What is there to collect?

[szndrlvy]

I've been playing computer/video games since 1980, when I received my very first personal computer, the TI-99A. Said games have always held a special place in my heart, which is why I began collecting them roughly fifteen years ago. I always wish that I had the foresight to save certain things that I had gotten rid of over the years, for one reason or another; regrets, we all have them, don't we?

 

Many of the items I want are either insanely difficult to track down or insanely expensive once I do. I often find myself pondering what I'll wish I put aside from the modern era, ten years down the road, but I draw a blank.

 

Is it just me, or does it seem that the fun (innocence) has been stripped out of today's games? Where are the companies such as Infocom and Origin? I miss the days of hand-signed completion certificates and patches given out for getting high scores; hell, I miss the good ol' snail mail newsletters that came every so often, which has been replaced with HTML spam mail that I just discard. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that today's gaming experience seems fleeting and superficial . . . mass-produced and intangible.

 

Out of curiosity, what, if any, newer items do you folks collect, that is, other than the homebrews and the like?

 

-==[szandor]==-

[SteveW]

I feel the same way, that the video game and computer game industries have lost the friendliness and warmth they used to. But back then, you could mail order games from individuals who'd wrote a game in their spare time and bought a small ad in the back of a computer magazine. The handwritten replies and such made it a lot more personal. Nowadays, games are created by dozens of programmers, artists, musicians, and marketers, and you just can't get that kind of feeling anymore. I don't really collect modern computer games like I do with old video games. I don't always keep the boxes and stuff, and once i've gotten tired of the game, I just toss it into a storage box. They don't mean as much to me as they used to.

 

It's always good to see a fellow 99'er on the AtariAge boards!

[Raijin Z]

I collect useless crap. Add-ons for systems and the like. I was never rally into the old gaming scene, because I didn't have mommy and daddy money. I'm wasn't old enough to have had a job in the eighties, so I missed everything that wasn't 2600 or NES. Generally, I seek out everything I never had, which is quite a bit. I've never even seen a CV or an INTV system. Crazy, eh? First time I ever used a C64 was last year.

 

Anyway, I don't collect much new stuff unless it has some sort of gimmick. A bonus disc, some preorder incentive, special hardware, etcetera.

[shep]

I don't collect games I play them.

[Trooper]

Hey! I thought I was the only one here who have never seen or played either the INTV or the CV live

 

/Troop

[Radio F Software]

As for today's things, when pokemon first came out (keep in mind I am NOT the avg age of 30 here, Im 16 which makes me 11 when it came out) I was an avid Pokemon Card collector. I must have invested HUNDEREDS in all sorts of parophenillia, mainly the cards though. I still have a LOT of 1st Edition prints of some of the original set rares. :D:D:D