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Go back to when you started gaming/collecting, would you do it differently?


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If you could go back to when you first started gaming/collecting, be that 1977, 1985, or 1993, knowing what you know now, what, if anything would you do differently. This could range from:

 

-I wouldn't throw out boxes and manuals

 

-I would have never bought system X but instead would have focused on system Y

 

-I wouldn't have lent games to friends, or let my little brother destroy my games

 

-I would have bought system X that I never got into, etc.

 

-I would have played more RPG's knowing that I wouldn't have time to as an adult

 

-I would buy certain games/systems that I know would be valuable to sell later

 

I will answer myself, but would like to see some thoughts on this first!

 

Have fun :)

Edited by travistouchdown
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I dunno. I sold my whole 8-bit and 16-bit collection in 2001 to buy an engagement ring, but that only netted me around $200. I didn't propose for another 6-8 weeks after I bought the ring (since I was so dang nervous), so maybe I should have just saved my money for that time and held on to all the consoles. I don't regret it, but I might do it differently now.

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I would have taken my SMS, Genesis and 5200 games with me when I moved away from home. They're all gone in that great landfill in the sky, now. At least I held on to my Saturn games. I replaced all of them (or 99.9% of them) eventually, but it was a pain, and I'm bummed particularly that I don't have my old SMS games with the little hints and tips xeroxes I got directly from SEGA. PDFs have eased that pain somewhat, but those meant a lot to me as a kid.

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I'd do nothing different. It's just stuff, and I had fun with what I owned when I owned it.

 

In an alternate timeline, where emulation never existed and everything was always on cartridges forever, I suppose I'd think differently, but I still would have chucked most of my game boxes. You can keep more stuff that way. ;-)

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Before I hit this point where I was forced to sell off most I had a dozen years ago, I had no regrets. I always was even as a kid picky and meticulous about keeping things in top shape and keeping all the things with the games. An early lesson learned when a fake friend in 1986 borrowed a NES game and returned it only months later and after threat of small claims court got only the cart back, no manual, box, dust slip and had it thrown at me like I was the bad guy at that. It gave me cause never to loan out a damn thing, and to keep anything I picked up and in excellent shape.

 

Home gaming started with the NES at the end of 1985, and 10 years later second hand pick ups locally started and a little after when ebay opened up selective online too.

 

Looking back though post-sell off, I wish I had kept some but it was unavoidable. Almost everything I cared most about was recovered outside of boxes and a solitary game or two. Before that I had all the systems I wanted, and I had anything from 20-200+ games for what I had and it was fantastic and very enjoyable. Plenty of variety and the time to enjoy it.

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I really started collecting around 1997 or '98.

 

I would not have passed on that box of, like, 25 Atari 5200 games for $1.

 

I would have asked for a DINA, the Telegames exclusive Coleco and 2600 games, and other rare titles from the Telegames catalog for the various Christmases and birthdays in the late '90s and early 2000s, instead of the dirt-ass common 2600 games I got. (I also might have asked for Jaguar stuff, but that would have been a pretty hard sell since my brother had already gotten a Jaguar system and JagCD from Telegames--after all, why would we need two of them?)

 

I would not have traded away my SNES set which included Super Mario RPG.

 

I would not have put up my 286 PC (with Magnavox amber monitor :lust:) in a rummage sale, or the games disk I that I have found literally zero information on in over 20 years (best guess: some kind of customized Friendlyware disk). It was my first computer that was just mine, all for myself. I loved it, even though--or partially because?--it was probably a decade old when I got it. I played BASICA versions of games like Battleship and Pac-Man (my favorite), and I used it to write the scripts for the comic books I was creating at the time. Loved that thing. Can't remember why I agreed to let it go.

 

I would have bought that Virtual Boy out of the clearance bin at KayBee for $20. (I think I bought an Aliens action figure or a Star Wars Action Fleet A-Wing or something instead, and a copy of the Savage Garden single To The Moon And Back at the record store. And I don't even have any of that stuff anymore, either.)

