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Hey there everyone! Been a while since I made a post. So here we go! Game collector's I have talked to in my area or friends who want to collect have wondered kind like "how may licks does it take to get to a center of a tootsie pop?" well how many strategy guides does it take to have a collection. Well the answer is 2! But honestly I have over 1000 strategy guides. Some of the rare ones I have are:
Lunar 2: Eternal Blue - Hardcover Strategy Guide - Sells for over $75.00 online
Star Wars: The Complete Saga Guide by Prima Games - Sells for over $100 on some sites including Amazon. Why you might ask? Well this guide is full of errors which make the guide more valuable!! I know shocking huh? Well as an avid baseball card collector (I own over a million baseball cards) error cards can be quite valuable, even if it's just a birthday error or whatever. But this guide is amazing because it has every bit of detail that exists in the game and clearly the errors do not.
Both Lego Indiana Jones guides they catch a few high prices on the market.
Chrono Trigger - SNES Official Nintendo Player's Guide catches a pretty good price online.
Strategy guides come in all different types and sizes. Prima Game Guides and BradyGames all started off as what companies called Unauthorized Game Guides!!! Why? Because the game companies didn't want to endorse the games during those times. But now Prima and BradyGames are the highest and best quality game guides you can get on the market.
The best type of game guides that are released are hard cover game guides such as the most recent Mortal Kombat Special Edition Guide or Call of Duty: Black Ops. The hardcover guides are the best guides. Why? They stay in better shape and are hard to destroy. The best place to find old guides for games you might have sitting in your collection like for your NES or SNES or even GENESIS games you can get them at book stores, Thrift Stores, Half Price Books if you have one or Gamers if you have one. Sadly Game Stop doesn't sell out of print game guides. Or the best online places are Amazon and EBay!!!
If you have any questions about Game Guides or curious if I have one you are looking for (Sorry not for sale unless I have doubles, but I only have a few of those) just hit me up. Also more to come on Game Guides and My complete list of Game Guides will hopefully come soon.
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Since you have over a thousand, I think you just answered your own question 
However, I don't think there can be any number that could define something as a "collection." For example, I consider my strategy guides part of my overall collection, though I don't have nearly the number you have (at the most forty).
Now I don't own anything rare, but I do have a few that I think are really cool:
Dungeons and Dragon: Warriors of the Eternal Sun - This type of guide is my favorite kind - game tips and maps wrapped in the fiction of the game and presented as a guide for adventurers. Colorful and extremely well written, it is filled with interesting characters. It also helps that the guide is actually helpful.
Legend of Zelda: Tips and Tactics - The art makes this one special, giving identity and personality to characters who are basically only a few pixels smashed together. The guide isn't very useful though, instead gently pushing the reader to explore beyond the confines of the guide itself. The nostalgic factor for this game is extremely high, as any reader of Nintendo Power back in the late eighties can tell you.
Resident Evil 2: Perfect Guide - Though it is unauthorized, this guide was superior to the Prima guide for one reason: The Gameshark codes. It provided not only codes for the main game, but also for the demo that was packaged with Resident Evil: Director's Cut. These codes allowed you to access hidden and unreleased weapons as well as locked rooms. While sometimes tedious and annoying (as only the GameShark and Game Genie can be), it was still a nice addition to already an extremely useful guide.
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I have a much smaller collection, about 120 the last time I counted, but I agree with you on the hard cover books. I also collect some japanese art books for some game series I really like.
I love going to half price books to look for game guides. I managed to pick up a Vangard Bandits guide there, stickers and everything, for only 6 bucks. You never know what deals you're going to find there.
You should post a pic of your guides next time! I bet it's something to behold seeing all of them at once!
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That sounds like a completely massive collection! I really want to see pictures of them too.
I don't really collect guides, but I will pick them up if I can find them cheap and for games I have/want. I'd say I have around 30-40.
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@bombatomba: The Perfect Guide is that a Versus Books? Those are great strategy guides as well and quite easy to follow and the pictures are amazing! My favorite Versus Books is the Perfect Dark Perfect Guide it has everything even N64 GameShark Codes.
@Silent Scythe: Wow! Your lucky Vanguard Bandits is one guide that I haven't yet got and it's kind of hard to come by especially cheap so your lucky at $6.00. I found the Chrono Trigger one at HFB but it was $25 but it's worth way more than that and it's in Mint Condition.
Thanks for the Comments guys. About the Pictures I will try to do the best I can, but they are all in totes!! I will try to maybe post pictures possibly the ones that are Rare or have an interesting story about them. Another rare one that I forgot to add is my Hard Cover Working Designs edition of Arc The Lad Collection this book is amazing and is complete with everything still sealed in the shrink wrap that it was packaged in.
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Do you talk with Marco at all? He runs a website dedicated to strategy guides:
http://www.dontpressstart.com/
I've really been meaning to get together with him to get a database setup similar to RFGen's database for strategy guides. I own ~700 myself, and I know he owns about >1500 guides.
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When I got into gaming in earnest, I was originally gonna get all my tips and walkthroughs from the internet. But after discovering strat guides dirt-cheap at various garage sales, they eventually became a part of my overall collection. It eventually dawned on me that I still preferred the heft and page-turning qualities of an actual, tangible book as opposed to scrolling through some virtual online guide.
As for my own collection: I've built up a stack of about sixty proper strategy guides, as well as a dozen cheats/codes books.
