How to collect video games the Nerd Alert way

Following up on how I collect comics, I thought I would share with all of you my method and madness in collecting (and enjoying) video games. It will not surprise to discover that my collection is quite small, but it wasn’t always that way. I used to hang on to anything and everything on the premise that I would one day play the game again. Not true. There were several games that I finished and never played again, but I did keep them so long that they had zero trade in or retail value on the secondary market.

If you know that you are not going to play a game again, get rid of it. Games today are too long to replay again and again. Even relatively short games (let’s say God of War) will still take you 7 or 8 hours to play again. Plus you will have your game saved to a memory card or hard drive and thus can purchase the game again once it is super-cheap. Example: let’s say you bought Metal Gear Solid 4 at launch ($70) and played it through and beat it (about 20 hours) in about a month. If you traded it/sold it at that time you would get about $40 which you could use to buy a new game. Now lets say that a year later you wanted to play MGS4 again; not a problem as you can re-buy it for $25 (or rent it for way less).

So in short, I keep games that I know I will play at least once a month. If it is a long RPG or action type game I generally trade it in. Below is a list of what I have currently. Any game with an asterisk is one that I do not plan on trading in.

PS3:

Street Fighter IV*
Resident Evil 5*
Little Big Planet
Metal Gear Solid 4
Fight Night Round 3
Burnout Paradise

Wii:

Super Smash Brothers Brawl*
Mario Kart Wii*
Punch Out*

PSP:

Nothing

DS:

New Super Mario Brothers*
Brain Age

So I will be looking to pick up the new Professor Layton and Dissidia at the end of the summer. I’ll try to be finished with enough of my games to make some trades in order that I will not need to pay one red cent. However, I am sometimes cautious about trading for handheld games as I will most likely get better value by waiting until there is a great trade in 3 get it free deal at the local EB Games/Gamestop. It is a good bet that God of War 3 will be part of this deal so I will keep a some games around to trade for that in early 2010.