r/gamecollecting • u/Syndiglo • 19h ago
Discussion Former Game Collectors who sold off their collection: Did you experience relief or anxiety?
Curious as to what former collectors have mentally gone through after a shift in life has prompted stepping away from game collecting.
Please share.
Were you ever at a stage where you forgot you already had something and bought something twice, etc.
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u/LeatherRebel5150 19h ago
I had a near complete NES collection, minus Stadium Events. Sold the top 50ish when I went back to college in 2017. I’ve regretted ever since
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u/CiegoDiego 18h ago
How does what you sold them for compare to their current value? Is any of the regret based on the value increasing after you sold them?
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u/LeatherRebel5150 18h ago
Well they exploded in price during covid, so the amounts don’t compare. The regret comes from selling them at all (and going back to college, such a waste of time and money, but thats a separate regret) The only part of the value that I regret is I would have to pay so much more to get them back. I don’t care about the amount of money I made/couldve made on them. Id rather have the games.
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u/HunterWesley 2h ago
Going back as in second degree?
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u/LeatherRebel5150 2h ago
yea
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u/HunterWesley 2h ago
Why didn't it work out?
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u/LeatherRebel5150 1h ago
Didn’t say it it didn’t work out. I got a degree and work in the field I wanted. But now Im a decade behind in life just from having to pay off the loans. Easily 50% of the classes are just a complete waste of time and have nothing to do with the subject that matters for the degree, and even the ones related to the degree don’t teach you enough to actually do a job. Frankly, there’s nothing about my job that even needs a degree to do it to begin with.
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u/HunterWesley 9m ago
Oh. Would they have hired you without the degree? Or would you just not want to work in that field if you knew about the cost?
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u/CiegoDiego 18h ago
I feel you. I never sold many of my games, but the few that I did exploded in value afterwards. I just assumed I'd be able to get another copy for the same price when I wanted to play it. Big regret. Also, I didn't go to college, but I hear from a lot of friends that it's one of their biggest regrets. And that was even before some of my friends began losing their jobs to AI while still trying to pay off student loans.
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u/Mysterious_Yard3501 50m ago
That's what I'm working on now. Although I got flash carts for Sega, Saturn, SNES, N64; modded the other consoles and selling all my games. NES is what I cut my teeth on so I've decided to just focus on that
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u/bovadeez 19h ago
Neither honestly. I wanted to pay off my mortgage so I sold off 95% of my collection. I think not having a mortgage anymore did wonders for me. But years later I started to rebuild again with more a focus on one current gen console and making legacy pickups when the price is right.
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u/--vanadium-- 16h ago
Anyone who sold off their collection but stays on a game collecting sub will most likely regret it. You'll never get an accurate answer this way.
Most people who sold off their collections and don't regret it would never be on a game collecting sub.
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u/Precarious3145 14h ago
I don't regret it one bit. I'm not even subscribed; the algorithm just shows me the occasional post.
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u/--vanadium-- 14h ago
Cool. That doesn't contradict anything in my comment. I never said that no comment here will ever say they don't regret it.
I said it's not an accurate way to get an answer because the majority of people viewing this *are* subscribed to a collecting subreddit and thus likely still care about video game collecting to some degree.
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u/Precarious3145 14h ago
Anyone who sold off their collection but stays on a game collecting sub will most likely regret it
This is what you said. You're the one that put definitives as a statement. Meanwhile almost every single comment on this post is people saying "I don't regret it". So...it does contradict what you said.
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14h ago
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u/--vanadium-- 14h ago
Are you purposely skipping over the words "most likely"? That is not a definitive statement.
And we must be reading different threads. The top comment with the most upvotes is saying they regret it. Most comments are either saying they regret selling, or they're rebuilding their collection.
This thread proves my point wonderfully.
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u/Precarious3145 13h ago
The top comment says that they regret it MEANWHILE the other top comments are saying they don't. Guess you're the one kind of person that sees one person agrees with you and takes it as a definitive while stopps scrolling.
You just sound so boring.
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u/hartforbj 14h ago
Not entirely true. I sold pretty much my entire collection but I am still subscribed. I don't unsubscribe from anything. I still have youtube subscriptions that haven't had uploads in over 5 years lol
Also selling yours off doesn't really mean you don't still enjoy seeing what others are doing
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u/--vanadium-- 14h ago
That doesn't make it not true.
