Ever get the urge to sell your entire collection?

[fishsandwich]

Does anyone here have the urge to sell part or all of your collection even when you are STILL collecting?

I'm getting older... 36. I have about several thousand games from the 2600 all the way to the Dreamcast. My college days of booze, grass, and video games are far behind me, my partner isn't a gamer, and this stuff takes up a lot of room. I don't get to play that much anymore.

I've been thinking about purging... maybe getting rid of all my Genesis and Master System games. They take up a lot of room! Speaking of room... 200+ domestic Saturn games and 100+ Sega CD games and 200+ complete N64 games take up a lot of space, too. I live in a tiny loft and it's bursting at the seams.

And I'm STILL buying games... mostly handheld stuff like the Gizmondo and N-Gage but that takes of precious room, too. The systems I mostly PLAY are the the DC, N-Gage, and my PC (I just got into GTA3... DAMN I'm behind the times.) I still shop eBay regularly and have switched my obsession to Retro Gamer magazine and other similar publications (I also have hundreds and hundreds of game magazines in storage... thanks, Mom and Dad!)

I flip-flop between keeping it all, selling part of it, or selling the whole damn thing and be done with it. It's consumed a big part of my life (and my salary) for so long now it's hard to think about moving on but I'd like to be in that old lifestle again... the kind where I could pack most of my belongings in my Jeep and just move if I had to (not that I have any plans of doing so, but with the world the way it is...)

Does anyone else have feelings like these? How do you deal?

[itobandito]

I would try to pack up as much stuff as possible in boxes, store them and not think of them for a while. I always find myself wanting what I had then having to re-buy them. This is why I sell nothing now. I have certain parts of my collections boxed up and am always excited and happy when I eventually get back them. Some stuff I tottally forgot I had and am even that much more so excited. I myself am married and getting older and have thought maybe I should just get rid of this stuff, I don't use it. But then I find myself wanting to use it laterd down the road. Even if it's just for short periods, I am always glad I kept the stuff.

[cyberfluxor]

I always flip-flop between the idea of selling off certain systems I own but not the whole deal. Whenever I bring it up with my friends they tell me not to because it's a bit of character I have in my room and there's always plenty to choose from. They have however told me a better choice is to slow down and only buy certain games on systems I really want to further on, like the Saturn. Other systems I need to become more picky on, like only buy complete NES games (which are über rare around here). Also stop buying things online because you could spend a ton of money in no time at all online and cuts the entertainment out of finding a rarity.

One big idea that came to me was to play the hell out of a game until you can't really stand it anymore. If you believe there's nothing else to do in that game and it just isn't worth a replay later down the road and isn't a collectable game just sell it. It really is a good idea because then you can say you owned it, played it, beat it, and just couldn't go farther with it. If you ever did have a random niche to play it again either start up an emulator and play it for a bit or purchase it at a store or online (depending on how common it is at the time).

[fishsandwich]

I have justified my excessive spending with the misguided belief that my collection will be worth big bucks some day, or at least give me the return on my investment.

Now I'm not so sure... Emulation is getting bigger and bigger. Stuff that used to be exclusive to one system are making their way onto classic compilations. Prices for classic stuff are going down. Who knows how prices will be in 20 years?

And what about bit rot? CD degradation?

[Flack]

Does anyone else have feelings like these? How do you deal?

I deal with this on a pretty regular basis. I'm don't have any answers for you; in fact, I have little more than a "I hear ya" to throw in.

One example for me is NES games. I wasn't a big NES gamer growing up (I didn't get my first NES until the Christmas of 1991, in fact). I have every single NES ROM available for play on several locations: on my laptop, MAME my cabinet, my Xboxes, my GBA flashcart, and so on. I currently have around 200 NES games and to be quite honest I rarely ever put in a real cart and play them. Everytime I look at them I think of all the money I have invested in games I never play. Then I go to thrift stores looking for more. I may pick up a couple here and there, then when I get them home I put them in the pile and say, "well that was stupid."

I think the majority of collectors have some nostalgic tie to what they collect (Atari collectors used to own Ataris, NES collectors used to own NES consoles, etc). So if you're thinking about hanging onto that stuff for a big payday someday, I don't think it'll ever come. You might get lucky and find someone who wants a Dreamcast collection in 10-20 years but more than likely it's going to sit there forever. If you play the stuff then hey, that's great, but I find myself questioning why I buy so many games that I'll never play.

[Pantechnicon]

And what about bit rot? CD degradation?

This is why I stick mostly to the carts .

I never get the urge to sell it all off, but I have on occasion trimmed a considerable amount of fat from the horde.

Look hard at the components of your collection and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do I have some deep-seeded personal affinity for this system? (e.g. - Did I play this when I was a kid? Does it remind me of some happy memory?)

2. Is this something that makes me go Wow? (e.g. - Is this a piece of hardware that does something unusual? Do I like the music or cutscenes of a particular game? Can I play this over and over and never get bored of it?)

