The Internet is Killing the Collector in Me

[Euryalus]

Anyone else feel this way, or am I just a grumpy fuckhead?

Why not both?

OT: I've always liked the idea of collecting things, but then remember I tend not to actually care that much if I'm not going to be using them.

Having said that, I do own a vault 101 lunch box, a companion cube, a halo plasma rifle, a headcrab hat, an ocarina, a katana, and a ton of books I like having more than I actually like reading.

 

[Fappy]

I'm still a collector, if that's what buying my entertainment physically is called nowadays. I've got shelves filled with DVDs, blu-rays, and games, and I wouldn't have it any other way. The only games I own digitally are the ones I couldn't get physically.

No real interest in holding on to it for prosterity, I just like browsing in stores and finding things I was either looking for or things I never expected to find at all -- It's like a little treasure hunt. I like striking gold and then bringing my loot home. I like opening cases and books and having the media in question in my hands before I activate it. It creates a nice degree of anticipating.

I recently bought the blu-ray of The Tale of Princess Kaguya just for the hell of it, because I figured this'd be the only time I'll ever come across it in stores. Then the movie turned out to be fantastic and now it's proudly sitting amongst the rest of my collection. Now if only I could get Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away on blu-ray...

Bah! I think I am going to try collecting stuff again. I've already started again with comic TPBs (I don't buy comics week-to-week anymore), and I am considering buying $300 worth of Berserk manga so I can read it the way it was meant to be read (i.e. not scans).

I've got the first 22 volumes sitting here on my shelf.

I am thinking of buying them in short bursts, but I actually don't have the shelf space for physical manga right now. Maybe after I move, otherwise they will be stacked up on my nightstand, lol.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I collect the snot out of stuff. Half of my six-foot tall bookshelf is nothing by Star Wars books. One shelf is nothing but anime, all series that I can easily find online but I chose to buy anyway. And all the movies I own are grouped too (cartoon, Disney, etc...). I have so many ALTER and Kotobukiya figures that I've run out of room to display them. I have the entire series of Negima on another shelf, as well as a bunch of other manga series, with each one having a different character's face on the side so it looks impressive when they're all lined up.

And my game collection. Oh man...there is nothing that can replace the feeling I got when I looked all all my games, lined up by series, from the PlayStation all the way to the PS3. Sadly, the collection has grown so big that I'm forced to store them in crates in my closet now, but when I get my own place, they are all coming back out.

The world is changing, no doubt. More and more things are going digital, and while that's great for space and storage, I will always take the feeling of owning something, of holding it in my hands or just gazing at it on display, over turning on a system or device and getting a long list of names.

 

[wings012]

I prefer to read on paper so books/comics are something I'll never really let go of. I still read manga digitally, but mostly because I don't have much of a choice. If stuff I like enough does get localized, I will buy it though.

My anime figure collection is also growing and growing. There's always other types of physical goods you can collect, related to stuff you own digitally.

 

[BeerTent]

As someone who relies on avatars to tell people apart...

What in the sweet fuck, Fappy? Can't you just go back to be a dashing black cat for fucks sake? I would have accepted that rose. Pikaman's freakin' me out over here. *looks again* AAAUGH! THAT PAUNCH!

On topic though, I kind of understand. There's nothing like holding the physical object in your hand. But the problem is that I can't seem to buy things at a physical store anymore. Nobody has the HDMI Adapter I need. I have to go online for anything but groceries, booze, and clothes. Maybe not so much that fiddling with archaic cords and terrible compatibility, but maybe that's just because I don't have the patience I used too.

I get you. Keep on collectin' baby.

Captcha: Who is buries in Mustafa's tomb? I don't know this shi- Oh... Probably Mustafa? I don't know this trivia crazyness!

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

I think you might just be a grumpy fuckhead.

I am pretty happy to be free of dusty boxes of crap.

 

[teqrevisited]

I wouldn't say I collect games but it's certainly nice to have my shelves full of them. More specifically art books and soundtracks. The art book and soundtrack to Okami are particularly nice. Thankfully the only thing I truly collected is now something that is complete. Now I just have to keep them safe so that part of it doesn't get destroyed again.

 

[Fappy]

As someone who relies on avatars to tell people apart...

What in the sweet fuck, Fappy? Can't you just go back to be a dashing black cat for fucks sake? I would have accepted that rose. Pikaman's freakin' me out over here. *looks again* AAAUGH! THAT PAUNCH!

Admit it, Pikaman is the most beautiful creature that has ever graced your monitor. His paunch is very majestic!

 

[rcs619]

I feel ya there. I wound up and caved in with Steam and iTunes as a matter of pure convenience, but I do still make a point to purchase physical books. I'm sure kindles and the like are perfectly fine, and super convenient, but there's nothing like the sight of a well-stocked bookcase against one wall or the feeling of actual pages

Games, movies, music, they transition to a digital medium pretty seamlessly. Books though, I just feel like they lose something in the transition. Books bought on kindle don't even have that new-book-smell D:

 

[Fappy]

I feel ya there. I wound up and caved in with Steam and iTunes as a matter of pure convenience, but I do still make a point to purchase physical books. I'm sure kindles and the like are perfectly fine, and super convenient, but there's nothing like the sight of a well-stocked bookcase against one wall or the feeling of actual pages

Games, movies, music, they transition to a digital medium pretty seamlessly. Books though, I just feel like they lose something in the transition. Books bought on kindle don't even have that new-book-smell D:

I have never read a book on a screen before. It just feels... wrong to me.

