Collector’s Corner – Don’t do it for the money

Earlier this week I read in some publications about how, after literal years of shortages, the current PS5 supply has forced scalpers to start selling off their stock below MSRP just to try and cut losses. A piece of news that has filled my gamer heart with joy.

I hope this serves as a lesson. If you want to make a living out of gaming, you better create something and not just speculate on someone else’s product leeching off the desperation of actual enthusiasts.

There’s a lesson, however, that isn’t just limited to hardware. Lately, I’ve been seeing on social media and YouTube many gamers recommending games to “invest” in. I need to talk about that. It’s not that I find it unethical (although it’s debatable), it’s that I think that’s straight up a bad idea. Let me expose my reasons why.

Collector’s Corner: Importing from Japan

My first ever encounter with the world video game importing was one advertisement I saw in a video game magazine in the late ‘90s. It was a double truck for a store I had never seen in the real world and featured dozens of PS1 games I had never heard about either. The funny part is that, in the end, I never got a single game from them. Getting games mailed was a strange thing back then and the prices, approximately double of a regular game on a regular store, was deterring enough.

Then again, the prospect of playing unfamiliar games from an exotic and distant land was still enticing to me. In a way, I guess I ended up idolizing such very concept so that, as an adult, now that the process is much more simple and affordable, I still feel the urge to do it as much as possible.

Throughout the years I’ve imported literally hundreds of games from Japan and through that I’ve learned a thing or two about the process and the things you should know or consider if you want to start too. This post will be about that.

Collector’s corner: Physical Media peaked on PS3

Being kind of a video game collector, of course I prefer physical media over digital downloads. The thing is that, in this day and age, I’m clearly in the minority. It’s easy for kids these days to prefer digital downloads. Video game companies have made sure to gimp physical releases as much as possible in the last decade since their digital counterparts are more profitable to them and they can take them away from you when they decide they don’t want to maintain the servers anymore.

Colorful video game booklets were shortened massively to save costs, then they were gone forever. In the age of internet updates, the scummiest companies have decided that it’s fine to release a game straight-up broken with the promise of it being fixed down the line. There are even multiple examples of “physical releases” where inside the case you’ll only have a voucher for a digital download and, on the Xbox side, all cross-gen games discs don’t really have a series game in them, those have to be downloaded.

Things are rough for physical games nowadays but not that long ago they were actually the best. In my opinion, physical media peaked on PS3 and here’s why.

Collector’s Corner – Lights & Shadows over the PSP

The idea for this article started with a very simple question “Is there a reason to own a PSP in 2022?”

My brain cogs started turning and almost instantly I came up with a dozen compelling reasons in favor of this handheld but, then I kept pondering and I also found a surprising amount of reasons against it. It turns out that, in the PSP world, almost every aspect of the system seems to have a bright side but also a dark one.

In today’s Collector’s Corner, the many reasons why you both should and shouldn’t own a PSP nowadays.

Collector’s Corner – Tackling the Backlog

I have a very eclectic taste in games so, every year, a massive number of games I want to play are released. I’ll end up getting them despite the obvious impossibility that I or any human could have the time to play them all. That’s how backlogs are born.

Backlogs are the games that we own but that we haven’t played through yet. Mine is pretty big.

I know that there’s a huge irony in me writing an article about how to handle a backlog when my own is completely out of control but, as they say, “We learn from mistakes” and I’ve made so many during the years. So much so that I’ve ended up devising certain techniques that help me in keeping the backlog list at bay. This article is about explaining those and, don’t worry, no technique involves actually buying fewer games.

Collector’s Corner – Vita’s a b*tch

For someone out there who may not get the pun, just know that vita also means life in Italian… Okay, last time I made a “Collector’s Corner” it was about games that could become collectible in the future, this time around it’s nothing like that at all.
Why’s that? Because I couldn’t really recommend anyone getting into vita collecting although, at the same time, if you’re ever going to do it, the sooner the better. I know this first hand because, silly me, I actually collect for the system. The thing is, collecting for this system isn’t what I’d call “easy”, I’d rather call it frustrating or, at the very least, annoying.
This article is actually about that. The little annoyances you’ll find if you ever try to collect for this handheld.

Collector’s Corner – Rare PS3 games?

If you’ve been following my contributions or simply took a look at this, you’ll know that I kinda have quite a big collection of PS3 games. It’s not just for collecting sake, I actually play through them (as much as my time lets me). The thing is, acquiring so many titles I certainly came to own some that could be considered “rare” or “collectible” so, from that experience, I think I can share my (limited) knowledge on the matter.
In this article in particular I want to explain some “factors” that will probably make certain games to be considered collectible in the future and also put some examples of it. Has to be said that the games you’ll see don’t have to be rare as of today, I’m just talking about chances of being collectible in the future.
So, without further do, let’s see what will make your PS3 games rare.