I identify as a gamer. I have played a lot of games in my time. and ones “collection” that has been built up over the years, can be a matter of pride.
The thing is, I never actually show of my collection in any sense, nor is my collection even worth showing off really.
Now that I am making some tough decisions on what to keep and what to throw away, I find that making these choices about my games it not as hard as I thought it might be.
Obviously, there are some practical matters to consider. For example, the older games will simply not work on todays hardware, without some serious fidling at least, and even then nothing is certain. I remember a few years ago trying to get Jane’s Longbow 2 to work on WindowsXP, and it was simply not possible to make it run stable.
The other, most obvious factor is hanging on to games for Nostalgia’s sake. I too am not immune to this, and this “feeling” has actually been a pretty good guide to filter out what I am throwing away. It also confronts me with my own opinions that I was not aware of: what where my favorite games.
To summorise, my decision making process boils down to 3 questions I ask myself in each case, or order of importance:
1. What is the nostalgic value to me personally. (overrides all other considderations) ?
2. What is the change that I will ever install and play this game again in the future?
3. What is the change the game will run properly on today and tomorrows hardware and OS, and would it be worth the effort?
The following three foto’s are the games I have decided already to throw away.
As with the game-manaul pic, you can get a good sense of where my gaming preferences have laid the last 10 years.
The Final Picture is the collection of games, all more resent, that I am considering throwing away. Also, these games may be valued by my friends, so I am holding on to them for now, while I circulate this picture to see if anyone is interested in receiving some of them.
The Fluffshack 