I had no real goals to collecting, I would just buy games that I thought looked good. Perhaps that's why my collection got so bloated with unplayed games. I finally got to the point where I decided to trim my collection (thread here). And after I really looked into it, I realized that I could part with something like 50-75% of my games. So that's what I've been doing. I'll still buy games, but now it has to be something that I really, really want.
So I guess you can say that now my long term collecting goals are to be super selective about what I add to my collection. Only games that my personal rating would be a 5 out of 5. Or a game that means something to me personally, something I'm sentimental about.
Raging Justice wrote:Collect ALL Castlevania games CIB, I have some already including Super Castlevania, SOTN, and Aria. I want to get Bloodlines as my next acquisition
That's awesome.
One of my biggest DOH! moments in game collecting was the three NES Castlevania games. I owned a SNES before I ever owned a NES, and I had really enjoyed CV4 so after I got a NES I wanted to check out the first three games. In the 90s, the only place around here that you could buy and sell old video games was FuncoLand. Oddly, at one point there were two FuncoLands very close to each other. One in a shopping center, then another in a shopping mall right next to that shopping center. So I went to the one in the shopping center and bought the three NES CV games, cart only. Then I went to the mall next door, and eventually made my way into that FuncoLand. They had all three CV NES games CIB on the shelf! And FuncoLand had the same price for a game no matter what the condition was or what was included. So for the same price I could have had them CIB! DOH!
As frustrating as that still is to think about, I have to remind myself that I had a couple of good scores too.
Some time after the PS2 came out, all of the local Blockbusters around here had a selection of Greatest Hits PS1 games (brand new) at really good prices. So among other games, I was able to score a brand new copy of SotN for $15.
It's sad that Toys R Us went out, and K-Mart is basically gone. For me, these were two staple stores of the 90s. But I guess their own demise was written on the wall, I didn't know it at the time, but those stores weren't very well run. And that worked out to my benefit a couple of times. You know how retailers like these have the games behind a locked glass door? Well I guess as new generations of video games came out, when the old games where taken out of those cases to be blown out at reduced cost, sometimes some games would float to the bottom of the shelf (below the hanging games) and sit there for a long time. Sort of hidden in plain sight.
Anyway, my local K-Mart had a pile of old games below the hanging games. Again, this was some time after the PS2 was out. I remember there being a couple of NES games, Yoshi being one of them. And one day I was able to spot Castlevania 64 in there. I had someone open the case and pull it out for me. It was marked $4.99 LOL. It must have been intended for a bargain bin or something, but some one forgot it in the case and it sat on the bottom shelf for years. YOINK!
And again, sometime after the PS2 was out, I was in a Toys R Us. Being older, I went straight for the video game department. From a distance, before I was even in the department, I was able to spot some lonely games sitting on the bottom of a shelf. When I got up to them, it was a couple of Saturn games and a Genesis game. They were literally covered in dust. Like that cliche movie scene where someone is in a tomb and pulls out an old book and blows the dust off of it, that's what I did with these games. It was three copies of NHL 97 for the Saturn, and motherfucking Bloodlines for the Genesis. Still sealed, and it was hardshell version too! I think to this day that's one of my best retro gaming acquisitions. I forget how much it was, $10 or $15, some where around there. But it was worth every penny!
I might have missed out on those CIB NES CV games, but recently I decided to pick up loose manuals for 1 and 3. I actually still have the CV4 cart that I bought new in the early 90s, but the box and manual are long gone, so I picked up a loose CV4 manual as well. I really want to get those Universal Game Cases for my collection (which is a lot easier with a slimmed down collection) so having those manuals will make it more or a less a CIB copy for my purposes. So that's sort of part of my long term collecting goals. To slim down my collection, then to strengthen what I'm keeping.