Anyone else bored with collecting?

[eddiespruce]

Personally, I like to improve my house, exercise for a specific goal (usually martial arts related), and I like to socialize just to show myself I still can in real life. Believe it or not, the older folks I think, which I have seen you mention are predominant in your area, hold a lot more than mere worldly wisdom. They have almost all of the money and political power as well. Some day we will be them, so it is very much worth talking to them if for no other reason that to learn from their mistakes.

Also, too much entertainment makes all people weird to the point of being completely useless. Plato said it first several thousand years ago, we should focus more on society and personal improvement than entertainment unless we want to end up another one of the dead while young.

Sometimes I go for walks and bike rides during the Summer, but it's Winter now, and it's too cold and depressing to go outside. As for socializing, I have nothing to talk about, nobody in my area likes old video games, and I have nothing in common with people of my own age bracket, aside from some people here on the forums.

I have other little things I like to do, like filming movies in my yard with my crappy camcorder, and recording music, but I'll always be playing and collecting games, because there's so many out there that it'll take nearly a lifetime to collect all the games I'd ever want.

[tz101]

..but it's Winter now, and it's too cold and depressing to go outside.

Do you get massive amounts of snow and sub-zero weather in Newfoundland? How long does summer last?

[eddiespruce]

Do you get massive amounts of snow and sub-zero weather in Newfoundland? How long does summer last?

We get a lot of snow up here, it's currently -7°C. The warmest months here are July, August, and the first half of September, and we usually get about 25°C during that time.

[FoxHound]

My collecting has come to major slow down. I am only holding on to my systems and games for my daughter to enjoy them when she gets older. Whatever she doesnt like is going to get sold. Newer generation of games dont have the fun factor like the old stuff for me. The PS3 is my last system. I am going to show my girl everything from NES to the 3ds. If she is interested to have a WiiU maybe it will be at end of it life and we can pick up the Marios and zeldas for cheap.

[segaddict]

No.

[StarMist]

Is there something wrong with you that we dont know about ?

He's just honest. That sentiment, ie the lack of sentiment, is wholly normal. You're madly duped if you believe more than 1 or 2 % of the people on this planet care about anything beyond themselves.

You seem like a normal and intelligent guy.

These adjectives are dichotomous.

We might need to stage an intervention here.

Interventions are selfserving evil. We do not need to stage a witch hunt here.

@OP = the only part I miss about collecting is playing games with their often rich assortment of peripherals. In particular I like many of the NES's controllers from the Max (which is also great to tailor, ie exchanging the slider for a thumbpad or dpad), the Advantage, the Beeshu Zipper, the Turbo "Stick" (it's a pad) from Froggo, &c, so it is rather sad I've very few actual NES games. There are still occasional scores to be had but I've been shelling out instead for PS3 and DS games. -- Buying inemulable stuff isn't collecting. Once the Wii DS emulator reaches full speed I'll stop buying for the handheld.

[ItellYaHuat]

To be honest, I feel kind of old even though I'm only 22. Probably has something to do with me playing retro games. Anyway, when I was a teenager, I would always buy every Genesis (CIB) and NES game in sight that I didn't own and that I could afford. I really liked the idea of having a huge collection and I was a hardcore collector with disposable income so I was able to affording hunting in the wild as well as ordering stuff off eBay. I used to play video games a lot as well but for the past year or so I haven't been playing much at all, save for some online emulation or pc games with some net friends of mine from time to time. My collecting has slowed down since I haven't had a job (been unemployed since 2008. Shit sucks, yo). To this day, I go months without playing anything in my collection because I usually have stuff to do and am attending college as a full time student. As a result, I've been selling off large portions of my collection. I've been getting rid of games that I don't play and know that I won't play. I'm planning on keeping games that I have really enjoyed and know I'll still enjoy for years to come. I've gotten rid of over 110 games already and I have an eBay auction up right now for the rest that I'm getting rid of (http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI...m=200709154780). Obviously most of them are sports games now. I had tons of non-sports games but I sold 110 of them locally off of Craigslist. I'm going to save up all the money and built a sweet new gaming computer. I just hope I make enough. Aside from keeping games that I care about, I mainly care about the hardware portion of my collection. The great thing about Genesis collecting is being able to collect and choose from many different variants (and add-ons to boot) so there are tons of options to choose from. The crown jewel of my collection are the boxed consoles I have on display. I don't plan on parting with them anytime soon. It's interesting to see that not only my collecting hobby has hit a bump in the road.

[Mr Smith]

I can't be the only one? I guess RL took over, or maybe it got boring or too mainstream? I miss the days when I was able to focus a lot on it, and even though money was limited and I wasn't able to drop a lot of $$$ on it, like I am now I really enjoyed it. Maybe the fact I can drop a lot of $$$ killed it?

I collected quite a bit from 2001-2006, come to 2007 I joined the service and only bought a few games, even though I went to basic at the end of the year, due to me focusing on school and working, but I went buckwild before I went to basic training and bought quite a bit. Then until early 2010 I really didn't buy much, even though I could have but I really didn't care too much and was living on base and had limited space. Then in 2010 I bought quite a bit of games after I moved into my own apartment then and came back to it, and last year (when I really stopped posting here quite a bit due to RL and I didn't really like the big change of the forum with the new board but meh whatever) I bought a few more games and pretty much got everything I wanted along with a couple of holy grails. Earlier this year I bought some nice imports and spent some serious coin (Laseractive games and SF3 for Saturn last Nov)

I am moving to Florida soon, and who knows I might really get back into it, or stay the same?

