Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this column are those of the participants and the moderator, and do not necessarily reflect those of the GIA. There is coarse language and potentially offensive material afoot. Who told you you could come over?! Don't say we didn't warn you.

I am plagued by the unshakable suspicion that anything I might offer in the line of an intro tonight would just be irrelevent and bitchy ... and screw that.

Let's go.

The play's the thing

Erin, Sorry about that last letter. I endorse free speech, but I just wish there was some way to take away all the bad stuff from it. But we don't live in a perfect world, do we? I don't collect games. Why? Can't afford it. I collect them when they first come out, and then I take them out of their packaging >gasp< and touch the cartridge/jewel casing with grimy hands! I have a problem with people who collect video games... mint condition. I mean, why do that when it is not the primary purpose of the game? People collect baseball cards n' such, but those are on the market to be collected! Video games aren't meant to be collected, they are meant to be played. Out of all honesty, who spends thrice the original MSRP on a video game, and doesn't even take the time to play it? That undermines a lot of ethics in video gaming. You buy a game to PLAY it, to EXPERIENCE it, not so it can age away in a glass case. If I were a game designer (well, someday), and I created this awesome game, would I give the last copy in existence to some collector who'd never touch it, or would I give it to someone who would actually play it? See where I'm going on this? Of course, not all collectors are like this. Odds are that mint-condition copy is the same one the buyer plays over and over again. I don't think I will ever collect video games, because there is no point to buying a game unless you are going to play it. ...But I wouldn't mind collecting other video game memoribilia, such as a box of that old Mario Bros. breakfast cereal, or a Sonic the Hedgehog bath towel. That is okay in my book. ~Chris Erin, This time I'll keep it short (but not sweet, bitterness is my specialty). Let's put it this way: Me, I just care if it works. Instructions are irrelevant, I'm not gonna read them anyway. 'Course, I know people who'll pay ludicrous amounts of money on games they can't read and don't even own the console for, but by God they've still got the original packaging, booklet, and registration cards in mint condition. We all gotta have hobbies, right? No harm, no foul. BUT! I have this sneaky suspicion this mentality has some hand in my inability to pick up a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga for under $100. Come on, people! You're not gonna play it! I wonder how many of the, like, 184 copies they decided to make of the US version are sitting, still shrinkwrapped, in a box at the bottom of somebody's closet, collecting dust and yearning to be played! Can't you hear their desperate pleas?! "Hibbsy! Hibbsy! Come play us! Give our lives meaning! Plaaaaaay ussssssss!" I weep for their tortured existence, and weep even harder for myself, for I am not able to play quite possibly the most fantastic RPG ever created! Puff, puff, pass, people. -Wise Master Hibb, master of the arts of both bitching AND moaning.

I consider myself to be the middle-ground between game player and game collector. I'm not quite on the shrinkwrap level, but in the closet is a box containing all my original SNES packaging, instruction manuals, maps, etc., neatly folded and tucked away from the harsh light of day and the omnipresent menace of bird shit. I'm thoroughly into keeping things as close to mint as possible, despite knowing that I will never part with a single title, but damned if I haven't logged my share of hours on each and every cart -- even Lagoon.

MIB! DRAGON WARRIOR IV 4 NES COMPLETE L@@K!

Erin - I'd like to say that anyone who would pay 300 on ebay for an unopened Dragon Warrior 4 are off their rocker, but I can't Now that I have a good job with good money, I plan on hooking up my car. Audio, decals, maybe some engine work, so that I can outflash and outdrive all those prissy kids in Hondas (long live Pontiac). I like to spend money. Game collectors like to spend money. So as much as I'd like to make fun of people for being losers, their really just spending money on what appeals to them. I'm sure most of those Mega Ten collectors think I'm crazy for the 1800 watt layout I'm putting in soon. And I think they're just as nuts for the import fees they pay. Peace, Ray Stryker, not sure if that letter had a point or if I was just deluding myself...

Fanatic collecting of just about anything will always fall into the realm of "to each his own." My mother sells Fischer Price Security Bunnies on eBay for $75 a pop, and I certainly don't miss an opportunity to break a remnant of wit or two o'er the heads of those freaks, despite my own willingness to drop $50 I don't have for a complete copy of an NES game I already own.

