who cares about collecting for the neo anymore? we're all past that (at least the established members) nowadays for me its all about the actual GOOD games that you want to play.
Fuck buying homecarts and 'mint' items that are going to sit on a shelf forever because they are shitty games, but oh. they are for neo. We should all be past that. Anything else is just blind fanboyism. Believe me its hard to not be a fanboy of the neo, but its got its fair share of fucking awful games.
Indeed a lot of NeoGeo games are what Japanese calls "kusogee", means 'shit games'. In term of playabilty, the original Garou Densetsu may be labelled as an almost-kusogee as well. But you see, SNK has always been a 'maniac kaisha' (a company for maniacs). Athena was a kusogee, yet featured art from LuanPetit and full-vocals songs, at the time, in the arcade! And SNK fighters focused on characters right from the beginning, giving 'em personality, backstory, individual voice-actors, not to talk about pop-culture references, in-jokes, citations, etc. Eventually SNK started making games that were (are) ALSO great to play, that was 1992 circa. But for 'geesen zoku' (the arcade breed tribe), SNK will always be something special. Because art and style are something beyond tech, and possibly those do not age. Not in the negative term.
For this, I gathered a complete NeoGeo collection, and hopefully I'll never sell/get-rid-of my shit. NeoGeo is like the phoenix of an era I've been living in first person, and it's also the symbol of a culture (the Japanese pop-culture) I've been deeply involved with. Thus I consider my NeoGeo collection pretty much as museum set-up. It's not that I deceive myself in thinking every NeoGeo game is great. Is that NeoGeo 'as a whole' is meaningful to me also on a 'symbolic' level. To me, it's some kind of Blue Water for an era (though possibly no one will get the meaning of this --- sorry).
Am I a fanboy? Yes indeed.
Am I a blind fanboy? Hope not.
I think it's crucial to be anyway selective when running into collection. You must focus on what you really like, and always face the reason for you like it. If you start getting anything beyond that very reason, you may soon find yourself over-burnered with things you don't really like, or you won't really need, and that will kill your love for the whole, even the real original point of your passion. Too much is bad.
As you may know, I've my complete AES collection since many years now. That includes a complete hardware collection. And a complete NeoGeoFreak (the JPN mag) collection. And some other 'omake' shit (side stuff).
Since it's like 6 years already I completed my collection, I could have easily turned my head into more side stuff. Like: NeoGeoCD is cool, huh? It's SNK anyway, huh? It's NeoGeo anyway, huh? THE MORE THE BETTER, huh?
No. Correct answer is no. For I don't like the NeoGeoCD. I actually kind of hate it. I have my reason. It's simply NOT *my* cup of tea, and I have to avoid the trap of getting stuff I don't really like just to get some more stuff.
One collector must learn to stay content with what he have, when that's what he really likes, and that's all.
That's basically what you can learn from good old Soren Kierkegaard, particularly in his "The Seducers Diary" book. Having a lot of women means loving no one for real, thus means having no woman at all. Same goes with things. If you have too much of a thing, even a thing you like, you get nauseated, for you can't even really appreciate it. We're only humans, and we have our limits. Game-wise, I remember back in my adolescence days everyone was crazy here with home-computing gaming (particularly Commodore), for you could just copy any game and have a thousand of. Hell, I was just a child back then, but I always thought that was crazy. Being nothing like rich, I could afford very few console games in a year, I and loved the hell out of each of them. They were meaningful to me. You can also try to read the very same point in "The Little Prince", when the prince realize the difference between his own very single rose and a bunch of roses in their bush. Lucky enough, I learned this lesson from the reality in front of my eyes. So, while I've been a Japanese animation fan, I've very few DVDs, just the ones of the works that are really meaningful to me. Always try to focus on what you really love, and try do investigate the reasons of that love...
As for now, collection-wise, I just look for random memorabilia that I may really like. But then again, I try (actually struggle) to stay selective. Not getting any damn plush toy I can spy in Japanese stores or on Japanese auctions. Not getting any shit with a NeoGeo logo stamped on. Each time I'm tempted with something, I always ask myself "do I REALLY want this in my house? Where would I put that? Would I be satisfied in having that on my shelf?". Stuff like that. And that really trim down your purchased to a minimum.
Just one more line about collection stuff:
MVS is RAW - thats what SNK started out with.
Fuck kits as well.
You are half right, half wrong my dear fellow.
MVS is RAW: true.
Thats what SNK started out with: wrong.
As a matter of fact, NeoGeo debuted in Japan the very same day in both AES and MVS format. The idea that MVS came first is actually common misconception. I made my research, and you can dig a thread named "an incredible discovery" (or something like that) started by myself some years ago. NeoGeo was a arcade-and-home since its very first day. And, this may surprise you, if you dig the original Japanese ADs, flyers and stuff of the times, you'll discover that 'NeoGeo' was originally the name for the HOME machine only. The arcade machine, the raw stuff, was just called MVS. It was not 'NeoGeo AES and NeoGeo MVS'. It was 'NeoGeo and MVS'. NeoGeo was meant for home environment, yet was not a consumer product yet - it was just for rental. MVS was the arcade raw stuff. So:
Fuck kits as well: right, 100% correct. MVS is NOT meant for collecting.
Finally, as for me:
DO I PLAY MY GAMES?
I do, while it's now quite hard for me to find time/occasions to. For many reason. Indeed I've been kind of detached from gaming since I "grew up" beyond my university days. Things keeps rolling. But while I'm probably the most anal collector in so many terms, I'm OK with light scratches on cart due to 'normal usage'. I've no people around me to play games with though, thus my playing is mostly for pure appreciation of what I love. I guess I'm grown old after all.
Finally, yes, I would like to get a cab sooner or later. Collection arcade stuff? Not at all. Just for play. And for I'd love the memento that a nice Japanese cab would represent in my home studio. I'm thinking about getting a Blast City actually. I would load that with the games I love the most, and just buy 'em in the most bare, raw, cheap form. That's arcade reason-to-be for me. Arcade it's what you see on the monitor of your cab, you should never ever think about what's inside it. Arcade is about magic, and you should not bess with what behind the curtain.
So I guess I'm kind of an old-timer who managed to go past the collection without dumping the result of his efforts. NeoGeo is meaningful to me, and I'm trying to keep it in its place of my life without getting nauseated by buying frenzies and shit.
Indeed TonK I read your statement about your family and heh, that's uber cool. Our beloved are the most important thing in our lives. That's way more important than any game, of course. As my best friend once said: "NeoGeo is the most important thing of unimportant things". Maybe, if I'll be lucky, one day I'll be playing NeoGeo with a son of mine, who knows. Or, he will be asking me what the fuck are those bulky plastic cases on those shady shelves. And maybe, if I will be VERY VERY lucky, he'll be willing to listen to my stupid and boring story.
