I say this having owned every major Home Console, starting with the Atari 2600 (w/in a year or two of its release), continuing through to the PS3, with only the exceptions being the Intellivision and Intellivision 2.  The only 2 game systems I didn't have at the time of their release that I really wanted were the Vectrex and the Neo Geo (including Neo Geo Pocket.

You'd think I was spoiled, but starting with my NES, I purchased all these game systems, as well as the games (sans the occasional X-mas/B-day game) myself.  (prior to that, the games for the C64 were free on friends' bulletin boards...also, don't kid yourself...the C64 was a glorified video game console, and quite a good one for its day).

I started working in restaurants when I was 14yo, and a pocket full of tips for a whole week will buy a lot of video games (and, a friend who works at a store with a shrink wrap machine will cure a lot of video game mistakes made due to clever, effective marketing campaigns for shitty games).

So, any money I wasn't saving for a car at that point went straight to video games, red vines and hookers, and they went to those things because I loved those things, I wanted those things, and so I bought those things.

I no longer spend my money on video games (or red vines), other than to acquire them for immediate sale.  I do not give a sloppy shit about video games any longer, and haven't been able to pick one up and play it for more than a couple minutes for a very long time (the last one I really got into was Excitebike, online on the Wii).

I do not collect games because I like them or play them.  I collect them because I intend to sell them. (I used to like them...)

When I read through stuff here (and, I've read and learned a lot and want to start trying out modding stuff because that looks like crazy fun), I've seen some people who genuinely seem to like these games they collect, and you can tell this by how they write about them, which games they want, and their interest in building new games (that Tyson Playchoice10 cart is still about the coolest thing I done seen here).  Additionally, I like the people who are trying to accumulate X number of the exact same game cartridge.  I think that's hilarious and also sounds like fun (which is what games are about, right?), but I also see a lot of people (most?) who seem to be collecting these games either just to have stuff, or for the prestige that comes with owning a sealed copy of Hagane.

WTF are you going to do with a sealed copy of Hagane?

You can't play it.  That would be like using a rare stamp to mail a postcard, a la Brewster's Millions.  So, what do you do with it?  Come home every night and jerk yourself off all over it? 

You have this fun thing that you've completely removed the fun from by comoditizing it and ensuring it will never be used for the purpose of fun ever again. So what then?  Just bragging rights in this walled in, 2-bit, 8-bit sanitarium?

Don't get me wrong.  I like making money off the phenomenon, but I absolutely don't understand it.

Anyone...anyone...

I enjoy playing my games. I love the feel and nostalgia that comes with "ramming" a cart into my 64 or SNES and playing a game I knew of or loved as a kid. I also personally think that games from 2005 and back are much better than games of today. Not in graphics necessarily but in gameplay value.

Hmm, I have a few sealed games but I never intended to buy them sealed, I Just ended up never getting around to them and after awhile it was like, what's the point? I have a sealed Pokemon Silver I bought new (along with Gold) and by the time I was done with Gold and had played Crystal I just saw no need to open my Silver. I also have a sealed Oracle of Seasons (meant to beat Ages first, never got around to it) and Mega Man Legends (played the hell out of it as a rental, bought it to have it, never played it again). I used to have a sealed .Hack (whichever the fourth one is called) but I did finally open that a couple years ago.

Now I feel like there is no point in opening my sealed one because I can just buy opened copies or download the games. I guess it sounds weird saying that I bought games and never opened them but one thing I've learned is that games are cheap enough, even at new prices, that it is easy to blow a couple hundred bucks and end up with 3 months worth of entertainment, especially with a full-time job. I'm sitting on a stack of Wii/DS games right now that I am pretty sure will last me through Christmas. Thanks quarterly bonus and cheap used games at Gamestop!

For the most part though, I only buy games I am interested in playing. I've never sold (or traded) a game so I have plenty in my collection that I don't really care for (hello Grandia on PS1!) but for the most part I only initially acquire games that seem interesting to me or that I have fond memories of. I suppose I would jump on rare and/or sealed games if they were cheap "just to have them" but that's generally not how I approach buying games.

yes

LOL! Nice.

I collect for the history. I research them, play them, and archive them.

The SNESonian. That is a new one. I will give you that.

