"Never Give Up" - John Cena

Yes and no. I've built my collection almost exclusively from stuff found 'in the wild' and I'm resigned to that fact that I'll likely never find the last dozen NES games or SNES titles I'm missing, but I do keep looking. Won't buy from ebay because of ridiculous prices and the 10-counterfeits-for-every-legit crap I have to wade thru when searching their listings. I did, however, recently complete the WiiU set. About half of that came via Gamestop B2G1 and the Toys-R-Us liquidation sales, the rest was found locally. Had to pay full price for Axiom Verge, though.

Never give up, never surrender. I had my near complete sans stadium events for NES and had to sell about 100 of them to go back to college and also some of my SNES games. That was 3 years ago and it still bothers me. The goal of full sets is what keeps me going. Though Ive been on hiatus from them because of school, I'll always be a set guy.

No, to me there is no point in having physical vintage collection if you arent going for a set. Even the sets i dont go for complete to add to the game collection im kinda going for all nintendo first party. Those are all supplementary to the main collection though

If i were in your shoes, having the hardest ones already would make me want to finish it even more. Im a person that likes to finish what they start. Practically in everything in life If I dont, I feel like i wasted all that time, and that drives me to finish

I don't have many sets in mind, just going for worldwide N64 for reals. Fortunately, N64 is like baby's first fullset, so I'm steaming along towards completing that no problems. I actually quite like buying all the lame games and sports crap and racing stuff. I've played tons of games that are objectively terrible, but I've had a blast doing so. I guess I've got a taste for so bad they're good games now, for better or worse!

Other than that, I have a couple other tiny niche sets I'm very close to, but will never actually complete unless I get real lucky some day. And everything else, I'm just happy to buy the games I want, a few filler here and there from cheap deals, and just stick with that.

I've come to the realization that I'm a "near full set collector" a few years ago. After reaching around 90-95% of a Pal Megadrive, Saturn, Mega CD and N64 full collection, I would get either bored or distracted and move on to another set or a new direction in subsets. Then I would maybe sell off bits and pieces that aren't in as good condition or whatever random reasons there are.

To me, a full set CIB isn't so much the thrill in its completion, but more so the journey in which I got what games and what bundles along the way, and the knowledge gained from the experience. Whether my collection is fully completed or near-completed doesn't bother me at all these days.

Nah, I set out to do it and I'm enjoying the journey. It's getting tough to find things at FMV, but I'm in no real rush either.

I had full SNES and N64 sets, and a nearly full NES set. After realizing I'd never play all the games (because many were not fun for me anyway, plus a lack of time to thoroughly enjoy over 2000 games), I sold off all that I didn't like. There is nothing wrong with selling off your sets if you don't enjoy them.

I never really considered throwing in the towel. I pretty much just get bored with one system and move on to the next. Then revisit the original system after a while when it's appealing again. Keeps it a little fresh, if you're a completionist.

If you're not, there's nothing wrong with only collecting what you want to collect. Be it for one system, multiple, or just whatever the hell you want, gaming or not. What's important is to have fun and enjoy your hobby. And maybe talk a little trash on the interwebs while you're at it.

N64 - I was originally planning on completing the CIB set. I was well into the 200+ range with lots of heavy hitters, including SC obtained. Once I got down to the straight filler, I lost interest. I've paired down the collection twice and plan to just keep the CIBs I really want. Likely will end up around 60 CIBs when I'm done.
SNES - I never had a goal to complete the set. Was about 400+ games at its peak, mostly loose. I've completely blown out my SNES collection and plan to only keep about 40-50 CIBs.
NES - SE aside I'm 2 titles short of finishing licensed set, with the vast majority of those CIB. I'm way too close to quit now. I haven't really lost interest in finishing the set since I've started collecting. I think I've kept steam because NES was my first console, i find that releases were a bit more obscure during the era, and there seems to be a larger "uncommon" amount of games that have sort of kept the completion goal challenging. I found with N64 and SNES that the filler was much easier to come across.

