Yeah, I'm still around but I stalled my collection and I don't think I'll ever go back to the craze of buying so much stuff like before. Every new release has at least a super expensive edition. Plenty of small companies started to release limited prints of indie games that are impossible to keep up since there are so many nowadays. Companies like Square Enix are releasing super expensive editions that are hardly worth getting for the abnormally inflated prices. We're talking about poor content or small and incomplete items in an ultra big box that make it look like an awesome edition and then sell it for 150, 200... even more than that. And a big chunk of those still sell out real fast. Yet, they are easily rivaled in quality and contents by other editions previously released over the years that would cost less than 100. The only thing going for them is the low numbers, but low numbers are not big reason enough for me to drop big bucks on something I don't feel it's worth it.
I know that things have been like this for quite a while, even when I was still a sucker for these editions and bought many of them, but now it's already over the edge.. I've bought stuff before that I didn't think it was worth it... just not for triple digits. In fact, I do have a few things I regret buying in my collection but most of them came cheap. And I've reached my point of rupture, which I've been dragging along for a few years due to my obsession with collecting all the missable stuff.
So I got tired of all that sh!t and finally got over it. Once I got freed from the streak of buying so much stuff and learned how to miss rare items, it became much, much easier to skip almost any game or edition unless I truly wanted it. I felt relieved in a way. I went back to the good old days before I became such a hardcore collector, when I would just buy the things I truly liked the most in order to fully enjoy them instead of just getting them to satisfy my fetish. I probably should have started doing this a long time ago. When I look back, I can clearly see I took things way too far but hey, I had fun doing it so it's not like I regret or consider it a mistake.
However, there's this one thing I still couldn't get over with, the thing that I truly regret. Something that I did during my crazy moments as a collector: Kickstarter. Oh boy, do I regret ever supporting a Kickstarter project?
I was blinded by the goodies and exclusive offers that only backers had access to if they supported a project. I was so obsessed with my videogame collection that I was afraid to miss on the only chance I had to get some exclusive items, even if they came from crowdfunds. Now I see this was nothing but pure ignorance and lack of self control. If only I had placed reason above my passion... people make mistakes, they learn, they move on. Even in less important things like buying videogames.
Out of all the kickstarter projects I've backed, only one was materialized. The others resulted in nothing even thought they were all successfully funded.
I hesitated a lot when financing MuvLuv Collector's Edition, but at the very last moment I've decided to back for the Vita Physical Collector's Edition. After waiting for an eternity for the game to get a release date and constantly dealing with recent rumors of cancellation, I now learn that an edition for this game is on preorder for a much, much lower price than the original backer kit I've selected. Not only that, but the game gets a PAL version rated by PEGI, shipped from within Europe. This means there's an official PAL rating version of this game now, and the best I can expect is a delayed ESRB rated version subject to crazy custom taxes that will arrive much later than the one non-backers will buy.
This means people who didn't back up sh!t will get a physical edition much, much cheaper, and also much faster. So where does that leave me at? As a backer, someone who helped making the game possible outside of Japan, it certainly doesn't leave me happy. I might sound selfish, but I just can't ignore the fact that this is truly unfair. I'm fine with other people getting the game, but I'm not fine with knowing I was one of the backers who helped this project but end up burned. If I just had enough patience, I would have ended up buying the edition now and get it faster without going through a lot of sh!t for a few years, but who would have guessed?
Moral of the story: no more kickstarter or crowdfunds for me. There's no benefit.
