This is kind of interesting for me. People always say that gaming is something that you just "grow out of". At age 25 I really don't see that as a thing. Gaming seems to have this view that it is something which is juvenile and that is frowned upon as an adult, yet a lot of games which are popular on modern consoles are aimed at adults so I don't really see any justification there.

Personally for me. I started buying retro stuff about probably 5 years ago. Partly influenced by this website. My first games console was a SNES, until I came to this site I didn't even know what a NES was. So that was something that I had to have because I hadn't played all these classic games you talk about - I mean I knew what SMB and SMB2 and 3 etc. cause I'd played All Stars but it never twigged to me as a kid where these games had come from. Then it came to systems that I just didn't own as a kid. So I bought a Mega Drive, my friend had one so I knew the games and I was like wow need to get that. Then N64 which was never a huge interest for me (and really still isn't hugely). So then I really had a lot of the major consoles, cause I had a PS2 and formerly PS1, a PS3, xbox was never much of an interest, my sister had a gamecube. So I was set.

My SNES was in storage for a long time, and in fact I forgot I even owned it and I essentially rediscovered it. It wasn't till I went to University that it returned to somewhere where I could use it. So that was a factor as well.

So now it becomes a whole other level to you guys being mostly Americans.
Then the popularity of speedgaming has came into it and I started to get into that. But the problem with speedgaming and being a European is that the games run slower (17%) so then it was the case of well If I want to be competitive I need to play American or Japanese.

So then it became the case of basically rebuying all the consoles I owned as American or Japanese. So for example: I own a NTSC-U SNES, I also own a Super Famicom, so that means I currently own a UK Super Mario World, USA Super Mario World and a Japanese Super Mario World. In fact a lot of the games I owned as a kid I now own at least doubles of them.

So a part of this was a quest to play games I didn't own, the other was for speedgaming.

However I wouldn't say what I have is a "collection" nor am I interesting in "collecting" games because it would get ridiculous. For example I've seen people who collect solely PAL games. But why? In my eyes they are the inferior format, the format which aren't the true ways the games were designed to be played. So do you collect only American? Do you collect all versions of the same game? Where does this end?

I own games that I like or want to play or games I have doubles of as speed games.

Doing this allows you to get into untapped markets as well. I own a lot of Japanese exclusive "SNES" games which I intend to make a post about at some point. I was thinking about the Top 100 lists and how JP is omitted from that. Also games can be cheaper. I got my copies of Super Metroid for probably a third of the price for what I would pay for an American copy and the funny thing is that English is a selectable language for it - ha-ha - it being of course an example of a game that I never owned.

I would also probably say that I have more PS3 games than games for any other system. Mostly because it's the first current system which I have the money to support my spending on it. Not like being a kid where your parents bought all your games for you.

I just got up and looked at my "collection". I have a NTSC-U N64 and I have 7 games for it, with no intention of buying anymore. I wouldn't really call that much of a collection. So I'd agree with what has been said. It's really got to the stage were I have most of the games I want and I don't want anymore (unless speed things come up of interest). The only possible exception would be games not in our market aka Japanese.

Also more problematic for me would be buying games which are not easily sourced from here. A game that I want but I dunno if I would ever get is Earthbound. I'd probably have to import it to great expense.

It's way easier generally to get old games like SNES/NES/Genesis/N64 than some other systems like PS1 and PS2. Importing is pretty expensive. I bought my US SNES from the United States. I got my US PS2 from the USA. I got my NES from the US. The others I was really fortunate to be able to buy here but I've had to buy some SFC games from Japan.

It's definitely a huge money sink and collecting is just not something which is feasible nor something that I am interested in thankfully.

The other thing is I don't think i'd ever sell this all off because I imagine it would probably be to a loss. I don't intend to be one of those people who have a room dedicated to video games. The 4 small shelves I have at the moment are fine.

tl;dr I buy the games that I like, collecting is a huge money sink and how you define a collection is problematic, hand your papers in on this essay by Monday.