Is that the same reason you have all the original Kenner Star Wars Action Figures in your bedroom closet as well?

Collecting is a personality type, and enjoying collecting sealed games is no different then collecting a old comic, baseball card, toy, stamp, coin, etc. All these products, aside from toys (but seriously, what adult male actively plays with toys?), you can access either through digital means or copies, so the same rules apply to gaming. All this shit is on emulators nowadays. If we we're just gamers, there are much cheaper methods to acquire this shit. But all of us, to some degree, have the collecting bug, and that's why we do it.

Also, do you still spend your money on hookers? I noticed you conveniently left that out when you said you no longer spend money "on games (or red vines)." That's the real topic here. Fuck this collector mentality bullshit. This threads been asked a million times on here. Hookers, on the other hand, rarely come up. Alabama hookers. I could only imagine...

You talking to me bro, I guess?  I have to assume this since I was the only one mentioning archiving the things.

Actually I have my games stored next to my homemade moonshine and a pile of dirty boxers, which have been lying there for a week and a half, skidmarks and all.

But in actuality, yes, I have have many items archived, that many probably will have never seen before, and have several museum-quality pieces as well.

edit:  Oh and another collector once told me, "why pay for hookers if you can get it for free?"

Yes, because if there's one thing that should be taken seriously out of that which I wrote, it's the part about me nailing hookers at age 14 years old.

For games, the actual game play is what is worthy of a museum (and that includes music, etc).  The artwork on the box, and any posters, etc, can be reproduced in a format large enough that a gallery of viewers can all see the details of said artwork at the same time.

The only possible thing that should be saved for posterity and not folly or ego is an actual system, and perhaps CRT display monitors so that light gun games will function properly and as they did originally..  The cartridges can withstand bulletfire.  They're gonna be just fine should a museum actually want to display their output.

Don't confuse your ideosyncratic collection of nostalgic kitch for something important.  It's not.

Yes.  Starting at age 14, while also saving up for a car, and continuing on until today, all I do is spend money on hookers.

Hookers here...hookers there...hookers everywhere.

Hookers, hookers, hookers...it's all I think about it.

(*Yes, the convenient omission was part of the joke.  I'm glad you caught it.  When writing something of that length in a forum, I make an active attempt to be as entertaining as possible in what I write.  Unfortunately, there is no BB Code for "Dry, Sardonic Tone", so I do my best to make it obvious.  Sometimes, I suppose I fail.*)

• They are fun to collect.
• They have value to me personally and I can relate to them (18th century stamps or whatever, though cool, I can't relate to them.)
• Video games are an emerging piece of our society, and deserve a place in history as much as cars do.
• Video games can actually be PLAYED.  A big reason why I collect them.  
• Video game collecting has a  lot of depth.  There's so much you can do with them (play them, search for games that are good/bad, rare games, etc,etc).  They can be displayed and played.  You can have gaming nights with friends, and when theyre gone you have a piece of history on your shelf.
• It's a relatively affordable hobby and doesn't take up too much space.

Um. WTF are you going to do with 200-1000 copies of Jurassic Park? 

Is it hilarious enough if someone builds a chair or a playhouse out of sealed games? 

I think I saw a thread exactly like this a week or two ago, but it had way less arrogant first post..

Haha. I thought you did that intentionally. That was funny. I would imagine if you've been to Vegas then you'll die and go to heaven there. It's legal so all the talent flocks to the desert.

Bro, I have undumpable games, of which only one or two copies are known to exist.  Some of the guys here have original artworks.  Hell, I even have sealed A'can games, something almost no one has.  As was posted a few posts after mine, videogames are definitely becoming a big thing in our society and culture, just like good literature, cars, etc.  So it definitely does seem reasonable that at some point in time, some of this stuff should be archived and preserved. 

Actually, Clark County is one of two counties in Nevada where prostitution is completely illegal.  I think there's a provision in the law that states that if an area reaches a certain population density, prostitution becomes illegal.

Although, it's obviously tolerated in Clark, as long as it's discrete.

In reality, I can't even stand to be in a strip club (they make me intensely uncomfortable...I like to objectify my women in private, thank you very much...), so there's no way I could actually hire a prostitute.

