Excuse my noobness....

Z

zebbers

CAGiversary!
EDIT: this may need to be moved...I just saw the NOT GAMING OR SHOPPING RELATED warning. Didn't know where else to put it.

I'm new to the forum and I guess I'm pretty much a casual gamer but a huge cheap/deal/clearance freak (I'm a poor college student) so I figured I'd be okay here. And let me first say: this system you have of getting these deals out is awesome. I just bought some games that I had been eyeing at GR but was too cheap to pay 50% off for...

Anyways...I was just wondering what you guys do? Do a lot of you really just buy games and not open them? I realize that is what a collector does (be it cards, toys, video games, etc) but I don't think I could just have it sit there and not play it. I guess I'd have to have dupes of everything lol. And what determines what you collect? Do you do it because you honestly think your stuff has a chance of appreciating in value (like cards, antique toys)? Or do you do it just cause it is a fun hobby....and as long as you stay close to breakin even you are happy?

Trust me, I could easily see me joining this frenzy but right now I am in awe at how large some of your collections are and how active with trading and buying you are. So, excuse my noobness.
 
A lot of us who buy games but don't open them don't do it from a collecting standpoint. It's because we buy too many games to play a lot of them, so we never get around to opening a good number. For example, I still haven't ripped open Pikmin 2 and RE4 from the TRU clearance in December.
 
[quote name='botticus']A lot of us who buy games but don't open them don't do it from a collecting standpoint. It's because we buy too many games to play a lot of them, so we never get around to opening a good number. For example, I still haven't ripped open Pikmin 2 and RE4 from the TRU clearance in December.[/QUOTE]

WTF dude?! Play RE4 now!
 
[quote name='Dead of Knight']WTF dude?! Play RE4 now![/QUOTE]
:lol: I knew I'd get that response pretty quick. But I'm in the middle of Summoner!
 
[quote name='botticus']A lot of us who buy games but don't open them don't do it from a collecting standpoint. It's because we buy too many games to play a lot of them, so we never get around to opening a good number. For example, I still haven't ripped open Pikmin 2 and RE4 from the TRU clearance in December.[/QUOTE]

Isn't that the damn truth...
 
[quote name='botticus']A lot of us who buy games but don't open them don't do it from a collecting standpoint. It's because we buy too many games to play a lot of them, so we never get around to opening a good number. For example, I still haven't ripped open Pikmin 2 and RE4 from the TRU clearance in December.[/quote]

This is true. I think collecting games is just about the biggest waste of time and money I can think of (no matter how cheap you get them). I am guilty of having a few sealed games laying around though like botticus said - just because I haven't gotten to them yet.

Also, botticus - PLAY RE4 NOW!! I just started playing my copy from the TRU sale back in December and had I known the sheer awesomeness of the game I would have started playing on day 1 (and probably paid $50 for it instead of the $10 I got it for - it's that good).
 
I dont keep games sealed in the hopes they will appreciate in value over time or anything. But like others, I dont open up sealed games until Im ready to play them. When a big sale comes around I might buy 10 or more games in a day or two, I wont get to them for a while, whats the sense in opening them before Im ready to play? On the off chance they do become scarce or in demand, then I still have a sealed one I can choose to sell or not.
 
i rarely buy games - and almost only buy them here through the trading forum because i'm either A) not in the country or B) in vermont...
 
[quote name='javeryh']This is true. I think collecting games is just about the biggest waste of time and money I can think of (no matter how cheap you get them). I am guilty of having a few sealed games laying around though like botticus said - just because I haven't gotten to them yet.

Also, botticus - PLAY RE4 NOW!! I just started playing my copy from the TRU sale back in December and had I known the sheer awesomeness of the game I would have started playing on day 1 (and probably paid $50 for it instead of the $10 I got it for - it's that good).[/QUOTE]
Well, I still collect, but more from the standpoint of what I buy, I keep, but that changed a bit with CAG cause I bought a lot of shit that's not worth keeping, unlike my NES/SNES days when every game (all 20 or so of each) were amazing. Now that I've stopped buying all the crappy cheap games, and have started to get rid of some of the crappy cheap games I've picked up over the last year, I will have no problem maintaining my collection of good games.

