The Video Game Critic

I was just thinking back to the time when I started collecting old games and systems.

In the late 90's there was a short article in Rolling Stone with a picture of an Atari 2600 and a stack of cartridges next to it.  The article talked about how people were rediscovering the systems of their youth thanks to the Internet.  I was intrigued.

Soon after, I was on Ebay trying to reacquire my old Atari 2600 collection.  Of course, it soon expanded to all the systems I had owned in the past, and finally the systems I never did own (but wanted to).

The late 90's and early 2000's were a great time for collectors.  There were tons of sites selling stockpiles of old games.  You could buy new Atari 2600 games for 50 cents each, and used NES games for under a buck. 

So when did you begin collecting and what was your inspiration?

Around 2000. I started to miss playing my old games. I realized that newer games does not mean better. I missed games that I could play 10 intense minutes of like Burger Time and grew weary of games with lengthy tutorials, story telling and cut scenes. Now with digital games, dlc, microtransactions, internet requirements and etc. I'm playing games like Joust more and Call of Duty less.   

Great topic Critic!I started collecting about 10 years ago. I realized I was buying a NES and games for the third time in my life,having sold the others when my life got too busy to play. I had bought my second Genesis a few months before. I simply decided I would always love these games,even if I didn't always have time to play them,so there was no point in selling them just to buy them again later. I also noticed they were more expensive every time I bought them. Now my collection has grown into something quite impressive,in my opinion, and I plan on passing it on to my son.

I started collecting about 7-8 years ago and a lot of it was missing games from the past. I used to play video games with my dad a lot when I was growing up and it has always been a big part of my life. After a while, I got all the games I had as a kid (there weren't too many) and I became interested in finding the best games from each generation. I couldn't believe how many great games I had missed out on. This hobby has turned into a love for the industry and a respect for all the great games that were created over the years. I love reading about games and I love playing them just as much. In a way, I enjoy collecting them more then I enjoy playing, but I do a ton of both. Great topic!

I remember the late 90s and early 2000s as a golden age of retro collecting.  My younger brother bought an NES lot on ebay.  It included a functioning NES system, two controllers, all the hook-ups, and a whopping 100 games, many of them classics (4 Mega Man games, all 3 Mario games, 3 Castlevania games, 2 Zeldas, etc).  The price?  $100.

Now when I check my local Craigslist, there are people selling the NES system alone for $60 with taglines like "relive your childhood!"  I remember a time when reliving my childhood wouldn't cause me to mortgage my future....

In 2002 after moving to MN I was on call in a 7x24 capacity.  Because I felt like I couldn't really go anywhere while on call, as I needed to be near a PC, I started collecting as a hobby.

I focused on the systems that I had read about when I was a kid but never had.  Now, I don't really play all that much (compared to back in the day) or even collect systems anymore.  I stopped collecting once I changed jobs.  But that's what got me interested in classic systems that I never owned nor even heard about when I was kid.  I guess moving to MN brought me to the VGC website as I loved reading his A games and even more enjoyed reading his F reviews.

When I was young I read video game magazines a lot and I was always fascinated by all the systems and games I couldn't afford.  Now I can.  

I started mostly due to nostalgia ... "I used to rent this game all the time" or "My cousin/friend/enemy used to have this game" kind of thing.

It has since spun off into getting games/consoles I missed out on the first time around. Or couldn't afford.

The limits of what I can afford when nobody will hire the severely disabled has inspired my classic gaming collection, dating all the way back to the NES era, when I scored an Intellivision and 30 games for less money than what other people were paying for a single extra value meal. Depending on your point of view, I either begin collecting videogames too late after everyone else has grown bored with them, or way ahead of every other retro enthusiast. Now's a great time for me to start on my 360 collection, for example - hey, is that Quake IV (and Quake II) for under $5?

I may have become a classic collector about the same time as the Critic in the late 90s, but instead I discovered emulation. Playing games that were never released in USA and arcade games on my pc totally blew my mind, it was so awesome! Right around 2000, the J2E project came out with an fantastic English patch for the Japanese Final Fantasy IV ROM, not to mention the translated Final Fantasy V.

As for collecting the real thing? That would be because of Dave, The Video Game Critic.

In 2006, I had been playing emulated games again, and googled TG-16 reviews to find more games worth playing. That brought me here. I somehow assumed the reviews were based on playing the emulated ROMs, since this was common. When I clicked on the system reviews and saw, not stock photos, but actual photos of the Critic's consoles, I was impressed. Around that time I started participating at the Digital Press forums and some on Atari Age, where playing the real thing was celebrated.

So I started ebaying classic games and systems. My collection was started by unboxing my old video games, which I had never got rid of. I still had my original NES and SNES systems and games... still with the boxes and manuals. I was a pack rat kid, so that served me well!
The focus of my collecting has been on games I rented and enjoyed or otherwise played and didn't own, many of these for Genesis, which I loved but never actually owned myself. In addition, I tend to seek out games and systems that I marveled at in the pages of game magazines as a kid but never saw in person. And of course, I'm always open to a good classic game!

Speaking of collecting Dave, it may be a good idea to revisit some of your system reviews and note that formerly inexpensive systems and games, noted in the reviews as a +, have dramatically increased in price by this time in 2013.