Have you been called a Horder or Collector?

[Shulamana]

It's a matter of degrees, as said above. If you put your collection before everything else your life, you're a compulsive hoarder. It's fine to have certain items that you would never want to part with under reasonable circumstances, but if you'd never want to give up anything for any reason and you feel like it would literally kill you to do so, then yeah, you have a problem.

I was sort of half-watching this episode but I missed the part about the arcade collector. I wondered if it would get mentioned here or somewhere else, but I missed enough of the important details to not be able to form an opinion on it.

[98PaceCar]

If you put your collection before everything else your life, you're a compulsive hoarder.

I think the above is at least part of the clinical definition of what makes a hoarder. As with anything, if it takes over or negatively affects your life or health, it's an issue. But there are plenty of folks here with massive collections of video games that still manage to lead very healthy, productive, and "normal" lives away from video games.

That said, I've never personally had anybody call me a hoarder other than myself (and even that was in jest). Most people that visit my house don't even know that I collect both console and arcade games.

[Slate]

No, I haven't. I may consider myself to have been a hoarder though, I was still attached to collecting even after my uncle died and I realized it was just a hobby. I didn't want to get rid of it even though I wasn't into it near as much - I didn't have the collection on proud display, It was in storage. Now its mostly in the garage, Waiting to be sold.

Austin

[treismac]

While I would say that there is almost certainly something more going on psychologically than me simply just buying old video games, I don't think I'm a hoarder in a technical sense. I do, however, "hoard" duplicates of the original NES controller (7 with one of their pcbs stuffed into the shell of a Famicom controller) as well as the dogbone controller (5) in addition to picking up an extra NES when the price is right (I have three toasters and one top loader). The reason is practical, I think (justify). Old electronics can break. It happens- tragically sometimes. Why not have some extra lying around just in case?

Yeah... perhaps I'm a borderline hoarder/collector.

[synbiosfan]

Yes I've been called a hoarder and I refer to myself as a collector.

People have to label things so whatever

[leatherrebel5150]

My girlfriend calls me a hoarder all the time. But I like to point out a couple of distinctions between hoarding and collecting to her, maybe I'm right, maybe I'm just trying to justify my habits.

But I tell her I'm collecting because I'm focused on one thing or category (video games) not just grabbing random crap that interests me and everything I have is neat and organized unlike most hoarders who think their cat ran away when its dead under a pile of stuff. Secondly I don't just grab anything video game related as soon as I see it. If its too expensive or not an actual game (like a t shirt or stickers or something) I don't get it. I used to do the same thing with guitars. Probbaly the biggest distintion I make is that alot of collectors have phases. At one time I collected model cars, the plastic kind you build yourself, than it was guitars, now it is video games. Once I was done with the old collections I moved on, Except on the guitars they look awesome hanging in my room.

[SpaceFlea]

Yeah, it always pisses me off when someone calls a collector a hoarder. Hoarding is a disease; collecting is a passion. I consider being called a hoarder by the general public a derogatory remark meant to diminish the accomplishment to a level they can understand.

[madman77]

Beyond the obvious psychological differences between collecting and hoarding I think there are also the organizational differences. I've never seen anyone on Hoarders who has their stuff together. It's largely in poor condition and randomly scattered in piles throughout their house with absolutely no rhyme or reason, nor a single focus. Video game collecting for anyone on here, I assume, also hasn't gotten to the point where our homes are falling apart and we are pooping in the corner of our bedrooms.

[Duke.Togo]

The difference to me is quantity. A collector (which is what I consider myself) attempts to secure certain items, or a single copy (sometimes a couple in the case of variants) of a game. A hoarder will keep as many copies of a game as they can without purpose.