 

I would have bought that copy of Burgertime for the Aquarius I saw at Goodwill once. Loose cart, but still.

 

I would have kept my Tiger Extreme Chain Games Pong keychain game. That thing was actually pretty fun--I even sometimes played it when I wasn't in a car or school bus or orthodontist waiting room!--and they seem tough to come by these days.

 

I would also have kept my R-Zone. Just for the lulz.

 

I would not have sold/traded/lost my copy of Star Wars: The Arcade Game for the 2600 that bizarrely and frustratingly wouldn't fit in my Atari system because it was for Coleco. :P *facepalm*

 

Other than that, there's probably not too much else I could have done differently. I was in junior high and had little control of my own destiny at that point. Besides, I'm pretty happy with the way my collecting career has gone. Yeah, maybe I made some mistakes, but I also got in while the getting was good...like, really good. If I had to purchase today all the stuff I got between 1998-2005, I'd easily be spending at least triple the money. :skull:

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Oh man, great topic idea! I've only been into classic gaming and collecting for 4 years or so now, but if I was able to go back to the beginning and change some decisions I made along the way here's what I would do differently.

 

 

1. Don't buy or try collecting for any systems that I didn't have growing up. Over the years I bought all kinds of systems that I had no nostalgia for, from the Atari 7800 and 8-bit computers to the Sega CD, 32X, Master System, etc. And guess what? None of them ever held my interest after the initial newness factor wore off and I ended up reselling them after a couple months of ownership because they just didn't have any personal significance to me.

 

2. Don't sell my Game Boy / Color / Advance collection, Atari 2600 collection, or Sega Genesis collection. At one point I had about 150 Game Boy games, 120 Atari 2600 games, and 30'ish Sega Genesis games and sold them all. Now I'm trying to get them all back and it's a huge pain in the ass, and almost everything is substantially more expensive now than it was when I bought them 3 years or so ago. The Atari 2600 games in particular are proving exceptionally difficult to get back since the local market for Atari games completely dried up over the last couple years and now all the Atari games that I bought locally for $0.50 each four years ago are setting me back $3 to $5 each. I think I will get back all of the games I used to own eventually, but it will be very slow going and probably take me half a decade.

 

 

That's pretty much it for me. Just don't buy some stuff that I bought and don't sell some stuff that I sold.

Edited by Jin
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If I go back to when I started *gaming*, then there's a ton of stuff I'd do differently.

 

* No throwing away boxes - in fact no throwing away *anything*.

 

* I'd have bought up every game I could that was being closed out during the crash of 1983.

 

* I'd have kept my two original Intellivisions (I don't know what happened to them).

 

* I definitely, absolutely would not have traded in my Genesis and its games. They gave me $15 in store credit!

 

* I would have asked for a Saturn before a PlayStation.

 

* I would have bought a PSP when it was first released.

 

As far as collecting goes, which I started doing around 1998, I think it's mainly just that I probably wouldn't have sold almost anything. Most of the stuff I've owned as a collector, I bought because I really wanted it. So it never really made sense to me to get rid of it. I did it because I thought it was the normal thing to do if you don't use something much or you start running out of space and/or want money to buy something else. But I mean, I have an attic and a basement full of literal junk, like stuff that I don't even know what it is, or old textbooks from college, empty boxes (just plain brown ones), etc.... the point being there's *always* more space somewhere if you really want it. And selling something you really wanted to buy something else is just never a good idea in my experience. I've regretted it almost every time, and have bought back some of the stuff I've sold (always at a higher price).

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1. Don't buy or try collecting for any systems that I didn't have growing up. Over the years I bought all kinds of systems that I had no nostalgia for, from the Atari 7800 and 8-bit computers to the Sega CD, 32X, Master System, etc. And guess what? None of them ever held my interest after the initial newness factor wore off and I ended up reselling them after a couple months of ownership because they just didn't have any personal significance to me.