3. (optional question) Is it worth a lot as a collectible item?

If the answer to at least one required question above is yes, then keep it. If the answer to both requireds is no, sell it now.

Applying this criteria, I parted ways recently with modestly sized collections for the NES, SNES, Saturn and TG16. It felt great, and freed up critical space to pursue the things that for me hold greater personal siginificance.

I'm the same age as you, fish. And although I feel like I'm slowing down considerably as a collector, that doesn't mean I'd ever want to fully give it all up. Slowing down as a collector jsut means you have more time to play.

In a pinch I could whittle it all down to one system (Atari 2600) and ten games (from a current collection of 290). Just take some time determine what's really important and what's not.

I have justified my excessive spending with the misguided belief that my collection will be worth big bucks some day, or at least give me the return on my investment.

There's really nothing wrong with this thinking. But if you decide to start selling off stuff in large batches then do it with the mindset that you're liquidating as opposed to building a retirement fund. Otherwise you'll be setting youself up for twice the disappointment, if you follow my meaning.

[ccc---]

Oh yes, I am dealing with that too regularly. But so far I haven't sold a single system of my collection. I have way more thatn 1,000 games that I never played and maybe will never play, I buy most of the stuff "just for collecting" - and to be honest, I don't know why. At the moment I don't have the space to display my stuff - it's all in many boxes in the cellar. In a few years we will have a house and hopefully a game room there where I can display all the games. I would love to see all the games on display. I am not sure tho if I will actually play them then.

Selling some systems or even my whole collection (except for Videopac maybe, because that was my first system) would bring me a lot of money, a lot of free space and some kind of "freedom". I could make some nice travels with that money, oh well ...

I do it like Flack, I can only say "I hear ya" and here is someone more who has the same thoughts. But I have no solution ...

[NES_Rules]

Sometimes when I look at my shelf I sometimes see a lot of potential cash sitting there. But I figure a shelf full of games looks a lot cooler than a bank account with some more money in it. Although if/when the new Camaro comes out, I may be a little more tempted to sell.

[ccc---]

Btw: I just bought 7 not so common (at least here in Europe) Intellivision games for $135 ... so far my regular thoughts of sizing down ...

[VACRMH]

I consider selling it all every so often. But in the end I usually end up trimming.

My suggestion, play the games.

Just sit down with a box of games, and play them for a little bit. If you don't like one, get rid of it. That's what I do.

[WanganRunner]

I think about it occasionally.....but my collection isn't worth all that much money and I'd much rather have the games than the cash.

I sold off a ton of stuff a couple years back and now I regret it immensely, so I'll probably never do that again.

CD Degradation scares the crap out of me though, as I really only collect CD-based games. The only thing that I seriously collect that's cart-based is portable stuff.

[Steven]

fish, take it from me man sit down and compile a list. Make a note of ALL the games you *know* you would NOT regret selling. And then sell those.

the rest, keep.

Since 2005 I've sold 130 Saturn games, 130 Genesis games. These were games I no longer had an interest in... and the clutter was driving me mad. A month ago, I made $412 off just 45 CIB GEN games by selling to 1 person. The money you can get off these no longer wanted games can be great.

Bottom line, keep that you love. All else, sell 'em. I have no regrets whatsoever because I carefully evaluate each game I sold, and knew I couldn't care less.

These gaming lulls happen, and we all at some point ponder selling it all. Unless you really changed your tune on gaming, don't sell it all. I know there are some games you gotta still love. Keep those.

[Kitsune Sniper]

... I've been considering selling off my Dreamcast collection. I love the system, but I've been buying games left and right and I keep getting scratched discs... and those suck. :\

I dunno. I've built up a sizable collection (49 games, with one duplicate Hot! New! variant and Bleemcast: Gran Turismo 2), but... the system also holds some significant emotional value to me. One I don't want to have.

I dunno.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

I think this is something that anyone who collects stuff has to think about ocassionally. I mean, the concept of a collection is so materialistic and in my opinion materialism just goes against the grain of nature, though it's obviously also an attraction to a certian part of the human psyche as well, so we're caught between our contradictory wills, so to speak.

With video game collections the pressures take all the forms people have mentioned so far in this thread: hedging on which games you'll want to play in the future, enjoyment of the systems and games simply as a material collection, emotional nostalgia, on the one hand, and on the other, the burden that would be lifted in terms of space and attention. Add in the money concerns on both sides of the equation and it gets pretty damn complicated.

