When did you start re-collecting?

Okay I got story for this one:

Some background: around summer last year I was considering getting a new console. All I had was a PS2 my brother was going to take with him to Texas (he's in the army) and my Genesis at this point was dead (5 moves and childhood abuse will do that) and we had sold our 32bit games, my brother sold his PSX and though I kept my Saturn I had no games for it :? to get the PS2. I hadn't had a video game console of my own since the early 2000s and hadn't even thought about the saturn. So I go in to price something new, I even considered the original Xbox.

So I go into this video game store and behold a hole shelf full of Sega Saturn games! Even a ton of Genesis stuff! When I was at the mercy of my parentals I only ever owned 1 or 2 games at a time and I figured hell this would be cheeper than getting an Xbox or something. So I bought NighTs, Sonic 3D blast and a new Saturn controller. I went home and I've been on a binge ever since.

I'm truly happy I started picking all this stuff up again too. I even made a list of all my favorite games as a kid. I remembered all my usual renters and dug up my brothers old EGM and Sega Visions magazines to give myself ideas.

Now I gotta shelf full of genesis and Saturn games I never thought I'd get so much enjoyment out of.

I stumbled across this place and had no idea so many people loved my Genesis so much. Thanks to this place and that little chance encounter I'll never have a full paycheck again. Thanks Sega-16!

Well, my re-collecting cycle is cyclical.

A few years back my friend was buying on the search to buy old school atari cartridges and took me along for the ride. When I got to the store I saw they had Sega Genesis carts so I bought a few. After that I went on a spending spree buying as many genesis carts as possible. I got a lot of great games that I couldnt afford when I was younger.

Just recently as you all know I stumbled upon DreamcastScene.com and that in itself created another "retro" game fervor where I got many DC titles as well as brand new ones that I could never find, afford, or new about.

Mine is a tale of greed. When my wife lost her last job two years ago, I dusted off an old eBay account and sold a handful of GBA games that I had laying around. This went so well that I began buying GBA games to sell, a plan which was successful enough that I began buying and selling games for my only other system, the GameCube.

As I would only buy and sell games that I could test myself, I found myself limited only to the GBA and the 'Cube. Ever resourceful, I pulled my wife's SNES out of mothballs and picked up an N64. And later a Playstation. And then a NES. And a PSP. And a DS. And a Dreamcast.

At some point in my reselling endeavors I began squirreling away games that I remembered from my youth and didn't want to get rid of again.

By the time my interest in reselling began to dwindle (I was spending so much time buying, testing, and shipping that I wasn't playing games for fun anymore) I had amassed around $5000, which I began putting towards games and systems for myself.

During this spending spree, I came across a Nomad and remembered all the Genesis games that I wanted when I was younger. While hunting down those games, I discovered this site, which only kindled the fire.

Now I have about 50 genesis games and a handful of gems for each of the other classic systems.

I had always kind of had a plan to go back and buy retro games, but always had a stigma about used stuff because my mom had always basically taught me that if it was used, it was probably broken in some way. My collecting really began as a number of things fell into place:

1) I realized what a ripoff the Wii VC was and I didn't want to spend the ridiculous sum of money for an XBOX 360 or PS3 and there was nothing the Wii offered that I was interested in (its like a paperweight 6 months out of the year)

2) I discovered cartridges could be cleaned both cosmetically and functionally with rubbing alcohol. Another reason I hated used things is because they were usually dirty from slobs dumping food and other stuff and I didn't want someone's sloppy joe going into my cart slot and ruining my system.

3) I discovered Amazon and eBay were actually pretty reliable sources and had most of the games I wanted to buy for about $5 or less, so at that price its almost a negligible cost compared to a $60 current gen game.

4) I started learning about electronics as part of my engineering curriculum and I started realizing how I could fix small operational problems in my systems

so, all of those things combined and I just started buying anything and everything I had ever enjoyed playing or heard about at some point in my life. I did very little arbitrary snatch and grab buying, almost every game in my collection was hand picked and was first played on an emulator or at least had gameplay viewed on youtube before buying.

