Rarity: Retro Video Game Collecting in the Modern Era

This was a documentary that I decided to check out late in my workday. I treat these like podcasts where I'll listen and look down when something interesting is said. What I normally do is watch ones that are films, in the horror genre or obscure cinema related. I decided to check this one out as I used to be a gamer. I didn't necessarily play Call of Duty, Minecraft or those types of games. My first system was a Sega Genesis before shifting to Nintendo and then to PlayStation. I was a big fan of JRPG when I shifted over to Sony.

Now what we're getting here is meeting a good handful of collectors. What I like here is that we're seeing the guys at the top and others who are more like someone you might work with. There was a good cross section of people. I did like that we got to know them, what got them into collecting and then where do they see their future heading with what they do. Something that is also interesting here is that there is a question posed about if they think what they're doing is obsessed or by having channels to display what they have, is that showing off? I do like that one of them gives the best answer that is somewhere in the middle for sure.

Another aspect I enjoyed here is that we get the history of video game collecting. This also ventures a bit into the history of this industry itself. I enjoyed seeing these people's collections, but hearing more of what they know about what they have or the lore they've heard, that interested me more. There is one who is from Europe who has a complete collection of systems for Nintendo's GameCube. That blew my mind.

Then to shift over to filmmaking. I thought this was well-made. They did a good job of mixing in footage from games with the interviews that we're seeing. How they display the collections and having the interviewees showing the prized possessions was a good touch. The biggest thing that brought a smile to my face was using music that was inspired by the older games. That was a good touch for sure. This does tease at the end that there will be a part two. That is something I'd check out if it is made. I'd recommend it to collectors, especially of video games, or if you're an old school gamer for nostalgia.

My Rating: 8 out of 10.

I never knew about the people who collects old / older video games. This movie documents behind the popular video games and go deeper on people collecting games. It's funny, educational and also eye opening. Highly recommended it.

Look, this "movie" was just put together with self-filmed clips by youtubers and liberal stock footage inserts so technically it's awful, but what makes it a real slog is the need to aggrandize WATA games and that whole scam. They literally just wave off valid criticism of WATA by saying it's all jealousy which is really something else. Then you have the fact that the key faces in this movie are simply showing off their stuff and talking about how valuable it is and how they turn down offers, etc. The actual "real" people like Metal Jesus, Riggs, Hancock, etc are barely in it while the hoarder scammers of the WATA crowd get to wave their proverbial dicks in your face with their rare stuff. Get a life! And no how many times someone says that preserving a sealed game etc is preserving history, pop-culture, or art, doesn't make it true. These things were commodities. You are celebrating plastic and cardboard. The game exists outside of those things. A part of me wishes disc rot on all their rare games, but being somewhat of a collector myself (albeit with way stronger boundaries than these people) I will admit it's neat to see what they have, but the smugness of them really gets me.

Look, I have no issues with collectors. I have a (modest) video game collection myself.

I do think the time spent on sealed games and the hype on their importance was a bit of a waste.

BTW, I am far from jealous of sealed games. I've owned them and simply opened them because I think these things are meant to be played (but this is just my opinion).

The assumption (and insistence) that anyone that has issues with WATA (and their practices) and the overhype on sealed games is simply "being jealous" was certainly overplayed in the doco. I think they could have balanced the opinions by addressing the fact that this hobby was available to all, but due to people buying up huge swathes of copies, it has pretty much cut people from the hobby. Once again, not my jealousy as I'm good with what I have, but I know many others that are now locked out. It's just a shame is all. Most hobbies end up as rich people time wasters, so I guess it was inevitable.

There are some interesting things here (rare consoles and one-offs) and some good personalities, just skip the ad in the middle and it's far more enjoyable.

The film is primarily based on collecting NES games and doesn't get into the nostalgia of the original era of gaming. It feels like a 2021 film based on 2021 gaming.

The people used in the film don't tell the story of gaming in the 80s and 90s and just don't have a sense of what it was like to game during this time. It's like they decided to collect something and chose NES cartridges, which produces a very boring film.