sort of aren't even worth getting rid of. Selling anything $10 or less online you'll lose all of the money to shipping and fees... and bundling folks won't buy it anyway.
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At some point, it all just gets to be too much. It is much more satisfying to collect something limited or specific in scope, rather than everything or anything you find. We're not museum curators, after all.
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(https://media1.giphy.com/media/12XMGIWtrHBl5e/giphy.gif?cid=790b76115d273c4b4a35466836fc83e2&rid=giphy.gif)
Heh, with all jokes aside, if it makes you feel better and its something you feel good about, definitely approach it. ;D Cutting back on certain things in life can be a liberating feeling.
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Oh, the worst part is when you get to phase two and sell off a bunch of stuff. Then say... 10 years later you want all that stuff again.
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Oh, the worst part is when you get to phase two and sell off a bunch of stuff. Then say... 10 years later you want all that stuff again.
oof, basically me with my Mega Drive and X360 Collections. Glad I got them back, except for a few 360 stragglers, good thing they're going for cheap now. :P
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I'm essentially in the same boat as biking. Getting rid of games that I don't have any attachment to, or that aren't part of a cherished franchise has been pretty therapeutic.
P.S. I haven't forgotten about your interest in my stuff for sale! I'll send you a PM when life stops getting in the way.
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Oh, the worst part is when you get to phase two and sell off a bunch of stuff. Then say... 10 years later you want all that stuff again.
I've seen worse I have seen someone buy and sell his entire snes collection 4 times in 5 years obviously rebuying everything everytime. was only couple K worth of stuff everytime but still quite allot of effort while losing money and having minimal enjoyment out of it
at that point why bother ???
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Oh, the worst part is when you get to phase two and sell off a bunch of stuff. Then say... 10 years later you want all that stuff again.
That's a risk I'm willing to take, although I'd like to believe that once I downsize I likely won't be picking up the vast majority of what I get rid of ever again. I do plan on keeping at least a third of my collection, if not half so I certainly won't be getting rid of it all. Most likely I'll only be selling off about 25% or so of my Dreamcast and N64 collections since those two are very sentimental for me, but everything else will probably get downsized a decent amount.
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I'm essentially in the same boat as biking. Getting rid of games that I don't have any attachment to, or that aren't part of a cherished franchise has been pretty therapeutic.
P.S. I haven't forgotten about your interest in my stuff for sale! I'll send you a PM when life stops getting in the way.
Yeah, it just sounds nice to sell a bunch of it off and also move on with my life in regards to always being on the hunt for games or thinking about growing my collection indefinitely like I have for the past decade.
And it's all good! Take your time with that :)
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Yeah, I've been on that path on and off for a while. I sold about $1k worth of games over the last few months. Still listing stuff on ebay.
I've also realized in a lot of cases with retro stuff that if I were to play the game, i'd probably opt for an emulator anyway.
The problem I have, and maybe you'll find that too, is that there are a lot of cheap games I'd like to get rid of, but they sort of aren't even worth getting rid of. Selling anything $10 or less online you'll lose all of the money to shipping and fees... and bundling folks won't buy it anyway.
I've always charged for shipping, but yeah, fees will always be there unfortunately. For anything under $5 I'm likely going to take the loss and sell them to a local 2nd and Charles that gives decent trade in on games (probably because they overcharge for on mostly lol). It will save me time by not having to post them too.
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I'm essentially in the same boat as biking. Getting rid of games that I don't have any attachment to, or that aren't part of a cherished franchise has been pretty therapeutic.
P.S. I haven't forgotten about your interest in my stuff for sale! I'll send you a PM when life stops getting in the way.
Yeah, it just sounds nice to sell a bunch of it off and also move on with my life in regards to always being on the hunt for games or thinking about growing my collection indefinitely like I have for the past decade.
That's another thing I forgot to mention: always being on the hunt. Whenever I traveled to a new city, my first thought was "I wonder if I can find a used game store."
These days? That thought rarely comes up. If I happen across one during travel? Sure, I'll stop in and maybe come back with a souvenir. Otherwise, I'm just glad to be somewhere new.
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Yeah i feel in the same boat here also i went to best buy (GCU is still active) and gamestop this weekend only grabbed one game (Judgement) which if you know my recent gaming kick you'll know why i got that. But i went through my PS4/XB1 games and eliminated more than half of them. I'm thinking of doing this with the other systems i have, hell getting rid of my Saturn collection as a whole has been big on my mind since I've basically have been priced out on getting anything else on that system. Maybe that'll be what i do this weekend.
