Collectors Anonymous meeting

[DestroyTheCore]

Hello, my name is DestroyTheCore and I am a shmup collector. I moderated my shmup collecting a few months ago. Before that, not a week could pass without me ordering shmups. "Another one of your ship games in the mailbox?", frequently asked my roommate. As I spent time on this very forum, I kept finding new collecting opportunities: ports, region-free imports, compilations, etc. The temptations were endless.

One day I asked myself "Will I really spend enough time on these games?" when I looked at my neverending backlog of time-consuming games. Since then, I can focus my energy on some specific games and feel good about my skill progression, save up money and keep it for more interesting projects, have a healthy life and get laid.

Let's share our experiences and get over our obsession of catching 'em all.

[nosorrow]

My name is Nintendo Saturn and I have a problem.

P.S. I can get laid pretty much when I want though.

[Obiwanshinobi]

THAT Plasmo pic, though, the legendary, don't you want it back online?

[Kollision]

Hello, my name is Edward and I have an addiction to shmups.

That said, I feel lucky to have completed 99% of my collecting before the online speculation bubble exploded.
So today I can say have I'm safe, no problem collecting anymore.

However, since that shiny nasty bug is still lurking deep inside my collecting brain, I'm well aware that I might fall into darkness again if a tender seller decides to handle me Ku2++, D-Return, Tasac or Corre Benny in CIB conditions at reasonable prices.
anyone?

[Jonst]

Games are very nostalgic to me and seeing as I'm constantly living in the past,means I can't stop buying the bloody things! Not just shmups,anything.If I played it once/ever and liked it,I buy it.It's definitely a problem.

[ACSeraph]

My name is ACS and I buy more games than are physically possible to complete without dying in front of my TV like a third world gold farmer.

I don't have a problem though. My friends made me come to this meeting. I can totally quit whenever I want. Now if you'll excuse me I gotta get on Amazon.jp to do some uh... research...

[amdiggywhut]

Still cheaper than a cocaine habit.....

.......unless I start buying PCBs.

[Muchi Muchi Spork]

I used to want a huge pcb collection but it quickly stopped making sense for someone who goes apartment to apartment. You need a house with a room for them. It also got to the point of spending a lot of time fixing and testing and making adapters and packing that I wasn't spending enough time playing them. It was like in the late 90s when I first found emulation and warez, one day I realized I spent more time downloading than playing and knew it was time for a change. Nowdays I'm trying to get my boards down to just what I play but as for emulation, it takes less time to keep full sets with rom managers than to keep them to just what you play.

[Jeneki]

I'm not sure why I bought so many shmups when I'm just going to play Cyvern and Mars Matrix all the time.

[professor ganson]

I can get laid pretty much when I want though.

Thanks for that seemingly unrelated bit of information.

I still recall the joy of getting my first import shmups for the Saturn. Awesome feeling. I would like to have that feeling again, but I doubt buying anything would make that happen. I don't think I'm moved so much by feelings as when I was younger. More by habit and a sense of obligation. With that said, I do currently feel moved to buy some game-collecting thing or other. Perhaps as a lame way of dealing with the worst year of my adult life by far.

[amdiggywhut]

With that said, I do currently feel moved to buy some game-collecting thing or other. Perhaps as a lame way of dealing with the worst year of my adult life by far.

Retail therapy is a real thing...

[nosorrow]

I can get laid pretty much when I want though.

Thanks for that seemingly unrelated bit of information.

Get off your high horse, I was talking about my monogamous sex life with my wife, not bragging about random weekend encounters with club skanks.

[Bananamatic]

i collect games on MAME

[Gaia]

i collect games on MAME

How do you collect stolen property?

Anyways, I finally convinced myself years ago to stop collecting every port of every shmup for seemingly every console because I never played even half of them, and even less so seriously.

I finally got the PCB bug and sold off most of my ports on ebay and ended up owning just a fraction of the amount of shmups I used to, just now in PCB form. Being that PCBs can be so expensive, it helps me just stick with one game for a longer amount of time, and tides over that little voice in my head telling me to blow huge amounts of money on an arcade game.

[Lord Satori]

i collect games on MAME

How do you collect stolen property?

So the 30 horse head masks in my garage aren't a collection because I stole them?

[professor ganson]

I enjoyed the switch to PCBs for a while, but the losses kept piling up in terms of broken boards. They just don't age very well. Even if I could repair them, I wouldn't have the spare time to do so.

[Gaia]

I enjoyed the switch to PCBs for a while, but the losses kept piling up in terms of broken boards. They just don't age very well. Even if I could repair them, I wouldn't have the spare time to do so.

So you ended up going from ports to pcbs, then back to ports in the end?

[professor ganson]

Honestly, I'm thinking about it. For example, I'm thinking about getting Garegga and Toaplan Shooting Battle vol. 1 ports after having previously owned the boards. And I first played the games via ports, which I really loved.

