Getting the Collection in Order

So I'm looking at some photos of the forum members retro gaming collection on the retro Gamer forums and I notice how most of them there have their extensive collections in a nice, manageable order. First off, let me say that while I do have a good number of games, my collection pales in comparison to the good folks at the retro gamer forums, and keep in mind, that's just their retro collections. I can only imagine what some photos of an entire collection would look like. Seeing those photos got me thinking about getting own game collection in order and it forced me to come to terms with a number of things.

I'm running low on shelf space. Back in 2002 I bought myself two wooden shelves. One was a brown medium sized shelf and the other was a long black shelf. While moving the brown shelf back at my old house, it feel apart (because my dad thought it would be fine to move it with all of the books still in it). Never got around to assembling it again because some of the screws were missing. My black shelf remained in tact and has kept most of my old games stored but there's not much room to put anything else on it. I knew I'd eventually have to get another shelf like it but I ended up filling it up much faster than I thought I would. Right now it's currently holding nearly all of my SNES games, all my NES games, all my Wii titles, my meager Saturn collection, my PS1 collection, my Dreamcast collection, the DS games, some boxed Genesis games, a few unopened Game Boy Color/Game Boy Advance games and my entire GameCube Collection. That's a lot of stuff for one shelf to hold and I'm not finished acquiring all the games I'd like for any of those systems.

Throwing away my N64 boxes is something I've come to regret. Yes, they took up space but I also knew what game was what. Now I have to pull out each game to find out what it is. Of course if Nintendo hadn't done away with end labels, I wouldn't be kicking myself for chucking my boxes. I'm trying to think of an alternative means to store my N64 games. I've even considered getting plastic cases and making up my own labels to put on the sides.

I've got over 40 Game Boy Advance games and for the last eight years I've been storing them in a mini Black Decker flip bin along with my classic Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. There's still games I want for all three incarnations of those Game Boy systems and that thing is already starting to fill out. It keeps my games nice and tidy but I still have to open it up because I can't clearly see each and every game. I'm a bit more stumped on what to do about this one since all Game Boy games were never made with end labels. Maybe I could get a put them in some plastic cases and display them on a turning rack or something.

The PS2 games are all in one spot on a DVD rack but like the rest of the games, there's still more PS2 titles I need to pick up. As of now, I'd say I have room for about 20 or more PS2 games on that rack before it's full and it's already housing nearly 80 games.

We have a lot of boxes that we've accumulated from moving and they've been great for storing controls that I'm not using but I'd like to upgrade to some plastic containers. That way I cannot only store the controls but my peripherals as well. I've already got my eyes on some controls that I saw when I went to Video Game Heaven so I know I'll be adding more to the lot. These big plastic containers will probably be good for storing game magazines as well. Yeah, I've taken up the magazines again and you'll hear about that in a future post.

Getting the game collection in order will cost me a bit more money and it may not be easy but I've always been passionate about my hobby. Like gaming itself, I'm sure organizing everything is sure to be a mix of fun and frustration.