I’m obviously a gamer, and as such I amassed quite a collection of games. This is especially true of the years I spent working at GameSpy, as that time represents not only my most active gaming period (so far, anyway), but also the time in which I received the most free copies of games. And thus half the space in my office closet came to be occupied by video games, some of which had never even been opened. Every few months I’d look at it think “Why do I keep all these? Should I get rid of them or hang on to them for nostalgia’s sake?” Then I’d just kind of shrug and slide the closet door closed. Dilemma solved for another couple of months.
Well, this Christmas season things kind of changed. Ger and I both really wanted a new digital camera, but money has been quite tight with only 1/3 of the household bringing home a paycheck. So when Ger suggested that we just buy each other a camera for Christmas but not spend more than we could afford, I brought up eBay on my web browser and slid open the closet door again.
Over the course of about a month, I liquidated a good chunk of my collection, including the following:
- 007 Nightfire (PC)
- Advance Wars (GBA)
- Age of Mythology (PC)
- Age of Mythology the Titans expansion (PC)
- Alien vs. Predator 2 (PC)
- Black & White (PC)
- Blood II The Chosen (PC)
- Clive Barker’s Undying (PC)
- Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 special collector’s edition (PC)
- Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun (PC)
- Crimson Skies (PC)
- Deus Ex: Invisible War (PC)
- Devil May Cry (PS2)
- Die Hard Trilogy 2: Viva Las Vegas (PC)
- Drakan: Order of the Flame (PC)
- Dungeon Keeper Gold (PC)
- Dungeon Siege (PC)
- Emperor: Battle for Dune (PC)
- Enter the Matrix (PC)
- Far Gate (PC)
- Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (GBA)
- Golden Sun (GBA)
- Gore (PC)
- GUN (PC)
- Madcatz racing wheel
- Max Payne (PC)
- Max Payne 2 (PC)
- MDK 2 (PC)
- Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (PC)
- Metroid Fusion (NGC)
- Metroid Prime Pinball (NDS)
- Nintendogs (NDS)
- Pikmin (NGC)
- Prince of Persia Sands of Time (NGC)
- Real War: Air Land Sea (PC)
- Red Faction (PC)
- Saitek flight stick
- Serious Sam: Second Encounter (PC)
- Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)
- Sim Golf (PC)
- Skies of Arcadia (NGC)
- Sly Cooper and the Thievius Racoonus (PS2)
- Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force (PC)
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (PC)
- SWAT 3 Elite Edition (PC)
- Syberia (PC)
- The Longest Journey(PC)
- Tribes 2 (PC)
- X-Men Legends (PS2)
- Zelda The Minish Cap (GBA)
I still held on to the core of my collection with some of my favorites that I may actually play again or want to bust out for party games, but I now have a lot more room in that closet. Especially since most of the PC games above were from before the industry moved to the smaller boxes. Some of the games commanded surprisingly high prices. For example, the apparently rare Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 collector’s edition got me nearly $50, and games like Blood II or Drakan that I thought would go for maybe a buck got $25 or so each. The end result was that the sale of these games and a few other items (like all of my hardback Wheel of Time books, curse you Robert Jordan) got us more than enough to buy a really nice digital camera that should hopefully be arriving today or Monday.
So there you have it. Some people say that video games train people to be killers and misfits. But in this case? Video games totally saved Christmas.
Great minds think alike! We decided to buy a new camera for our Christmas present to ourselves too! It arrived last night after we chased the UPS guy down (long story).
What did you guys get?
We got a Cannon Power Shot SD550. It is nice and will not weigh down my bag when we travel and I have to schlep it all over wherever we are visiting. Yours looks very cool and professional.
That’s a good camera. I’d like to get one of those next year, too. Make it the “diaper bag” camera that Ger can keep handy all the time to capture those spontaneous photo ops.