I myself decided to be rid of my collection a few years ago. The need for money played a big part in that decision, though it was something I'd been moving towards for a long time previously. I sold my Intellivision, most of my 2600, Sega Master System, Genesis, Sega CD, 32X, SNES, Jaguar, Jag CD, 3DO, Saturn, Neo Geo Pocket and altogether at least six or seven hundred games that went with those systems as well as accessories and sundry other things like Pong machines and stray games. Some of those like the Master System, Neo Pocket or Jaguar had previously been the jewels of my collection and some of my favorite systems. And most importantly, I had never payed a high prices for any of the stuff, I'd been able to piece together nearly complete collections (by my definition, which is all the games I'm interested in for a system, not simply all the games on the system, period) by finding things in the wild or for unusually cheap online, which is something I know would not be possible again should I ever choose to re-acquire that stuff.

However, three or four years later, I have no regrets really. Sometimes I think about something from my old collection and would like to have it temporarily, but I know that those are just passing feelings and they're not very strong anyway. It's not anything like the biggest mistake I ever made or anything like that that people say. I feel like I got far more benfeits out of selling the stuff than I would have gotten from keeping it all.

Of course, I didn't sell everything. I kept my Dreamcast with a huge collection of games I kept my Coleco with a lot of games including the 2600 Module and a box of 2600 carts. I kept my N64/64DD with a backup device that allows me to play any games I want. I kept my original Tele-Games C-100 Pong unit. I also recently picked up a DS and I've bought a lot of plug & play style systems, though I need to go through that box and clean a bunch of those out, actually.

One thing that certainly helped me make the decision to sell all that stuff is the realization that I can play almost all the games I sold via emulation either on my Dreamcast or through my laptop which I can hook up to my TV. This has been true and has been just as good so far really, though I know a lot of people seem to hate emulation, it's been fine for me. Great actually, since it's also opened up arcade systems through MAME that I never would have been able to own.

As for magazines, I had already sold most of those off long before I sold off the mass of my console and game collection, though I do still have one box of EGMs running form 1990 to 1995 that I can't seem to part with. I'm selling off some of the rest of the magazines that I still have right now actually on the Buying & Selling forum.

Well, those are my feelings on the matter. Not really trying to make any suggestions about what you should do in your own case, just saying what my experiences have been, oh fishy brother.


...word is bondage...

[YoshiM]

Oh yes indeed. Looking back at my history I know I can't do a complete selling of everything as I'd probably buy the stuff back again. My wife regularly reminds me about this. So I've been trimming my collection down to the stuff that means something.

If you have that urge to purge, start off with the titles you got on a whim and probably never played since you bought it. Give them a few test plays and if nothing trips your trigger, put it in a sell/donate pile. Then wait a bit to see if you dive into that pile or not. If you don't, then you know that stuff can go out the door.

[Massimiliano]

I have justified my excessive spending with the misguided belief that my collection will be worth big bucks some day, or at least give me the return on my investment.

Now I'm not so sure... Emulation is getting bigger and bigger. Stuff that used to be exclusive to one system are making their way onto classic compilations. Prices for classic stuff are going down. Who knows how prices will be in 20 years?

And what about bit rot? CD degradation?

Hell, I've been thinking the same way than you for months...
And started to sell everything I didn't use for ages and/or I did know I wouldn't ever again use (playing or anything else that has something to do with my sega website project)
Been bored to sell every games one by one so I've decided to get rid of the stuff in bulk lots.
Fortunately, I can roughly estimate the price I did pay for each game and I just try to resell without loosing money.
But, like you, I still buy games (anything sega related)

[Nesmaster]

Recently I've started to think this way as well. In fact I liquidated about 75% of my PS2 collection just recently, in favor of playing some new 360 games coming out. I might just be burned out on classic games for a while (or even the next five years..), but I just can't bring myself to get rid of my older games. PS2 sure, but anything older, no matter how much I might feel like getting rid of it from time to time, I just can't do it and forget I ever had the thought. And that might just be for the best

[Synergy]

As I've stated before, I used to have 100+ PS1 games, 100+ PC CD-ROMs, and hundreds of other games for other consoles. I ended up selling them all, and now I feel sick just thinking about it. Especially those PS1 games. Damn it.

95% of 'em were in like-new condition, and now that I want to collect again, most, if not all of those titles I want back now.

Now THIS time when I amass the Synergy collection "2.0", I highly, highly doubt I'm going to sell it all ever again. I don't buy games hoping they appreciate in value or any of that jazz, I do it for nostalgia and games I just love playing.

What it really comes down to, for me anyway, is how much "gaming" is in your blood. I've accepted it's permanently in my blood for a long time at least.

Think about it for a long time, pack it up, and throw it in the basement/attic for a while first. You may be glad you did. I wish I had. Ugh!!

[ganondorf]

I did the other day...
Im 14 and have about 200 games, I had the urge to sell for wii and 360.

[nebrazca78]

I've been thinking about selling out lately to get a down payment for a home. But at the same time I'm still collecting rabidly. I've also been thinking that I have enough games and hardware to start a Sega museum. Which is a better idea (more practical)? Definitely selling out and getting a place. But wouldn't it be great to run a video game museum?