You ever been attacked for being a game collector?

[telly]

I never understood how people can bash gaming as a waste of time, then they binge on watching a ton of Netflix or movies or surfing the internet. Honestly, what's the difference? Always bothered me.

For me, I rarely talk about gaming unless it's with friends who also play games. It's something that I've kept on the subtle side. My parents aren't always the most keen that I play games, I always feel a little awkward bringing it up even though it's something I'm passionate about. Other than that though, have never been attacked or made fun of for it.

[gf78]

I guess the worst verbal assault has to be my parents.  I've heard them harp on and on for years.  They don't understand and that's just fine.  I don't get why they watch dreck like Dancing with the Stars or America's Got Talent.  That is completely useless, vile garbage television programming IMO.

I don't really go out of my way to advertise that I am a gamer, but I also don't hide it.  All of my coworkers know I'm a gamer and a geek at heart and at least to my face, nobody criticizes me for it.  Many of the people I work with can't wait to come in on Monday and talk about what happened on the Walking Dead.  And those are all ladies. 

[turf]

Nope.  I have buddies that say "If you'd just sell all that stuff, you could buy that RZR you want." 

No one has ever really given me grief over it. I think it's because I'm so freaking awesome.     Even if they did I wouldn't care. 
Games are something I do and enjoy.  It's not who I am entirely.

[rayne315]

There have been very few times I have been "attacked" for playing/collecting video games. most of the time was when i was young like in grade school and friends would come over/I would go over to friends and we would play games and their parents would make comments to my parents about now wanting their kid to waste their life away playing games like I was. And once like another user said in a previous thread I got attacked by a gaming store employee for who said "why are you trying to buy those? (final fantasy 3(6) and Yoshi's island) they're trash like you are If you don't buy... (whatever late ps1 game early ps2 had just released)." What I find funny though is that I am already more successful than those parents and never stopped playing those games, and that guy was eventually fired because too many customers complained about him.

I have never hide that I enjoyed playing and collecting video games and in the last 5 years it seem more people are interested when talking about it than not.

[ignition365]

lol Guy who runs a local shop that's part of a larger chain.  2 stories about this guy.  First one is that he was saying he doesn't collect video games, he thinks it's stupid that people collect video games, that he's into football jerseys or something.

Other story was, and it riled me up, the store used to sell manuals for $1 a piece, rarely did anyone dig through their boxes of manuals, but I did, every time I would go in, I would get a manual that I need, because they would do $1 off your purchase if you check in on facebook.  Free manual every day, I loved it.  But then some dick face went in, found some rare manual, did what I did and got it for free.  Proceeded to show this manager that it was worth a lot of money, posted it on ebay, sold it for $50 within a minute or two, said thanks like a dick and left.  Manager told me that story and said they went through all of the manuals and grabbed anything they thought would be worth any money so they could price it accordingly, anything left on the shelves was still $1 because they weren't worth their time.  I didn't really care, I figured they pulled the stuff that was worth like $50 and such, and I saw a manual for Primal Rage for SNES that I needed on the shelf, so I grabbed it and proceeded to check out and he told me "That'll be $25", argued with him for a minute about how he just told me that, and he said that they must've forgot to grab that one and that it's $25.  At that point I didn't buy it and I let him know that he was being a dick to his regulars because of some assface.  I haven't seen him in a long while, hopefully he got fired.  Last time I went in, it looked like manuals are mostly $5 a piece now.  Not that they were getting money out of me before, but now the stuff is just taking up space because nobody wants to pay $5 for the black and white manual for NCAA Basketball.

Similar story, same shop, different manager it seems.  Any games priced over $12.99 go in their glass display cases, so if you are going to steal stuff, it's only the cheap games that they paid like $1 a piece for.  Everything else goes on shelves that line the walls of the store.  They had a copy of Donald Duck Goin' Quackers for N64 on the wall shelf marked as $12.99, no as-is sticker, but the label was in fairly bad shape, mostly wear, no tear.  They were doing a few hour long 50% off all used games sale, so I was like, sweet, I can get it for like $7.  Guy rang it up for $25.99, did 50% off, and told me $12.99.  I showed him it had a sticker for $12.99, so it should be 6.49.  We argued, him stating that some customer must've swapped the price tags.  I insisted that how could a customer swap the price tag, if it was priced as $25.99, it would be in the case, where a customer couldn't do that.  They NEVER let customers handle display case games until the product has been paid for, as it is corporate policy.  Luckily, he asked another employee what he thought, he said, someone fucked up, give it to him.   How little they pay and how high they usually charge, they still weren't taking a loss.

