Intro

 

I'm about to start a long-term personal project relating to my video game collection. It's actually something I'm doing mostly for myself, but sharing it with others is certainly a nice little side perk.

As you probably already know, I have a large video game collection that would make many nerds jealous! I did the bulk of my collecting from roughly 2012-2018. Now I don't buy nearly as many games as I used to. In fact, in 2021 my collection actually had a net shrinkage because I sold more than I bought. Does that mean I've just been a hoarder all this time and I'm slowly growing to regret my life decisions?

HECK no. I feel quite satisfied and vindicated with the legion of games into which I've invested time, energy and resources to assemble and I've merely reached a point of satiation. I scratched all the most important stuff from my bucket list. I purposefully was liberal in my choice of buying stuff because I knew how to find deals and I knew that the demand for old school games was steadily climbing (and it's reached points beyond what I even imagined).

Every now and then I get the urge to try out every game I have over a long period of time. I used to do this at the start of every calendar year until I think 2012, until the collection grew too big. Now it's something I start doing every few years and it progresses very slowly. Since I do think that I should "trim the fat," this time as I go through and fire up all my games, I'm going to make a list of what I consider the permanent essentials of the collection.

Of course, nothing is truly permanent. I am, of course, a mere mortal; this stuff is going to outlive me, so I must consider at some point the ultimate fate of my collection. Assuming I have the privilege of enjoying retired life someday, at that point I will perhaps look to pass on what I have at that time to someone younger, or sell it off for charity or something.

That is of course a long way off, and there will be many non-essential games I will get rid of every now and then. But the stuff on this new "essentials" list will be the things I truly do not see myself realistically parting with for a very long time.

So, going forward, on an fairly-regular-but-not-daily basis, I'm planning to post a photo of an essential item and give some words about why I consider it essential, describing why I think it's good or significant, and add in a note about my history with if I have an interesting personal story to add. How long will these write-ups be? I dunno, I probably want to keep them concise so it won't take long to do but I may get rambly about certain things. We'll see.

I'm gonna start with my oldest stuff, so Atari will be up first!