Actually, should cheats/codes books fall under the overall strat-guide umbrella? Personally, I see them as a type of tactical guide, since using the codes would be a tactic one would use to help execute a strategy.
Anyhoo: does anybody here own different strat guides for the same game? In my case, I have both the Prima and Nintendo Power tomes for Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, and the BradyGames and Prima paperbacks for LoZ: The Wind Waker.
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@Zagnorch:
Anything released in physical form dealing with ways to beat a game is something I would consider a Strategy Guide, including the cheats/codes books, though it's more of a "Game Book" umbrella than anything else.
As for owning strategy guides for the same game? Of course - I own three different ones for Ocarina of Time.
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@Shadow Kisuragi:
As for owning strategy guides for the same game? Of course - I own three different ones for Ocarina of Time.
I only have the Prima guide for that one.
Get ready to add a fourth one to your collection if you so desire:
http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Zelda-Ocarina-Prima-Official/dp/0307891534[/b]
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@Zagnorch:
Whoops, put the bold tag too close to the URL.
Take two:
http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Zelda-Ocarina-Prima-Official/dp/0307891534
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@Zagnorch:
If it's seriously < $15, I'll do it. I would have no problem purchasing a guide for
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@Shadow Kisuragi:...wow, where\'d my last sentence go?I would have no problem purchasing a guide for < $15, but $25+ for a guide with most of its content online is just ridiculous.
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@Shadow Kisuragi: Yeah I have seen his site. I would love to see a database like this that we can all add guides in. Macro's site is pretty cool. @Zagnorch: Yeah I would agree with you on the Tips, Tactics and other code books are their own genre but they can also be considered guides, now magazines are a different story and their own genre, I have over 200 GamePro mags, 300 plus EGM and all of EGM2 Releases, and GameNow Releases, so on and so forth and like 200 Nintendo Power Mags. But having 60 is still a feat on its own I know a lot of gamers who only own like 2! and own like 1000 games! WTH is what I say. Now for the guides for same titles from different producers. I have tons of guides from the same game but different companies. The list is too long to tale on here. But I will soon hopefully put some pictures or something on here. But all of them are in totes and I might be moving to Florida soon so everything is packed away. @Shadow Kisuragi: 25 for some games yes its ridicoulous but I need to get a new copy of the Prima guide because I personally think that one was the best for that game. I mean I have all three versions of Perfect Dark and the Versus Books is the best! This is a great blog guys lets keep the chatter up!
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@GamerNick:
Where are you moving to in Florida? Both Marco and I are in the Orlando area. I need to get back into contact with him to trade up some of his duplicate guides.
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@Shadow Kisuragi: I am moving to Gainesville. So not to far from you. When I get down there and get some extra money I am thinking I might do a little Flea Market shopping. They have some nice ones in Melbourne where my aunt and uncle live. I am in the process of finding a place to live right now.
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Wow! I have been looking forever for people who collect strategy guides. They fetch a high price online, but I don't know anyone that collects them (Im also part of some obscure forums filled with retro gamers and I'm alone most of the time for my love of collecting guides).
I thought I was a collector but I have nothing on you guys -- 1000 or 120! Nice collection.
Some of my treasures include:
-Chrono Trigger SNES
-The Art of Final Fantasy 9 (not a guide, but I haven't seen this anywhere)
-Secret of Mana
-Persona 4 Visual Data Book (Only came with people who preordered ... my game is still sealed lol)
-Fire Emblem (Wii, Cube)
I have a few FF guides. I love them (except for 9) because of all the art. They draw all the characters, show you what they drop, etc. I'd say I collect them more for the art and coolnes than to actually use as a guide, after all, many gamefaqs websites are more thorough than most guides, IMO
Some guides I'm dying to get: Suikoden 2, SOTN (Can you imagine item list!), FF7 (great guide btw, had it when I was a kid) and an original FF3 guide.
The Suikoden and SOTN guides are way too expensive -- like $100. Forget it. I agree, Half Price Books are awesome, but you have to go when a new store opens (thats when you get the deals) otherwise, a lot of stuff is overpriced.
On a side note, I'm new and an avid retro gamers. Collect games from SNES, PS1 mostly, some 64 and PS2 as well. My favorite system is the SNES, but the Gamecube is the most underrated system ever.
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I put up a separate folder simply titled 'guides' and I just pick the closest thing to the actual game for the guide. Certainly not perfect (for example I have a collector's version guide for Homefront, but there's no collector version of the actual game, so I just mention it in the notes,) and I've yet to bother with making a separate listing for art books, but I really need something to reference and it's the best I can do so far. I tried half a dozen times to keep an updated Excel listing for them, but it's just so much easier to consolidate everything here, inaccurate as it is. I still have several hundred to add, but I'm getting there. 
So yeah, I guess you could say I collect guides too.
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@Evil Champ: Well I am an avid strat collector so if you have any questions let me know. I do own a Final Fantasy III Guide! and I have two different Variations of Final Fantasy VII BradyGames Guide.
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@slackur: I use Excel document and Game Collector to catalog my guides. keep on collecting guides.
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@bombatomba: Hey my brother bought the Legend of Zelda: Tips & Tactics guide. It's in Pristine Condition.
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This is GamerNick's Blog.
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Hey everyone. My brother and I have collected a lot of games throughout the years. We have a huge collection of games spanning from Pong Systems to the most recent systems. We also have Japanese systems and lot of cool video game related items. Check out our blogs from time to time because we "score" a lot at our video game stores, flea markets, and of course eBay. |
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