I feel largely the same about comics, but have done so anyway out of convenience.

 

[Flutterguy]

It's perfect, now you can spend all that spare space on really important looking books, leave them scattered around your place, people will think you're smart!.. Of course you would rather go onto websites and take part in inane conversations about some downloaded redundancy when at home, and use your phone when you do happen to go outside, but that's good news too! You wont have to waste your life reading books!

 

[FPLOON]

I love collecting physical shit... If some digital shit comes along with it, then alright alright alright...

Other than that, I do love me some posters, figurines, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, and books to touch with my bare flesh...

 

[Cowabungaa]

You definitely have a point Fappy, one that goes further than mere sentimentality. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dark_age]

Now, sure, doesn't count for silly trinkets and all that, but it definitely has merit. We carelessly throw files and data about, stuff gets lost at an alarming rate. And combine that with the question "What are we going to do with obscure file types in 50 years?" and you have yourself quite a long-term issue we have to solve. It's actually the biggest thing that makes me frown about my ereader. I'm just downloading and deleting books left and right.

And yes, this is me, per usual, reading an important global issue into a simple, personal thing.

 

[scotth266]

I think if I were going to collect physical junk at this point, it would be stuff like Gunpla or Warhammer 40k figurines: stuff that I personally have to assemble. I think it makes me have more of an attachment.

Mind you, I don't buy much physical stuff in general. I've found that things like statues attract enormous amounts of dust - so unless the piece is REALLY sweet, I'm not interested (and sadly, the Really Sweet figures/statues/whatever tend to cost megabucks... which I can't justify spending atm).

 

[Vicarious Reality]

I never considered entertainment media to be 'collectable'

I collect perfume bottles, knives, padlocks, fossils, pens, flashlights, jewels, drink cans and bottles + bottlecaps, old coins, lighters etc.

Odd that you say the internet has "killed" the collector in you when it has presented all the world to me

My shopping list is 8,87 kb long

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

No real interest in holding on to it for posterity, I just like browsing in stores and finding things I was either looking for or things I never expected to find at all -- It's like a little treasure hunt. I like striking gold and then bringing my loot home. I like opening cases and books and having the media in question in my hands before I activate it. It creates a nice degree of anticipating.

I'm just like that too. Perusing racks of games with no real expectations. But then, that thrill of discovery when I stumble across something. That contentedness when I walk out the door.

Coming home and opening the big cupboard that houses my games collection, all nicely stacked side by side in their boxes[footnote]I'm pretty anal about all my games having boxes. It really irks me if they don't. I sometimes buy bargain bin rubbish DS games (only if they're 1 euro or less tho), just for the boxes for my loose Game Boy (Advance) games.[/footnote]. Adding my new find, thinking "One more to scratch off the list".

That's something I don't get from digital purchases or even buying a physical copy online. It doesn't give me the same sense of payoff.

 

[Nikolaz72]

My family has games stored from when the first games were a thing <_<. Grandfather was one of the daring early programmers and jumped on (With at the time, a really big investment) out of some idealistic dream that we'd digitalize our education/healthcare and stuff back in the 70's (We did get a foot in on Education but computers were hella expensive so it didn't get that far).

We didn't really do it before after the 2000's (And even then mid-2000's is more accurate). But hey, he kept the hope up and we have dozens of computers from the first up until around the 90's (Anything after that is deemed too new to be worth keeping)

Anyway, as a result of all this computer stuff there are a 'lot' of computer games aswell (Probably in the several hundreds), most of them pirated (Lol) And these have been stored in huge crates and occasionally have to be reuploaded/downloaded onto new storage devices so the data Isn't lost.

I personally think collecting is a big part of preserving and that digitalized content strictly whilst convenient is also very fragile. A huge part of what was stored on the internet ten years ago has already been lost, imagine if entire games were just stored there and the people deleted them, the venues to download them disappeared, the company which made them defunct.

In terms of Videogames we tend to really preserve only the classics, people like GOG strive to find source codes to try and revive old titles but as they will tell you it is really tough.

 

[Guffe]

I also like physical stuff.
The WiiU is the first console I've actually noticed that I'm buying more and more digital stuff.
Movies and TV series are still physical for me, I've been thinking about trying Netflix as it seems pretty handy...

I think there are two ways to this, at one point, getting something physical that will be cool leter on is still the same as before, but actually collecting stuff is going to get harder and therefor way cooler when you actually have something. I think, just a thought...

As someone who relies on avatars to tell people apart...

What in the sweet fuck, Fappy?

This!!
I sa the Pikaman avatar in another thread and thought we have a new person on the site.
I actually noticed now it's Fappy
Dear Lord... were's the world going -.-

 

[Fappy]

I also like physical stuff.
The WiiU is the first console I've actually noticed that I'm buying more and more digital stuff.
Movies and TV series are still physical for me, I've been thinking about trying Netflix as it seems pretty handy...

I think there are two ways to this, at one point, getting something physical that will be cool leter on is still the same as before, but actually collecting stuff is going to get harder and therefor way cooler when you actually have something. I think, just a thought...

As someone who relies on avatars to tell people apart...

What in the sweet fuck, Fappy?

This!!
I sa the Pikaman avatar in another thread and thought we have a new person on the site.
I actually noticed now it's Fappy
Dear Lord... were's the world going -.-

Pikaman is the future, get with the program.

This world began with Pikaman, and it will end with Pikaman. He is the alpha and the omega.

Repent your sins, Guffe, for the end is nigh.