I don't know how many games I have (I have only sold 2 games in my collection, ever, and those were technically a trade, I also lost Rampage for the NES through letting my cousin borrow it, same thing happened with Perfect Dark but he bought me a new copy for $10 when some NOS showed up at Target), but I may well have as many as 500 to 600 video games total. I've been meaning to make a video showcasing how big my collection is, but they are all in tubs scattered about the place and it would be hard to gather them all together and put them in a way that you could really see what is going on. One day...one day.

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but always had a stigma about used stuff because my mom had always basically taught me that if it was used, it was probably broken in some way

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I hate used stuff as well. I buy all my retro-games (if I can find it) Brand New Factory Sealed because I don't want anyone but myself touching my things.

I did however capitulate and buy Sonic Adventure 2 used at the flea market the other day because I wasn't going to spend $70.00 dollars + shipping for it brand new sealed on Amazon. So I just bit the bullet and bought it for $25.00 slightly worn.

Well I was a NES kid until sonic came out on genesis. The graphics in sonic 1 blew my mind. My brother and I got a genesis and we established a decent genesis collection of about 25-30 genesis games all US. Mainly like sonic 2 and alien 3 and other well known in the US games. Then we eventually upgraded to the playstation and resident evil 2 blew my mind. My genny started collecting dust.

If my memory serves me I was a freshman in high school when dreamcast came out, and I got a job at Mc D's and as soon as I earned $200 I quit and bought my dreamcast. I established a pretty healthy dreamcast collection of only US games. I kinda got out of gaming for a little while when playing high school sports and partying took up most of my time.

Then my brother bought an x-box. I mainly played that for awhile but then one day my buddy got a gamecube with Ikaruga. That got us on a serious shooter binge and I started playing a lot of emulaters like Mame and gens. That same friend bought a japanese sega saturn for shooters and it made me want to dust off my genesis. I went on ebay and got a few classic genesis games and eventually got a sega cd. I had a neighbor with one when I was young and had always wanted one ever since.

After that I just started getting back into dreamcast and all types of old school games for pc engine and other 16 bit game systems. Ive slowed down lately and am mainly just playing the games I have at the moment.

So from just starting out on a few old favorites to today with my 3 tall bookshelves full of expensive imports My hardcore gamingness has multiplied itself quite a bit. Sorry for the run-on sentences and generally poor English I'm hyped up on caffeine again today. This may also be the nerdiest thing Ive ever written. Feels more like a confession to a priest or something.

This.

http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page....is%20Vol.%2025

In 2006 my brother wanted a SNES. This seemed pretty impossible as my parents had never used Ebay before and we weren't even sure that they'd let us spend money on "old stuff" (which is what they called it when I asked for a SNES way back around 2000 after playing emulators a lot). However, he got one that Christmas along with some games. However, he wanted some other games. We went out to this shop in the next town over since we heard they had games.

The prices were, looking back, rather outrageous. $25 for Super Mario World!?
We actually bought a few games and once he was happy we stopped going there. I didn't actually think much of the SNES and the possibility that there might actually be good games for it that weren't the ten or so ones I had played to death in emulators years before. I never thought again about buying used games as I looked at the SNES prices and concluded it cost too much when I could be buying stuff for my then-new Wii.
So for the next year and a half I invested almost all my money into buying Wii and DS stuff, since those were (and are) the current gen consoles I had/have. (Dumb move, really. My collection could probably be about twice as big at this point if I hadn't wasted my money on that crap)

So fast forward to April 2008. I'm talking to my friend in the joke that we called English class (basically the teacher did nothing and we all went online and played flash games every day since every desk had a computer in it) and we got on the subject of Sonic. She mentions she had a Sonic game a long time ago, and I use her descriptions to figure out that she had a Genesis and Sonic 2. I was pretty freaked out as I'd never talked to anyone who actually owned a Genesis or in fact any old console. I really, really loved Sonic and had always wanted to play it on the real system so I managed to talk her into giving me the system since she didn't play it any more. A few days later, she gave me a Wal-Mart bag and inside it was the Genesis 2 with Sonic 2 and Aladdin cartridges. Life was good.

