Collecting vs. Hoarding

[DerekG52]

At least when compared to many other hobbies, games have a function other than sitting on a shelf looking spiffy.

[arion]

I used to grab every title i had heard was supposed to be good but lately i have begun going through all my games and picking out the ones i know i am not ever going to play and either sell them or give them.

I gave away my copies of FF7 - FF9 to a friend of mine that has since then completed each of them at least twice while if i had kept them they would have just gathered dust. Similarly i sold my copies of Mk 2 Mk3 and Mk Trilogy for the saturn because i really had no desire to play those at all.

And i have begun being more selective when i buy games and also i buy fewer but i try them out as soon as i get home i used to buy a good stack and then not touch some of the games i bought for a long time. I just found out my ps2 copy of Vice city stories didn work and it had been more than a year since i bought it.

However any game i own for the Mega Drive or the Dreamcast i wont sell no matter what. I guess those two consoles matter to me the most Still that copy of Kao the Kangaroo is rather tempting to sell but i doubt i can even give that thing away.

[Anayo]

I just hedonistically play what I want. If I get a hold of a game and it turns out I don't like it, I don't play it.

[prfsnl_gmr]

At least when compared to many other hobbies, games have a function other than sitting on a shelf looking spiffy.

This is why I think of my video games as a "library" rather than a "collection". (I think of my DVD movies the same way.) Like a book, I can always pull a game off of the shelf and enjoy it for a while. You can't really do that with figurines, basketball cards, etc.

[DerekG52]

At least when compared to many other hobbies, games have a function other than sitting on a shelf looking spiffy.

This is why I think of my video games as a "library" rather than a "collection". (I think of my DVD movies the same way.) Like a book, I can always pull a game off of the shelf and enjoy it for a while. You can't really do that with figurines, basketball cards, etc.

I concur, it is sort of analogous to collecting cars. They can be great to look at, but do you really want to have them spending their life being unused? I know if I had a sports car I would drive that fker til the wheels came off.

[noiseredux]

At least when compared to many other hobbies, games have a function other than sitting on a shelf looking spiffy.

This is why I think of my video games as a "library" rather than a "collection". (I think of my DVD movies the same way.) Like a book, I can always pull a game off of the shelf and enjoy it for a while. You can't really do that with figurines, basketball cards, etc.

I concur, it is sort of analogous to collecting cars. They can be great to look at, but do you really want to have them spending their life being unused? I know if I had a sports car I would drive that fker til the wheels came off.

yeah I agree with all that. My problem is would you add a car to your collection that everyone calls a classic, but that you have no interest in driving?

[prfsnl_gmr]

yeah I agree with all that. My problem is would you add a car to your collection that everyone calls a classic, but that you have no interest in driving?

Yes. It is a classic for a reason. I am slowly working my way through EGM's "Top 100" and "Top 200" lists that appeared in the 100th, 150th, and 200th issues. I admit that I really had to force myself to get into a few of the games ("Return Fire", "Phantasy Star", "Jumping Flash 2", to name a few); but when I did, I came to appreciate and understand them the way that you appreciate, understand, and enjoy great works of literature. (In all of the aforementioned cases, I ended up loving each one of those games.)

Moreover, my tastes change over time. When I was in high school, I loved RPGs...but I then went through a ten-year RPG drought during which I sold or traded large swaths of my collection. I am now coming back into RPGs, and I really regret getting rid of those games (especially now that some of them are so expensive).

Therefore, like any library, my game collection is full of games that I may not be particularly interested in playing now, but that, for whatever reason, are considered classics and which I may, at some point like to visit or re-visit.

[noiseredux]

yeah I get that part. I guess the problem is that I should have bought Pokemon Blue (or whatever game) at the time I wanted to play it, rather than just to sit and wait for a year or years or ever.

[Cov238]

I think there's kind of a middle group between it all. Sometimes I want a game that is simply really cool to have but then again do I really need it? Like the Metal Gear Solid series, I already have the games but I bought the special edition combo pack cus I thought the artwork was cool. No I probably wont play both but I wanted to have that version. So I spose in some cases its wroth getting a game that you may not play that much but I think in most cases games should be collected to play, not look at.

just my 2 cents

[skyknight]

very hard to say, as I do fit the profile of some of you guys.

What's worst, is that there are 4 boys in my family, and each has different taste for games. Well, when one of my younger bros moved out (making 3X of me in a year!), and he did take a good chunk of games with him to his place. Yet, the remaining 3 bros keep adding things up, driving my mom crazy.

But fortunately, I am the one trying to find solutions.

As for games, yeah, I know that there are the list of "Must Have" or "Essential" for every system out there, even this site has one for each of the retro system. But I say that is for reference, as you should be able to have your own opinion. What's important to know is what are you looking for in a game?

And I do agree, that there is a time that you have to look over of what you have, and try to determine on what you really need? I could say that more than half of the games in my family won't ever get play again, yet we are holding on to most of them.