Opossum Retirement: End of an Era!

[Crazy_Opossum]

Hello,

It's a really weird post to make, but it needs to be made. As of a few weeks ago many circumstances have come up in my life that are causeing me to retire from game collecting and well ...video games as a whole. First off, It's not a tragic event that happened, in fact quite the opposite ...

1. I'm getting married soon and looking back, I realized my obsession with collecting and video games really caused tension between my fiance and me.

2. Finances, I'm moving to a location with higher rent, higher taxes, yet I'm still making the same wage, so I needed to cut something out (probably the only negative thing).

3. I guess, I really just don't have the passion for it anymore like I used to.

All this said, am I leaving forever? I dont know, if my circumstances change. I may comeback.

Lastly, I've been collecting nearly 12 years, This site really got me into it, I found this site oddly enough when I was a teenager searching Yahoo Answers for Game Collections. After joining I was welcomed with opened arms and I learned A LOT from all of you peeps and I would never have gotten to where I am if it wasn't for all of you ... I thank you all for everything in making this part of my life and fulfilled and happy as it is.

Thank you,
The Craziest Opossum you Know ... signing off

[RobotWillie]

Good luck with life man.

I personally don't even consider myself a collector either anyway I don't have much compared with most people here. I just like games. I don't see I'd ever not be into them.  Because I don't really like anything as much, I like some movie but find most a waste of time. I feel the same about TV shows (or webshows) I look at my parents and see my mom has more financial straining obsessions than my dad (actually he has none really, all he needs is a new computer and phone every few years and a new TV every now and then when the newer tech become cheap enough) . Like spending 1000+ dollars on flowers every year that die when the years done. Its her hobby to plant them and take care of them. And its a ridiculous amount of money. It annoys him and he and I have criticized her. And of course the usual buy a pair of shoes and wear them a few times and then let them lay in the closet 5 years before donating them. To note she makes a decent bit less than my dad so most of it is his money in fact. But shes not wrong when she says she earns money to spend too, but sometimes its plain to see thats not the best thing to spend money on too. My dad even told a florist how much she spends and the florist said that was too much and the florist is the person who would kindly take her money without asking questions.

Alas, I am not saying the tension wasn't warranted. Perhaps you do/did spend too much on games. But in my experience there is pretty much always one half of the couple that overspends, perhaps you were the half in this situation. Just make sure you don't allow her to get away with spending as much as you did on something you find as trivial as you started finding games. But she just might be the more financially minded one. I don't know you or her I'm just thinking of the possibilities.

Don't feel insulted. I am just making sure a fellow man isn't being unreasonably nagged on. It sounds like she was probably being pretty reasonable here you admit it was an obsession.

In my case it sadly is not  a good thing when I become passionless for my games. Its when I am depressed. Like when my brother said that playing games and all is fun but I should go do more. I am not saying hes wrong. But little does he realize that if I am not playing games I am severely (or maybe only moderately) depressed. I don't even play games when I feel this way. I just sit at the computer and watch videos. I have had stretches of time where this has happened. And I have noticed when I feel like picking up a new game or even old game to play its when I am feeling better nearly most the time. And it has nothing to do with not having time. When I run into/if I run into a point in my life where I am too busy to play thats totally different and I will see that as not a depressed deal. But when I have time and I don't do anything more "productive" I feel the time rotting away when I could have been playing a new game. Its a layer of the depression. As I sit there watching stuff that isn't usually educational in anyway I feel the time go by and I get depressed over the fact I wasted that time doing what I find to be nothing. Because to me games are still a little more than nothing. It probably has to do with I sit alone in my room all day when I do just watch the computer. Where I am playing a game I am out in another room interacting with my dad showing him the game, or talking to my mom or playing with the cat. None of that goes on when I am sitting watching the videos with my door closed.

So I have found for me games are actually not a sign I am sitting around the house miserable, it means I am in a good mood and when I don't care about them I am in a bad state of mind.

[RobotWillie]

I really am sorry. I didn't really mean for this to be about me at all. I just felt it was a good opportunity to say how I felt about some things. I am not trying to take away from your initial message of goodbye for now.

[noiseredux]

Good luck, have fun!

[Crazy_Opossum]

Well, here I am ... I got the time I need and now I'm back with a vengence ... my haitus got me thinking ... I dont want my years of collecting in the past to go to waste ... so I am here to make things better :3

So what is it you ask that I've been up to? studying and researching game history (and writing too apparently).

What happened is I decided to get into education ... educating in the history of gaming and also experimenting in education in other subjects using interactive means of entertainment.

Im working on Fuzgama (still) and finally getting it to the point where I HOPE to have it officially open this summer.

the website is currently under construction and I hope for it to be valuable resource in the future for education in the field of collecting.

this first image is that of the homepage. the second is the Atari console page where you can select the console and explore it's history .. what made it success?? or what made it fail??

[img width=700 height=667]https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/54517300_10213409302163789_2016645981952540672_o.jpg?_nc_cat=102&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-2.xx&oh=a2639f11e74e4c25f7f4b9a37d093058&oe=5D0558FD[/img]
[img width=700 height=667]https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/55450399_10213409304803855_5916026745378570240_o.jpg?_nc_cat=104&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-2.xx&oh=9b8e271b23182019118c43580e6ecda4&oe=5D14718B[/img]

other than that ... other things that I am really proud of is I managed to get a small little artcle published in Vol. 1 of the SNES Omnibus by Brett Weiss and it really made my day .

[img width=700 height=934]https://scontent-ort2-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/54379890_10213409246282392_5391749257311027200_o.jpg?_nc_cat=102&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-2.xx&oh=9455eee2823195421bf19ba4e3624a8d&oe=5D0D0586[/img]

So ... I'm back :3 ..I missed you all!!