What you said is mostly true for me. I got into collecting during a time when it was accessible, cheap, and fun. I'd go to my local flea market every weekend, sometimes twice a weekend and literally fill up an entire backpack, with awesome retro games and consoles. Back then there was so much I still wanted and the idea of potentially finding that stuff for a few bucks somewhere really excited and motivated me to go out and hunt for it. Sadly around 2013 the hobby just took off and many of my honeyholes that I used to score big at consistently became less and less lucrative until I just wasn't finding anything anymore. I feel like hunting for retro game deals really died for me around 2017 or so; at that point I was lucky to find anything at a price I was willing to pay, and I rarely ever scored like I used to.
However, by that time I had 90%+ of what I'd ever wanted. My perspective on collecting really changed around that time too when I was forced to sell off a fairly large chunk of it twice. It just sort of made me realize I was far less attached to a lot of my collection than I once thought. Owning some super rare game was fun when I first got it and occasionally I'd think to myself, "wow, it's so cool I own that game" but other than that I wouldn't think about it ever. Also, there were a lot of games I owned that I told myself I'd play someday when I bought them, but being honest with myself I just couldn't see myself realistically doing this at any point.
If anything right now I'm more attracted to the idea of downsizing my collecting than expanding it. Sure, I still add games to it, mostly modern stuff, but someday having a massive, The Flea sized collection isn't something that appeals to me anymore. I'd much rather have a medium sized collection with games I really, really want and have some sort of attachment to. Also, wanting to play the games I own is also a must as well. I've also been way more interested in finding ways to preserve my ability to play older games and also how to play them with the best picture and sound. This has resulted in me being heavily interested in flash carts, disc emulators, upscalers, and better cables. I've been very interested in this stuff and am gradually working on optimizing and preserving all of my consoles and being able to play their games for the rest of my life without issue.
Sort of the final frontier of actual collecting I plan on getting into is buying arcade and pinball machines I grew up with in the 90s and early 2000s. I've never had the space and up until maybe a few years ago not even the money to even get started on this. I need to get a house first, and of course I'll probably be lucky to add 2 arcade machines a year to that collection, and even 1 pinball machine. Hell, I'll probably be lucky to get more than a single pinball machine every 2 or 3 years with how expensive they are, especially a few of the ones I'm after (Monster Bash, Medieval Madness). And yes, there are still some retro console games I'd still love to own. I've also been after CIB copies of games I already own loose carts of, particularly on the N64, Genesis, and SNES. I'm really in no rush though with these and just pick them up when I happen upon them at meetups or if someone is letting them go on one of the various Facebook collecting groups I belong to.
I'll always love video games and I'll always technically be a collector, however the days of picking up $2 SNES game pickups and adding 50 games to my collection in one month are long, long gone for me. But that's okay. I have so many wonderful memories of my time as a hardcore game hunter and collector, and I count myself very fortunate that I got into it during a time when it was way easier to do than it is now. So yeah, I don't have the same zest of retro game collecting I once did, but I still love retro games and always will.
