22/02/2016

Collector's delight: The rules of my game


Let's open this post with an telling anecdote, fellow gamers. One day in 2012, I went to the local posthouse to pick up a game I had ordered. Once I was done paying those cursed custom fees, the employee handed me the game and asked me good-naturedly if I was a collector. Despite the fact that I had obviously been purchasing enough games for this guy to spot my name and address, I denied being a collector and added that I was just ordering stuff from internet because it was so comfortable and easy. I pocketed my game and left the place, internally laughing at the guy's assumptions. Me, a collector? What a silly idea!

Four years and hundreds of games later, I have to give credit to that post employee for having shown an amazing amount of insight and spotted something that was still invisible and in the making at the time, namely the Game Collector in me. Although I never actively tried to be worthy of that title and still occasionally marvel at how things turned out over just a mere couple of years, the sheer volume and frequency of my gaming purchases does qualify me as a de facto collector. Still, I'm far from being a purist when it comes to collecting games: I only adhere to a couple of collecting rules—mostly custom-mades ones derived from experience. Without futher ado, here are these private rules I dutifully follow when indulging in game-hunting and collecting!

  • Pay to play: I always purchase games that I intend to play—be it five or ten years later. Even the rarest and most wanted game on the face of the earth means nothing to me if it belongs to a genre that I don't favour. As a result, my collection is nearly exclusively composed of RPGs, with a couple of games belonging to other genres here and there. This also means that I don't keep games factory-sealed nor purchase an extra brand-new copy to revere as a cult object—and possibly resell fifteen years later with huge benefits. Mind you, some of my games may prove to be excellent investments on the long run; but I get my paws on them first and foremost to play them.

  • Old is as good as new: I buy second-hand games just as willingly as brand-new games; the only thing that matters is that I own the game in question. The choice of one or the other option usually boils down to the price tag: if  brand-new copies and second-hand copies of a given game cost a similar price, then I will obviously get my paws on a brand-new copy, thank you very much. If the price difference is staggering, which is usually the case with old and/or rare games, then I will wisely go for a cheaper second-hand copy. As for games belonging to the current generation of console, I often purchase them brand-new since the price difference between brand-new and second-hand copies is virtually nonexistent. 

  • The full package: One thing I totally refuse to compromise on when hunting for games is the completeness of my purchases. I want the full package: game, box and last but not least, instruction manual. I do not own a single lone cartridge or UMD and I firmly plan to keep things that way. I would rather spend months hunting for a full copy of a game rather than purchase said game alone, even if it is excruciatingly rare. Heck, I would rather give up on the purchase entirely than settle for a cartridge alone! Now, there are obvious exceptions to this iron rule, which are none other than Gameboy and Gameboy Advance games. Since such games were sold in cardboard boxes not designed at all for conservation and perennity, finding full sets in decent condition is excruciatingly hard and ridiculously onerous—not to mention that these cardboard boxes are not practical at all when it comes to housing games. For all these reasons, I go for cartridges alone when hunting for Gameboy and GBA games—although I won't reject a complete game with a decent price tag if it comes my way.

  • The lure of Specials: Like most collectors, I have a soft spot for any edition of a game sporting the tagline "special" or "limited". That being said, I don't jump blindly on every special edition under the gaming sun; my motto is to purchase a special edition only if the feelies included can somehow enhance the gameplay experience. In practice, this always translates into the presence of an artbook including strategies and data about the game world—so much so that there is virtually no chance I will purchase a special edition if it does not contain an art book. My dream idea of a special edition is embodied by the Silver Edition of Ys: Memories of Celceta and the "Let's get physical" edition of Senran Kagura Shinovi Versus, two gorgeous packages graced with splendid art books that also happen to be comprehensive strategy guides rife with interesting data.  

  • Completion galore: Ironically enough for someone who's not a completionist when playing games, I happen to be quite the completionist indeed when it comes to game collecting. When I purchase a game belonging to a series, I usually want to get my paws on the full series in the wake of that first purchase—sometimes without even knowing if I can enjoy said series in the first place. I don't step as far as to purchase games released on platforms that I don't own, fortunately; but every entry released on a system I play must be mine, even if it happens to be a Japanese exclusive. I only show a modicum of restraint if the series is a long-running one that has spawned countless games: in that case, I usually purchase only one or two entries to test the waters first. For instance, I only own two Harvest Moon games, which I yet have to play; if it turns out that I love them, I will go on a full collecting rampage and purchase every single instalment of the series, just like I did with the Pokemon series before. 

These are the five golden rules of my collecting, the guidelines I dutifully follow when hunting for games. Apart from the fifth one, there are actually quite restrictive; as a result, my collection, whilst of respectable size, has not gained massive proportions. It is certainly not huge enough to fill a full room, but rather a couple of shelves—all the more so as portable games come in rather small cases—and things will probably remain that way since most of my collecting is actually behind me. The PSP and DS libraries are done and dusted after I've "back-purchased" every single game that caught my eye—those were the golden years, spent hunting for games so cheap that I could purchase several a week—and all that's left to collect are games from the current generation. I went from purchasing several games a week in a frantic attempt to harvest all the goodness I had missed during my years away from gaming to a much more placid purchasing pace of 1-2 games a month. And maybe that's all for the best, because we're now dealing with brand-new releases with a hefty price tag, not deliciously cheap offerings like back in the days of collecting for the DS and PSP. As for you, dear fellow gamers, feel free to let me know about your own collecting idiosyncrasies in the comments! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!

4 comments:

  1. Personally, I only follow three rules:
    >Ignore ratings,
    >If it looks fun, I'll buy it,
    >If I pirate a game and really like it, I'll buy it to support it.

    However, I also now follow a secondary rule since my PS3 days, that it's the complete opposite of being a collector:
    >Do not buy any CE or LE whatsoever.

    And I have to agree with you on the poor quality of the GB/GBC/GBA games's boxes. I really want to buy some games from those eras that I never got to buy at the time, but 90% of times it's only the cartridge that people have for sale. Or, if they have the cartridge for sale, it's in a terrible condition. A real shame about that.

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    1. I follow your two first rules as well, obviously.^^ This is all in the name of fun, after all!

      Collecting for the GBA in particular is a royal pain. I only own two complete boxed GBA games, and although it is obvious that they have been well taken care of, the boxes still look crappy, because cardboard is not designed to last. Then there is the burning issue of the many bootlegged cartridges infesting the GBA market. People always mention fake copies of FFVI, Zelda and Pokemon, but I've stumbled upon bootlegged cartridges of the Sonic Advance games as well, so no game is safe! Better keep one's eyes peeled if one wants a bootlegg-free GBA collection, indeed.

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  2. You really are a collector! I'm afraid I'm not by those standards. Nowadays I almost only buy digital games. Vita games are really hard to buy in the physical form. For instance, the store here in town with most games to sell had about 8 vita games on their shelves. Games that I see there for months now, they don't seem to get sold.
    And buying a lot of American games means buying digital too. Still, I stand in awe at your rules!

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    1. I agree that Vita physical games are excruciatingly hard to come by! I face a situation similar to yours, in which game stores have only a handful of Vita titles available—none of them being the niche games I usually favour. As a result, I rely exclusively on import for the growth of my Vita collection! It works rather fine, for Vita games are easier to find on internet than in stores.
      To be honest, whilst I still collect vigorously, I have the feeling that my collecting heyday is actually behind me. I'm not too sure I will invest in the next console generation, and I have so many promising games piled up that I now want to concentrate on playing them and to slow down my frenetic collecting. I'll keep doing it, but at a much more placid pace!

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