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Oh, the worst part is when you get to phase two and sell off a bunch of stuff. Then say... 10 years later you want all that stuff again.
I hit this stage years ago. Sold a bunch of stuff to the GameStop I was working at and then years later I ended up buying most of it back and then some. ;)
I've since made peace with myself that I enjoy the collecting more than the playing but I still insist on buying stuff that I would be interested in playing so the chances of me getting full sets or thinking "I want Barbie/Bratz/Dance Aerobics" is practically zero. In my case though I've been collecting for over 20 years and my tastes were always the games that are now highly sought after like JRPGs, Schmups, and Platformers so I was able to scoop them up for decent prices back when they came out.
As far as downsizing goes, I've not felt that with gaming but I have with comics. I've started trade-waiting on certain books instead of buying monthly floppies. It's a bit more cost effective plus they're easier to read in one sitting. After 30 some odd years of collecting, I simply don't have the space for any more comic boxes. :P
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I haven't hit that point yet, but I imagine I will eventually. It can be rather easy to get caught up in things if you're not careful.
I think what helps me is, I don't do a lot of hunting outside of my wishlists- I think I've bought 1, maybe 2 NES games in the last 5 years for example. Several of my collections have 'finished', for lack of a better term, and I haven't felt compelled to move beyond them. Also, my threshold for what I'll spend on a game has gone up- I realized that I'd rather spend $100 on one game I really want them $20 each on 5 games that are impulse purchases anyway. I imagine as time goes on, that number will only continue to rise- or I'll realize I've hit my limit and just be done buying new stuff- which is a weird thing to think about.
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I hit that point some years ago. I use to buy almost anything I came across that I didn’t own. I also use to buy multiple used copies in fear of not finding them again, to try to piece together a perfect complete copy. I would buy every collectors edition and keep it sealed, along with a standard copy to play.
I mostly just buy what I’m interested in playing now and some old school stuff I couldn’t afford back in the day. There’s a few publishers out there that I tend to stick with. THQ Nordic is my current go to for new purchases.
I say sell em off, if the loves not there anymore. You can always get it back later if you truly miss it.
I’ve repurchased several NES games that my brother convinced me to sell as a kid. I don’t remember ever playing them again though.
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I have not hit that point yet but I'm sure I will someday. I've gone a bit crazy these last few years with accumulating as much as possible because I've been in school and currently my responsibilities are at an all time low. In just a few months, I'll be married, working full-time in a demanding field and likely having kids and buying a house in the next couple years. I will likely not have the time or the resources to collect as I have been doing now, so either I will grow to appreciate what I have been able to hoard, or will look to downsize as many others have already.
I still find collecting to be fun, so I'll keep at it until I no longer enjoy it or life interferes with it. As my wishlist continues to shrink, I wonder if I'll hit a point where I will be satisfied with what I got, or I will be looking to add titles to hunt for, just for the sake of having a goal in mind.
My game room is a freakin mess right now, I think I'm going to organize it today and test a bunch of games for a swap this weekend. Clearing some space out will help with my peace of mind.
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I hit that point with my DVD and CD collection around 2 years ago. Fortunately, as I started getting rid of those I was able to transfer almost all of it to digital, so I may not have the disc anymore, but I still have the content. If I had to guess I’d say I decreased my physical collection size by at least a third, if not more.
However, it’s not quite as easy to do the same thing with modern games - at least not without repurchasing digitally. That said I have been limiting my pick-ups to stuff I am much more likely to play - or at least use as trade fodder.
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When I was getting more serious into gaming, I purposively decided that I wouldn't go buying up a lot of games quickly for a couple reasons.
The first was that I already don't have a lot of space so I don't feel comfortable buying and keeping a lot of games around. Even now, most of the games in my collection are at my parents house (I have my PS4/PS3, Wii U - which is packed away, GameCube, DS, and SNES Classic here at my apartment). I love purchasing compilations and mini consoles since you get more games that way and it takes up less space. I'll even buy the occasional digital game here or there if it's for a good price.
The second was that even though there are a ton of franchises and consoles and I would love to get into (for example, I don't own a Genesis, NES, N64, Dreamcast/Saturn, only a few Xbox things), I've held off on diving into them because I felt like spacing out my purchases would help reduce burnout for the part of me that does love collecting. I figured that if I space out discovering new things to love about gaming then I would be happier for it in the long run? I dunno, it's a little hard to explain.