I never said "no one who sold their collection would still be subscribed". I said "most people who sold their collections and don't regret it wouldn't still be on a game collecting sub"
Again, "most people". Not every single person possible. There are exceptions to every rule. And I chose my words carefully.
My point was always that it's not an accurate representation of the views of those who sold off their collections.
And you can just look at the comments to see that.
The vast majority of comments are saying they regret selling. The top comment with the most upvotes is saying that. Even the few comments saying they don't regret it are saying they're rebuilding their collection, so what does that tell you?
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u/DarkKnightNiner 10h ago
Lol you're getting dog walked in here
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u/--vanadium-- 3h ago
Oh no! 😂 Don't take reddit so serious lil bro
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u/DarkKnightNiner 1h ago
Says the guy who is writing 5 or 6 paragraph salty responses back to people. The irony is tangible.
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u/Syphon88 10h ago
What are you talking about? I had a huge collection and got rid of about a third of them game by game. Finally, I decided to sell the rest in one big lot. I don't regret it and I'm on this sub. I got a big chunk of change, got rid of a ton of gaming stuff that I never played with, and I got a big part of my house back. I had boxes of games and consoles that I couldn't remember what was in them. I now have the room to start a new hobby. NO REGRETS
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u/The_Molemans_bawbag 19h ago
Before I used tracking apps I'd end up buying multiple copies of the same game.
At one point I had thousands of games spread over multiple systems.
I was going for a full PAL Gamecube set and was just over 90% of the way there. I'd been chipping away at it for years and only had a few big hitters left. Bare in mind, this started in 2008 and lasted almost 10 years.
What changed it for me was Gadget Racers, it was a £150-180 game at the time and I just couldn't justify that kind of cash on a game I'd probably play once and then just leave it on a shelf collecting dust.
I have other hobbies: LEGO, comics, LPs ect and the asking price for that single game would have went far further on other things.
That single game changed my entire mentality regarding collecting. Instead of bulking out shelves with tat I decided to trim all the fat of the collection and keep only what I'd play. 400+ Gamecube games became 61, the same happened to every other system and I'm on a smaller collection of 700 retro games now.
It was a big relief to get rid of the majority. Regrets? Not really, I sold most of it off in 2018-2019, I would have gotten probably 40% more today but the marketplace is different. Scams everywhere.
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u/Morguard 18h ago
that is still a massive collection.
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u/The_Molemans_bawbag 15h ago
I suppose in the modern era with modern prices it is, but it was a totally different scene when I started collecting.
I was an active member of Retrocollect.com when it was still running.
It wasn't uncommon to see users with 3000+ collections around 2014-2015. This was a time when people were full setting consoles at next to nothing.
I remember very well a classified ad where someone was selling a full PAL CIB snes collection for £10k and ended up accepting £8k. Today that would have been a £60k set.
At least 80% of my current collection was bought 10-15 years ago.
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u/Morguard 15h ago
That's insane. My collection is quite small and I'm having trouble finding space for it! I'm only at like 350 games, retro and current combined.
I can't imagine the space needed for 1000 games let alone 3000.
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u/The_Molemans_bawbag 39m ago
This is the issue.
Unless you have a large spare room that you can dedicate to it, you're storing stuff boxes...
The only thing I'm actively collecting atm are PC big box games and they take up so much space... 1 PC big box = 6 PAL PS1/Dreamcast games in terms of space.
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u/Precarious3145 14h ago
I feel that! I sold everything because I had to move twice in three years and just packing up games that I'd just recently unpacked, never playing any of them except like...two just made me realize that so much of my collection was taking up so much space and mostly just decoration. At one point, I calculated the average time it'd take to beat just a single shelf and had this "Even if I played games every free second of my life, I'd have to live until I'm 80 just to play what I currently had...". Recontextualized everything.
At this point, I've only got maybe a dozen games that're all-time favorites or holds a close memory.
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u/Competitive_Help8485 18h ago
I sold off some of my collection in the late 2000s, and I pretty much regretted it soon after. I've since been trying to rebuild some of the collection. I had a lot of PS1 and PS2 and some N64 games.
I haven't purchased anything twice yet, aside from maybe Hitman Blood Money, but that was because I got the 360 and PS2 versions.
