As I’ve accumalated physical games, physical gaming consoles, controllers and computers over the years, it’s become more and more important to have some ‘rules’ of what I collect, how I collect, and how I play the games I collect.
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With a few exceptions for games which are some of my favourite games of all time, I don’t want to buy physical copies of any games. I want to keep as much digital as possible.
I don’t want to pay for most console games.
I am going to try and buy and mod as many original consoles as possible, so I have access to all games on that system via an Everdrive or similar. This seems the best way to play games on original hardware and original controllers - the way the games were intended - while keeping costs down. The one exception is Evercade console games, or any paid-for re-releases that are not available on emulation, but represent much improved versions of the games they remake.
This is for two reasons: cost and space. I don’t anticipate ever being able to be one of those rich American collectors that has a huge house and a huge gaming room for everything. In fact it’s the opposite, I’m aspiring to retire early, pay off my mortgage early, have a small living space, and a lot more time to play games because I have no work commitments!
The focus instead is providing the optimal way to play the games - investing in the best third party controllers, the best scan converters, the best sound system, a nice projector screen etc, and enough space to have a small number of people around to play multiplayer games.
In terms of buying PC games - I will still buy PC games via Steam, GOG, Epic and all the other PC launchers. I do not like ‘renting’ PC games, I will buy it once and own it. I do not anticipate a store like Steam closing in my lifetime and cheating me out of the thousands of games I’ve purchased there. Should Steam shut down in the distant future, I expect they will be forced to release a way of playing all the games I’ve already collected.