A mass extinction event is when species vanish much faster than they’re replaced. This is usually defined as about 75% of the world’s species being lost in a short period of geological time – less than 2.8 million years.
I’d like to consider myself a pretty reasonable guy. Sure, I’ve made mistakes over the decades but I feel that I’ve learned lessons and how to overcome obstacles which make themselves known. This has been the most apparent with my video game collecting and how it has come and gone over the years. I wish I could say I kept my stuff from the very beginning but, as you’ll learn, shit happens and you have to do anything necessary to make ends meet.
I’d say my obsession with collecting video games from the past generations probably started around the beginning of the Nintendo 64 era and with the coming release of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I’d been devouring anything that was Zelda related and when a trip to another city allowed my middle school friends and I to walk around the mall I stumbled upon a game store which was selling “old” games. I found Zelda II: The Adventure of Link and bought it immediately. I had played the game as a smaller child and knew it was difficult but I had to have it. I was hooked after that.
When I got home, I immediately started wanting to go to pawn shops around town to see if there were “old school” systems. I put it in quotes because old school at this time was only, basically, a generation and a half prior or a little under ten years. As a 13 year old, that was a lifetime ago. Luckily, I didn’t have to resort to the pawn shop life as a lot of stores were still selling Super Nintendo games. I went to SEARS with my mom for something and found they were selling The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past so I picked that up, and a new SNES controller for a pittance. I got home and immediately beat it as well.
During this time, anytime I acquired a new game I would never get rid of the packaging or instructions. I had a closet full of boxes for all the things I had. I was developing a hoarding complex by keeping all these items as pristine as I could. A bad thing I did was I would take the instruction booklets from Blockbuster, when they had them, just so I could add them to my collection. I’m not proud of it, but I did it. I was collecting things at a pretty quick pace for my age and all was going well.
EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT 1
End-Ordovician (~444 million years ago):
Severe global cooling and a massive ice age caused sea levels to drop, devastating early marine life.
After doing this for a few years and I had gotten a little older I went to stay with my brother in another city for the summer. Fortunately, and unfortunately, in my absence my aunt decided to stay with my parents and took my room. In the process all of the boxes and random artifacts I had gathered throughout these beginning years went in the trash. My Ocarina of Time Collector’s Edition box; gone! My Nintendo 64 console box and its controller’s boxes; gone! All of it was thrown away to make room in the closet. I didn’t learn about it until months later and there was nothing I could do. I wasn’t too heartbroken about it at the time because I thought it wasn’t really important. But yet, here I am, decades later writing about it. It was also around this time my brother took my Super Nintendo as well as the games I had with it, plus the floor TV I had acquired, from my parents when they upgraded, and I never saw it again. So ends my game collection fad for a couple of years and life begins anew.
During my college years I wasn’t really collecting games because it didn’t really occur to me that I would want to do something like that. Sure, I was buying games but I was also trading them just as quickly so I could keep playing more. I did this with systems too if I needed to make the bread to go on living another day. It wasn’t until my college girlfriend and I broke up that I went off the deep end pretty hardcore and started collecting again. Thanks to her the second collecting boom would happen.
All the games I had amassed up until then I brought back to my college apartment. It was a bunch of N64, PS1, and Dreamcast games. I brought the systems along for the ride as well and I started dabbling into eBay and got me a few nice pieces for dirt cheap. I was pretty happy having my original carts with me through that difficult time in my life as I found them to be calming and I would just look at them remembering the good times from a long time ago. I was in a nice little zen state when I was caught off guard.
EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT 2
Late Devonian (~372–359 million years ago):
A prolonged series of environmental crises, likely driven by ocean anoxia (lack of oxygen) and rapid climate changes.
When you’re a college student you feel like you’re on top of the world and kind of invincible. It takes real life to make you understand that shit needs to be paid. When rent and bills came knocking there really was only one way for me to get money. I sold all my stuff to various places so as not to get completely fleeced. My childhood N64; gone! My PS2; gone! My Dreamcast that I marked with an eraser to try to clean it; GONE! I was devastated at this point because it felt like a part of me was dying but it had to be done. It was either they go or I go homeless. I think I maybe got about $300 – $400 for all that stuff [it would probably go for about $5000 now] but I had enough to cover the rent and then some. I was working but my meager monthly checks were better spent on eating out or trying to woo some ladies. I wasn’t a smart cookie but I felt I learned a lesson: When in doubt, you can do what’s necessary to survive.
