Will comic collecting end with our generation?

[chromium]

The boy in the video does have a very nice collection for someone his age, but it's important to note that he's the son of comic-creator Simon Bisley... so there might be some "influence" there.

 

Having said that, I have quite a few subscribers on my Youtube channel and get about 50 to 100 questions or comments a week. The majority of those are from kids younger than 18.

 

I thought most questions would be about value or people telling me they have a Spawn #1 worth kazillions. Lots of questions about how to store comics, how to take care of them, what Mylar is and where to get them etc...Which comic dealers I would recommend for back issues etc...

 

So from my experience there is (limited) intrest from the younger generation, but they seem to be missing direction and information

[Boboset]

Video games have been highly collectable for some time now. This is nothing new. Every kid for the most part plays with toys and that has a strong collectable market as well. I don't think anything is going to overtake anything. Each market will have it's collectors.

[fantastic_four]

The gaming industry may eventually convert to 100% digital distribution; what we're going to be seeing in the near future is the start of that transition. Most likely, the majority of games will be offered both in digital form, and as physical media. When this happens, the segment of the market interested only in playing will get their stuff digitally; this means that fewer copies of games that come out during this transition towards digital distribution will be manufactured overall.

 

Doesn't this create an extremely similar hobby-ending timeline for video games that the inevitable transition away from monthly floppies does for comics?

[fantastic_four]

the comicbook was the object of the collector, to have them all, of a character or title. But having all the games feels to me more like being able to play them all. I know that sounds like Read them all, so maybe I just dont get it.

 

The most likely reason we don't get it is that collecting video games wasn't popular when you were impressionably young, whereas collecting comic books was.

 

However, there is something else to it--there really is more disconnect between the box and the game, with the drawn art on the box often bearing little or no resemblance to the experience of playing that pixel-drawn, dynamically interactive game, whereas the front cover of a comic is generally the single most attractive piece of art that a comic has to offer.

 

Still, if you do like both comics and video games but don't get why people collect video games, try mentally removing the fun of the hunt in reading and/or collecting comics completely from your life and replace it solely with playing video games. Between play...what will you do? If you're just nuts about games, collecting the boxes does make some sense. It's not completely different than collecting comics in slabs but never opening them. The disconnect of the box from the game does make it far less appealling than collecting comics...but if I wasn't already collecting comics...I could see myself collecting video games.

[fantastic_four]

If we are lucky a few printed comics will survive hundreds of years and become the Mona Lisas and the Statue of Davids of the few in the future that appreciate the art regardless of the relevance of medium it is presented upon.

 

The ones that will are the ones who started in comics but transcended the medium to thrive in new formats--television, movies, video games. The thing to ask yourself is who started in video games that transcend THAT medium to survive in new ones? Those are the games that will be worth something...

 

I don't follow video game prices at all...does price completely follow rarity for now, or are some of the price leaders due to popularity? In other words, in comics, Action 1 and Detective 27 are the top dogs not just because they're rare, but because their characters have survived the ages and transcended the comic book medium. Are there transcendent video games worth a lot because they're both rare and popular? The value of video games like Stadium Events don't seem to me as if they'll continue to thrive merely due to rarity--it's like Honus Wagner, but 10x lamer, because at least Wagner was somewhat popular in his long-ago time, but Stadium Events really wasn't.

[Theagenes]

If we are lucky a few printed comics will survive hundreds of years and become the Mona Lisas and the Statue of Davids of the few in the future that appreciate the art regardless of the relevance of medium it is presented upon.

 

The ones that will are the ones who started in comics but transcended the medium to thrive in new formats--television, movies, video games. The thing to ask yourself is who started in video games that transcend THAT medium to survive in new ones? Those are the games that will be worth something...

 

I don't follow video game prices at all...does price completely follow rarity for now, or are some of the price leaders due to popularity? In other words, in comics, Action 1 and Detective 27 are the top dogs not just because they're rare, but because their characters have survived the ages and transcended the comic book medium. Are there transcendent video games worth a lot because they're both rare and popular? The value of video games like Stadium Events don't seem to me as if they'll continue to thrive merely due to rarity--it's like Honus Wagner, but 10x lamer, because at least Wagner was somewhat popular in his long-ago time, but Stadium Events really wasn't.

 

Video games and characters that have trancended the medium? Mario, Lara Croft, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Resident Evil?

 

Here is a list of movies based on video games:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_games

[fantastic_four]

Video games and characters that have trancended the medium? Mario, Lara Croft, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Resident Evil?

 

Here is a list of movies based on video games:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_games

 

So you're saying that sealed boxes of Mario, Lara Croft, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and Resident Evil are worth a lot due to their popularity? I didn't think that was the case...

[VintageComics]

The boy in the video does have a very nice collection for someone his age, but it's important to note that he's the son of comic-creator Simon Bisley... so there might be some "influence" there.

 

Having said that, I have quite a few subscribers on my Youtube channel and get about 50 to 100 questions or comments a week. The majority of those are from kids younger than 18.

 

I thought most questions would be about value or people telling me they have a Spawn #1 worth kazillions. Lots of questions about how to store comics, how to take care of them, what Mylar is and where to get them etc...Which comic dealers I would recommend for back issues etc...