Not yet. Its just going very slowly.

Definitely super slow last few years seeing the ones I need for any complete set are super, super rare. Won't ever give up. With the Switch, I kinda stepped back considering the insane amount of games coming out for it. Really too new still to be collecting fully for it. Just can't keep up. I'm at 171 unique titles, which I would say is quite the accomplishment right now, so I'm okay with not collecting for it for the time being. Plus my Gamer's Club ended last week and that really was a final straw to stop collecting for it since now it would be more expensive to do so. Just will get the limited editions and collectors editions since I still have been able to keep up with getting them all except for BotW Master's Edition. I'll wait until the filler games get to the $10 or lower side, since there is so many of them at their new price still.

This is how we play the game!!

I dropped out of the SNES game early. I had about 300 carts and almost all the expensive titles minus Speed Racer combo cart... the next most expensive game I didn't own was probably Ogre Battle. I was approached by someone who offered to sell me about 350 commons I was missing for a bulk price and it made me realize how much I didn't want them. I just didn't see the point of buying these game to possibly display but never use. I would have been buying them just for the sake of it and it actually prompted me to start selling some of the games I already had and really focus on CIB stuff.

I did collect a full Wii U set once I saw the system was doomed. I already owned most of the 1st party titles, so between Target going out of business in Canada and kijiji I was able to scoop up most of the games for dirt cheap with some reselling in the process. Even with 170ish titles I was starting to lose interest pretty fast around 100 games. I'd say about 1/3 of the collection is still sealed and likely won't be played. I am still happy about the set though; it displays nice with the kiosk and doesn't take up too much room.

I recently completed my own completion goal on the SNES - every North American game that also had a version in Japan. That alone was long enough, and I shortly started going through my shelves to see which games that I actually want to play/stay on the shelves. Been debating completing a smaller set thing, such as the Neo Geo MVS (never AES), but at this point it'd just be to complete the collection so not sure I want to do it.

The only set I ever wanted to complete was NES. I've been around 90% CIB for the past 5 years. I know I'll never finish it because of stadium events so I'm pretty content wherever I end up. I also can't see paying the prices for Bonk's Adventure, Flintstones 2, Zombie Nation, Colour a Dinosaur, Chubby Cherub and Kid Klown at this point.

Been curious of that myself

I'm up over the half way mark for NES. Pushing hard for 500 this year.

I collect GBA and I havent thrown in the towel on my goal to get a full set, but I have come to accept that it might take me years. Even if all the games were magically available today, I couldn't afford it, unless a miracle happened and I got big lot discounts. I'm really going for a boxed set, but will probably try for a mixed set first. (Loose+) my holy grail would be a sealed set, but I've come to accept that's almost entirely out of my hands.

My biggest challenge is bringing myself to buy all the crappy ahovelware, which so far I have limited myself to only getting them if they come in lots.

Throw In The Towel, The Thrill Of The Hunt, The Collection Looks Good On The Shelf. Shelf Candy. The Full Set.

I only buy Holy Grail Hidden Gems.

I usually wait to go for a set until I have 60% of it so I don't burn out. I keep the filter titles from lots I buy and then if that gets me close enough I'll consider hunting those games that have escaped me.

The problem gets to be that modern sets don't seem that collectible to me. PS2 is huge, Wii is comprised of so much filler and a few seriously expensive terrible games, the Xbox One games won't even play when the servers go out in large part.

Even money not being an issue, I don't even know if that's possible for a system like the GBA.  I could be wrong but for cardboard sets that has to be the most difficult one.  The thing about shovelware titles is that since they were so easy to make, they were easy to be ignored by consumers.  No body may have bought "Goody Gum Drop 7+" so finding a sealed copy, anywhere might be hard if they only made 5000 initial copies and most of them were destroyed.   A complete set would be quite amazing.

WHAT?!?! There's a Goody Gum Drop 7+!!!!

I'll never throw the towel at this point. My quest for the NES set has been ongoing for more than half of my life now, I just cannot stop until I have them all!