Michael Thommason, who is certified as having the world’s largest collection of video games, is putting them up for sale. Meaning the buyer isn’t just getting a ton of games, they’re getting a title as well.
Guinness confirmed Thommason had 10,607 games last year, but he’s since picked up a few hundred more, so the winning bidder will be getting over 11,000 video games.
If you’re wondering about the condition the games are in, Thommason says “2600+” are “factory shrink-wrapped”, while “over 8,300” are complete with box and manual.
It’s taken over 25 years to collect all these games, so why sell them now?
I simply have an immediate family and extended family that have needs that need to be addressed. While I do not wish to part with these games, I have responsibilities that I have made to others and this action is how I will help meet them.
I’d say “come on man, stay strong”, but my family responsibilities involve occasionally losing the big TV to some Disney cartoon, not finding the space in a house to store 11,000 video games.
The World’s Largest Video Game Collection recognised by Guinness – 11,000+ Games [GameGavel, via Game Politics]
Comments
18 responses to “The World’s Largest Video Game Collection Is Up For Sale”
I always assumed the largest collection would be bigger than that. I’m 1/4 way there already, 1/3rd If steam counted (pretty sure it does not).
11,000 games? Multiple consoles?
Take them to EB for a trade in value of $30!
$36 If your level 4
I have some baaad memories of game trade in. Taught me to never sell old videogames hardware/software. It’s never financially worth it, and it’s hard as balls to get back again. I got my brother to trade in my GBC with like 7 games (I wasn’t old enough to do it myself) and he came back with $20. I felt like the mother in Jack and the Beanstalk. “You came back with BEANS??? Daisy was our only hope!”
I buy new release games, smash em out in a few weeks and resell them on ebay with a fractional loss. I’ve spent only about $300 since the start of the year on about 10 games becuase of reselling. I have kept 4 of the good ones as well
Yep pretty much pay $70 from nzgameshop.com then in a months time when I’m done (depending on the game) sell it for $60-$70 on TradeMe (ebay for NZ)
exactly this
Tell me about it. My son was intent on trading in a PS4 game (The Lego Movie game). He saved up 68 of his own money originally, bought it (price matched) and then wanted desperately to trade it in later for another game, Trials HD.
So, I took him over, got him to give them the game and he had this ‘dream’ they would do a straight up swap. The look of horror on my boys face when they told him they’d give him 22 dollars for it was telling enough. He wanted Trials HD enough, but he knew he was getting screwed. He got upset and we left the store.
I took him home, went and bought Trials HD online without him knowing and told him he could sell his copy of the Lego movie game to me for the same price as Trials HD + its season pass 😉 but we will keep the Lego game in our ‘joint game collection’ lol. He knows now you never get a good deal trading a game unless you sell it to a friend at least and his idea of trading in a game at a store has been stamped out and squashed by this experience.
An invaluable lesson.
My mum was in your position once but she didm’t know what was happening. An hour of 9 year old me trying to bargain the video store guy should have told her something was up. Anyway I ended up trading in about 7 games for Alien 3 on the SMS and $30 worth of rentals.
I almost still miss super hang-on…
You are an awesome parent dude. Let him experience just enough the hard way to get a real feeling without leaving him gutted for decades.
True story. Sold my Snes and all the mint games for $6 an item to cash convertors when I was very young in the mid nineties. That after paying $90 for games like DKC3 a few months before. To this day I am still distraught by it all. Can’t even replace the mint boxes if I had a million bucks.
Ah, Cash Converters those rogues!
I still remember selling our complete Atari 1040 ST system with monitor, expensive 3rd-party joysticks and dozens of games to them in the early 90s for about $70, only to walk into the display area afterwards to have a look around and being outraged because they were selling the lesser 520 model on its own (no monitor) for about $100.
I’ve never sold anything to them since.
How much does the collection cost?
The question you should be asking is “How much does the Title cost?”
That will cost more than the value of the games, I’m sure.
So does that mean you can actually buy GWR’s? Does the title transfer to whom owns the collection, or the one who collected it? It seems pretty cheap [actually incredibly costly] to be able to simply buy a record, much more effort was put into making the collection piece by piece.
You’re right, it does cheapen world records if they can be bought and sold.
I don’t know, but I’d like to think the act of collecting is what is note worthy, more so than the collection. That’s what takes the time, money and dedication, regardless of the composition of the items.
In which case a buyer might own the world record collection, but not the world record.
If You have to ask, you can’t afford it.
It’s an auction, current bid is $91,000 but the reserve price hasn’t been met.
I’m actually more curious to know how much really rare stuff he’s got amongst that. Nintendo World Championship for example because that would greatly increase the value of the collection.