Are you a COLLECTOR, or are you a GAMER?

[Violent By Design]

I buy a ton of stuff that I havent even touched. I just like looking at the cases and saying I own it.

[bryan_65]

Again, this is why I love playing and collecting arcade style games. I can beat them in an hour or less, sometimes even 10 minutes is all I need.

[EvilRyu2099]

I guess if people make it to retirement, they can certainly catch up.. Nothing else to do during that time anyways... So in a sense I agree with DS as well..

[Retrodude]

I'm more of a gamer than a collecter. It's nice having games in pristine condition, but all I really care about is being able to play it, so if I can save a few bucks buy buying a beat up old cart with a faded label, that's usually what I do.

[saturnfan]

I gain and lose interest in collecting every so often. I really have not done any collecting for over a year, with the exception of some current gen purchases (which I don’t really consider “collecting”). But now I want to start up again and focus on Neo Geo CD and Sega Saturn, two systems that I want to have complete collections for. Now to me, that’s collecting because there are a ton of games, particularly on the Saturn that I would never play or want to play.

[Maevn]

I'm a gamer and a collector but if I had to pick one it would probably be collector. I do play games often but nothing compared to the rate at which they're added to my collection. Just in the last 6 months alone I've picked up over 100 RPG's and that doesn't even include other genres.

Even with infinite free time getting through all of these games is pretty much impossible. It would require me being in front of the TV for just way too damn long. Between movies, television and then games (most of which being RPG and long..) I would be staring at the tube probably 5-6 hours a day, or more. Not gonna work.

Maybe if I make it into retirement with the same collection I'll be able to slowly chip away at it. But even then I'd probably rather be out on a vacation or something enjoying my final years so to speak.

I dunno, I'm okay with being a collector and having tons of pretty games fill my shelves.

[Raiiban]

I'm a Gamer first and a Collector second. All my games with very very few exceptions I buy to play them. Usually I buy a large bulk of games in a month or two span, clean them up, encase them if they're loose and add them to my collection, then spend the next 10 playing through them when I'm not doing any modern gaming. My collections not really big enough to call a collection but you'll never find me buying garbage 15 year old sports games to fill a hole in a shelf, it's all got to be games I would want to play.

It's a model that's worked well for me, Just recently I bought my first Sega Saturn and about 18 games for it, as well as another 10 for my meager N64 collection, that will keep me happy and occupied for a long time, long enough to rebuild some cash reserves for the next batch of games most likely.

If anything though, I probably spend the most amount of time arranging these things in my game room, more than deal hunting and playing.

[Retronomy]

I only pretend to be a gamer and collect old games for pure hipster status.

[CamaroCam]

Both.

I've been gaming since I was little, and there are so many games out there that I just have to have, because I have to play them. When I started collecting, my brother gave me our old copy of 'Toe Jam and Earl' on the Genesis. I was so excited to get it, and not because I knew it was a fairly uncommon game. I was excited because I freakin' love that game! It's a classic that I played as a kid. I also had to get Halo 4, because I love the series.

But at the same time, I gotta catch 'em all. I love the culture and history of video games, and I want to add more and more games to the collection. I always play them, though. If I'm gonna collect this stuff, I'd like to enjoy it for what it is. Which is entertainment.

[KalessinDB]

I feel as though I've responded to this before...

But I'm a collector. Almost completely so. However, I'm a collector who first started as a gamer, so I'm kinda relaxed. I still intend to play my games, so I don't want sealed boxes (I recently came upon a few from a friend of a friend and have been trying to sell them off). A manual is nice, but not necessary. A case for the CD/DVD based games I basically require, but other for carts I don't care (I'm actually JUST starting to look at UGC's and The Cover Project, I think that'd be nice to display).

I DO have a large number of flash carts, but they's mostly for the convenience of not having to dig out the cart, and for playing hacks/translations/homebrew.

At this point though, I have BASICALLY everything I truly WANT. I have all my old Nostalgia games from the NES/SNES era that I grew up owning and the Genesis that the neighbor kid across the street grew up with. I have every Castlevania game released in the US because that's my favorite franchise. I will occasionally buy a new game here or there, but I'm mostly looking for either obscure old so-bad-it's-good stuff (at one point I used seanbaby's "Worst of" list as a checklist) or just big lots I can buy at garage sales for next to nothing in hopes of coming across something awesome. Anything current-era has to be pretty darn amazing for me to buy it (Castlevania being the exception, MAYBE Zelda but I haven't even bought all of those since Wind Waker era)