It was never about bling

(tags game, collecting, purchase)

racketboy goes meta with his latest post "Game Collecting: Don't "Invest" In Vintage Games". The general gist is that games aren't monetary investments when they can be (easily?) reprinted, and that the would-be collector's emphasis should be enjoyment and satisfaction. As he asserts in his previous post, "Game Collecting: How the Internet Changed the Hobby":

"... it would be rare to have more than one or two friends that would truly appreciate visiting such a collection... As more and more people post pictures of their massive collection, the less impressive yours will be... The only person you should try to impress is yourself."

Preach it.

(Actually I just wanted to write "preach it" after a quote because "preach it" looks so cool. Calls to mind "Hear Hear" and "me too", but with a tinge of advocacy, and heaven help you if you don't mindlessly accept the "truth".)

racketboy's recommendations are what I keep in mind in my own junk collecting, but my interests span farther than games, reaching into other media like DVDs, manga, books, figures and character goods. My bedroom is my "collection room", and there's not much room to sleep, heh. I don't buy the games because it enhances my e-presence (or any other p-word), I buy them because I want to play them. But no time...

I wonder what motivated him to write these two posts. In any collecting field there will be over-valued items and the fools who will buy them. Perhaps it is the realization that video games are just bits that can be resurrected easily either legally or illegally? Isn't this the Nintendo Wii strategy? Retro-gaming on your PSP through "hacking"? Abandonware? Isn't it why we see remake collections every couple of months from the usual suspects and the reviews from retro-gaming with racketboy and namakoteam?

For example, I had the urge to play Dangun Feveron recently because somebody told me that it plays just like my favorite shmup game, Parsec47, copies it with great justice. I first had the idea of buying it, but it's an arcade game, so I would have to learn how to JAMMA or whatever, all that stuff you don't hassle with as a console gamer. Then I checked out the emulation front. It was distilled as a small "bin" file presumably easy to access and run from MAME. I don't know. I stopped just before downloading it, because I have all these legit games on my backburner... Sigh, meandering. What was my point? Oh yeah, if I wanted to play this game legally I'd have to go hardware. Which means that retro-gaming isn't easy! But I just contradicted myself with the emulation point. Oh, but a collector wouldn't stoop as low as to boast they have the "ROM" of a game. So yeah, I would go get the hardware board itself or wait for someone to re-license it and port it to the current gen of consumer game hardware (PC or consoles, etc).

Hm, I bet 10 years from now, there will probably virtual machine environments that can run current Windows XP 3d FPS games with software emulating the hardware graphic acceleration or the now-nascent hardware physics acceleration, and they will be available like those under 10 USD generic reprint games at the checkout stand at #{you.getStore( :closest )}. All you have to do is boot it up on your DRM'd box, plug in your USB-3.11 controller and you're doing the 2000s like it was the dawn of blogging all over again. Ugh. No worries about having to get Windows XP, b/c it comes on the disc. Heck you're not (just) running that crappy OS right? You've got shims for all the other OS instances that are necessary: Firefox 3.11 OS, Windows DRM, sometimes an Apple ][ for your Wasteland escapes, you know, for those emulator-uphill-both-ways stories. And your vintage copy of Unreal Tournament 2004 DVD white aluminum (tin?) box (Mint!!!11 with headset unused, original packaging) just isn't worth the space. (Boo hoo, I couldn't get one of those myself, but I still have the box and stuff for Unreal Tournament 1999, you wanna to see?)

Yeah, this post is shot up and billowing smoke over enemy territory... Gotta bail out. *pulls the ejection lever* Whoosh!