Determining legitimacy

Erin, First I'd like to quickly respond to El Cactuar's letter of yesterday. (The 20th) "I didn't see such a big fuss being made over the bumper crop of Kill Bin Laden games that appeared in September. Oh but that's right, America hates him. He's a bad man so it's okay to blow his head off with a shotgun. How is that hate any more acceptable than the hate endorsed by the Neo Nazis?" Is Ariel Sharon constantly making statements about how he is going to destroy the white race? About how he is going to cleanse the white taint? The difference is that in the Kill Bin Laden games, it is going after someone we know for a fact, has a vendetta against us where in Ethnic Cleansing it is going against people who, if they had their own way, would most likely avoid you. Hate is not acceptable but its not as unreasonable as in Ethnic Cleansing. How far will I go for game? Depending on the game I can and will go to the ends of my resources. For something like say... Mappy Land for the NES I would probably slit my own throat than get it. For a copy of FF Tactics before the re-release? I would probably be willing to resort to illegal copying of the game. I'm not going to go for a rare game just because its rare. Whats the fun in that? After all it's not like most rare games are like rare sports memoribilia where my investment is nearly guaranteed to increase. I want the games not so much to say I have the games, but to PLAY them. For a rare game I want to play, there is little that will stand in my way. I don't care usually if I play with them on Emu or in the original format, its the game itself that attracts me, not the market value. When video games gain more public legitamacy, then we'll start to see the collecting aspect of it more in the spotlight. Until then, I think I'll stick to collecting Zoids. Its all about the gaming, not the collecting. SSJPabs

You're more or less of the same sentiment as Chris and Hibb.... But I'm inclined to disagree with your "public legitimacy" comment....

Crunch

Hey Erin: I have coined a phrase for those nutty individuals that pay upwards of three times the face value of a 'classic' game: Great eBay customers. It's how I pay the bills. You gotta love the bargain bins at Toys 'r' Us. -mista tea

With the recent onslaught of the "retro-gaming" trend, and moreover, the dizzying prices rare games can fetch among collectors, I'd say they've already garnered more than enough "public legitimacy" for collecting them to be every bit as worthwhile as something more traditionally collectable -- Magic:TG cards, for instance, or potato chips shaped like celebrities.

Whaddaya want to pawn off on me?

EM, I used to collect games. Then, college happened. Needless to say, my CD rack is now a verifiable revolving door for games, with used Greatest Hits merchandise constantly rolling in, and a few weeks later, rolling back out. There is just too many games out there to play, and if that means I have to sacrifice MGS2 and a few of the crappier games in my shrinking collection to buy GTA3, then I'll do it. In fact, right now I'm trying to find the rest of the goodies that came with Lunar 1 and Lunar 2 (the cloth maps) so I can pawn the set off for some store credit. That said, the Final Fantasy series and Xenogears have been my only untouchables, but even they may face the gauntlet and be pawned to someone else. When push comes to shove, FFX might have to make way for Xenosaga. Because, dammit, I have bills to pay. -Red Raven

I envy those who can maintain a veritable revolving door with their collections; had I that kind of mercenary grit I wouldn't be waiting around to find an additional fifty in the gutter to buy Gitaroo Man.

