What do you do with 50 games and no space

aftershock

New member
Joined
Jun 25, 2009
Messages
70
Reaction score
1
Location
Lakewood, Ohio
I have about 50 games and can not seem to pass up a good deal on just one more. I started off with a few junk cabs in my basement and in about two years had to take over a double storefront just to house and repair them. I have very little experience working on electronics and still have not tried to learn to read schematics. I have some friends that have helped me work on my games but I need to learn the ins and out of doing this myself. Being add and ocd what is the best way to head down the right track and any good referrals for a good shrink to cure me of this problem. I don't know if I should quit cold turkey and sell off my hoarded lot or man up and restore/fix my games.
I have been doing this for a while so it is not because I am a rookie. What boat are you in and am I sailing familiar or uncharted waters.
 
My friends that make fun of my collection are the first to call me when a new game pops up on CL. I am not sure what to keep and what to sell.
 
Where is the best place to get those? I heard he has dvds on everything arcade but was told they were expensive. If anybody has them for sale let me know.
 
Youre talking to the worlds largest selection of arcade repair gurus anywhere! If it werent for all the wonderful people here at KLOV, I wouldnt know 99% of what I do now.
 
Speaking from experience, you really have to ask yourself what you want out of this hobby.
You have 50 games (of which I assume maybe 1/2 don't work) and I can presume that you probably can't get to them to either play or work on them either. I've been there, done that.

Never mind the seemingly good deals, because if you get something for 50 bucks that doesn't work and needs work, that will sit in your garage as an eyesore, a constant reminder of something that needs to get done (yes one more source of stress) is an expense on it's own.

You really need to ask yourself:

what number of games would make you happy?
which games make you happy?
Do you want to play those games?
Would you rather work on games?
Do both?
How many games can you reasonably have (to work on or play with).

After you answer that for yourself:

Come up with THE MAGIC NUMBER of how many games you can live with.

Figure out which games you want to keep.
Sell the rest off or dump em.

Stick to the plan, no games come in (no matter how good deal is) unless one goes out.

If you end up going one over (because of a great deal), make plans to sell the least desirable game.

Once you have your magic number games, it's a matter of prioritization.

I've been there... Had 50 games 30 of which were projects and I'd be in denial that I'd would get around to restoring them and have myself a "Luna City". I never did, got fed up and sold a bunch over 2 or 3 years.

I'm at my right number of games (14 vid 8 pins) of which 2 or 3 of the vids are projects. That's the number I can live with and maintain a health balance with the rest of my life. (yes, I have a ton of other hobbies and expenses). And I've passed up a lot of "free" and great deals.

Good luck on coming up with a plan and sticking to it.
 
Last edited:
Def sailing familair waters. Many ppl here go through this.

Anything good I should come purchase ? Heheeh
 
Whatever you do, DON'T end up having to rent a storage unit to house the games "that you will get to later" because you don't have the space. That is very costly, and a pain in the ass since most storage places don't want you to use their electricity, work in the unit, or have access except normal business hours (~7-7).Even if you do find a storage place with 24hour access, and the managers don't mind you being there and using power, years will pass by before you realize it, and then you'll remember that you've been paying $100-$400 per month for the past x number of years. You could have bought some pretty kick ass games at retail pricing for what you can spend on storage costs.
 
What do you do with 50 games and no space

Explain to your wife just how much you love her and buy her some flowers and a Centipede or Ms. Pac-man (unless you already have thosse). Then see if she will let you keep some games in the bedroom and bathroom.
 
I'm in the same boat. I was planning on a basement arcade but it's currently more like a warehouse with room to only play 4 or 5 games. louisurfer's advice is exactly the direction I'm trying to go. My problem is that I have games that are too rough to sell and too repairable to strip down. I've sold several games over the last couple of years but it takes me awhile to get each done because I'm so anal when it comes to fixing things, too often I come across jury rigging in the games and I just have to make it right. I'm getting to the point where I'm just going to start selling them as is on CL, enough is enough....
 
You need to to make a list of your games. Then make a list of your favorite video games of all times. Then take the list of your games and rank them from 1-10 in terms of appearance (1 = really crappy and 10 = really nice) and then list them in terms of what is wrong with them (plays blind, joystick busted, monitor OK but no game, etc.). Your OCD side will love all the lists :).

Once you have an idea what games you have, the issues with them and which ones you really want to play, then you can pick 3 and head over to the repair forum and start asking questions about how to fix those three. I suggest 3 because if you are truely ADD if you pick 1, inevitably you will hit the point where you will have to wait for parts. So with 3 you will have some variety to work on and there will always be something to work on. If you pick more than 3, you will probably spin your wheels and burn out.

As the poster child for AADD (Adult Attention Deficit Disorder), the best advice I can offer is to focus on a few at a time. If you try to fix 50, it will overwhelm you. Pick a couple that seem to be simple fixes (i.e game A has a dead monitor but you can hear the game and game B has a compatible monitor that seems to work, but the game won't come up. The solution is to swap the monitor from game B to game A and to look for somebody nearby that works on monitors to fix the bad one).

ken
 
I'm more of a player than a collector, so I don't have any experience with your problem.

I might take one off your hands if you decide to sell some stuff, though. We still love the DK Jr that you sold us last year. The monitor went out once but we had it fixed, and we re-wired it so that we can swap in a DK3 board that we picked up. We're about ready to add a third cabinet to our game room.
 
Last edited:
My friends that make fun of my collection are the first to call me when a new game pops up on CL. I am not sure what to keep and what to sell.

I know the feeling,i have 3 more cabs than i have room for and i'm still looking for more.Well,only so many can fit in the house,but i have a shed and enclosed back porch i can fill lol.I just can never decide what to sell,so i keep them.
For lack of repair skills,you could trade 2 or 3 project cabs for one good working cab.This would help you lower your inventory and in my case, compound my problem haha.I am at my happiest when something is broken so i can dig into it.
Just a thought
 
Part 'em all out and burn the cabs.

Just be sure to take video and/or pics of the bonfire, as they will make for some excellent threads here on KLoV.

Good luck!
 
Sounds like you may be kind of compulsive. Think of it this way. Would you rather have great machines in your arcade, or junkie fixer machines? Given the limited space, you can only have so many. Might as well save up money by avoiding fixers, and use the cash you've saved on a couple really nice machines that you can be proud of.

Basically, don't buy a machine just because it is cheap. Create a list of machines you really want in your collection and focus only on getting those machines. Sell off everything you have that is not on this list. Keep maybe only one or two fixers that are on your must have list since you can't be fixing a ton of machines at one time anyways. Remember, these machines were produced in the thousands and can always be purchased again and probably in functional condition at a later date.
 
You need to find out what you have that is working and what is not. Then decide if any of the non working games are titles you feel you need to keep. Heck even look at the working ones and decide which are keepers and which are not. I once took a game to a repair man and I learned a really good lesson. If you can not fix a game yourself it can be expensive to have someone else do it. So before I considered buying a lot of games I decided I would have to learn to fix games. If I didn't I knew I would either own a lot of broken games. Which I think is kinda of pointless. Or I would spend a ton of cash to repair them. Sounds like you're in deep already. My best advice would be to decide which titles you would really like to keep. Determine a realistic value of your games and then sell of the extras.
 
Back
Top Bottom