I think it’s in the nature of anyone who plays video games to be a bit of a pack-rat when it comes to the games they own. Perhaps it’s the nostalgic connection you have to these games? That must be it. You never hear about people selling their car and wishing they hadn’t, because they get a new car! Or selling their house, because they’re starting a new chapter in their life! Or selling their DVD collection, because now they buy Blu-Rays! But something about selling consoles and certainly games is tough for me to do.

I bought my 3DS last August and sold a lot of my older games to pay for it. Why? I have no idea, honestly. Maybe it was to justify the impulsive buy, but it’s not like I couldn’t afford the $140 or so on a used OG console and Majora’s Mask 3D. I make a good enough living that I can go out and just buy video games whenever and it has little to no effect whatsoever in my finances. So I parted with a few titles, and a few accessories for consoles I thought I’d no longer play, thinking I could make a few bucks.

In the past few months, I’ve been supplementing my 3DS gaming with knocking out a few games from my backlog. And now more than ever, I’m wishing I hadn’t sold those games. Every time I walk into GameStop and see walls and walls of pre-owned games (sometimes selling for more than a new copy), I wonder, “who is selling all of their games to GameStop for almost no money? Is it worth losing the physical copy of several awesome games, to save a few bucks on a new game?”

Most of the games I had sold were from Playstation 2, and at least I had the foresight to hold on to ones I might want to get into again, or that I had a connection to. Final Fantasy X, Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance, Champions of Norrath, Red Faction; the ones I really enjoyed growing up. I had no intentions to part with those. Although my PS2 has been broken for years, I knew to hang on to them.

A couple games stand out in my mind as ones I wish I could get back:

1. Super Mario Sunshine: I absolutely love Mario games of all types, but this one always frustrated the bejeezus out of me. It actually made me rage-quit more times than I’d like to admit, but every time a new speedrun video or something relevant comes out, I want to give it another shot. Well, now I can’t!
2. Pikmin: Somehow this game never made much sense to me. The general premise, I love. I think the effect it had on me is similar to what happens when you fail at something over and over – you end up hating it because it screws you so much. I never gave this one an honest shot at completion, and now that Pikmin 2 is on Nintendo Selects for $20, I’m considering maybe giving it another shot.
3. Onimusha Warlords: I plan on doing a write-up on how I came to acquire this game, so for now let’s just say that I had a great time with it, when I went into it completely blind. Ninjas, half-zombie-half-samauri dudes with huge swords, blasting lightning out of my sword. Woo-boy! It was essentially a re-skinned Resident Evil but with a hint of samauri and bad voice overs, and it was just perfect. Great game that was very satisfying to play.
4. Dark Cloud 2: This is the only one on here that I sold after the 3DS purchase, on eBay. This was an impulse sell once I learned the value of it, which earned me about $45 after eBay tax. I loved Dark Cloud but never got too far into DC2, and I swear, it pops up in conversation, online and otherwise, at least once a week. The $45 just wasn’t worth it in hindsight. I probably bought Pez and a Hustler or two, and I still blame Sony for letting their hardware break after only 2 years of owning it.

The moral of the story? Whether the game is popular and timeless, or old and you’re done with it, for the love of god, unless you’re about to be evicted… hold on to your old games. In this increasingly digital age, the worst thing is that you don’t actually have any physical ownership of your new games. In 20 years, all the games you got on Steam will be meaningless – you might not be able to take a walk through memory lane.

So do what I did – and put them on shelf! Make a sweet display of great gaming days gone by. You’ll look at it like I do, and you’ll be glad you held on to those memories.