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Hit this point myself I want to say in the past year or so. Even moreso now that I want to actually make the effort to play games that I have as oppose to just collecting them in hopes that I can get rid of a few games that I want to go through but I know I wont keep. For the most part with what I dont want, I either sell them but get fucked with shipping and what not or wind up selling them to a local game shop which then turns into me opting for their store credit and getting more stuff. Even then, I feel like Im going through neverending cycle but at the same time its like Im getting what I actually want instead of some random get. As it stands, Im not going to Gamestop as much as I used to and with GCU being discountinued, I havent bought much from Best Buy since November. On top of that you have Ebay which I used alot for games but since they started charging taxes, I have had less urges to get anything since those taxes start to really add up. As one post above said, selling anything below 10 dollars kind of fucks you and alot of what I have to get rid of atm are valued around there so it does get discouraging especially when everyone is trying to lowball you hoping you will bite.
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In general stuff that is worth less than 10$ non popular titles wich is for the majority of titles in this range except for titles such as ratchet and clank sly for example
Personally I just trade them in in stores it's usually better value than online in wich people pay those kinds of prices but with effort.
If a store gives a 1 or 2$ for titles worth less than 10$ It's not to bad of a deal. They are impossible to sell not worth the effort.
if i did not trade trash titles in stores I'd have to put in effort to sell them off in bulk lots for 1 to 2$ a title in one go. sometimes a store messes up and you gain pretty high value. more than not I gained more value from selling filler to stores than selling them in bulk on my own.
For sega and older lots yes it is fairly easy and more gained than from stores. but ps2 and up stores are your best bet. it seems low but in reality it ain't that bad. kinda hard to sell not to mention especially if you decide to sell it on ebay with paypal and the increased 10% fees.
titles worth less than 10$ are usually worth less than the ebay value of 5 to 6$ 1 to 3$ should be acceptable if you want to get rid of cheap stuff.
i can imagine people finding it not worth it getting rid of these filler titles since they personally bought it for 3 to 5$ or a bit more and not wanting to sell them for 1 or 2$ in sets or to stores since they lose money. I could see that. if you got them in sets and just want to get rid of them bundeling stuff up to trade in to stores not to bad of a deal better than keeping or trying to sell those seperately no loss there I'd say since those titles barely represent any value compared to the reasons why you actually bought a certain set.
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In general stuff that is worth less than 10$ non popular titles wich is for the majority of titles in this range except for titles such as ratchet and clank sly for example
Personally I just trade them in in stores it's usually better value than online in wich people pay those kinds of prices but with effort.
If a store gives a 1 or 2$ for titles worth less than 10$ It's not to bad of a deal. They are impossible to sell not worth the effort.
if i did not trade trash titles in stores I'd have to put in effort to sell them off in bulk lots for 1 to 2$ a title in one go. sometimes a store messes up and you gain pretty high value. more than not I gained more value from selling filler to stores than selling them in bulk on my own.
For sega and older lots yes it is fairly easy and more gained than from stores. but ps2 and up stores are your best bet. it seems low but in reality it ain't that bad. kinda hard to sell not to mention especially if you decide to sell it on ebay with paypal and the increased 10% fees.
titles worth less than 10$ are usually worth less than the ebay value of 5 to 6$ 1 to 3$ should be acceptable if you want to get rid of cheap stuff.
i can imagine people finding it not worth it getting rid of these filler titles since they personally bought it for 3 to 5$ or a bit more and not wanting to sell them for 1 or 2$ in sets or to stores since they lose money. I could see that. if you got them in sets and just want to get rid of them bundeling stuff up to trade in to stores not to bad of a deal better than keeping or trying to sell those seperately no loss there I'd say since those titles barely represent any value compared to the reasons why you actually bought a certain set.
You make some sense. Think I should just go with that because otherwise Im sitting on occupied space I can clear up much quicker. Thanks.
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Well, good on you! If your collection's moved your buying habits and gaming habits (and priorities) in the wrong direction then it's time for a change. I had a similar thing happen several months ago and have since shed hundreds of games that I was in no hurry to play. SwordDude's suggestions are very good - for the cheap 'chum' games at the very least, it's a good idea to trade them in if there's somewhere you'll get either cash or swaps that are of use to you. I traded in all the low value ones to a chain called CEX, then took the resultant hundreds of pounds worth of vouchers and turned them into some rare games I did want, blu rays and a blu ray player.
