The Collector's Quest

The code in a box era is upon us and soon the set of video games possible to collect will be complete.

An episode where we say a bunch of rare and expensive games we don't own simply aren't good enough for us to own.

Due to circumstances of fate, Johnny has to narrow his collection down to only his 100 best games.

In a breezy 3 hours, Tyler and Johnny discuss if there were no money or space constraints and Tyler could only own 100 video games in his collection, which video games he would choose.

We are talking about the olden days of the DigitPress rarity guide and the whether Atari R10s (the rarest games on the scale) still matter in today's collecting world.

Is Resident Evil having a moment? Maybe? Kind of? Is Resident Evil always having a moment? We're talking about collecting RE games.

We're back! We're talking about what it's like shopping for games in Japan and news we missed like $275,000 manga sales and ridiculously perfect NES Punch Out prototype.

We're talking about a bunch of weird game-adjacent NES stuff, and it's only for the real ones. You know who you are. This episode is (not really) sponsored by Jeffrey Wittenhagen's book NES Oddities, which is a fun book that goes over a lot of this.

Johnny wants to talk about set collecting in 2026, so here we are. We're talk a bit about what sets you guys are collecting these days.

It's a shocker, I know, but me and Johnny will be collecting physical video games even though another year has passed. We're discussing the game collecting hits from 2025 and looking at the future.

We do our customary opening complaining about fantasy non-authors GRRM and Pat Rothfuss, followed by Johnny interviewing Tyler for a date or a job, I'm not sure which.

AUDIO QUALITY: Note this episode has subpar audio quality due to a recording issue. It's still might be fine for your car speakers on your holiday drive. To make up for this I released a CQAD episode publicly as well. Sorry, we didn't have time to re-record due to the holidays! This episode goes over psychological effects affecting collectors, straight from the renowned and widely read video game collecting textbook "Collectible Investments for the High Net Worth Investor".

It's the drive home from Thanksgiving and you're looking for a podcast. Are you going to put on an episode of Collectors Quest or what? It's the holiday gifts of 2025.

Concord is the new Stadium Events. Well, it's either that or Concord is the new Battlecruiser 3000 A.D. We're looking at interesting flops from different eras and whether they're even worth remembering.

Finally, we talk about Splatterhouse 2 or whatever and how CIB Genesis prices have been flat for 5 years.

Johnny has specific criteria for what counts as a Halloween game. We're collecting them all and desperately digging for an interesting variant any of them has. Also finally: The CQ review of The Magic of Scheherazade.

We're talking about "collecting spread" as Johnny says, or how many different things you collect. It's only possible to play so many games, and even only possible to know about a fraction of all the games ever made. We're discussing the benefits of specializing vs. collecting everything.

We're talking about franchises and genres that fell off, or whether they fell off. Contra is a classic that really isn't in the public consciousness anymore. Baldur's Gate was 90s nostalgia until it came back in a big way. 2D shooters used to be one of the most collectible video game genres until... they weren't.

We're talking everything we regret from starting this insane rabbit hole of a hobby instead of doing something productive with our lives to collecting Xbox. Because you know, I should've collected PS2 instead of Xbox.

We're talking what the 10 most expensive games will be two decades from now. 20 years ago people threw out games like Air Raid and Elemental Gearbolt Assassin's Case, which ended up being very wrong. So we're responding to Cheat Code Weekly and making our own predictions.

We're talking about video games... with lenticular covers and inserts. Johnny likes this stuff. Maybe you'll learn about an affordable N64 variant though!

So you want to collect PC? Well, not really. We're giving our thoughts and overview of different eras of PC collecting from 1970s Japanese computers to the underrated early 2000s small box era.

Talking about some random cheap tat that comes with games. Mostly pre-order bonuses, but also some Atari stuff to maintain Tyler's interest in cheap tat.

We're talking about Nintendo's console launches and the collectible future of different types of Switch 2 games.

We play devil's advocate and make the bear case for physical video games as a collectible category. Also a lot of discussion about whether Spider-man will be relevant in 500 years.

So you want to collect iam8bit. Wait, what? Yes.

CQ 271 - Is your "CIB" good enough? by Johnny & Tyler

CQ 270 - It's time to fix your collection: Spring Cleaning by Johnny & Tyler

Finally, an episode where we can talk about Beyond Shadowgate, the second best Bomberman game, and $700 Neutopia games no one really cares about.

Two old men enumerate why collecting modern games is generally less interesting and see if it's just a nostalgia thing or the olden days really were the golden days.

We're looking at the most expensive, rarest collectible Xbox 360 games and determining if any of this stuff is worth our time in a sea of junky collectors editions.

We're talking about the best versions of games and other collecting dilemmas. Do you get the rare variant or the early variant? American or Japanese? Busted original version vs. remake with all the DLC? Nicer condition or better variant?

We're talking about every single modern game that costs $200+ (that isn't some weird release or special edition) and coming to the conclusion that not only is collecting modern games affordable, but you don't even want the games that cost this much.

Johnny takes us on a journey of collecting the "most 1980s" games, meaning games that embody pop culture of the decade like Knight Rider, Tron, and Smurfs.

We're recapping the price trends, interest trends, big sales, and how we collected in 2024. Grab the aux cable because this is 3 hours of pure, unfiltered hobby entertainment you can subject your family to while you're driving up to grandma's for Christmas in Delaware This is a complete re-upload to fix a Spotify issue. If your episode shows as 3:41:42, you already have the right file.

This podcast should be 3:41:42. If it’s 3:42:01, the last hour is out of sync and your app has an out of date file. As far as I know, only Spotify was affected. I’m keeping this file up in case you have the correct file and you’re mid episode.

We're looking a physical indie releases from 2004-2019 to find obscure, underappreciated, and usually very cheap releases of some of the most popular games.

We enter the world of gifts for gamer blog posts to discuss how terrible the affiliate link spam has become. It is maybe impossible to find genuine recommendations for gifts anymore.

An episode where we discuss common game collecting topics in general without much focus similar to CQ After Dark. Johnny wanted to call this "Tyler Talk" but I think everyone would skip an episode named Tyler Talk.

We're talking the KEY horror and Halloween games from the early days, from interesting survival horror games, to stupid the stupid obscure first appearances of Frankenstein...'s monster.

We are discussing Johnny's objective* system for separating Halloween games from horror from dark fantasy to determine the official subset of NES Halloween games.

There are a handful of Stephen King games from proto-ebooks to the official Worst Adventure Game Ever Made. They're probably from his books you haven't read for some reason.

We're talking about games you can devote years to without ever becoming the best, which is largely esports games but also chess and mahjong?

We are clicking the drop down menu and selecting Sort By Highest Price and looking at recent sealed market and Ebay sales and discussing what's on top right now.

(Reupload to fix the last 4 minutes). We're talking about budget labels like Players Choice, Greatest Hits, and Platinum Hits, which ones we find interesting, which ones are expensive, and whether any of this junk is really worth collecting.

A long episode about collecting a beloved, okay video game console.

It's CQ Shark Week. That time of year we talk about the electromechanical gun game from Jaws that once sold for $15,000 and Shark! Shark! on Intellivision which once sold for as high as $15.

It's one of those episodes where we're going to talk about the merits of the View-Master Interactive Vision, HTC Dream cell phone, and that Oregon Trail handheld thing, if those have any merits at all.

cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges cartridges

EVERY Pokemon game. The Windows computer games, the Sega Pico Beena games, the Pokemon Mini games. But yeah, mostly the mainline handheld games that people actually care about.