What I didn’t learn was when to stop buying shit because around this time I was introduced to Ralph’s Records which was probably the worst enabler of a video game collector at the height of video game collecting. This place had everything and it was super cheap. The games for the older systems were 3 for $10 [NES, SNES, Master System, Genesis] and movies were 5 for $25. I went nuts on building up my collection as well as watching so many movies.
To kick a man when he was down, the store also had a weekly garage sale on Saturdays which was just a buffet of items the store didn’t want to stock. This is where I made the most killing by picking up Nintendos [front and side loaders], SNES [original and JRs], Genesis, TurboGrafX, Sega CDs,…fucking everything. The crazy part was the pricing for this was that everything was supposed to cost $5 for everything. A console would cost $5 but so would all the components to connect it to the television as well as the controllers. The games would be the same as well. Again, this was at a high point in my collecting phase so I would put a bunch of items in a provided banker’s box and I think the dude running the register didn’t want to sort it out so he would just be like “Ehh…$20.”
Between Ralph’s Records and its associated garage sale I got buku amount of stuff and I was constantly adding. Every weekend I would go and drop about $20 and have an entirely new system, hook ups, and games to play. This went on until I graduated and moved away which, like a pusher, cut off my supply and I was finally able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Until, that is, I wanted to play new things.
EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT 3
Permian-Triassic (~252 million years ago):
Often called the “Great Dying,” this is Earth’s largest known mass extinction. Massive volcanic eruptions in the Siberian Traps released catastrophic levels of greenhouse gases, wiping out up to 96% of all marine life and 70% of land vertebrates.
After I graduated college, I moved in with my parents because I had not really prepared for after school plus some personal stuff happened that I felt was the best thing to do. With no money to feed my habit of video gaming [Rock Band and World of WarCraft] I decided to start selling off my games and systems. I didn’t really have anywhere to put them anymore and they were just doing nothing so I would trade them in, get either an Xbox Live points card or a month of WoW time, and then go on my merry way. This went on for a few months until I got it in my head that I REALLY wanted a PlayStation 3 and so I went to a store in the neighboring town with all my stuff and traded it all in. I’m talking about a complete Virtual Boy, Sega Saturn, Sega CD, SNESs, etc. It was all included. I think I got about $800 for it and walked out with a new PS3 with some games for it and the Xbox 360. I felt it was completely justified as all I wanted to do was play new things and watch movies in the new Blu-Ray format.
This was probably the first time I got rid of my collection for something that I wanted rather than necessity. It was also probably the biggest “die off” of my collection as all the work I did the years prior was gone in a blink of an eye. At the time I knew what I was doing and knew I would probably regret it but, if I really wanted to, I could totally just collect the stuff again. With hindsight, the prices never went back to those pre-2010 prices and everything just went up in price. Try finding a Sega CD for $5, let alone a stack of them. It can’t be done. I still think back about the thrill of the hunt then and going every weekend was such a fun time for me. Kind of cathartic to just dig through stuff and finding diamonds in the rough. It really isn’t like that anymore and probably never will be. People “know what it’s worth” now. Luckily for me I didn’t sell off everything.
A couple of years went down the line from this point. I got a job, moved town, got an apartment, lost a job and apartment, moved town, got another job and a new apartment, and was finally at another nice point. The remaining collection I had was just sitting in my closet which really was just a couple of consoles. Every time I went into the closet, though, I was reminded of what I once had and, over time, the want got more and more. I was at a more stable time in my life and making some ok money so I felt I could splurge a little more on collecting things which were cheaper a decade prior. Game stores and second hand stores were more abundant during this time so, like before, every Saturday I would hit up stores getting more and more things. This went on for a year or so as I was getting back a lot of things that I’d sold plus new compilations of items that I didn’t have access to. Like always, all was going well, but this time it was a one two knockout punch.
EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT 4
Triassic-Jurassic (~201 million years ago):
Massive volcanic activity broke apart the supercontinent Pangaea, causing rapid climate change and paving the way for dinosaurs to dominate.
At my company my office was located above the machine shop that made the parts. The workers were allowed to come up to the office because that’s where either the restroom was at or they had to get some equipment from the maintenance shed which was in the office. Now I don’t want to blame people but I feel this was what led to the apartment I lived in to get cased and, while I was at work, to get broken into. Luckily not much was taken as the robbers were obviously not golfers and didn’t take the high value stuff. What they did take were all contemporary items and my Wii U controller, not the system, and my TVs. Not a big loss and all of it was replaced eventually but I did lose my saves for the Xbox 360.