Now I'm focused on 4 main areas: childhood memories, "well it looks interesting", "it's a genre I really like" and "played and liked". Ones which just look interesting I've whittled down to barely anything, even games in genres I like have been given a good examing and downsized. Could do with an ongoing preen to get rid of rubbish, but it's better all the time, I'm also really focussing on what's likely to played down the line, a lot of these limited release games aren't worth the trouble and expense.
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Well, good on you! If your collection's moved your buying habits and gaming habits (and priorities) in the wrong direction then it's time for a change. I had a similar thing happen several months ago and have since shed hundreds of games that I was in no hurry to play. SwordDude's suggestions are very good - for the cheap 'chum' games at the very least, it's a good idea to trade them in if there's somewhere you'll get either cash or swaps that are of use to you. I traded in all the low value ones to a chain called CEX, then took the resultant hundreds of pounds worth of vouchers and turned them into some rare games I did want, blu rays and a blu ray player.
Now I'm focused on 4 main areas: childhood memories, "well it looks interesting", "it's a genre I really like" and "played and liked". Ones which just look interesting I've whittled down to barely anything, even games in genres I like have been given a good examing and downsized. Could do with an ongoing preen to get rid of rubbish, but it's better all the time, I'm also really focussing on what's likely to played down the line, a lot of these limited release games aren't worth the trouble and expense.
This is something I can totally get behind
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So I've sort of made some criteria for whether or not I'll be keeping a game in my collection, and this will also guide my decision in the future as to whether to buy certain games or not.
First and foremost, I will keep and collect games that have some personal meaning to me; whether that's because I grew up playing a specific game or I have an important memory attached to the game in some way, this will be a criteria for me keeping certain games.
Another criteria involved the quality of the game as judged by me. I have a ton of games I haven't played yet which could be very good, but if they are relatively easy to obtain I plan on getting rid of those and rebuying them when I actually plan on playing them. And of course if I end up playing them and they don't end up being that great I'll just resell them to make my money back as much as possible. For those of you who've been participating in the 52 games challenge you know I rate games out of 50; I've decided to only keep games if they end up scoring at least a 35/50 which at that score means that the game is above average. But just because a game scores above that doesn't mean I'll be keeping it.
And finally when it comes to owning multiple ports of games I'm not going to do this unless there is a special reason for owning multiple versions of a specific game. For example, I own a lot of different versions and ports of Shenmue and Shenmue II, mostly because they are my favorite games of all time. However, I also own several ports of the God of War games; which while I really liked the first two God of War games, I don't need them on multiple consoles.
This is going to be the criteria I use while deciding what to sell in my collection. One thing I can see myself also doing is likely hanging onto harder to find games I haven't played yet such as Haunting Grounds and Afrika since rebuying them down the road to play them might prove difficult. Of course when I do play them, and they don't cut the mustard than I'll be selling those off too.
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It was a pleasure to help :)
glad we all could help
I still have the itch to get more games but like I said it's been on music CD's lately
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It was a pleasure to help :)
glad we all could help
I still have the itch to get more games but like I said it's been on music CD's lately
What kind of music do you collect specifically?
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It was a pleasure to help :)
glad we all could help
I still have the itch to get more games but like I said it's been on music CD's lately
What kind of music do you collect specifically?
Just about every kind of music that has a singer and with instruments. I don't collect any Classical or Jazz or any music that only involves a singer or only instruments, everything else I listen too, but most of it is Older Rock music and my favorite style of music is called Hair Metal or also known as Light Metal
If you want to find out more than join the discussion, on this thread many others have already :D
https://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,9784.0.html
close to 1000 albums and over 12,000 songs currently
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It was a pleasure to help :)
glad we all could help
I still have the itch to get more games but like I said it's been on music CD's lately
What kind of music do you collect specifically?
Just about every kind of music that has a singer and with instruments. I don't collect any Classical or Jazz or any music that only involves a singer or only instruments, everything else I listen too, but most of it is Older Rock music and my favorite style of music is called Hair Metal or also known as Light Metal
If you want to find out more than join the discussion, on this thread many others have already :D
https://vgcollect.com/forum/index.php/topic,9784.0.html
close to 1000 albums and over 12,000 songs currently
I havent collected in some time but I do have a sizable collection. Thanks.