[fredlepirate]

Never been attacked about it recently... my parent never really liked my love for video games when I was a teenager, but since I move out they dont have anything to say about it. My wife think I may have to many of them, but she doesnt really bother me with it if I dont spend to much on games (cannot afford any Neogeo games anymore). She play with me sometime if the game look cute.

At work (military), most people of my generation and younger (20 to 40) have a video game console or a PC and play games regularly. I dont talk about my collection, but we still talk often about the new games coming out. I did mention that I own a SNES and they get jealous, asking if I have Zelda or Mario Kart.

[gf78]

There is only one "classic" game shop (ie not GameStop) in the area.  I used to go there all the time, about every other day looking for old games or even manuals or cases for games.  I've done a lot of business there. 

A couple of years ago, they hired a guy who works on broken electronics such as consoles, phones, laptops, etc.  And it hasn't taken long since then for me to stop going, maybe 3 times a year at most now.  For one, he watches you like a hawk to see what you are looking at.  If you don't pick it up then and he even has a hint you might want it another day, he snatches it up.  Second and worst of all to me, he is antagonistic.  He's an Xbot through and through and makes sure to point out his perception of it being superior to PlayStation.  So bad to the point that he outright lies.  We have gone back and forth as he tried to say that the PS3 had as many system failures as the Xbox 360.  He tries to say that he has never seen a single broken Xbox One, but he has repaired over a dozen PS4's and they are pieces of junk.  He's also a clueless moron who thinks that Sony was the owner of Kingdom Hearts and they lost it to Microsoft (since the 3rd game is coming out on Xbox One I guess).  No matter what you try to say, he is a belligerent little toad who won't entertain the thought that he might not know what the F he's talking about. 

And the thing is, I don't care that Xbox is his favorite and PlayStation is mine.  To him, it seems he's equating his choice of brand to pecker size and he's almost vicious with his stance and statements.  But worse than that, I am a paying customer who doesn't want to shop there or even browse there because he's such a douche. 

[doafan]

Attacked for being a collector ?, can't said that but I do have received a lot of bad comments from people (not friends) and of course from my parents, specially my dad but never cared about the opinions of others, at least when my parents were the ones that purchased the titles I felt sad sometimes but then totally forget about their complains when I played, right know that am a father, that I purchase my own consoles/games/accessories I don't give a shit about the opinions of other persons, why ?, because I earn my fucking money and I'm the only one who can decide how to spend it also is not like I spend all of it in videogames, like a mature and old man do have other priorities well arranged and videogames are the last ones at the priorities list, the day that those persons that doesn't like my collection hobby paid my food, services, education will quit collecting but that's not gonna happen.

[karyann]

As a woman, I've been given a few eye rolls and sarcastic comments for sure. Some idiots think that I'm calling my boyfriend's games my own and then adding my Yoshi and gardening games to the list or whatever 

But most people with whom I share that I love gaming and that I collect games simply think it's cool and want to talk about games. Like some of you already mentioned, people often don't understand things that they are not into. Idiots are everywhere in the wild, whatever the area of interests 

[aliensstudios]

I've never been attacked but I do feel uncomfortable showing my collection to certain individuals because most people just don't get the fascination with games and game memorabilia. Most everyone loves it though and I'm very happy with what I have. My mom is very indifferent to it, sometimes I get the sense that my dad is like: "Do you really need all this?" but he supports my hobby. I have a lot of acquaintances and feel uncomfortable sharing with them that I collect video games just because I don't want to be stereotyped as a weeaboo or a geek that sits around drinking Mountain Dew all day. I like sports, I like movies, I like music. Just because we love to collect games doesn't mean its our entire lives.
The people who attacked your friend likely have nothing in their lives like that. Remember, nobody insults someone if they're truly happy in their life. Just be glad you and your friend don't need to resort to petty insults to try and put someone down; you're better than that.