I did stop kind of collecting for a bit after this happened just because I was trying to get back the things I had stolen and making sure it didn’t happen again. I got some odds and ends throughout the year or so but the second punch was winding up.
EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT 5
Cretaceous-Paleogene (~66 million years ago):
A massive meteorite struck the Yucatán Peninsula (forming the Chicxulub crater), wiping out the non-avian dinosaurs and changing the planet’s ecosystems forever.
The next thing that happened was I started seeing a girl who lived with me who was really all take and no give so my money was dwindling fast. It wasn’t a romantic thing but rather me helping out a friend who was down on her luck but I never got any help for any of the bills or groceries. My salary could not sustain two people. Rather than confront her and ask for some help, I did what was necessary and sold off all my stuff again. I didn’t go to multiple stores this time and just hit up the one I frequented the most. I justified it to myself that it would be better to let the stuff out in the world where people will actually be able to enjoy it rather than sitting on a shelf collecting dust.
I sold almost all of my old systems, including handhelds, and games for a whopping $500. Just enough to give me a little breathing room on these bills without seeming like a cheapskate. Places doing the trade in credit or 50% cash always sucks but I didn’t need credit so, again, I had to do what I had to do. Eventually that friend and I parted ways and I never really talked to her again. Either way, my systems were gone and, like before, I was left with a token few that were stashed in a closet.
As years go by and people come into your life you are left to decide what becomes important in your life. For me, games have always been a part of my life. Giving me comfort when times are bad. A way for me to look back at the past and enjoy what we had. To others, they are seen as unnecessary and should just remain in closets where they belong. That’s who I was with. It wasn’t bad, I feel, because I was having a good time seeing the world and going on trips but, secretly, I was finding things here and there to add to my closet of stuff.
I looked back at all of the things I had sold and wanted some of them. I would hit up thrift stores or pawn shops looking for specific models to make up for things taken from me. I wasn’t looking for working pieces but just the object itself. A new way for me to find items was through online trades. I started browsing OfferUp or Facebook Marketplace looking for deals and got quite a few nice items for below market value.
My girlfriend wasn’t opposed to me getting some stuff as she was more into the social status of them. What I mean about this is that when the Super Nintendo Classic was about to launch she would laud how we got one to anyone who came by. Same with the Nintendo Switch. It wasn’t about having something new to play but rather bragging about how WE got one. I wasn’t like that. I didn’t care if anyone knew or not that I had one. I just wanted one and, if someone saw I had one, would want to talk about the history of it and how it shaped game history and my life.
Here we are. Now some 10 years plus after the last E.L.E. That girlfriend is out of my life and now I’m with someone who lets me embrace this nerdy side of mine. I have the ability to get the things I want at the absurd prices they are now and frequently I will buy something at the current asking price. I’m not here trying to get rich off of these things or trying to get one over on somebody. I just want them because they are important to me. I’ve been adding steadily over the decade or things I NEVER had [but wanted] years ago. I’m not saying I need this to make me happy either. I just wanted them because I saw them in magazines when I was a kid and wondered what it would be like to have one, and now I do.
EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT 6
Future (TBD):
Greetings. This is a recorded announcement as we are all out at the moment. The Commercial Council of Magrathea thanks you for your esteemed visit but regrets that the entire planet is temporarily closed. If you would like to leave your name and a planet where you can be contacted, kindly do so at the tone.
I look back at the world of game collecting over the decades and what I’ve witnessed and the exposure I had to it. How many times have I bought things over and over again at higher and higher prices? Again, the point isn’t for me to try to get one over on somebody but rather to have something to strive for. It’s very fun to be able to go to a store and see something that either you’ve always wanted [SEGA Nomad] or something you never knew existed [Mansion of Hidden Souls] and just pick them up because why not. To then have people come to your house and see them and just ask all types of questions and be genuinely curious. It is a nice feeling.
Who’s to say what the future will hold for my game collection. I’ve been messing around with ideas about what to do with it. Some of them are more real than others but all of them are pipe dreams. I don’t know if I will get rid of them in the future and, if I do, it’s because I want to and not some other reason. I will say, the history of gaming has been a fun ride to go through and it’s been a joy to collect over the decades. It’s why I’m writing about the games I play. I want to just be able to look back and remember, “what was that like?”