Fine, I'll go play RE4 after dinner tonight. This is why I never finish any of my games.
 
[quote name='botticus']Fine, I'll go play RE4 after dinner tonight. This is why I never finish any of my games.[/quote]

:D Truer words have never been spoken. I never finish anything either...
 
[quote name='javeryh']:D Truer words have never been spoken. I never finish anything either...[/QUOTE]
[quote name='botticus']
April
:gc: Burnout 2 - close enough anyway

May
:whistle2:(

June
:ds: New Super Mario Bros.
:gc: Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. :puke:
[/QUOTE]
I even have to lie on my "Completed Games Tab" to make myself feel better. Burnout I just gave up on eventually, hated PSOIII, and never got around to unlocking the hidden worlds in NSMB. :D
 
[quote name='botticus']:lol: I knew I'd get that response pretty quick. But I'm in the middle of Summoner![/QUOTE]

....

This is bitchslap worthy. ;)
 
[quote name='Strell']....

This is bitchslap worthy. ;)[/QUOTE]
Color me happy to have avoided the dreaded wangslapping, then.
 
I don't open stuff because I have no idea when I'll get around to it. I like having a backlog though because there's always something good to play. As far as what I try to buy... I don't really see the point in buying stuff simply because it'll appreciate in value... I mean yeah, there's some exceptions, but really, I buy a game and hang onto it if it's really good and if it's something that'd be worth playing again sometime down the road.

BTW: A newbie with an intelligent post. We need more newbies like you.
 
I generally do what everyone else does here, I don't much care if my games appreciate in value, if there is a sale and the games are good (I'm very picky) I'll go buy them. However, I do open them once I get them, even if I won't get around to playing them for a bit. I'm the type of person who doesn't part with their games for any reason. Therefore, I see no reason to not open them.
 
thanks for all the responses guys. I never really bought a lot of games but now that I'll get them so cheap I'm sure my catalog will grow. I have traded in games in the past and I always feel so dirty afterwards cause it is usually such a ripoff. I don't know whether it would be better to A) hold on to the title or B) trade and repurchase when it goes cheap. The distance from A to B can be so long some times (or so short *fucking forza*). I'm not worried about that for games I pick up for $5 like at GR this week...but more like Hitman: Bloodmoney which I paid full price for. I could get maybe 20 for it but it would be awhile before it dropped below that enough to make it worthwhile...know what I mean?

I do know one thing. I used to always stay a year or two behind the sports curve to save $$ I think I will still stay 1 year behind (unless I really want the title) but make sure I offload my sports games during the offseason. Like I will be ditching all my 2k5/2005s for the GR $5 trade special. I don't see the point in being stuck with titles like Madden 2001 & NHL 2001 (which I have) worthless for anything (even trades).
 
I'm in the bad habbit of buying a game (usually when it releases if I really want it or if it has cool pre-sell offer) and leaving it unopened until I can get to it. Unfortunately, with kids in the household of the gaming age, it's hard to find any time to play them, especially the RE4's and the GTA's. Then the backlog just grows and grows and grows...I'm gonna go home, count all my sealed games thatI plan on playing before i die (all of them), and then start a thread to post your numbers. And then I'm gonna count all the Pre-Owned games that I haven't played yet. Stay tuned...
 
I do keep a few sealed games that I haven't got to yet (if not for collecting), but I'm always worried there won't be a disc inside :(
 
[quote name='ne2eire']I do keep a few sealed games that I haven't got to yet (if not for collecting), but I'm always worried there won't be a disc inside :([/QUOTE]
:lol: Yeah, that happened to me once. Bought VJ2 at K-Mart during a Blue Light.. opened it up two weeks later, no disc. Luckily they took it back. I'm in the habit of listening for the rattle now.
 
You've got pretty much everybody here. The majority, in my opinion, are either indifferent to collecting or against it.

