I've decided - I will sell my collection

[Ziggy]

No, not my entire collection. But I'm going to part with at least 50% of my collection. Maybe as much as 75%.

As a kid, I use to trade my games all the time to Funco Land. It was the best way to get new (used) games since kids don't have jobs. But there were so many games that I regretted trading. So somewhere around 2001 I started to buy retro games on eBay, and I was buying back games that I regretted trading to Funco Land. I made a rule never to sell any games again. And I mostly kept that rule. The only exceptions were between 2005 and 2014 when there were some times that I was hard up for cash and parted with some higher priced games. And duplicates didn't count toward my rule.

It's kind of crazy when you actually put a number on it, but for about 18 years now I've been collecting video games. And by "collecting" I mean buying games for the sake of adding them to the collection, and not always with the intent of actually playing them. Just look at my Backloggery: 70% of the games are unbeaten, and 70% of unbeaten games are UNPLAYED! Hell, I have plenty of PS3, PS4, Wii U and Switch games that are still sealed! For the past couple of years I've been questioning my sanity. Why own so many games that I don't even play? And to make it worse, I don't even have everything added to Backloggery!

There's something neat about looking at a large collection. But I've also been getting sick of the amount of space it requires. I've been needing larger and larger shelves over the years to store it all. And it seems like anytime I upgrade my shelving, it's really not long before I'm busting at the seams again. And that's where I'm at right now. It's time for another shelf upgrade, but this time I'm thinking about trimming the collection instead of supporting a larger one.

It's also about the money. I'm not at the point (not yet anyway) that I need to sell to avoid eviction or repo or anything like that, but I also have basically no savings. And I don't want to get into a "cry me a river" rambling about it, so I'll try and be concise. The housing cost on Long Island is un-fucking-real and I have no desire to rent. The smallest of homes in a neighborhood that isn't complete shit are $225k at best, with $8-9k property tax! This is the cheapest, it only goes up from there (unless I want to live in a rough neighborhood - which I don't). So I've been researching housing cost in other states, and it's incredible. Literally a fraction of the cost! But either way, I'm going to need a lot of money that I don't have. If I somehow start making enough to buy a home on LI, I will need a lot for a down payment. If I flee to another state, I will need money for moving expenses. Either way, liquidating my collection will help some. And circling back to the space a collection takes up, it will be easier to relocate to another state without a huge collection. Less to pack, less furniture (the shelving) to move. And let's face it, not as large as a home is required either. My collection is large enough right now that the shelving it requires takes up a looooooot of room.

So that's where I'm at right now. I want part with my collection to better my chances of becoming a homeowner. I've been thinking about it more and more over the past couple of years, but it always felt like I would have to be sacrificing something that I didn't want to. I guess I'm still a little scared that if I do go through with this that I'll live to regret it. But what are you gonna do?

The hard part will be deciding what goes and what stays. There will be some really easy answers. I will be keeping my absolutely favorites and cherished games, the ones that I've owned since I was a kid, stuff like that. And there will be easy partings, the games that you don't like in the slightest and have no intent on ever playing. But then there will be hard choices. Like, I'm definitively keeping the Mortal Kombat II SNES cart that I've owned since the 90's. But do I keep MK1 and MK3 on SNES? At this point I will never play them in favor of better recent ports. But it's a set, and that stupid collector part of my brain kicks in and starts bitching. It has to fight it out with the logical part of my brain.

At least I've gotten to the point that I feel comfortable trimming the fat. But it will be a little hard figuring out where to draw the line and not have any future regret.

[bmoc]

About this time last year, I sold off a huge portion of my collection. The main reason was that I was getting to the point where the retro games that I wanted to play were prohibitively expensive. I decided to part with most of my cartridge based games that were easily replaceable with a flash cart. I kept a few sentimental games - games I purchased as a kid and whatnot. I have decided that going forward, I am going to focus my retro collecting on PS1 and Saturn which I enjoy the most. All in all, I was able to fund the purchase of the flash carts, a PS4 Pro, a Polymega preorder, a few PS1 games still on my wishlist, and some modern games.