 

So from my experience there is (limited) intrest from the younger generation, but they seem to be missing direction and information

 

Chrome, it'd be interesting to ask where these young collectors are from? Are they from Europe?

[joe_collector]

[you stopped collecting 20 years ago, hating moderns and all.

 

Huh? I stopped buying Moderns around 1992, but I've never stopped collecting. Why pay money to have Modern hacks produce tired retcon after revamp, all while raising cover prices into the stratosphere?

 

If buying Moderns was a requirement to be a collector, then the membership here would be cut down by 95%.

[joe_collector]

i do not know about the rest of you but when i want to play video games read comics from my youth i just fire up bit torrent and go wild.

 

It's strange that you seem to think there is a difference. Anyone can get virtually anything digital these days, but collectors will still want the real thing.

 

 

[joe_collector]

Whenever this topic comes up, people talk as if video games are not currently being collected in any significant way.

 

No one is saying it's not a viable hobby right now, but it has yet to "pop", and will only get bigger as the years go by. Every kid in the late-90's to 2000's+ has/had a big stack of cart games, just like I had a big stack of comics - and these didn't all get put away, still pristine, in bags or boxes, these were PLAYED/READ.

[joe_collector]

The most likely reason we don't get it is that collecting video games wasn't popular when you were impressionably young, whereas collecting comic books was.

 

It's actually the opposite, and I hope you were trying to say:

 

The most likely reason we don't get it is that PLAYING video games wasn't popular when you were impressionably young, whereas READING comic books was.

[fantastic_four]

The most likely reason we don't get it is that collecting video games wasn't popular when you were impressionably young, whereas collecting comic books was.

 

It's actually the opposite, and I hope you were trying to say:

 

The most likely reason we don't get it is that PLAYING video games wasn't popular when you were impressionably young, whereas READING comic books was.

 

I've been playing video games since I was 4 or 5 (I'm 39 now), so I said what I meant. I've been playing since an impressionable age, but collecting wasn't at all popular then, at least as far as I noticed. I have no idea when video game collecting became popular, when was it?

[Ogami]

I think I'm finally coming to peace with the gradual decline of my favorite hobby.

 

Not the death.

 

The gradual decline.

 

There are guys just one board over trading two thousand year old bits of metal.

 

I think I'm going to be okay.

 

 

 

Between American power, comic books and Christianity waning in the West, this is going to be an odd upcoming five decades for me.

[joe_collector]

I've been playing video games since I was 4 or 5 (I'm 39 now), so I said what I meant.

 

I highly doubt that, as the first mass market home gaming system was the Atari VCS/2600. and I count that as the Action #1/GA of video CART game collecting.

[Bronty]

Video games and characters that have trancended the medium? Mario, Lara Croft, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, Resident Evil?

 

Here is a list of movies based on video games:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_games

 

So you're saying that sealed boxes of Mario, Lara Croft, Final Fantasy, Pokemon, and Resident Evil are worth a lot due to their popularity? I didn't think that was the case...

 

both effects exist - a game can be worth a lot due to either popularity or rarity or of course a combination of both.

 

Is there a more common game in the world than super mario bros? yet sealed copies are regularly $500-$1000 and I'm sure a really outstanding example would get more (haven't seen one in that kind of condition for a good long while though).

 

over time the games that have gone up a lot are A) the big franchises like mario, final fantasy and to a lesser extent resident evil and pokemon or B) the extremely rare ('just rare' hasn't been enough).

 

In the case of A) though you need the condition to be either sealed or mint opened for it to be worth anything because of the huge supply of opened/used copies. In the case of B) condition is less important.

 

As for lara croft, I wouldn't put her in the same category. Just because there's a movie out and you got a boner watching angelina jolie doesn't mean anyone's cared about tomb raider in 10+ years.

 

I'm not so sure transcending the medium is strictly necessary either. There are a boatload of valuable comices where you can't really say the character has transcended the medium.

[Ogami]

I've been playing video games since I was 4 or 5 (I'm 39 now), so I said what I meant.

 

I highly doubt that, as the first mass market home gaming system was the Atari VCS/2600. and I count that as the Action #1/GA of video CART game collecting.

 

He misrembered his age, but he's not wrong.

 

I'm 37 and had the system you are arguing over.

[VintageComics]

I think I'm finally coming to peace with the gradual decline of my favorite hobby.

 

Not the death.

 

The gradual decline.

 

There are guys just one board over trading two thousand year old bits of metal.

 

I think I'm going to be okay.

 

 

 

Between American power, comic books and Christianity waning in the West, this is going to be an odd upcoming five decades for me.

 

 

Oh man, you just made my day!

[joe_collector]

I've been playing video games since I was 4 or 5 (I'm 39 now), so I said what I meant.

 

I highly doubt that, as the first mass market home gaming system was the Atari VCS/2600. and I count that as the Action #1/GA of video CART game collecting.

 

He misrembered his age, but he's not wrong.

 

Since I was contesting his "I was 4 or 5" age, your comment is quite a mind bender.

[fantastic_four]

I highly doubt that, as the first mass market home gaming system was the Atari VCS/2600. and I count that as the Action #1/GA of video CART game collecting.

 

I was playing this weird Sears Pong-only system before Atari came out.