So I decided that since I had a Genesis now I might as well get some games for it. I took a friend's recommendation and checked out this little shop about 15 minutes away that was mostly a used DVD store, but they carried a ton of video games. I was in for a pleasant surprise-- Genesis prices were VERY low. I'd arrived with about $50 and had only been expecting to get a few games-- maybe another Sonic game and one or two non-noteworthy titles. Instead I walked out with NINE games, two of them being CIB and I also had a few awesome titles like Rocket Knight and Dynamite Headdy, which I'd actually bought without knowing how good they were due to the low prices.

This idea of being able to get cheap used games drove me nuts, and I started going back there a lot. Soon I made a list of Genesis games I wanted and decided to get them all. Along the way, I started picking up titles again for other systems, even SNES as this place had better prices. Then another friend sold me a NES and then I had a list of NES games to get. This has since evolved into a collecting addiction. I just needed more appropriate prices and some systems I really loved.

I started collecting in 2001, and right now I have sortta stopped for older systems... :/

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Originally Posted by Dirt Ball Gamer

This may also be the nerdiest thing Ive ever written. Feels more like a confession to a priest or something.

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see, that's what's messed up. For some reason movie and music collectors are just cool people that like to watch movies or listen to music, but video game collectors are socially inept basement dwelling dragon shirt wearing home schooled weirdos. I don't have any social problems, I definitely don't have problems talking to girls (giggedy), I hate sitting in the dark, I hate medieval shit, I just like video games. I would much rather overcome a challenge in a video game that idly sit and watch someone else overcome a challenge in a movie or hear music and...nothing else. I think alot of it comes from the fact that people that call video games nerdy are just too stupid to be able to play them.

Hey, I like music, video games and medieval shit....:(

But medieval in the actual historical sense, I mean how many basement dwelling nerds could tell you about the Italian Wars and Hapsburg/bourbon conflict? Or the Christian Century in Japan. Not many.

Man I am a loser...

My re-collecting for Sega only started in around May this year at which point I had zero games. Originally I have always wanted to buy back all the games I use to play and wanted but always use to think I would be on my own and that there would be no one else to share with.

It was only that one day I was looking on a local auction site that I came across some megadrive games for sale and it got me thinking. So I started looking online to see what I could find and next thing I know I came across this place. From then on my love for my original gaming console was reborn and the money spending began! It has also resulted in me starting my re-collecting of PS & PS2... happy days!:D

One day in August last year a coleague from work and I spent like 2 hours after work talking about old school gaming, mainly the Atari 2600 era.
I thought about this all night that day.

At that point I had no gaming routine whatsoever.
I had bought a PS3, which I rarely played, and my Jap Mega Drive was collecting dust somewhere in my room, and that was it.

After posting a game tribute page in my personal website (here), I decided to buy an Atari 2600 console and also some MD games. The first games I bought were Darius II and Heavy Nova.

A furious collecting spree then took me over. A few months later I finally bought all the initial games I set myself to get (here).

The collection was enlarged by consoles I had already played and completely new stuff for me: SMS, NES, SNES, Sega CD, 32X, Saturn, PS1, Dreamcast, PC Engine CD. Now I have slowed down a bit, because I've come to the point where the games I still want are mainly the expensive ones.

Game count as of today: 565 (listing here).

I haven't stopped collecting in general, so I guess I can't really say when I started "recollecting". But I haven't bought anything for my 16-bit systems for a while, just a 32x without the damned mixing cable and a bunch of 32x games that I actually consider worth owning (because I played them via piracy on the computer and decided they were good. Shut up I own legit copies now >:( )

I got back into collecting games around 2004 when me and my youngest sister were Christmas shopping in Streatham, London.

I went passed a charity shop and only by luck, saw a mint copy of Sonic 2 sitting on a stand in the window.

So I went in, brought it along with a complete copy of Star Wars Arcade and haven't stopped collecting since.

I now own two Model 1 MDs, one Model 2 MD, a Model 2 MCD, a Saturn, a PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, Master System Converter, Game Boy Original, Game Boy Color, GB Player and GameCube.

To top it all off, I have about 2,000 games.