Gamer’s Paradise

As I type this, I can’t help but glance around my room. It truly is a geek gamers little paradise. I’ve been collecting game merchandise for many years and hope to continue this little hobby of mine. The last piece of gaming merchandise I purchased was a Sack Boy figure and he cost me £7.99, which I believed to be a bargain from GAME. Sadly though, I have noticed how expensive this hobby is becoming.  Over the past few years prices for official merchandise have been going up rather a lot. I guess now that gaming has become one of the worlds biggest past times, companies are charging more for top notch items. The shop I’ve noticed this happening in the most is my local Forbidden Planet. I’m shocked at how much Final Fantasy figures have shot up by, the latest Final Fantasy characters going for £35 each!

I’ve been lucky when it comes to merchandise; I tend to shop around for a good bargain. I managed to get all my Final Fantasy VIII characters for £1.99 each from a place called Home Bargains! Others are from places like TKMaxx, GAME, Gamestation and even charity shops. I refuse to buy anything game-wise from places like Forbidden Planet now, unless I really do need it and can’t find it cheaper elsewhere. It just doesn’t seem fair that shops should be allowed to charge such disgusting prices for a product that will probably remain sealed and never touched. I guess they charge this much either due to imports, or because they think gamers are made of money! Tis an expensive habit and one my family has called me over, saying I’m best using that money for shoes, clothes or makeup. Very few people understand that these are works of art, not toys as most claim they are!

But why do we buy such things? Do they make our lives better? More sociable? I do believe they do. The amount of friends I’ve made when it comes to a figure or a guide is astounding. Over the years we’ve come to envy the items friends own over us, and vice versa. We show off gaming merchandise like a painter does with paintings or a car collector with his vehicles. Just because it’s a figure or a book, doesn’t mean it’s not a collectors item. People gather different and more unusual things, each more expensive or odd then the last. In years to come I hope my collection will have grown more and may be worth something. The bigger, and more important question is, will I sell any of it? And in all honesty I doubt I will.