The Passion of the Collector

By Ariel Antebi . March 7, 2006 . 11:38am

Most people buy games to play them, but a growing number of gamers are joining the collection craze. Video game collecting is a rising hobby where gamers spend hours, weeks, and even months to hunt down video game rarities. Their collection is a trophy room with copies of Tengen’s version of Tetris for the NES and prototype cartridges of unreleased Super Nintendo games among a library of gaming goodness. We had a chance to speak to one such collector, LordofThunder, who has made quite a few comments regarding Game Quest Directs’ reprints.

LordofThunder made provocative comments about reprints such as “All you morons who don’t understand retro gaming or game collecting, save your money, and buy yourself a PSP” and “to those morons who say “Games are for people to play”, well let me make an example of something. Four or five years ago, Suikoden 2 and Valkyrie Profile were only worth about $20 each. Now that the prices of those games on eBay have gone over $100.00, there are a bunch of people who now want the game, simply due to the price that it’s getting.” Before you go flaming him, listen to what he has to say. He’s a proud collector and has some interesting thoughts which we gave him the opportunity to share. (Editors note: The opinions below do not in anyway or in any parallel universe represent those of Siliconera, this is one collector’s chance to speak out.)

I’ve been collecting games for about 6-7 years. I own about a thousand games, from Nes to PS2. The most treasured piece in my collection is hard for me to say. I guess it would have to be my complete Dragon Warrior 1-4 series on Nes. I bought them off the internet.

Why do I collect games? First of all I like to play them. There are tons of good games on many systems, like the old Nes, Super Nes, Genesis, Dreamcast, PS1, and more. The ones I’m most into are rpgs. Those are always the most sought after games for all the classic systems. Yes, of course the monetary value is important. The best games that people want, that are old and hard to find, often are worth the most money. Why do people make video game price guides? You can go to IGN.com, list your collection, and it will give you the collective monetary value. How could the monetary value of your games not be important, when you have so much time and money invested in them in the first place?   

What do I think about people who want to play hard to find games? Well, if you can’t find it, then you can’t play it. Borrow it from one of your friends who has it. Trade for it. People are looking for games that are 5 or 10 years old and older, and they expect them to fall into their lap? I myself have 20 or so games that I am currently trying to acquire. That doesn’t mean we re-issue every high dollar game just so people who don’t have the time or money to acquire it, can get it for less.

People want the high dollar game but for some reason they don’t think they should have to pay the price that everybody else paid for it. They say, "Games are meant to be played, everybody who wants to play a game, should have a chance to play it." Well, why do they want to play it in the first place, because it’s worth so much money? If it wasn’t worth as much money, would they still want to play it?

Sometimes these games are really not that great, like Rez for PS2. It didn’t do very good in the marketplace. Then the few people who wanted it, would go on eBay and it started selling for 60-70 used. Then more people wanted to play it, because it sold for so much. Why did it sell for that much? Because nobody could find it. Not because it was a good game, or because it was worth playing.

Games from my collection that Game Quest reprinted are Persona 2, and Rhapsody. I estimate that de-valued my collection by about $100. I also own Suikoden 2 and Valkyrie Profile, which Game Quest mentioned they are planning on re-issuing. (Editors Note: Game Quest Direct did not specifically state official plans on re-releasing either of these titles).

It’s all about profit when it comes to re-issuing games. I am less against re-issuing Rez, because I don’t quite consider PS2 games to be collector’s items yet. But I am against the re-issuing of PS1, and Saturn titles, and any other collectible system before that. If you want Dragon Force, then go on eBay, and cough up $50 for it. If you want to play it bad enough, you will. It was $50.00 when it came out new, wasn’t it? Buy it, play it, resell it. Problem solved. I don’t see what these people are complaining about. I wish somebody would sell me a mint Panzer Dragoon Saga for $25.00, but it’s not going to happen. I don’t need Game Quest re-issuing one for me either. If they did, it wouldn’t be Panzer Dragoon Saga. I sure didn’t need Game Quest to acquire any of the games I own now.

PS1 is a classic system with many many great titles, I think it should be left alone as well as anything that came out before that. Game Quest says they will try to re-issue every game that sells for over $100.00 on eBay. They have absolutely no respect for the video game collecting community. Does this mean that they are going to re-issue games like Panzer Dragoon Saga? What systems are they talking about? Do they hold anything sacred? What is they’re stance on people who paid hundreds of dollars for rare games, and now might see that game re-issued for the masses thus depreciating it’s value substantially and permanently?

As for making different artwork for the reprints or marking them to distinguish them from the "originals", that will not protect the value of the games. That has already been proven to be ineffective in protecting the value of rare games. Even rare games that were re-released on different systems, like the Megaman collections on PS2 and Gamecube, which aren’t even on the original systems those games were released for, still substantially affect the value of the original games.

How nice, let’s let people buy up all these re-prints, without letting on that we reprinted them, and that we basically have unlimited supply. Let’s take advantage of the eBay gaming marketplace. Then let’s do it again. Not to mention screwing all the people who paid big money for the game in the first place. In fact, they were actually screwing the people buying the re-issues too. 

And whatever Game Quest says, the only reason they’re doing this is to make money. They apparently have been successful with past re-issues, and have no plans of stopping, they even said that themselves, and I think that the entire eBay gaming community and classic gaming community, and anyone who collects games, and cares about the hobby, needs to boycott Game Quest. If Game Quest does enough re-issues, then there won’t be anymore rare games to re-issue, and that $20,000 video game collection, will become a $10,000 video game collection, or a $5,000 video game collection.

I paid good money for a lot of my games. I’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars. I’ve spent countless hours going to flea markets, second hand shops, it’s not just eBay where I buy games. I’ve found plenty of good deals at those kinds of places. That’s the best thing about being a collector. Finding something rare that you’ve been trying to get, and even better when you get a great deal on it. That’s what real gamers do, if you don’t have the money to buy it off the internet, then you go out and find it yourself.

Imagine all the rare games disappearing, and becoming the same price, and flooding eBay. This is already happening to the rarest PS1 titles. When will it stop? This could have a huge effect on the eBay video game marketplace, and the hobby of collecting games itself, while Game Quest gets rich, by destroying the collector and monetary value of every rare game they set their sights on, and seemingly expecting nobody to ever find out what’s going on. Well now that we know, we need to start boycotting Game Quest, or all of us game collectors will be collecting stamps.
 

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