Most of the people here who hate collecting are the same who love reprints of games. Personally, I think they hate collecting because collectors are the only tangible thing they can really lash out. Wag-the-dog mentality, as though collector's desire that their "rare" games stay "rare" somehow influences manufacturers' decisions. I don't really know why else anybody would care whether you collect games or foil or bellybutton lint. But here - oh boy - some people here really hate collecting - especially collecting with an eye for future value of games.

Still, there's a lot of everyone here. Collectors, non-collectors, people who take our deals out and horde everything for themselves, people who leave the best deals out there for others because they're unselfish, people who feed their collection and people who feed their Ebay addiction. I would say as a general rule, the following are not approved of on this site:

1) Collecting
2) Re-selling (and especially bragging about it) CAG-posted deals on Ebay
3) Fat Wallet
4) Fan-Boyism
 
[quote name='Number83']I'm in the bad habbit of buying a game (usually when it releases if I really want it or if it has cool pre-sell offer) and leaving it unopened until I can get to it. Unfortunately, with kids in the household of the gaming age, it's hard to find any time to play them, especially the RE4's and the GTA's. Then the backlog just grows and grows and grows...I'm gonna go home, count all my sealed games thatI plan on playing before i die (all of them), and then start a thread to post your numbers. And then I'm gonna count all the Pre-Owned games that I haven't played yet. Stay tuned...[/quote]

I like that idea. I've built quite a backlog from all these great sales. My daughter is running around during the day and a ball game of some sort on the TV during the night so I have much less time to game.

I keep my games sealed until I play them also. I plan on playing most of the games I buy but I like to keep my options open. I'd be a liar to say I don't believe some games can be considered investments. I bought the Subsistance LE package for the sole purpose of reselling it at a later date. I'm sorry if that took the game out of someone else's hands but I'm just trying to offset the cost of my collection. It's nice to be able to say that I have some rare items in my collection and it's even nicer to be able to say that they might be worth something in the future.

Anyway, sorry from rambling zebbers. Welcome to crew.
 
If you equate collecting with :
especially collecting with an eye for future value of games.
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then from the responses here, I'd agree with your "indifferent or against it" statement. I'd also say that such an attempt is fairly futile (which is why I was a little stunned when I first joined the site a few days ago: I first thought that was what was going on) Unless someone can show me games that have held and increased value for substantial years and not just demand spikes (it would thus have to be atleast a 16bit or older game).

But I don't really categorize "collecting" that narrow. I think of it in terms of being a hobby, and it is fairly obvious that playing and collecting video games is a hobby for a lot of CAGs (and I think it is going to start becoming a bigger hobby for me). Actually, if you think about it...a "pure" (as in moralistic) collector would collect for the instrinsic value of the hobby...not cause they think the price is going to rise. (That is what we call a dealer :))

I'd be a liar to say I don't believe some games can be considered investments. I bought the Subsistance LE package for the sole purpose of reselling it at a later date. I'm sorry if that took the game out of someone else's hands but I'm just trying to offset the cost my collection has cost me. It's nice to be able to say that I have some rare items in my collection and it's even nicer to be able to say that they might be worth something in the future.
Click to expand...

And I don't see anything wrong with that, either. First - I do believe in supply and demand, second - rare items are cool. It is the same with rare import albums or rare INSERTANYTHING.
 
I never ever have anything sealed. There's something about getting to open a fresh DVD/Game case...

Then they sit there.

I have roughly 293 dvd's (not counting mulptle DVD's in sets) and about 200 or so have never been watched. Of course, most of them were bought used at Hastings during the BOGO for 1¢ sales.
 
Wow, thats a lot of dvds. Im a renter myself, except for my asian imports.

zebbers, you're going to fit in well around here. You seem like a seasoned CAG already.
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Thanks shipwreck! I do feel welcomed here, it is a great community.
 
[quote name='botticus']:lol: I knew I'd get that response pretty quick. But I'm in the middle of Summoner![/QUOTE]

OK, I'll be the contratian here - DO NOT play RE4 now. There are so many more interesting games to get to first (like that Pikmin 2). I've never played RE4, but it just doesn't interest me in the slightest. I would buy it just to have for $5 or less. No more.