[Gaia]

Honestly, I'm thinking about it. For example, I'm thinking about getting Garegga and Toaplan Shooting Battle vol. 1 ports after having previously owned the boards. And I first played them via ports, which I really loved.

Interesting. I've never had a board die on me yet but it's my biggest fear as I'm not knowledgable enough about PCBs to do anything more than solder a new battery or replace a capacitor.

Most of the stuff I own are Cave SH-3 boards or cheap Psikyo stuff so I'm not too worried about it.

I do own an X-Multiply board and every time I get that thing out and power it on I feel like I'm waking up a dinosaur... which scares me. So fragile those old boards...

[professor ganson]

Most of the stuff I own are Cave SH-3 boards or cheap Psikyo stuff so I'm not too worried about it.

I do own an X-Multiply board and every time I get that thing out and power it on I feel like I'm waking up a dinosaur... which scares me. So fragile those old boards...

Yes, this is a good strategy to go with more recent Cave boards, Psikyo and that sort of thing. I'm doing roughly the same.

I think the one that made me most sad was my original Fantasy Zone board. Wow, that game looked gorgeous on the setup I had at the time.

[BIL]

It's never quite the same but Fantasy Zone does at least have excellent and relatively cheap Saturn and PS2 ports, 240p and all. Truly one of the most visually ageless games ever, it always looks like it was released last Tuesday.

[professor ganson]

It's never quite the same but Fantasy Zone does at least have excellent and relatively cheap Saturn and PS2 ports, 240p and all. Truly one of the most visually ageless games ever, it always looks like it was released last Tuesday.

So true, every word.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Getting into the world of arcade PCBs...that's a very expensive hobby, indeed, but well worth it in the end. Some of those classic Cave shmup PCBs like DP, DDP, ESP.ra.de, Dangun Feveron, Progear No Arashi, etc. -- they sure were easier to procure back in the early-to-mid 2000s when the asking prices were easier on the wallet as well. Nowadays, with barebones DDP PCBs fetching upwards of $500-$525 & up, it seems back then, it was the norm to pay in the lower $250-$275.00ish range for a typical DDP PCB. Of course, those days are long gone.

None of the local arcades in the Modesto, CA area have the arcade PCB titles that I do have in my personal collection/stash and that for one, makes for a slick and very personal private arcade hangout if you will. It can't get any better than that, folks.

I've never seen such an eBay auction for a barebones Seibu Kaihatsu SP1 cart of Viper Phase 1 U.S.A. break the mere $20.00+ U.S. dollar barrier -- the lowest that I've seen back in the mid-2000s era. That's a mere eighty quarters to be able to play VP1 as it should be played on a proper Supergun or candy cab setup.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[professor ganson]

Another pitfall of purchasing PCBs is the occasional illegit board. For example, I lost $200 in this way buying from a reputable seller on this very site.

[GrantWindsor]

Anyone who was lurking around this forum in some capacity (well, its prior incarnations at least) back in the late 90s/early 2000s may recall my shmup buying obsession and what an obscene collection I built. I recall one time that Dylan (Kosh_H) mentioned that I bought games like candy or something like that. Well, my collection is a bit larger nowadays, but I'm no longer seeking out old shmups, as I mostly have what I always wanted, minus a couple MD and a handfull of PS1 shmups. The PS1 situation only came about because I was so Saturn-focused in those days, though I have the most expensive of the PS1 releases by blind luck. The two MD games? Slap Fight and the second Battlemania game. I haven't decided whether I really want to spend the money on either. That's also my fault, as I was mainly importing PCE games back then, along with random MD and SFC titles. Somewhere around the Saturn days, I flipped it around and started heavy importing versus buying US releases, so I have mostly complete (all of the JP stuff at least) shmups collections for systems beyond that point, with the exception of the PS1, as mentioned, and the original Xbox, for which I didn't import games. So, yeah, I used to get those weekly shmups packages way back when, but no longer. Today, I'm perfectly content to wait out the random new releases. I'm not lacking for anything to play if I get the itch, which doesn't come very often, as my job and life in general take priority. Lack of playtime has really eroded my skills too, so it's probably no big loss. Anyway, Psikyo shmups have a "monkey" setting made just for my golden years.

[cicada88]

I pirate almost everything that isn't current gen unless it has really amazing cover art.

I think the most important thing for shooter fans is to support the current releases on as many platforms as possible. Dollar votes so to speak.

Mass produced plastic CD / DVD jewell cases have absolutely no value to me. There are some 16-bit and older games that have great packaging like Famicom/NES and Super Famicom games, but I only care to own those if I really love the cover art.

Flashcarts and CD backups for the win...just support the current generation releases if you want developers to stay in business.

[professor ganson]

Flashcarts

Yes. I love playing on the original systems on a tv, but I don't really have nostalgia for those older carts and their clunky packaging. Getting flashcarts for MD/Genesis, SNES, and NES made it easy to part with the originals. I don't yet have one for TG-16, but its carts and packaging are not so clunky. It would be harder to part with the few that I have.