There were a bunch of points I wanted to jump in on for this podcast when I listened to it a couple days ago. If I could remember them all and managed to put all my thoughts to print it would qualify for the tldr tag....
....actually, this might be too long as it is, and a little somber in parts to boot. I've added some pics to liven things up a bit and break up the wall of text, they're just for fun.
One thing Bil said did manage to stick in my mind though, he was saying something along the lines of how completing a collection or sub-set didn't bring as large amount of satisfaction as one might suspect. That putting the last game of a long sought after set on the shelf wasn't a life changing event....I'm paraphrasing for the sake of discussion here.....I'd like to caution against thinking it would. Without straying too much into a preachy/psychology-y/ethics-101/age-old-wisdom discourse, making a reminder of saying the acquisition of things won't make a person happy.
While there isn't anything wrong with collecting in itself, thinking it, by itself, will satisfy life's needs isn't a good way to go. Keeping in mind this is all coming from someone who is in their third decade of collecting, has thousands of items spread about the house, goes to several game shows/expos a year, is looking for ways to have more than 20 consoles hooked up at once and has submitted at least a couple scans to this wonderful collecting database. I want to remind us to keep game collecting in it's rightful place in our lives. Like anything, moderation is key. Moderation will be different for each of us of course but we should be mindful of it. And what is it we need to moderate? It's not just things like spending or time commitments but also things like how we value the hobby compared to our friends and families.
I'm sure that most of the people on this site have thought of these things and how collecting games fits into their lives. It doesn't hurt to talk about it though. Nearly everyone who bothers to post about other peoples finds in the forum, or the small scores thread, seems to be honestly congratulatory and happy for others, like we are part of a team having fun finding and displaying stuff. I really hope it isn't ever the other way though, were people are getting jealous or envious or making it out to be a competition for who can get the biggest and best stuff. Does it ever feel like some people are finding lots of cool stuff and getting all this praise which makes other people feel like they need to "compete" so they can get that too? I certainly don't want it to be like that, I like the "yay! we're part of a team!" feeling way more.
Enough of that for one post....
They were talking about people making their own shelves to put games on, I just put up a shelf I made, it has DVD's on it but it might be able to hold games too
I'm working on some sets too. My collecting is mostly based on price, I realize just like that guy Crabby was talking about who enjoyed the hunt so much he was willing to sell off parts of his collection just so he could find it again, I have so much fun in the hunt I don't need to spend a lot to make it fun. For a long time I was just adding games as I found them trying to
average $1 per item, I still do that of course but have added a few other goals. Because of all the people completing things like NES and SMS collections on this site and realizing it's a competition (are you paying attention?
) I wanted to complete one too. Since most Odyssey^2 games are about a dollar and it's a small set, I'm trying to get them all. I'm one away. I have all the first party games if that means anything.
Other things I'm working on are Vectrex games, maybe SMS games and half halfheartedly TG16 games. I'm thinking about getting the rest of the Nintendo Fun Club News mags and someday the Virtual Boy collection. Of course there is always the NES collection but some of those games are now worth more than a buck a piece so I'm kinda taking a break from that, at least slowing down. I guess none of those are really sub-sets like what was talked about on the show but I'm such a cheap collector, setting out to get anything other than but including what can be found for cheap is tough.
Seems like I have more to say but I know how you internet people are, if it's more than two sentences long I get a thumbs down right? I've been finding youtube comments hilarious lately.....oh yeah, I was signing off.....uh, here's one more pic, one of those ones you like, were you try to recognize the games. How many do you know below Pitfall: The Mayan Adventures?
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