A Gamer Collection

In my house standard a display cabinet, not out of the ordinary in most homes. The shelves on this cabinet hold many of my favourite items behind a glass screen so no-ones dirt fingerprints can affect their quality. The items themselves range from Aphrodite statues and Greek pots, since my girlfriend is a massive classic civilisation’s fan, to Pac Man stress relievers SNES Classics and Lego AT-AT’s.

Most hardcore gamers, and I am definitely generalising here, tend to have their own personal memories, stories and personal preferences. They each suitably collect their favourite franchises and not just in the form of games but also T-shirts, posters, sticker, collector editions and more. We all spend our hard earned cash on items of minimal use and justify keeping these until the end of time because we hold them in high regard.

As you can tell I’m no different – I love my special edition BioShock for example that has remained boxed and unused ever since I first purchased it - alongside the standard version so I could still play the game itself. I love my Big Daddy model suitably called Pops who hasn’t now seen the light of day for almost 2 years.

I’ve kept my Red Dead Redemption Hat, my Afterlife Mass Effect 2 T-shirt and my OnLive game system in pristine condition. In fact I have a host of what most people call crap scattered around my house.

I love my collectables more than almost anything else I own. In fact a few weeks ago my friends little girl wanted to see what my ‘Clyde’ was and when she realised it was soft put it straight in her mouth; chewing bite marks into one of his ‘legs’. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry; especially as the little blighter still doesn’t comprehend how much these things mean to me. It would be a bit harsh to wail on a 2 year old with punches and kicks to the face – right?

The things listed above are a fraction of the promotional objects I have collected over my years attending expo’s and comic-con style events. Sometimes these have been for promotional purposes a’la my Assassins Creed hood hat while others I have spent my hard earned cash on like my special shiny Jet Force Gemini Box (w/Game).

My collection pretty much sums up my gaming life to date and are all very important to me in some way or other. Each item taken on its own can't tell an observer very much, but to me it’s a wide collection of where I’ve been and the things I’ve seen.

While collecting can be taken very seriously, my personal collection has never been a serious business. I collect things on an individual basis, to be novelties for my favourite games and franchises. It keep the items I love because of the memories they hold and not because I want every SNES game ever created.

My crowing achievement is still my unopened Commodore 64 console which holds a higher place in my heart than almost everything I’ve used/played or cherished for other reasons. I wonder whether is should have put more effort into my collections and there are still a few collector pieces I would pick up now if I could find an unspoilt copy – the GB Micro for example.

To real collectors there must be a wonder on how much further these hobbies can be pushed. In a time of digital sales most retro games can be collected on current formats in the style of download editions. It has become incredibly difficult to pick up any half decent used games and retro stocks seem to be at an all time low.

I forget I own most of my downloaded games until I surge through my catalogues online looking for certain gems and uncovering many more. What is going to happen to these collections in the future? Will my shelved items gradually disburse as the software of the past becomes the digital downloads of the future?