You could say the same about arts, mangas or Pez dispensers. Having owned and sold a large Super Famicom and vinyl collection I can definitely say that collecting is (was) way more fun than owning.

Do art, manga and Pez collectors pay almost six figures for beat up junk? For stuff that isn't even readily identifiable? For context, these carts have previously sold for between $10K and $20K. In much better condition too.

The only conclusion I can come to is that rabid video game collectors are a special kind of stupid.

I wouldn't call collectors who act out of irrationality stupid since you have to look at the motivation behind a deal situationally — I'd just say it's on the edge of being an unethical waste of money.

> I wouldn't call collectors who act out of irrationality stupid since you have to look at the motivation behind a deal situationally — I'd just say it's on the edge of being an unethical waste of money.

Unethical? Huh? Ethics is concerned with morality; with right and wrong. There's nothing inherently wrong about paying large sums of money for beat-up bits of electronics. It's just plain ol' stupid.

One good reason might be if you think the value is going to increase beyond what you paid for it, like people paying whatever mad amount for bitcoins.

I think people who spend huge amounts on diamonds are stupid, but everyone has their reasons.

There are loads of ethical systems that condemn wastefulness of money; the US has had at various points at least a plurality, if not a majority of people ascribe to moral systems derived from puritanism, so at least in the US, it is unsurprising to hear someone saying that wasting money is unethical.

Do you think? Films are only 100 years old and collecting film memorabilia has been popular for some time.

Is it not conceivable that video games might be collected in the same way in 60 or 70 years time?

Young people starting to collect now might rationalising their purchases as a bet that the value of such things will skyrocket by the end of their lifetime. I don't think that's such a crazy bet.

> Is it not conceivable that video games might be collected in the same way in 60 or 70 years time?

I'm not arguing against collecting games. I'm saying that paying (almost) six figures for a cart that historically sells for about five times less, a cart that can't even be readily identified, is dumb.

>"cart that can't even be readily identified"

The cart can be identified by the switches on the front, also since only 90 cart were produced (and gave away, you couldn't even buy one) makes it collecting value fairly high.

One can disagree about the irrationality of a collector with money, but I wouldn't call stupid something that I don't understand, it's rude and potentially incorrect.

> One can disagree about the irrationality of a collector with money, but I wouldn't call stupid something that I don't understand, it's rude and potentially incorrect.

I'm not arguing from a position of ignorance. I've been collecting NES games for close to 20 years. I think I know what's what. But don't take my word for it; see for yourself what the NES collecting community makes of this auction:

http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=3&threadi...