I'm not a collector, but I have no problem with collectors. But something Bill has said in the past is that it's best to go to the original hardware/software to get as close to the original experience as possible. I do not share this philosophy completely, for these reasons:
1. I'm old now. Even if I have the original hardware, with the original games in the original boxes, I will never be able to recreate the same feeling I had seeing these games for the first time in the original time period. I remember being impressed with many a game, from the original arcades to the Playstation 1. Those games look primitive now, even if it's games I've never played until now. It's hard to get "wowed" by the retro games after you've experienced the modern ones. You can appreciate the games, yes, but "whoa" isn't generally going to come. Not for me, at least. I'm not looking at these games through teenage eyes anymore.
2. Emulation is often close enough. If you can't be "wowed" anymore, you can at least enjoy the games themselves. Retro game anthologies available on many platforms can provide you with a close enough, if not superior, game play experience.
3. I just want to play games. If I did have an old game that someone considered historically valuable, I'd sooner just give them the game than charge big money for it! It's not the package or platform that's so important to me, it's the fun of the game itself.
All that having been said, the collectors are doing what I won't: preserve history! We've lost countless works of literature, paintings, and cinema to time, but collectors are in the position to, for once, preserve the history of the beginnings of a major cultural phenomena. That can only bode well for the future, and these rare "treasures" will only increase in value as time goes on! Thirteen thousand dollars may not seem like that much for such a rare "fossil" when the next generation(s) come around and want a piece of history. So, from that perspective, hurray for the collectors!
I'm not a collector, but I have no problem with collectors. But something Bill has said in the past is that it's best to go to the original hardware/software to get as close to the original experience as possible. I do not share this philosophy completely, for these reasons:
1. I'm old now. Even if I have the original hardware, with the original games in the original boxes, I will never be able to recreate the same feeling I had seeing these games for the first time in the original time period. I remember being impressed with many a game, from the original arcades to the Playstation 1. Those games look primitive now, even if it's games I've never played until now. It's hard to get "wowed" by the retro games after you've experienced the modern ones. You can appreciate the games, yes, but "whoa" isn't generally going to come. Not for me, at least. I'm not looking at these games through teenage eyes anymore.
2. Emulation is often close enough. If you can't be "wowed" anymore, you can at least enjoy the games themselves. Retro game anthologies available on many platforms can provide you with a close enough, if not superior, game play experience.
3. I just want to play games. If I did have an old game that someone considered historically valuable, I'd sooner just give them the game than charge big money for it! It's not the package or platform that's so important to me, it's the fun of the game itself.
All that having been said, the collectors are doing what I won't: preserve history! We've lost countless works of literature, paintings, and cinema to time, but collectors are in the position to, for once, preserve the history of the beginnings of a major cultural phenomena. That can only bode well for the future, and these rare "treasures" will only increase in value as time goes on! Thirteen thousand dollars may not seem like that much for such a rare "fossil" when the next generation(s) come around and want a piece of history. So, from that perspective, hurray for the collectors!
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