What type of Video Game Collector are you?

Last week I wrote about how I decided to purchase the Atari VCS. The crowdfunding campaign raised 2 million dollars in less than 24 hours baffling a lot of YouTubers who were sure that it would fail.

Take RGT 85’s video on the subject. It’s clear that he’s not a fan of the Atari VCS and justifiably so. The campaign hasn’t really shown anything we don’t already know about the system. But people like myself still bought it. I had commented that I bought it based on its looks and couldn’t care less about the innards.

Some people respected my decision but a handful of people seemed to have been pretty upset at my spending money on something that they didn’t want. Some people had gone to make the assumption that anybody collecting things they don’t intend to play weren't real collectors.

So that got me to think about what type of collectors are out there:

The Lone Wolf.

You collect only one franchise and one franchise only. The most popular lone wolves are collecting Legend of Zelda. They have all the main line Zelda’s complete in the box, they have rarer items and some even buy the new stuff like a Zelda themed Monopoly. While they may have a handful of other games, Legend of Zelda is what they spend the bulk of their money on and it shows.

credit - https://www.reddit.com/r/zelda/comments/2nar59/my_zelda_collection/

The Art Critic.

You view video games as art. Most of your video game purchases are based on how good it would look in your collection. Maybe you got the game because it had some really great artwork on the box. Maybe you liked the colors. The collector’s edition of your favorite game came with some statue that looks good on your shelf.

You don’t necessarily play all the games you purchase, but each game is placed in your collection based on how it would complement the rest of your games. You also collect a lot of video game artwork to place on your walls. Whether it be advertisements or original artwork.

The Historian

You collect games based on their historical significance. While some games you have in your collection are considered masterpieces, you also collect the notorious games as well. You have Shaq Fu, E.T. Superman 64 and the CDi Zeldas. Just like the Art Critic you put a lot of thought of what you put in your collection and curate it to your specific taste.

The Archaeologist

You’re hunting for all the rare stuff. You have that prototype of Earthbound. That sealed copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga looks really nice on your shelf next to the open copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga. The games you have might not even be playable but you have them in your collection because of their rarity. Very few collectors are Archaeologists. Collecting only rare games tends to get pretty expensive and if you want to play your collection, you would constantly worry about damaging these expensive artifacts in your collection.

The Completionist.

You collect at least one of everything. You want the full set regardless how many shovel ware titles are in that console’s collection. You want to preserve all the games you come across because one day you can open a museum to show these games off. The most popular Completionist is John Hancock. The guy has over 25 complete sets. It’s very impressive but it took him a lot of time to do.

The Minimalist

You collect what you want to play and nothing more. Maybe you only collect RPGS or only 3DS games. You don't care about rarity as long as it's a fun game to play. You also stick to a budget make sure the money you're paying for a game is money well spent.

Maybe you are in college and have a very small space to work with. There are a lot of collectors like you that force themselves to stick to one shelf and one shelf only. If they want to add to the collection and the shelf is full, then they must decide if another game goes. They're likely to sell extra games to fund future purchases

What collector are you? Do your collecting habits not fit within the ones I listed above? I would love to see what you have to say.