 

With a very few exceptions (...exception, I guess. Sega CD) this has been true for me, too. I have rightly avoided all of pre-crashdom. I had a 2600 and remember liking some of the games, but there's just no way I go back to those now. OTOH, I have twice purchased various PC Engine configurations only to sell them both a couple months later. I have tried and failed miserably to enjoy the PCE. It's just not my thing.

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My advice to my past self:

 

1- focus way less on NES, way more on Virtual Boy. VB rarities are far harder to score now than NES rarities, since the whole system was made in small quantities.

 

2- Don't buy both a PlayStation 3 and an Xbox 360. It will lead to lots of redundant purchases.

 

3- not every weird widget you find at a convention will be interesting years later.

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First, I would have bought the Vectrex 3D imager new. And all the Virtual Boy games.

 

And I probably should have passed on the 5200(s) since I don't really play those games, although it was good to try them all out and understand what the 5200 really offers.

 

I should have saved my money on the PS2 console and games...mildly interesting at first load, but nothing that brings me back.

 

Later, I would NOT have bought so much extra stuff just because it was cheap. One backup system is good, two is maybe OK, but 20 or 30 Genesis consoles without power supply (and TONS of extra game pads) is nothing but more stuff to move around.

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Later, I would NOT have bought so much extra stuff just because it was cheap. One backup system is good, two is maybe OK, but 20 or 30 Genesis consoles without power supply (and TONS of extra game pads) is nothing but more stuff to move around.

If any of those 20 or 30 happen to be a mint condition Model 1 system I can help you do some house cleaning. :D

 

 

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This gets me right in the feels. Knowing what I know now, I would have kept all my games and consoles. I lost a model 1 mega drive with 32X, 2 x Sinclair Spectrum 128k, a ps1 and N64 to the void. I sold it gave away a lot of my mega drive and ps1 games in a move towards emulation and modern gaming. Now prices have rocketed and it's not as easy to re-buy everything.

 

I have started to rebuild my hardware and hard copies again in a bid to reconnect with my childhood (mid life crisis looming). I have a megadrive model 2 with 32X and Mega CD, 3DO and Dreamcast from the pre 2000 era in my collection now. Still need to get a Colecovision, Saturn and Jaguar, and re-buy a Spectrum 128k.

 

I would also mod my consoles for optimum video/audio out and any other enhancements.

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I may/should have been more gentle on some of my stuff and may/should have been more selective on what boxes I kept. While I did everything mostly right for the Apple II, there are other areas I could have improved upon. Especially red led handheld games and their cousins.

 

And not throw away or sell anything, but, then, WAREHOUSE!!

Edited by Keatah
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If I could go back, I probably wouldn't have gotten a Coleco Adam computer. I would have gotten something like a Coco-2 or a Commodore 64.

 

While I did enjoy my Adam quite a lot, I used it mostly for playing games, and type/print some documents with the daisy-wheel printer. Unless you had connections with the "underground ADAM community" (which I did not when I was a kid) then all you could use to program games was SmartBASIC, which was rather limited and also badly documented. Coleco didn't publish any "public" documentation for those who wanted to try programming in Z80 assembly language (unless, again, you had the right connections). Meanwhile, there were magazines out there with lots of type-in programs for other computers. I think I would have learned a lot more from those other computers, and I could have just played ColecoVision games on a good ol' ColecoVision.

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Stop trying to collect for more than one console at a time. I had 13 consoles and was overwhelmed by the games I had because I collect to play them. Now I only collect for one console and I feel less stress.

 

 

yea same here, I don't do consoles but vintage computers I am down to 1 mac I never use cause its kind of a chunk and hard to sell since its an SE with the monitor and all, my pentium laptop, which I never use and its hard to sell cause its just a chunk at this point and not worth the postage paid to mail it ... and my 65XE which is torn to bits still as I endlessly tinker with it ...

 

I mean like 8 bitter's I wouldnt mind having a C-64 (actually 128 personally) but otherwise how many 8 bit beep n boop machines do I need with a dual pokey modded out 65XE in huose, and 16 bitters ... yea I guess playing lemmings on 4 platforms is cool or something but there's not a lot of stuff missed

Edited by Osgeld
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