I love retro game collecting. I love hunting for retro games, talking about retro games and of course playing retro games. The start of my journey started a good few years ago now, but it was one that started from wanting to revisit the great memories I had of gaming in the 1980’s and 1990’s. I had the space to start a collection and started buying the consoles that had previously been lost over time. Retro Game Collecting has been (and still is) such a fun hobby but there are some highs and lows that I have experienced that I thought I would share.
Retro Game Collecting Posts:
- Is Retro Game Collecting Worth It?
- How To Get Started With Retro Game Collecting
- How I Started Retro Game Collecting
- Why Are Retro Games So Expensive?
- Why Are Retro Games So Popular?
- Retro Game Collecting Burn Out
Retro Game Collecting – The Highs
Playing a System, You Haven’t Owned for a Long Time
When I first started collecting getting my hands on a system that I hadn’t played for years was a fantastic feeling. Setting up a Sega Mega Drive for the first time in many years was a fantastic experience that brought back a lot of great memories. Nowadays it is still great to add a new system to the collection and fire it up for the first time but on most occasions, I have already played most of the systems I don’t own having attended many Gaming Expos where you can usually find most consoles and computers to play.
Discovering a New Community
Before I started collecting, I discovered a community of people on social media all of whom had a love of retro games. Most of these people were on Twitter and they were friendly and easy to interact with and share content with. This was a great way to meet like minded people who I would go on to meet at retro gaming events and become friends with. This has been one of the most positive things to happen from my collecting hobby. Yes, it is great to build a collection and play games but to make some friends too along the way is special.
The Retro Gaming Expos
I attended my first Expo in 2015 along with my first retro gaming night (an event that is held throughout the year and local to me). I didn’t quite know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised, there was loads of arcade cabs to play, a huge selection of systems to play and plenty of trade stalls to browse. The bigger Expos year on year can be very similar but the social aspect of the Expos here in the UK make them so much fun. Getting to chat to so many different people about collecting, what they’ve been playing and buying is always very enjoyable.
Learning About Retro Games
Back in the day I found out about new games through magazines like Mean Machines and Computer and Video Games. Sometimes my mates would share a game I hadn’t heard of and TV Shows like Games Master would also show new releases. This was a time before the internet, YouTube and Social Media so there was restraints when learning about new and old games. When I started collecting retro games and systems again there was a wealth of knowledge out there and available. Interesting YouTube Channels, websites and a host of interesting podcasts helped me to learn a lot more about the retro games I used to play. Even now I am learning new things about video games constantly.
Playing Games
Of course, playing the games I used to enjoy is a big thrill. Revisiting games from my past and playing games that I never played back in the day is so much fun. The hobby is really all about the games whether they are console games, home micro games or even arcade games it doesn’t matter. Playing retro games for the most part is so much fun and even trying a notoriously bad game can be fun to a certain extent.
Retro Game Collecting – The Lows
The Cost of Retro Game Collecting
You need money to start a collection and you need to be sensible when it comes to cost. The general cost of collecting retro games has steadily risen over the last few years and it seems that may be the case going forward. There are so many things I would like to buy but it always comes with a cost and when your collecting starts to get a bit more specialist the costs only go up. There are so many cool things I could go and buy on my credit card, but you have to be sensible and pace yourself, budget and save up.
Retro Game Collecting Burn Out
When I say burnout, I don’t just mean from collecting, I mean from everything that can go with it. Posting stuff on social media, the cost of the hobby and generally letting the hobby take over your life to an extent can happen quite easily if you let it and sometimes you need a break. I’ll be honest this has happened to me in the past and I think generally I was just doing too much stuff revolving around the hobby. Sometimes you just need to stop for a bit and just play games.
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Missing Out on a Bargain
This is something you can’t really control, and it happens to everyone, but it can be so frustrating. I have lost out on eBay bargains by a few pounds and just missed some big bargains on Facebook and it can be so annoying. You can’t be watching everything all the time so stuff will get missed and there could possibly be someone who will bid a pound or dollar more on an eBay auction but, all I would say is patience is the key as something will probably come around again at some point whether it’s a hard to get game or a bargain console on Facebook.
Making Time to Play Retro Games
When we were young, we had a lot of free time to play games. As an adult it is a little trickier at times to make some free time. You have to go to work, you might like me have a family to think about as well as a host of other grown up things that need your attention before you can sit down and play a retro game. This is something I struggle with constantly and I don’t help myself by making YouTube videos and having this website! Sometimes I just have to say that on Saturday afternoon I’m playing some games for a few hours and stick to it. I think most of us could do with some more free time which leads to the next point which is something else that can also be hard to find.
You Need Space (sometime lots of it) for Your Retro Game Collection
My collection started out as a corner of a spare room and over the years has now filled said room with shelving units filled with games and gaming systems as well as arcade cabs too. Space is a constant struggle for myself and I know it is for a lot of other people too. We are mostly collecting a physical form of media in retro games which takes up space and this is sometimes a real struggle. I would love to have all my Mega Drive games on show, but I can’t, so they are all doubled up on my shelves. I would love to buy another arcade cabinet, but I don’t have anywhere for it to go and this is frustrating and very much a low point. I feel lucky to have my retro gaming room, so I do try to look at this as a big positive, but it is filling up very quickly.
So, there you go, some of my high and lows from my years of retro game collecting. I think some of the points above are probably relevant to most hobbies that involve collecting something, especially something that is seen as collectible and items that aren’t always widely available.
Thanks for reading this article you can find my previous post here.
Keep it Retro.
Daz
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