I'm not game collector. I buy and play games, and eventually they accumulate into a large pile of stuff. I sell off majority of my games/systems every 6 years or so, and buy new stuff. The only console and games I have never sold was my Atari. Everything else will be bought and sold eventually. I suppose I'm more of a minimalist at heart. I prefer my possessions to take up as little space as possible. If I could buy every game digitally, I would. I already do this with books and music.
I love displaying my games but I am out of space. I have begun stuffing older games into any crevace I can find. Once that starts to happen its not so much fun collecting anymore. I still like owning my games though, I love knowing I can play almost anything I want at any time.
I'm not sure a digital collection can be seen as any less consumerist than a physical collection.
Unless desperate for money nothing will be happening to my collection. I doubt it's worth that much anyway.
Foolz said:I'm not sure a digital collection can be seen as any less consumerist than a physical collection.
Unless desperate for money nothing will be happening to my collection. I doubt it's worth that much anyway.
Oh yeah. Even when I was a collector, it was never about the games growing in value. There are a few gems in teh gaming biz that are legitimately worth something, and even then, all it takes is a re-release or digital distribution to slash their value.
A digital collection is less consumerist from the environmental angle (server eletricity is horrible, but less than packaging/ transportation). Plus you are not really owning the item, just licensing it for a short time.
Dvader said:I love displaying my games but I am out of space. I have begun stuffing older games into any crevace I can find. Once that starts to happen its not so much fun collecting anymore. I still like owning my games though, I love knowing I can play almost anything I want at any time.
This is it for me. It's not something I show off (no-one ever comes to my house, and if they did I'd be worried they'd mention it to the wrong kind of people).
Ravenprose said:I'm not game collector. I buy and play games, and eventually they accumulate into a large pile of stuff. I sell off majority of my games/systems every 6 years or so, and buy new stuff. The only console and games I have never sold was my Atari. Everything else will be bought and sold eventually. I suppose I'm more of a minimalist at heart. I prefer my possessions to take up as little space as possible. If I could buy every game digitally, I would. I already do this with books and music.
I can relate to this very much. Bandwidth is the big thing holding me back. PSN+ is a requirement if you have Sony platforms, but I can't participate.
aspro said:
Oh yeah. Even when I was a collector, it was never about the games growing in value. There are a few gems in teh gaming biz that are legitimately worth something, and even then, all it takes is a re-release or digital distribution to slash their value.A digital collection is less consumerist from the environmental angle (server eletricity is horrible, but less than packaging/ transportation). Plus you are not really owning the item, just licensing it for a short time.
Okay, then it's less consumerist in the sense that it's worse for the consumer. 
I was considering the environment as a separate issue.
When I think of being an anti-consumerist it takes in the environment, detachment from obligation, freeing your finances from corporate slavedom (you know, the usual bullshit).
Yep, I just don't see how the latter two are affected by digital content unless your digital content is pirated, though. (I may be missing something, though.)
Wow I was proud that I recently broke the 200 game mark (combining physical and digital games but I seem to be more into the digital thing these days) .... but 2300..... that ,..... pheh...da...wooo.....*faints*
Foolz said:Yep, I just don't see how the latter two are affected by digital content unless your digital content is pirated, though. (I may be missing something, though.)
Those two don;t, I was jsut expanding on my interpretation of the anti-consumerist vision.
Archangel3371 said:I use to always trade-in my games and systems towards getting more games and systems but I started hanging onto my games and systems a few years ago and I really like having a growing collection. I'm not really a fan of digital distribution which is why I'll almost always opt for getting my games on physical format even if it means paying substantially more for it. I'm not sure how many games I have currently though.
Do you organize them in any manner? Like by system/ alphabetically? Do you take any joy from the organization part of having them? Or like Vader is it more of a chore to find new places to stack them?
Right now I just have limited shelf space so I keep several games from each current system. They are usually the most recent ones I've purchased. The rest I just have stuffed away in a closet for now. I plan on purchasing more shelving in the future and then I'll organize it in some fashion. Like Vader I mostly enjoy having a collection knowing I can always play any game at any given time. When I was always trading my games there were numerous times I'd end up buying the same game again because I felt like playing it again.aspro said:
Do you organize them in any manner? Like by system/ alphabetically? Do you take any joy from the organization part of having them? Or like Vader is it more of a chore to find new places to stack them?
I've not bothered collecting for about 10 years now. Back then I got separated from half of my games following a very nasty break-up with a psycho whore beast of a woman. So there went the NES and most of the SNES collection (through it all I still have held onto my Super Famicom copy of Final Fantasy V). And then a couple years after that I went through a financial hardship and ebayed almost all of my N64, PS1, handheld games, and a good chunk of PS2 games. I did try to restart a collection with the Wii, but once I got my library of games up to 15 or so I realized I wasn't going to play most of them ever again. Since then I've been a pretty minimalist game owner renting games and selling back games that I purchased that were less than all-time greats. Though in that same span of time I've embraced digital distribution much more. Call it the epitome of laziness, but to me being able to change games and not get off of the couch is pretty much the greatest thing in the world.
I recently did a count of the number of physical games in my collection. The breakdown goes like this:
- Xbox 360 - 111 games
- Wii - 19 games
- PS3 - 18 games
- PC - 18 games
- PS2 - 10 games
- 3DS - 6 games
- DS - 5 games
- Xbox - 4 games
Total physical games - 191
Archangel3371 said:I recently did a count of the number of physical games in my collection. The breakdown goes like this:
- Xbox 360 - 111 games
- Wii - 19 games
- PS3 - 18 games
- PC - 18 games
- PS2 - 10 games
- 3DS - 6 games
- DS - 5 games
- Xbox - 4 games
Total physical games - 191
Why no games from before the PS2/XBOX/GCN era?
You get a special dudebro achievement when you pass 100 360 games.
Dvader said:You get a special dudebro achievement when you pass 100 360 games.
Don't be a jerk. Dudebro's play on PS too.
Archangel3371 said:I recently did a count of the number of physical games in my collection. The breakdown goes like this:
- Xbox 360 - 111 games
- Wii - 19 games
- PS3 - 18 games
- PC - 18 games
- PS2 - 10 games
- 3DS - 6 games
- DS - 5 games
- Xbox - 4 games
Total physical games - 191
So you must churn your games a fair bit (or maybe back in the day)? I know for sure you have a deeper history with the 6th gen.
My recent return to the Candid Collectors' Union at gamespot.com had me thinking about my beloved friends at this site and where they stand with their attitudes towards their larger than average collections.
The trend since the rise of iTunes has been to divest of material possesions and store them digitally, indeed, I sold my 400+ CD's after ripping them. I get the feeling with more classic games available through the various console holders that the average person doesn't have much value in maintaing a physical collection of games (as long as the experience is available, who cares about a chunk of plastic?).
Being a life long anti-consumer my collection of, I guess it's around 2,300 games, has always been a millstone -- something I hang onto begrudgingly mostly because I need to play them all at some point -- but I still have not made the jumpt to digital aquisition (other than through Steam).
Raven, you blew up your collection recently -- has anyone else considered the same?