Culling collection

[ESauced]

Maybe a similar thread has come up before but I didn’t find one with a quick search. I’m considering culling my collection. I’ve got 500+ games (I haven’t counted, maybe even over 1000), and not much time to play them. I have a bad habit of buying new games even when I’m in the middle of another one and a lot of the time that causes me to quit the middle of the game I’m currently playing and move on to the new one. I even do this when I like the game I already own. So my backlog is extensive. I’m considering selling in the following order of how easy it is for me to part with them:

1) Bad games that I have no or little nostalgia for - I don’t own that many outright bad games that I didn’t own as a kid. It’s easy to sell Bugs Bunny Double Trouble. Not struggling with this one.

2) Mediocre games that I have no or little nostalgia for - I’m such a collector that even getting rid of these is hard. Yeah I wasn’t a huge fan of Ranger X, but what if the 5th time I try it I learn to love it? It seems ridiculous to keep these games though. I know I’ll never play them.

3) Good games I’m never going to play - I own Final Fantasy XII with a strategy guide on PS2. At no point in the foreseeable future as I going to have time for this game. Yet part of me still is saying, “Well what about 40 years from now when you’re retired? Won’t you want to have it to play then?” Ridiculous but I struggle to sell a good game even if I realistically know it’s just collecting dust.

4) Mediocre games I have some nostalgia for - I’m so sentimental that it’s harder for me to sell a mediocre game that I rented a few times as a kid than it is to sell a good game. Do I really need to own Boogerman? It’s not like I grew up on it. I just have a few memories of playing it with my brothers. I have a ton of games that fall into this category.

5) Systems that are collecting dust - I really only have a couple systems I could see myself selling. I feel like all the Hd collections on PS3 made my PS2 redundant. I only own 6 or so SNES games and I have a Retron 5 I can play those on. I love my 32x but I’ve only played the Sega cd twice; I feel like I own it just for the cool factor (cool to me, not to most other adults). My Neo Geo Pocket Color is fun but I have so many other handhelds with bigger libraries. Other than that I feel like if I own at least one game on a system that I love and can’t play anywhere else, then I need to keep it, so the rest would stay.

Help convince me one way or another. I also really want to stop buying games until I’ve trimmed down my backlog considerably.

[noiseredux]

dude, I try to live by a few simple rules when it comes to the hobby...

First off, only buy a game if you are planning to start playing it right away. Like you need to plan to start it the day you're buying it, or don't buy it.

Second, games are things you can always re-acquire. Let's be real, there's a very small percentage of truly "rare" games. If you really need a game (and you're going to start playing it right away) then I bet you'll be able to buy it again.

Sell, sell, sell. If you own games (or really anything else) and they're not making you happy* then get them out of here. Sometimes you have to look at your games (or anything) and be okay with the fact that it made you happy at a time, but its purpose has been served. *(some are probably familiar with the KonMari method of house cleaning?)

Something else that helps with selling is asking yourself 'would you rather'. So like Would you rather have a PS2 copy of Final Fantasy XII or the cash-in-hand that it's worth?

Look man, I'm definitely not cool. So if you're looking for cool then I'm the wrong guy to give you advice. But I do know that I feel great not hanging on to things that stop bringing me joy - and I'm happy knowing that they're bringing someone else joy. Hell, I already sold my Switch less than a year after launch. I also know that I buy way less games than I used to, but I am spending a lot more time playing the games I do own and really enjoying them (and getting my money's worth at that!).

[ESauced]

Thanks! That’s pretty much exactly what I needed to hear. The only thing I struggle with is the would you rather part. A lot of my games would sell for about $5 so when I look at them individually I always end up saying I’d rather keep the game; I think that’s part of why I’ve struggled to sell stuff off for so long. Would I rather have $5 or FFXII? Well what’s $5 gonna get me? Half a sandwich? Alright I’ll keep the game.

But then if I look at the other part of what you said, these games aren’t making me happy right now; they’re just sitting in closets. And in a way the would you rather should be, would I rather have all the money I’d make for all the games I’d sell, plus the closet space, plus a more managable backlog, or the games? And if I look at it like that it’s easier to convince myself to sell.

I feel like even if I could start with eliminating a third of my collection then I would be happy with myself.