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u/Cherry-Shrimp 19h ago
I parted ways with around half of my collection over the last 12 months. I decided to sell everything I had bought only for collecting purposes and not because I enjoyed the game. I now focus on my favorite franchises and used some of the money to buy some heavy hitters I wanted for years. I still have hundreds of games but the more curated my collection gets, the more I enjoy it. So for me personally, it was the right decision.
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u/yeagert 17h ago
Huge relief. I have a few thousand games. And about 50 consoles. Sold it all off about 10 years ago and built an addition on my house with the money. I am more happy with the 10 boxed NES games I kept than I was with the entire collection when I had it. It was a lesson for me to never collect anything again.
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u/Precarious3145 14h ago
Yes! I live in California and a year after selling 99% of my collection, there was a wildfire that had us thinking we'd have to evacuate. My dad was panicing about his 100k worth of vinyl records and asked me to drive my truck down. Meanwhile all I really had to worry about was a hardrive.
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u/According_Guard_2599 18h ago
I sold my 18 console 1200+ 60k collection to a youtuber in 2024. Paid off all my debt, established a full emergency fun, funded two years worth of Roth IRA for retirement and still had a bit left over. I've been recollecting for ps3-ps5 and switch/switch 2, and emulating the rest.
No regrets. It was fun to collect and they looked great on the shelf, but I didn't play the majority of them. My actual only regret was the timing - if I had taken that money and bought bitcoin, it would have tripled in 9 months. Could have pulled that out and done all those things and had a down payment on a house... Otherwise, if you have other means, sell. If there are only some games you want, sell the rest.
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u/ComprehensiveEbb6744 18h ago
Me and my 2 bros collectively only collected PS1/PS2 games, basically just the games we wanted. I could only imagine what it’s like for people who collect EVERY game from EVERY console.
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u/killerdude23233 17h ago
Sold off a huge chunk of my collection about 8 years ago and do a yearly purge of stuff a la Marie Kondo, keeping only the ones I really care about. Such a relief.
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u/bloodyeye98 18h ago
Had what I considered an ideal GameCube collection. Sold it all and have since kinda regretted it. That being said most of the titles that I yearned to keep have since been put on modern platforms.
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u/Graywing84 17h ago
I experienced regret after selling a majority of my Saturn and Sega CD collection. I was fine for a couple of years but then I wanted to play my Popful Mail again and MKR. Both are way too expensive now to buy again. Thankfully I kept some games that I played from time to time. Now I'm just hoping we get a Saturn and Sega CD collection. I wish I didn't sell them back then.
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u/MortsGarage 18h ago
Been selling chunks of my collection - mostly stuff I knew I wasn’t gonna play. Always relief for me. Some stuff I feel pretty attached to, but the near complete Vita set is not missed, nor are my Pokemon games and random titles I bought just because of their reputation. If I really want to play the game, there are many ways to do so.
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u/JonJonesStillGOAT 17h ago
Didn’t sell off my entire collection but I did sell all of my ps3, ps4, ps5 and Xbox 360 games. Just couldn’t justify collecting games which majority of the time ran 10 times better on PC. Kept all my ps1, ps2 and GameCube games and only collect for those systems now.
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u/LordGares 17h ago
I sold a large part of my game collection and used it for a down payment on my house. I kept some things like my Atari 2600, Dreamcast, and a lot of my handheld stuff. I also used a small portion of the proceeds to build myself a retro box that can emulate everything I got rid of and more. It only takes up about 4 inches square (Raspberry Pi). Sometimes I feel pangs of nostalgia for the original hardware but realistically I was hardly using any of it and I chose to believe that at most of what I sold went to homes where it is being played as intended.
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u/trx212 17h ago
I had a near complete snes cib set and a ton of nes n64 etc. Sold off majority of everything in 2019/2020. I had been collecting since like 2001.
No regrets. I have around 80 snes cib games still and a little for each console. I'll probably downsize again in a few years. I don't even play the games I like. Its all just sitting on a shelf and I just don't see the point anymore. I still have all my childhood games and will probably never sell those ones.
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u/Kooky-Barnacle-5743 16h ago
I had a fairly sizable collection. nearly 4k games, 100ish consoles. everything CIB. Several kiosks, neons, etc. I sold the entire thing last year in one go to one seller. At this point I'd say Its 90% relief and 10% regret. I always enjoyed the playing more than the collecting and I still have all the systems I love, just with everdrives now.
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u/EdgarsRavens 16h ago
I had a pretty substation collection that included stuff like arcade machines and also included some high dollar stuff like a complete N64DD.