When I was in Amsterdam, there was one girl in one of the windows who was so absolutely, mythically beautiful that I thought about it, but then I thought about how poorly I'd fumble through the event and then have to pay for it, so discretion became the better part of valor in that instance.

That's the closest I've ever gotten to actually paying for sex...30 seconds of thinking about how awkward it would be, as well as how demeaning it would be for both myself and the pro.

I do like Red Vines quite a lot, though.

Yes, like I said, the games themselves, as the earliest examples of interactive, digital entertainment, should certainly be allowed to survive and be played in a museum format, but do you really think anyone but a private collector who is as obsessed as you are with the hobby of video game collection is gonna care about your early prototype of Castlevania that never got released?

No.  Mario is gonna be in a museum.  Pac Man is gonna be in a museum.  Donkey Kong is gonna be in a museum...and so on.

The only thing about your uber-rare Japanese RPG that anyone is gonna ever care about is that it was made.  It will be catalogued and filed away in a cabinet in the museum's basement where it will never be seen again.

Never had a desire for prostitution, never will.  After reading through books such as Das erste Mal und immer wieder:  Autobiografische Schilderung einer Prostituierten, I can't even objectify women anymore, without thinking about the sad fact that so many men are just hogs / beasts, and nothing more. 

Make a bet?  Have a contest?  Make video games what they're supposed to be - fun?  Add a bit of sarcasm and self-deprivation to your trivial pursuit?.

Show video game collecting for what it is - unimportant ego fulfillment?  (which is fine as long as one is honest about it)

And, sorry for the arrogance of my OP.  If I were less arrogant, myself, it probably wouldn't have come out like that.  My bad.

I have a Castlevania prototype?!?  Nice to know, now if only I knew where it was...damned memory lapses. 

Obsessed private collector?  Such as me?!  Really?!  I think you must be mistaken, sir.  Videogames are one of my last priorities in life, after homebrewing, cooking, reading, writing, hiking, music making, making love, travelling, photography, volunteering, etc, etc etc. 

Yup, backing up the games and making a record is all about unimportant ego fulfillment.  The same could be said about discovering that lost piece of pottery, lying somewhere in Rome or Greece.  Many of the artistic finds from the ancients were most likely blips on their radars, yet now seen as so important. 

Too bad for you, I have a train to catch in a little bit, so I'm out.  Let's keep this troll fest going, can't wait to see where it is (or ended) when I get back!

That's because you actually still like the games.  I understand that at a certain point, your adult desires kick in and it becomes something different than it was when you were a child, but buying sealed copies of games that will never be able to be played by children, and will never fill them with the wonder that they filled you with as a child...I don't know...I got a bit of a problem with that (and , I don't play anymore, but I used to spend hours on my various consoles trying to get one level higher, or one boss battle further...just so I could see the next cut scene or the final credits or whatever).

You still like the games.  For you, I think collecting is cool.  If I were collecting for any reason other than income generation, I'd kick the shit out of myself for being a pretentious asshole.

OK, class, today we will turn our books to chapter 7 and learn about hyperbole, sarcasm and allegory.

Who wants to start reading from where it says, "Chapter 7 - No Shit, Sherlock"?

See, there you go again comparing your idiosyncratic wonderlust with anthropological breakthroughs.

Do you not think that "video games", and the video games which were actually culturally important have already been archived and catalogued?

Final Fantasy, Ducktales, Q-Bert, Street Fighter 2, Gauntlet (arcade) - these games have been preserved.  Whatever game it is that you have one of two known copies of, or whatever (since apparantly hypothetical examples are beyond your ability to comprehend) is completely unimportant to everyone except those to whom it is important, and that group constitutes a percentage of the population so minute as to not bother to mention them at all for posterity.

Ya know...the tumbling of the Berlin Wall, and the awesome, rare score that tracker465 found on the NintendoAge boards...yeah...I'm sure those events will be side by side in the history books.

Jesus, give me a break.

Whatever.  Your writing is a bit below my comprehension level, and even after four beers and a lack of sleep, I still have no idea what the hell you are talking about.  From the gist of what you wrote, everyone who collects games is an asshole, no matter what the reason, but you are the coolest shit because you just buy games to flip.  Is that what I'm reading?  If so, then just piss off already.  Yay, the train is coming soon, have a good night with your hookers and piles of cash.