The Collector's Quest

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.

The nicest sticker-sealed SMB, the earliest SMB prototype, and the grand prize Nintendo World Championships all recently sold or are for sale right now! Also there's a new Neo Geo thing we have to talk about to rage bait.

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...

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.