Then along came two evils that almost wiped-out my game library: trade-ins and emulators. Until 1996 I spent 8 hours a day surrounded by video games but could only afford a few here and there. Then I discovered that I could download and play every NES and Genesis game for free. Who needed cartridges anymore? I traded-in a huge number of games to buy stuff for systems that weren't yet emulated.
Over the next few years my collection stayed relatively low. 1996-1999 I was in college full-time and didn't have much availability for gaming. Living in a small apartment didn't help either. I moved to a bigger apartment in 2000 but didn't buy too many games then. I did finally bought a Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast, but only 3-4 games for them. In 2001 I got married and moved into a three bedroom townhouse. Of course one of those rooms was reserved for a future inhabitant so my wife and I shared a small office in the spare room. It was cramped and I wasn't going to make it any worse by buying even more stuff. I was going to graduate school in the evenings anyway and didn't have much leisure time to spare.
In 2005 we moved to a larger house; four bedrooms, finished basement, all the standard things I guess. This meant I finally had a dedicated computer/game room. Nah it wasn't huge, regular bedroom size, but it was still very exciting. It filled-up rather quickly with the stacks of game systems and computers that tightly packed our previous office. My original goal was to make it something of a hybrid computer lab and game room.
So to finally get to the point... in early 2006 I realized that I wasn't really into working on old computers any more. Heck, I don't really enjoy working on new computers either. What I really wanted to do was get into video game collecting, to find all those games I traded-away or couldn't afford back in the day. I dumped all that computer junk to make room for video games. I started stocking up on games through a serious eBay binge. It was an easy way to find stuff but was missing something. The real fun would be finding old video games "in the wild" - at garage sales, thrift stores, rummage sales, in boxes on the side of the road - truly hunting for classic gaming treasures.
Of course there are thousands of games for dozens of systems out there. I can't collect them all, well given enough space I guess I could but realistically I have to limit my focus. My interest is in collecting games from 1986-1996, 3rd and 4th generation games mostly. If I had to prioritize what I'm hunting it would go something like this:
- Primary focus - NES, Sega Genesis, and Super Nintendo: These are the three systems I'm looking to collect. Part of it is laziness, it's not hard to stumble across games for these and they're generally cheap. The large number of games for each system means it's something to pursue for many seasons. Sure, getting a complete set is basically impossible but that's never been my goal.
- Hidden gems - TurboGrafx-16, Sega CD, 32X, Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Sega Master System, Sega Saturn: These are all systems I'd love to get more games for but are generally hard to find in the wild. The games I have for these systems usually come from eBay or classic gaming shows.
- Take 'em or Leave 'em - Intellivision, Atari 2600/7800, Playstation, Nintendo 64, Game Boy: If I see a great deal I'll buy them, these are nice to have but nothing I'm actively seeking. Some of these finds I end up selling or trading.
- Not interested - everything else: Maybe if I see something I know I could sell or trade I'll pick it up. Otherwise I don't have much of an interest in other systems.
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