[rayne315]

on a more positive note I had a co-worker that we would always talk about our hobbies to each other me gaming and him racing and he never understood why I like games so much and I never understood why he liked racing so much so one day he took me to a race and I have to admit I had a good time down at the track bullshitting with him, and I took him to see my collection and let him play a few games (he was mostly interested in farming simulators and my racing games that had the wheel and pedal controllers) and he really enjoyed it too, and got really good at the racing game we played.

and we are talking about a guy that has never played a video game in his life too that ended up likening the games that followed his hobbies.

[maximo310]

My friends are pretty cool with it for the most part, since they are mostly gamers as well. My brother does have some disagreements on my collecting, but he still supports it as he has found some of his favorite games thanks to stuff I picked up like Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.

 However, my other family members including relatives don't approve of my hobby at all and say that its a waste of time; and have used these same arguments to stop other collections I had the past because of their behavior. It doesn't help that I was yelled at by 3 family members because I gave an extra DS Lite to a younger cousin who was interested in DS games at the time. They said that I was corrupting him with games and wasting my time and money; even though they always spend tons of money on mobile apps and Apple products for their families.It's been a few years since then, and this cousin now has a 360 thanks to his parents, but I've never recieved an apology from my relatives for that outburst.

So, in the end my family's arguments against game collections are going to fall on deaf ears,  especially when they have their own collections of shoes and cd's.

[fazerco]

especially when they have their own collections of shoes and cd's.

That is usually it. People do judge, but they have their own collections of stuff, that they won't tell anybody.

Btw, i have a sugarbag collection, but thats easier to store then videogames 

[ignition365]

My friends are pretty cool with it for the most part, since they are mostly gamers as well. My brother does have some disagreements on my collecting, but he still supports it as he has found some of his favorite games thanks to stuff I picked up like Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate.

 However, my other family members including relatives don't approve of my hobby at all and say that its a waste of time; and have used these same arguments to stop other collections I had the past because of their behavior. It doesn't help that I was yelled at by 3 family members because I gave an extra DS Lite to a younger cousin who was interested in DS games at the time. They said that I was corrupting him with games and wasting my time and money; even though they always spend tons of money on mobile apps and Apple products for their families.It's been a few years since then, and this cousin now has a 360 thanks to his parents, but I've never recieved an apology from my relatives for that outburst.

So, in the end my family's arguments against game collections are going to fall on deaf ears,  especially when they have their own collections of shoes and cd's.

Yeah, my brother, whom I have never gotten along with, I'm giving his kids a 3DS a Wii and a whole bunch of Rock Band stuff for christmas because I picked it all up for $15.  My brother sounded rather grateful, which I appreciate, but I explained to him that it didn't cost me much.  My parents don't like that I'm doing that, they keep trying to push money on me for it, and I keep having to explain to them that it's stuff that has just been taking up room.

Oh.... I may hack the wii for them, I didn't think about that, he'd probably dig that, he used to be real big into SNES.

especially when they have their own collections of shoes and cd's.

That is usually it. People do judge, but they have their own collections of stuff, that they won't tell anybody.

Btw, i have a sugarbag collection, but thats easier to store then videogames 

2 years in a row, with my wife's family, I have gotten the same person for SS, and he collects razors, like old 1910-1940 razors.  So I have to do research and find something unique that I think he'll dig.  I have no clue if he liked either one.

[rayne315]

Btw, i have a sugarbag collection, but thats easier to store then videogames 

Im curious what do you mean by collect sugar bags? do you mean sugar packets? how do you go about collecting them?

I knew a guy that was big into preserving and collecting flowers and grasses. he even had a binder with card sleeves that he stored blades of grass from EVERY lawn and park in the city and from different times throughout the year and lengths. It was strange to say the least but to each their own.

I actually love hearing about peoples strange collecting habits and how they happened to start in on the collection.