I don't regret it one bit. As nice as a large collection looks on the shelf, I have always enjoyed playing games more so than collecting them. As long as I have access to play the games that I want through emulation or flash carts, I am perfectly content with a small curated retro collection along with the occasional modern game purchase.

[samsonlonghair]

I've been considering this myself. I had to box up my whole collection when I moved, and you know what? I haven't taken the time to unbox most of it. I'm entering a stage of my life when I'm more interested in saving up a down payment to own a home rather than owning a bunch of video games that I don't play anymore.

[Erik_Twice]

I think it makes perfect sense and I think you'll be much happier once you do it. After all, what are those sealead games doing for you? Do they really make you happy? I bet you have lots of games that you don't care about, not even in a collecting sense.

[8bit]

It's great that you are figuring out what your new priorities are and planning on ways to achieve your new goals! Collecting and playing games is a fun hobby but its never going replace the security, warmth, and happiness that good home can bring. Plus, like others have said, we don't have to have a massive collection of games to still enjoy the hobby. You can still maintain a smaller collection of your favorites, the consoles you enjoy the most, and then dabble here in there in other areas... without consuming a large amount of space and tieing up your finances.

Games today, house tomorrow, traveling next year, saving and retirement throughout hopefully. You get the idea. Its good to not be one dimensional and evolve as a person. Here's a great video about a toy collector explaining how he's changed his views on collecting. I think it may help you feel even better about your decision and on how to decide what to keep and not keep. Youtube Link

Also thanks for posting, I'm always trying to keep my own collecting in check, making sure I'm balancing it with my other priorities. One day I'm sure I'll come to some kind of inflection point where I want to do away with a large portion of it. In the meantime, I've been really trying to focus on enjoying what I have, sharing it with friends and my kids, and getting more value out my time with it while I still have it.

[ElkinFencer10]

This has been me since January. Since then, I've made around $1000 worth of trades for games I wanted but hadn't bought and (once this one pending sale goes through and gets finalized) have made close to $5000 selling games. Granted, about $700 of that went to flash carts and the other $4000 went to paying off credit card debt, but still, it feels good to have paid down a considerable chunk of my debt and actually INCREASED my gameplay options thanks to the flash carts.

[Jagosaurus]

You've got this man! You're much more into mods, emu, ODEs, & flashcarts than the average retro collector. Your gaming options will still be there.

When I sold off much of mine, I made a cutoff. After exhausting forums/community, any item under $5 or so I was okay selling in a bundle/lot on Ebay. In lots I'd include one $15-$20 game or so to make them more attractive. That worked out well. Clear out some common titles, make some cash, but not invest too much time on pennies. It takes a long time to price up, post, sale, & package. I was personally okay getting 85-90٪ of the possible collection market value if it took my half the time.

If you're really looking at moving, take state income tax into consideration. Moving from NY to a state with no income tax (federal is US wide of course) will be an automatic 5-6% raise there. My eyes were opened to this when working for a national company. Folks were always trying to transfer to states with: no state income tax, affordable housing, in check property taxes, & low cost of living. I'm bias of course as a native here , but Texas was always a target. 4 of 4 on that list. I moved back

Good luck with the sell off. Congrats on the goals.

[RCBH928]

I don't know how large your collection is, but there are some SNES/Genesis/Dreamcast/NGC/and more games i would like to buy. If you are willing to part with them maybe I can buy them, but not sure if the games you have are the same games I want. If you been hoarding games since 2001, I am guessing many.

But if they are sealed that means you are looking for premium price and I am not into "collecting", I am more into buying used games to play them.

[Bradtemple87]

I have slowly been doing the same thing, great decision

[Anapan]

Good on ya!
I've slowly been collecting loose carts of games I want to play again, but every time I find a pile of good games that I won't play, I purge them. This was decided long ago as dusty boxes became a problem. Of course I have regrets on dumped games and hardware, but nothing my care-free no responsibilities leave-at-any-time goal would allow me to dwell on.