I've had enough and am selling most of my stuff

[Gaijin Punch]

I decided to quit alcohol for the month of November. If I didn't have shit piled up all around me I'd get good at some arcade game. Haha. I might bust out my super gun here before I watch TV.

[Magic Knight]

I decided to quit alcohol for the month of November. If I didn't have shit piled up all around me I'd get good at some arcade game. Haha. I might bust out my super gun here before I watch TV.

Good stuff. I gave up drinking in August of last year. I've been playing some old favourites on my supergun now (your old Raijin!) and am trying to remember what enjoyment there is to be had from actually playing the games. Went to Sendai with the boss today, bought new wedding rings, we believe they're the same ones we had before but we can't be sure.

[Gaijin Punch]

Did you guys lose them in the disaster? Shit. Good old Japan... wearing wedding rings only on special occasions.

I'm not giving it up permanently. Just for the month. I work hard, so I gotta play hard. I've gone out twice this month totally sober. I even DJed last night at a club. Was giving drink tickets and just got coke (the liquid) with them.

The main difference is I can get shit done between 10PM and midnight now, where as before it was difficult.

[Magic Knight]

Did you guys lose them in the disaster? Shit. Good old Japan... wearing wedding rings only on special occasions.

I'm not giving it up permanently. Just for the month. I work hard, so I gotta play hard. I've gone out twice this month totally sober. I even DJed last night at a club. Was giving drink tickets and just got coke (the liquid) with them.

The main difference is I can get shit done between 10PM and midnight now, where as before it was difficult.

Yes, washed away. I spent a long time looking but never found any trace.

I've sold 35 PCBs and many console games and all my X68000 games, so why does the room look as full as ever?

[zinger]

Sounds like a healthy decision. I sold my cabinets and arcade games and almost all console games years ago because I've been moving around so much. It was just too much of a hassle to bring everything with me, and it was worth too much money for me to just leave in my parent's house in my hometown. I don't even have a TV now so I've basically only been using emulators for the past few years.

It's very nice to have stopped hoarding stuff, though I really really really do miss the experience of the real thing, so I eventually I think I will return to buying games (and above all, a proper gaming rig). I've learned my lesson though. From now on I will only buy games that I really want to play (or read the manual of) and then sell them as soon as I feel I'm done with them. There's always the possibility of buying them again if I feel that I have to. The mere of thought wasting time and money on merely collecting things has started to seriously sicken me.

[Magic Knight]

Right so. First, I've had to change all selling to be within Japan only, I can no longer send anything out of the country as it's too risky.

I took some old consoles, games and PCBs down to a recycling place this morning, fortunately they don't charge and didn't refuse to take it. I'm going to wait now until my wife is also unemployed so she can sell the remaining games and magazines to the shops or whatever. Feels good to be getting rid of all this junk, I might get around to playing what's left over.

[Magic Knight]

Two years since I started, still going...

I've sold 166 PCBs, and have 64 left, and also managed to get rid of 152 console and computer games, very few of those left. Just have a few for testing purposes really. And also masses of books and other junk.

Instead I've focussed entirely on women's football and have had numerous articles published in magazines and on websites, and I'm moving more into academic research, working with European researchers mostly. I'm getting material together for a book. Busy busy.

And yet my room still looks completely packed. I look around and I cannot imagine where I would put those 166 PCBs.

Have all the important stuff still of course... Spectrum hardware and games & LucasArts adventures I bought 20 years ago.

Anyway, that's all for now. Back to getting this stuff out the door.

[Gaijin Punch]

Keep on going. I wonder how I ratted all of my stuff over the years. Definitely enjoying the camera gear (semi-) collecting as they take up far less space.

[Magic Knight]

Right now I'm mostly down to difficult-to-get-rid-of PCBs. Some are broken, so either I'll keep them for parts or sell as junk. Some have control panels, like Road Blasters... so I'm thinking of selling that with Marble Madess, motherboard and trackballs, but working out how to write it for Yahoo is the trick. Might just sell the Marble Madess as the main item with Road Blasters and its control panel as omake.

Things like Space Harrier and Gauntlet have slight glitches, always hard to know if they're supposed to be there or not.

My current list, now 62, is here:
http://pcbiroiro.blogspot.jp/

Edit: Just remembered, when I first sold off a mass of games in 2007, the exchange rate was 116.38 yen to the US dollar. The rate has only just got back to over 116 after all these years. So naturally I've been looking to sell to overseas again recently.

[Gaijin Punch]

The good old FX rate. Where the fuck was this shit back when I was getting paid in dollars living there? I've got my eye on a few goodies that I'm having friends ship over. All small stuff though.

[lordnikon]

Selling stuff is so much harder than acquiring it. To get your money back you have to basically sell items 1 at a time, or in small bulk orders. This is why those huge game collections priced at mega bucks sit there on ebay forever. Some of those collections are actually a steal, but people would rather pay $20 + $5.95 SH one game at a time, than $150 for 12 games (which comes out to $12.50 per game). It is nigh impossible to sell off a large collection for what it's truely worth. To do so in a timely fashion, would result in taking a huge financial hit.

The concept of game/life balance is such an interesting topic to me. Some are cought in a crazy nightmare between owning everything or owning nothing amidst a constant state of fluxuation anxiety inbetween. These things can become a burden. Financial value and usage expectations weight heavily on the mind.

It is my hope that everyone can find some sort of equilibrium with their interests, where that special game can sit on the shelf unplayed for the time being, and have that be "okay". Its there for when you want to take it out and play it. I think once one reaches the point of refining what they have, rather than all out purging, they are getting closer to this.

[Magic Knight]

Oh, definitely. Although, I did get rid of most of my console games in one go and even a big batch of X68000 games for 80,000 yen. The guy probably wanted to resell them, whatever, I got rid of them in one go so I was happy.

What you say about people not wanting to buy in bulk is so true. Right now I'm collecting Japanese soccer magazines from between 1980 and 2000. Now, there's a guy on Yahoo Auctions with hundreds of them in one lot, I worked out the average cost even with shipping is 59 yen per magazine. And yet I'm still hesitant to buy them. Something about so much stuff arriving in one go... my wife would go bananas.

Five more PCBs finishing today on Yahoo... it's now the junk stuff that's going. Even as I say that, my junk Amidar has been bid up to 13,500... must be worth more than I thought.