I know it is supposed to be WAY better than RE2 or RE3, but I popped an RE3 in to test it before selling and it was just horrendous. This was way back when it was actually worth a bit and I found a used copy at an EB.

And I agree completely with Botticus - I have a TON of sealed games because I have gotten so many via deals posted here but have nowhere near the time to play them all. I don't expect them to hold more than a $5 value, but chances are 1 or 2 will become valuable despite that :D. I figure if I'm not going to play them any time soon I might as well keep them sealed for future trades or sale potential.

Oh, and zebbers, be careful here or you'll end up like Botticus (hopefully I can speak for you here) and I. I think we (and many others on CAG) spend more time searching for deals and talking about them on CAG than we do actually playing games. I know my CAG/game shopping-to-game playing ratio is probably 3-to-1 easy. So that means I keep "collecting" more and more games and getting through fewer and fewer. It's not so much collecting to have a collection, is it collecting "great deals". In the couple of years I've been on CAG (at first as a lurker with a different account) my cutoff point for cheap games has gone WAY down, but at the same time I've been buying a much wider spectrum of games (my big mistake was going from just Gamecube to GC and PS2, not to mention GBA, DS, and PSP - so far I've held off on the Xbox though).

So while 2 years ago I would have thought a new release game at $38 (say the Fry's release sale price - I got Paper Mario at this price on release) was dirt cheap, now I have a hard time paying more than $20 for ANY game, and usually I aim for $5 or less. And yet, now that I have so many ways of getting games for $5 or less thanks to CAG my backlog has gotten huge.
 
[quote name='Sleepkyng']you're missin' out - i hated re3 and was never a huge re fan.[/QUOTE]

Well, maybe I'm just a freak of nature.

Other highly-rated games I have absolutely no interest in playing:

Halo/Halo 2, MGS anything, Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo (actually played this and just don't get it - I like Burnout though), Tony Hawk
 
[quote name='io']Well, maybe I'm just a freak of nature.

Other highly-rated games I have absolutely no interest in playing:

Halo/Halo 2, MGS anything, Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo (actually played this and just don't get it - I like Burnout though), Tony Hawk[/QUOTE]
RE4 is gonna give me a heart attack :D I played it for an hour or so and was on edge the entire time. botticus = pussy.

Personally I don't think you're missing much with GTA and MGS - I picked up Twin Snakes cause it's worth having cheap on the off chance I really get into it, and I watched my roommate play MGS (I think that's the one that Twin Snakes is remade from, no?) a couple times, which was boring. Halo is fun, but I suck, so not much long-term interest for me there either.
 
Oh, and zebbers, be careful here or you'll end up like Botticus (hopefully I can speak for you here) and I. I think we (and many others on CAG) spend more time searching for deals and talking about them on CAG than we do actually playing games. I know my CAG/game shopping-to-game playing ratio is probably 3-to-1 easy. So that means I keep "collecting" more and more games and getting through fewer and fewer. It's not so much collecting to have a collection, is it collecting "great deals".
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Haha...I'm not too worried. I start law school in the fall so I think my gaming time is going to go dangerously close to zero anyways.....but that doesn't mean I can't scoop up the deals :)
 
[quote name='zebbers']Haha...I'm not too worried. I start law school in the fall so I think my gaming time is going to go dangerously close to zero anyways.....but that doesn't mean I can't scoop up the deals :)[/quote]

Save yourself while there's still time.
 
[quote name='chosen1s']I would say as a general rule, the following are not approved of on this site:

1) Collecting
2) Re-selling (and especially bragging about it) CAG-posted deals on Ebay
3) Fat Wallet
4) Fan-Boyism[/QUOTE]

Really? I don't collect games, but certainly don't hold it against anybody that wants to do that. shipwreck had his drive to get every Xbox game (which I think he's abandoned) and no one had much of a problem with that AFAIK. Most (including me) wanted to see pics of everything piled together. :mrgreen:

One thing I do think is silly would be somebody buying a game or games to keep stashed away in the hope that it will raise in value someday. (i.e. buying games as an investment.) But that's a different animal from collecting IMO.
 