Sadly, real life gets in the way. I can't remember last time I bought a Mega Drive game, have no interest in buying a modern console and instead have an occasional 30 minutes of PS2 every month or so. I guess we get to an age where there just seems like more important things to do.

[makinagenesis]

reading through this has really made me feel like im getting old, i've kinda had this feeling since last year when i reached the grand old age of 28! I've rarely played games that much since this landmark. Have started getting sick a lot, my pubic hair has lost its colour, i now admire what sort of slippers a man wears and have started to smoke a pipe.. yes it is filled with crack but i really cant handle the taste of tobacco


is this how all gamers age? can some of the older members who still have no signs of senility fill us in on what terrible afflictions we young(ish) wippersnappers can look forward to please

[xelement5x]

@eddie
It sounds like you've kind of got the NEET lifestyle going on (I'm not judging, and to be honest it would be liberating to do the same), and while it can be rewarding eventually you may question that value of a life without other people in it. If you haven't seen Eden of the East, it's a very good anime that kind of touches on similar points about the NEET culture in Japan, and how a lot of people are upset about being used by other older generations just as a source for consumption to drive their own prosperity. I think it's worth watching, but that discussion (and anime in general) is probably outside the scope of this thread.

@makinagenesis
I'm lucky enough that I found a woman early on in my life who shares a lot of my interests (video games, anime, Japanese culture, etc), and she somehow decided that marrying me wasn't a poor decision. We've been together for a long time and that definitely helps our relationship, but if I'd not married her or met someone else who didn't share the same interests I can guarantee that I wouldn't have stayed in video games as long as I have.

Eventually when you get a career and the rest of life starts to creep in - a home, more family, nieces and nephews, maybe even kids of your own - it can be hard to live just for yourself. Maybe it depends on how you feel in general about what's most important to you and that changes as you gain more life experiences, and see more people you know and grew up with doing different things you look back on your own life and wonder about how you're spending it. For me, video games are still fun, but the importance of them has faded a bit over time as other things take precedence.

What I really still enjoy is the "folk archaeology" of hitting thrifts, garage sales, and all sorts of other places to find the games I want, and talking to people who had them and the stories behind them. Like SpaceFlea said, I get a lot of stuff that comes in and is played for awhile but then sadly gets cataloged and stuck in a box indefinitely. The thing that probably helps me from going insane about this is that I still regularly go out with friends and coworkers so games are not the only focus. I think the problem a lot of retro gamers have with burnout is that there aren't a lot of people with the same interests locally; so the co-op playing of a game, or getting a drink and just talking about stuff doesn't happen on the same casual level as other activities.

Jeez this is long, sorry for the wall of text I'll stop.

[Smii]

What's going on? Every other thread in here at the moment seems to be about some kind of gaming related disillusionment. Miserable gits!

Personally I've just started to acquire more retro stuff again. I'm fairly sure I've already bought more stuff since the start of this year than I did in the whole of 2011 - combination of more free time recently, less inclination to go outside in said free time, and a series of lucky (internet based, all the charity shops here are crap 98% of the time) finds. In the end it's just a hobby - do stuff you feel like, and if you're tired of it, stop. (Wisdom :P) But either way don't just go and sell all your stuff on a whim - you might end up just buying it back again for more money later.

[Bloodreign]

While I haven't gotten tired of collecting games, I have at times felt overwhelmed by what I have, a case of so many games so little time to play. There was a time I was burnt out from collecting, about a couple months went by and I had no desire to collect or play anything (I will sometimes go a month between thrift shopping, but not the not wanting to play anything bit, just couldn't get into any game). Eventually after a sabbatical I started playing something again, and the collecting and playing bugs both kicked back in.

[TVC 15]

I'm feeling the complete opposite, I've realised today that I'm going to have to sell off my entire (smallish) collection. Seeing it all disappear makes you appreciate what your gonna miss.

Student overdraft debt, unemployment, and my dole money hasn't got through yet. And to top it off I just got a hefty electricity bill. The argument that 'all electric heating' is really economical by my landlord is just bad comedy. What an absolute tool.


So, thats it, my Sega Saturn collection is getting packed tonight to be put up on eBay in the coming week. And I'll be selling my Asian Megadrive.

Just one of those weeks eh.

[David J.]

I don't need the money or room, but I guess things suck right now so I dunno.

[old man]

Since the PS2 era I've become more of an on again, off again, gamer. Newer games just aren't as fun as the older stuff (to me), and I've played almost everything worth playing from the previous eras. I mean, there's probably some neo-geo and saturn games I haven't played, but after playing several incarnations of street fighter II, and many of the best action games ever made it's really hard to get excited about something mediocre even if I've never played it before. Plus, after thousands of games, I know what I like. I know I'm not going to finish the latest pretty boy JRPG in a million years. I know I don't like lots of text. I know 2600 games bore me. I don't even own any of the latest generation systems, but show me a new free ware game from Buster and I'm all over it.

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1700/