One of my hobbies is collecting physical copies of games. I've been at it since 2013, but I've slowed down in recent months and am now looking toward downsizing.
It started with a buddy wanting to sell his old NES and games that he found in his parents' attic. With the console in-hand, I decided to rebuild my childhood game collection. Then I grabbed some of the games I used to love renting. Then I just didn't stop.
For a long time I would buy anything that was reasonably-priced that I didn't already have. That became unwieldy, so I sold off a good chunk of the games that I knew I was never going to play. I had built up a library with no direction. I shaved the collection down from about 1100 titles to just under 1000. Now I focus on games I'd like to play based on genre, developer, nostalgia, uniqueness. I'll grab just about anything from Konami or Capcom, but LJN has a little bit of work to do if I'm going to hold onto one of theirs. I've still got some shovelware, like the Coldstone Creamery game on the Wii, but those titles are kept just for the novelty.
Now I'm back up to 1600 titles and it's making me feel claustrophobic. It's time to downsize again, but how do I do that when I've already implemented my quality gates? Getting rid of a game now means getting rid of something I really wanted for one reason or another. Playability on its own isn't a good reason to keep something that I can also emulate. Value isn't a factor because I'm not collecting as an investment. Nostalgia will likely be the major guiding light in my decision-making process.
I put up a list of all my currently-cataloged games for folks to browse. Over time I'll evolve the list to add a "kick or keep" indicator to show what I intend to hold onto.
I've got a video capture setup for another project that never got off the ground, so I may revisit YouTube or Twitch content if there is any interest in that. One idea I've been kicking around is a podcast or video series where I gather friends to discuss the merits of games I've collected so I can narrow it down to the cream of the crop. Initially I had the idea of only keeping a group of "top 100" games, but that would be entirely too difficult.
If there is a game on my list that you love, feel free to reach out and make a case for it!