I still don't understand why it's considered silly to consider some games as investments. Anyone who bought Valkyrie Profile or Suikoden 2 and kept them sealed this whole time made a very good investment as long as they sell before the PSP versions release. Buying games can also be like buying penny stocks. Most of the games won't be worth a damn in a year but you might get one or two that make the whole thing worthwhile. People said the same thing about my uncle's baseball collection. He bought a house outright with the money he made from selling his collection. That was another "stupid" hobby that people talked down about.
 
[quote name='io']Well, maybe I'm just a freak of nature.

Other highly-rated games I have absolutely no interest in playing:

Halo/Halo 2, MGS anything, Grand Theft Auto, Gran Turismo (actually played this and just don't get it - I like Burnout though), Tony Hawk[/quote]Wow. You just really hate gaming, don't you?

And as for me, I don't really keep games sealed. Stupid or not, I tend to open up games as soon as I get them. Why? THE NEW GAME SMELL! I love that stuff more than I should.
That, and I'm very ADHD when I comes to gaming. Very. I get a game, I play it some, and I move on. Right now, on my XBox alone, I'm in the middle of Jet Set Radio Future, Crimson Skies, Mech Warrior, Ghost Recon, The Warriors, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and Ninja Gaiden Black. And when I get the DVD drive fixed, I'll add Far Cry: Instincts, True Crime: NYC, Time Splitters: Future Perfect, and Metal Arms: Glitch in the System to that list. Thats... wow. That's 11 games on my XBox alone. And I still haven't opened the copy of Castlevania I got from the CC sale. Add in a GameCube, a PS2, a DS, a Sega Genesis, a Sega Master System, and soon a Sega Dreamcast, and you'll see I really am an ADHD gamer.:)
 
[quote name='Hoffgod']Wow. You just really hate gaming, don't you?

And as for me, I don't really keep games sealed. Stupid or not, I tend to open up games as soon as I get them. Why? THE NEW GAME SMELL! I love that stuff more than I should.
That, and I'm very ADHD when I comes to gaming. Very. I get a game, I play it some, and I move on. Right now, on my XBox alone, I'm in the middle of Jet Set Radio Future, Crimson Skies, Mech Warrior, Ghost Recon, The Warriors, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and Ninja Gaiden Black. And when I get the DVD drive fixed, I'll add Far Cry: Instincts, True Crime: NYC, Time Splitters: Future Perfect, and Metal Arms: Glitch in the System to that list. Thats... wow. That's 11 games on my XBox alone. And I still haven't opened the copy of Castlevania I got from the CC sale. Add in a GameCube, a PS2, a DS, a Sega Genesis, a Sega Master System, and soon a Sega Dreamcast, and you'll see I really am an ADHD gamer.:)[/quote]

YES NEW GAME SMELL, i don't know why, but i just love it, its not something i can explain, btw this is probably a stupid question but what does ADHD mean?
 
[quote name='SinnerChrno']I'm going to totally guess: Attention Deficit Hopping...Disorder. :)

Hopping from game to game. I am also very guilty of it.[/quote]

Its just so.........................theres way too many games i need to finish, but they're all so good its hard to stick with just one, kinda like girls (though i don't have that problem, i wish i did) *has noone but the gc*
 
[quote name='maigoyume']YES NEW GAME SMELL, i don't know why, but i just love it, its not something i can explain, btw this is probably a stupid question but what does ADHD mean?[/QUOTE]

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

It's like ADD except you're bound to fits of hyperactivity. Imagine not being able to concentrate on something for very long and then add sugar.
 
[quote name='TurkeyOnRye']Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

It's like ADD except you're bound to fits of hyperactivity. Imagine not being able to concentrate on something for very long and then add sugar.[/quote]

Thats definitely a recipe for disaster.
 
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