I ended up selling 80% of it, just keeping US Nintendo stuff, but still thinning out the collection of games only keeping popular titles and titles I had as a kid.
No regrets at all. Happy to have the close to $20K back in my pocket. I just moved on from the hobby and it doesn't really excite me anymore.
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u/jcariello 16h ago
I had the complete US Master System collection and I ultimately sold the big ticket items 15 or so years ago. I am not annoyed that I don't have them anymore, but mildly annoyed that they would fetch even more today!
As for the expensive Saturn games I sold? Those annoy me more because I just hooked that back up and realize I will not be playing Bomberman or Shining the Holy Ark ever again.....
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u/Negative-Ad291 10h ago
Get one of those rom boards or whatever they talked about 2 or whatever years ago that emulates off a Saturn.
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u/sithren 16h ago
I had a large collection of ps2 and xbox games.
I didn’t consider myself a “collector” really. I bought them over 10 years to play. Maybe large collection is relative but I had maybe 300 or so.
I ended up selling them and donating them.
What I wish I did is went through them and at least kept the ones that I actually played and enjoyed or a small subset of them. Like maybe 25 to 50.
I am not sure if
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u/jcdenton10 15h ago
I sold off several games and consoles about 15 years ago. I wish I'd kept them. They'd be worth a lot more now.
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u/Plane_Jello1582 15h ago
I had a decent collection across many things and eras not a full collection of one thing or system but more like Atari systems all the way up to current(ish) things like PSVR. I sold it and got good money for it, it went to a guy all together as one collection doing the same thing I was. This in turn paid to get me into another hobby and now income, we restore musical instruments. It was a cool way to pass it on, it found a good home and kind of ended up funding my dream hobby and job. I was reluctant at first and was convinced I would regret it, and I was definitely lucky but how mine worked out was one of the best things that has ever happened to me
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u/BigBagofHorses 14h ago
Relief. I loved having the collection, but I had not played any of the games in 5+ years. It was nice to send them off to good homes. Also not having to deal with moving them all was nice.
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u/MXC_Vic_Romano 13h ago
Sold off my entire DS & 3DS collection (only keeping two that were gifts from a relative) after prices blew up with eShop closure. Zero regrets given what people were paying and how fantastic 3DS homebrew is.
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u/Dr_Gitgud 13h ago
I began collecting in 2019 after a very bad break up, and built up a rather sizable collection within the first 3 years. I had 370 NES games including Panic Resturant, both Power Blade, Bubble Bobble 2, etc as well as Sega, Turbografx 16, SNES consoles and games. Fast forward to 2025, the NES market had completely dried up in my area. Only people selling low end titles for triple their value on Facebook Marketplace. After yet another horrible relationship ended, I needed money to move into my own apartment. Managed to sell them rather quick and got into a new place. Even had enough left over to get a new PC to game and stream on so it was a Win/Win.
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u/Exzticy 13h ago
I’ve never sold off my collection but used to sell things to get things before 2020 (that’s when I started collecting worst time to), I used to have a Pokemon New 3DS with those cool faceplates I got for $130 at GameStop with the box as well, then traded it in with them.
I will never sell my collection again unless it’s something I don’t want or to downsize. 3,300 games, 900 movies, plenty of hardware and other stuff collected since 2020.
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u/LoopaFamilYaris 11h ago
A few years ago, I sold off like 80% of my game collection to pay for my dog's cancer surgery. I don't regret it at all, but i have slowly started to rebuild it starting about a year ago.
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u/Millerlite87 9h ago
Around the ps3 Wii era sold most of my older games just kept about 15 of my favorite ones but 10 years ago I was like anakin
https://giphy.com/gifs/qUn01S2U4I46s
So I started rebuying them but this past 4-5 years I been buying just games I missed out but I can clearly say I have completed everything I wanted.
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u/Essshayne 8h ago
I ended up having to sell my pokemon game collection a few years ago, since I was short for a trip I was gonna take. Every mainline game from red/blue down to sword/shield got sold. Ended up getting like 2500$ for games i wasn't playing anyway. Since I live in a relatively small house, it took up too much space anyway, so it became a blessing in disguise. I had a bunch of zelda games as well that went for 4-600$, I had 3-4 fire emblem games that went to my friend for 650$ and a fishing trip (path of radiance was 325 alone). It really made me re-evaluate my hobby/income ratio.
