If you've ever said "Games are getting too expensive" are you talking about games you care about that matter, random hyped expensive trash, or the cost of trying to own literally every video game? The best games to collect are more affordable than virtually any other hobby, especially if your goal isn't to buy EVERYTHING. You'll never own a Babe Ruth rookie card, Action Comics 1, or 1794 Flowing Hair Silver Dollar, but even the most expensive million dollar games ever sold you can own the exact same thing for a couple hundred bucks CIB.

We're talking about game conventions and our thoughts on attending them for both commerce and sociability in preparation for the upcoming Midwest Gaming Classic. Sorry for the late post, I've been very sick this past week!

We're talking about every collecting category except video games: coins, stamps, comics, toys, cereal, etc. and what the best video game things in those categories are that come to mind. Over 3 minutes of research was done looking up video game related Funko Pop prices for this episode before we couldn't take it anymore.

We're talking about a few controversial games we haven't yet discussed to death including perhaps the first controversial video game in 1973's Gotcha to Wolfenstein 3D to whatever Gal Gun is. This episode is banned in Germany for multiple reasons.

We're discussing some of potential "oh I wish I just got that when it was $8" games of 2000s and up. And also $3000 World of Warcraft server blades, which are sure to be a timeless collectible as well.

Two out of touch relics who collect old video games debate the merits of whether you should spend $64.99 on a reissued copy of NES Felix the Cat by Limited Run Games. No. No you shouldn't.

We are discussing and rating how worth it some of the "rarest" hype games are in game collecting from NWC to Pokemon Box to, for some reason, Devil's Third.

We're looking back at 2023: Our collecting goals, the price trends, the hobby trends, and the biggest sales of the year.

A.k.a "Ten Lords a Leaping" for the holiday season but I don't want people to skip the episode based on the title. We're going over an overview of platform games before Super Mario Bros., including some important but nearly forgotten games like Miner 2049er and Pac-Land that were swept away by Mario.

It's a big episode of advice for new collectors like setting goals, avoiding hype, budging, and avoiding becoming a hoarder who thinks your pile of mass produced media is equivalent to a savings account.

We're going over the games, books, gadgets, and sundries of the season while Tyler tries to drag us into tangents. Be sure to ask your family for boxes to easily store all those bulk games you've been buying!

Due to unforeseen circumstances this month we don't have a new traditional show yet, but we do have a long After Dark conversation we had with Joe about NES variants. So if you're wondering who "Joe" is or want to hear about weird stickers and date codes on Nintendo games, this is the episode.

We try our very best not to pick a Castlevania game as the spookiest, Halloween-iest game on every platform except the BBC Micro.

We're kicking off the season talking about the rare, the obscure, and the categories of games you might not even know exist. We chose some interesting spooky games to discuss this episode, and they just happen to be the most 90s games ever with lots of FMV games, oddly shaped PC big boxes, and Goosesbumps.

Taking in a blend of collectibility, history, relevance, influence, and Tyler's personal taste, we each come up the first 10 PS2 games we'd start our collections with. Is this the first time we talk about the Trance Vibrator?? 😳

Hide the kids and perhaps hide your ears. We are talking about porn games, from delightfully quirky Atari games, to the dark, dark origins of some of your favorite Japanese companies, to longtime grails like the Panesians.

We are here to reiterate that unless you have a plan to corner a collectibles market, drive hype and speculation, and sell at a price determined by your business plan, you are not INVESTING in video games by filling your room up with boxes of PS2 games that might be worth more one day. Also maybe max your 401k and take stock of how those $10-20 purchases add up to $100s or $1000s over time.

McDonalds is one of the most American things ever, but the Famicom game Donald Land is a whole McDonalds platformer that never got released in America. We're talking about western licenses that never got western releases. You know, the import stuff you can look at and go "I can't read Japanese but at least I know what Back to the Future is!".

A basketball fan and a guy who doesn't watch sports cover four reasons you might collect perhaps the least collectible genre of video games.

Or as good as it might realistically get. Near term economic uncertainty aside, we're discussing some current and future factors that might have us looking back on today and saying "I wish I bought that before it blew up". Tools, charts, and ease of access to detailed information are unusually poor but there are numerous startups trying to improve this. The days of CIB Nintendo games costing 1.5x what cartridges do, let alone near mint copies, are NEVER coming back so it might be time to plan realistic future goals rather than hope good-stuff prices somehow return to 2008.