[ElkinFencer10]

The question I'd suggest asking is why do you own games? Do you own them to play them, or do you own them to collect them? If the answer isn't either the latter or "both," then sell everything you've played and have no plans to replay. I'm a solid "both" so I never sell anything (much to financial detriment), but as noise said, I still feel an incredible sense of pride and happiness when I walk into the room and see my gargantuan collection. If the possession doesn't make you happy, sell them; if it does, don't sell them.

[Gunstar Green]

Do you have any games that are valuable that you find mediocre? If so, bit the bullet and sell one of those. Once you stop holding certain games as sacred it's easier to sell off other games.

[noiseredux]

would I rather have all the money I’d make for all the games I’d sell, plus the closet space, plus a more managable backlog, or the games? And if I look at it like that it’s easier to convince myself to sell.

it's this exactly. It's not $5 vs Final Fantasy XII, it's like $100 vs a stack of PS2 games that you don't play and that are taking up space and some of which you have remasters of on PS3 anyway. Right?

I can tell you from experience that the more I've purged the stuff I don't play, the better I feel about my own collection. It feels awesome to look at a shelf and see just games that you really like, and that you actually play or have gotten hours of enjoyment out of.

[Tanooki]

Probably best to answer you how your post went I think.

1- If you already know they're bad, then it should be the easiest lot to ditch of them all, just do it.
2- Same as #1 really, why keep a grab on mediocrity unless you have some non-deluded personal reason for a specific game or two.
3- That's the toughest but the most rewarding in most cases. Imagine all that nice money you can do something with right now, or put into a pot to save for something special that would have current and long standing value.
4- Kind of like what I said with #2, look hard, figure which you're fake in love with and truly have some bond to, then pull the knife out and start slashing.
5- Dusty systems are space wasters and typically are good like #3 for solid profitability too, especially when bundled with the garbage and mediocrity of #1, #2 and #4. And there's little to no reason to excuse redundancy especially if you really do appreciate and have something like a Retron5, GameFreak or some PiBox.

I've gone over the last 15 years (a lot by force up front to start, to a yo-yo effective mess of buy/sell patterns in smaller totals ever since. It's cancerous and addictive and no longer a cheap thrill so it's a real cash pisser now.

If you really truly enjoy a system fine keep it, but don't keep it as a justification because you feel it is cool, but because even if it's dumb as crap or just that cool you have to effectively use and continue wanting to use it to justify keeping it.

Another alternative -- kits + real hardware since multi-game clone boxes hate kits. Get a $100~ kit, a $20-30 memory card, and an entirely game library that'll fit a space of one game cart, one console, and a controller or 2. Major space saver, no loss for picking anything you care to mess with.

You part with whatever you deep down know you can't see yourself playing in maybe 3-6mo max. Get rid of the stuff, get a kit, or just get over it. Perhaps to satisfy an itch, keep ONE console and ONE handheld of the past and just focus there alone and use that as the medicine to dump the rest.

[ESauced]

Do you have any games that are valuable that you find mediocre? If so, bit the bullet and sell one of those. Once you stop holding certain games as sacred it's easier to sell off other games.

I don’t have anything super valuable but I’ve got mediocre games that are worth 20-30. Knuckles Chaotix comes to mind. I was already thinking of going through and selling those semi-valuable mediocre games first.

I do, or at least I did, consider myself a collector and a gamer, but I always leaned more toward gamer. I never cared to own CIB versions of games, but I used to have al my consoles hooked up and ready to play. But I’m at a point in my life where that’s just not viable anymore. With a ten month old I can’t take up an entire room with my games and I also know that he would pull stuff off the shelves even if I could. So now I have everything in plastic bins in the closet which makes the collection feel more like storage than a hobby.

The hard part for me too is where to draw the line as to what stays and what goes. Every time I try to do this I always end up moving the line until the point where I’m not selling anything. It makes me feel less like a gamer or a collector and more like a hoarder.

[ESauced]

And I want to add that I’m definitely not at a point where I want to sell off everything and get a kit, although I appreciate the advice. I think what I need to do after reading everyone’s advice is trim my collection to the point where it only consists of games I love.

[noiseredux]

it might seem funny, but honestly the KonMari Method really helped me a few years back. I'm not saying I totally live by it, or even followed it to a T. BUT, reading the book (The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up) really just helped me to THINK more about why I buy stuff, why I keep stuff, and so on. It could be helpful for you to maybe skim through the basic principles - perhaps your local library has a copy as it was very popular.

https://konmari.com/about/the-method/