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u/Alekazam 6h ago
I’m currently selling off a large portion, between a third to a half maybe when I’m all said and done.
I have close to 2,400 games across 5-6 systems. My life as a collector started out humbly, to restore my childhood collection. It evolved into “oh, that looks interesting” and “oh, cover art looks cool”. These, for me now at least, should not be reasons to hoover up every game in sight.
As a consequence of this mindset, I now have a plethora of average, below average, meme titles, titles from genres I objectively don’t enjoy. Titles on systems which are the worst way to play the game. Titles which I bought “because they were rare”, because they were trophies in the collector world.
This isn’t a healthy way to collect. I’ve spent so much money on games which, when I take a step back, could not care less about and will probably never play.
Do I have anxiety getting rid of them? With the first few sales, yes, I questioned whether I was doing the right thing, whether I’d regret it. But now I’m finding the whole process liberating. Every game I now sell, I feel lighter.
I will of course be keeping a large chunk of my collection, the games that mean something to me, the ones that scratch those nostalgia pangs, and the ones I genuinely want to and can see myself playing. But for now, no regret at all, and am making a tidy profit on most sales given the inflation of the market since I bought most of these games.
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u/theluckyowl 2h ago
Im probably an outlier here, but 3 years ago I sold off about 95% of my collection. I kept everything that meant something to me and games that I could realistically see myself playing/replaying. Almost everything i owned was in boxings in a storage room. I began collecting games in university when I had endless time and friends to play with. But my life had changed dramatically since then. I have 2 young kids now and I never get the time to really sit down and enjoy games anymore aside from 20 to 30 minutes here and there. Initially after I sold them I regretted it. But I dont at all anymore. Im glad i got them into the hands of other collecters and I know I would never have gotten the chance to play everything I had. And like i said, what I will play and cherish, ive kept.
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u/TeamLeeper 2h ago
No. The money was more useful than having cool stuff on shelves.
The only slight regret might have been in hindsight seeing how much more valuable things got. But you can’t worry about that.
And I still have plenty to play (new games and emulation via retro handhelds).
Last year, I sold the majority of the remainder of my collection and paid off all my credit card debt. You want anxiety? Debt sucks, and thanks to my rare N-Gage games and Rockstar merch and sealed Def Jam Fight for NY and everything else that wiped it away.
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u/captainjay09 2h ago
It was a great feeling and a lot of worry off my mind. I had a few complete sets, and was always looking for stuff. Needed to get this and this, just never stopped. Took up so much room as well. I was sad at first as I started to sell but it was a great relief when 95% of it was gone. I only kept the stuff I actually played
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u/StatementLogical5495 23m ago
Had to move to a smaller place, and sold almost everything to a buddy.
Regretted it almost instantly and it only got worse as time went on.
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u/legoshi_haru 7m ago
I sold off the majority of my collection like 2 years ago after a breakup/quick move out type situation. I didn’t have a collection anywhere as massive or valuable as a lot of folks here, but it was pretty extensive in my opinion.
I have no regrets and felt so much relief. But I didn’t get rid of everything. I kept my ds/3ds favorites, childhood n64 and gameboys, and a few choice GC/Wii titles like the Zelda’s, Kirby and Pokemon. I got rid of all the playstation and xbox games and most of the wii, wii u, and GameCube games. I had so many. I also got rid of the ps3, ps5, Wii u, extra n64 consoles, and Wii that needed repair. Also got rid of random accessories, promo or prerelease items, etc.
I felt a lot better after. I realized I really wasn’t enjoying owning that much stuff that had really no purpose. I enjoy looking at or playing my small curated collection that’s all my favorites so much more, and I enjoy looking at all the rest of the games in retro stores or in photos in this sub
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u/smush_nugget 17h ago
In the process of thinning out my collection. I went through the same thing with my vinyl collection recently and honestly, I haven't felt any regret letting it go. Can’t say it won’t change, but for now I’m happy.
At a certain point, the space and upkeep just outweighed the desire to collect, and I realized I wasn't actually playing any of the games. I'd much rather these go to someone who will actually enjoy them instead of letting them sit on a shelf collecting dust
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u/mattynunchucks 17h ago
I’ve sold off a giant chunk of my collection. I have felt nothing but relief. All my CIB GBA games are now other people’s problems and they can worry about humidity levels.
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