To what lengths

Hmm.. I used to "collect" SNES games, I now have every US and Japanese release Square game, most with their original packaging. In LA, there are a profusion of import game stores that sell used SFC games, so that's where I'd blow my wad every spring break/summer vacation. I felt no shame in paying $50 for a copy of Romancing Saga 2 w/ box & instructions. But in the summer of 2000, when in Japan, I stumbled upon a videogame store in Akihabara that sold shelf after shelf of FACTORY SEALED FC and SFC games for dirt. Once I came to my senses, I got a factory sealed FFVI for 20 bucks. A FFIV hard type was only 30 (try finding a US FFII cart by itself for under $45), and many of the Famicom FFs were only 15 bones. Its neat coming home from a trip and showing your friends copies of Seiken Densetsu 3 that are still in the shrink wrap. Muhahahahaha. That's what I love about Japan: they don't like anything old/used. That's why I can buy a used Luna Sea CD (MSRP $30) at a second hand shop in Takasaki for $5. Only fools pay full price in Japan. Maybe it's to offset the ridiculous price of things like FOOD and SHELTER that used video games are dirt cheap... but who needs sustenance and a roof over their heads when they've got a factory sealed copy of Treasure Hunter G to keep them company? -himajinga, whose GF hums along to his FFIV OSV CD, damn that's sexy! Erin, I didn't get a chance to read DA until 6pm Pacific, so I imagine you've already selected your collecting letters. Nonetheless, I'll send this in for statistical interest, or something. I don't collect much in the way of games -- heck, I only started playing console games in earnest around 1996, at the tender age of 22 -- but I do collect Lunar, and lately that obsession has been responsible for a truly aberrative behavior in me. I've been getting up early. As in 5:30am to bid on a Japanese phonecard from a seller in Singapore. When will I ever go to Japan? Who knows. But I've ended up with something like 13 of them now. Even though most of them are duplicates of the bromide cards included in my (second) copies of the Saturn games. I started putting together a spreadsheet of my collection, and it's nowhere near complete, but the numbers scare me. Especially since I started collecting when at the time I was only working about 10 hours a week and making about $450 a month. But I somehow found the cash to buy two or three copies of TSS on eBay, and it was all downhill from there, especially when the crown jewel of my collection, my Nall plushie, arrived from WD as my haiku contest prize. There was no turning back after that; I had to have a collection worthy of containing my Nall. And my second Nall, courtesy the claw machine at WD's booth at E3 last year. How can you not collect when you're handed not one, but _two_ treasures like that, free? The most expensive game I've bought yet for the collection was, I think, EB for MegaCD. Possibly my TSS disc 7 was more; they were both considerably over $100. (Of course, my Zelda Sound and Drama soundtrack was $285, but that's a different collection comprised solely of Zelda soundtracks, and that's the only noteworthy one anyway.) As I recall, the total number of Lunar games my bf (who has his own PSX games) and I have is 31, not counting the preordered GBA one. Only five of those are exact duplicates (for my sister's use, or bought to get the trading cards). At least 75% of my eBay transactions have been Lunar-related, I think. Yes, my income has improved since the beginning. And no, I haven't played them all. I don't even own a GameGear. I haven't finished any of the Japanese games, though I fully expect to play Legend through. Somehow. Alunissage P.S. No, I am not interested in selling a Nall, so don't ask. But if you have the TSS soundtrack, we can talk... I think there's a bit of GCS (Game Collector's Syndrome) in all of us. I mean, I spent $95 counting shipping on a mint condition Japanese Chrono Trigger cartridge, with mint box and instructions. The auction ballooned in the last five minutes from $40 to $90, but I just had to have it. I've embarked on a mission to collect all the light gun games for the NES, and all the cool (and sometimes useless) NES peripherals that I didn't have growing up. I've been severely tempted to bid on a complete ROB unit (remember that sweet looking but utterly useless NES robot?), but thus far I've resisted that temptation. All I can say is, God bless Funcoland... - Panadero, who has a friend who's trying to collect all the Mega Man games -- Now THAT'S hardcore!

Yes, lumping the three of these letters together was probably cheap of me, but as my own passion for amassing stuff doesn't even approach this plateau o' hardcore, there's little I can say in response....

Take it from a reformed addict

I turned 18, just discovered imports, and recieved a lawsuit check that was sitting in a trust fund since I was 6. Let's say a lot of money was mine (5 digits). It's all gone. In between I've purchased lots of "collectable" video games and related items, and for the most part it's money that if I really needed it, I wouldn't have spent. One point of lunacy had me taking 12 $50 bills (that's $600), wrapping it in foil, and sending it through a post office to France. I did this to get Pulstar (AES Cart). $600 that I just as easily could have used to get who knows what else, and that's _if_ the transfer of goods there & back didn't get screwed up. Luckily no mishaps occurred, and it's frightening how little I play the game now. I feel sorry for people that spend triple digit figures for videogame software. While I may personally feel some titles are worth that much or more, I couldn't imagine the shock of realizing that something I saved so much money more turned out to be so underwhelming. For instance, if I actually saved up $150 of my hard-earned money to find a copy of Radiant Silvergun, never having played it and expecting brillance based upon consistent Internet praise, I'd be entirely pissed off upon actually playing the game. The way I collect now? Don't sell back, and don't look back. Just pick up the titles that you want as they come out, and never let them go. -dog$

Works for me.

Closing Comments:

There comes a time in all our lives when we find ourselves swimming upstream, awash in a popular opinion that conflicts with our own. What critically panned or otherwise universally loathed game(s) have you fallen in love with?

And for the love of God, please don't write in to tell me "FFVIII." It doesn't bloody count.

Till tomorrow....

- Erin Mehlos