Many times when acquiring video games for my collection, I have thought "this will be worth money some day." I rarely put any thought behind what I would do when that some day appeared. The COVID situation and subsequent stay at home orders have caused a rise in video game prices as people stuck at home look for ways to occupy themselves. This price bubble is calling me like siren's song saying "let it all go, NOW is the time." I'm thinking about many things besides just the rising prices. Our lease renews in the winter, and although we don't wish to move it is always a possibility. We literally have an extra bedroom for the game collection, and the more I think about how much that costs us by having a higher rent than we could, the more upset I get with myself. Most of the consoles I have can be played digitally or emulated. Yes, there are pros and cons to that but it is a major factor.



When I started collecting seriously around 2006, I figured I would be accumulating circles and squares forever and never let them go, despite not having children to pass them on to. I gave no forethought or consideration to my own changing tastes or maturation. When I moved from New Jersey to Texas in 2015, moving my approximately one thousand piece collection was a massive undertaking. There were more boxes of video games than boxes from the bedroom and kitchen combined. It was at this time I had the first inkling that I needed to trim the fat. In 2016 we moved again, within the same city, but it was still a pain in the neck because of all the video games. Again I was forced to examine why I needed all these damned hunks of plastic. We still live in the place we moved to in 2016, but I did vow to myself not to move this collection as it is ever again. I made that vow, then I did nothing about it. Worse, I continued to add to the collection in a counter-productive and wasteful effort to fill the hole in my heart with more hunks of plastic that are ultimately destined for a landfill. Sure, I would sometimes sell off games I didn't like or was convinced I would never play, but I made no concerted effort to lighten the load in any significant way.


What prevented me from taking action? There are a lot of factors here. Laziness is a big one. Selling games is work if you want to do it right. Games must be tested and preferably cleaned before sale. Then they must be photographed in an attractive way and described and priced accurately. All of this takes time. Packaging materials cost money. Another factor holding me back from a huge selloff was, of course, sentimental value combined with nostalgia. I have received so many of my games in trade or as gifts from friends or other collectors. For some reason, this makes it really hard to let go of them. When I think about this, it doesn't really make sense. Any time I have given something to someone, I know I have no say in what he or she does with it. Sure, I would love for the item to be cherished forever with the person thinking of my smiling face every time he saw it, but in reality he could flip it the next day and it's not likely I would even know, let alone care. Still, a lot of the games that were given to me and some that were sold or traded to me get picked up and put right back on the shelf, even if I have zero interested in playing them.

Recently, there has been progress. I have three wall units to contain all my games that at one point were filled over capacity, with many games stacked on top of the units. I made it a goal about two years ago to clear one of the wall units so that only two out of three were full. It took a very long time but recently I reached this goal, and although it was a great achievement, I still look at the remaining two shelves as a challenge to push down to maybe one. Even more so because as I have fewer and fewer games, the ones that remain are harder to let go of. I am at the point where I am inspired by my late friend Jesse. He always ribbed me for hoarding games. He owned physical games, and although he had far fewer than me, his collection was manageable at about two hundred pieces and every single one was noteworthy or interesting. I wasn't as envious of the games he owned as I was of his position, and now more than ever I imagine being happier with a collection that looks more like his looked. The tragic irony here is that I inherited a large part of his collection when he passed away, so turning my collection into his is literally possible.

Lately (for about the past month), I've been putting maximum effort into selling large swaths of my collection. I started with high-value games that have no sentimental or nostalgic value to me and made a lot of money quickly. I was hooked. Yes, it's work, but I set up a plan to list at least one item per day. On the weekends, it is way more. I am fortunate to work in a place with a daily bulk mail pickup so I do not need to risk trips to the post office. As I streamline the process by doing things like leaving my postage scale and tape gun out for easy access, the entire process takes less time. There is still a matter of testing, but that is dependent on the individual game being tested. For a while, games sustained me, and I was hesitant to get into selling my spare consoles. I knew that it would be doubly beneficial for the money I would make from them and also the space that would be freed up by removing them, but I was hesitant to commit to the labor intensity of properly testing a video game console. One way I solved this was by enlisting the help of my wife. For a spare SNES with about a dozen controllers, I enticed her to help me by firing up her favorite game, Tetris Attack, and just letting her play. Each time she beat a level I changed out the controller and asked her how it felt. I culled out the best ones to keep and as long as they were fully functional, earmarked the lesser ones for future sale. To be completely honest this process was an awesome and fun way to spend some quality time with Mrs. Grayghost and a rare opportunity to mix business and pleasure in a productive way.   


At the time of this writing I have gotten the collection down to about 750 physical, complete in box games or loose cartridges. Upon counting I was surprised the number was so high, to be honest, but how low can it go? Will I get burned out? Will I lose steam or end up feeling like there is nothing else I want to let go of? Time will tell, and I'll be sure to write an update later in the year. As it stands now, the COVID games bubble and me having some extra time on my hands and a strong desire for financial safety are pushing me to purge like I never have before. If I had written this post five or ten years ago, I think the community would have expressed doubt or disappointment in my actions, or at least the old sentiment of "you'll be back." I have felt the weight of this collection for many years, and I'm almost certain I will never have a collection as the big as the peak again. What about you? Are you taking advantage of the seller's market we find ourselves in, or are you holding strong?

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