Gallery: Entering Hoard Mode: The Love and Lust of Game Collecting
01entering-hoard-mode-chris-kohler
Writer Chris Kohler with the loves of his life. *Photo: Cody Pickens*
CODY PICKENS02rarest-virtual-boy-games
Nintendo's Virtual Boy was an early experiment with stereoscopic 3-D visuals -- one that the company abruptly gave up on less than a year after it launched the unloved machine. The final four games released for Virtual Boy in Japan shipped in absurdly low numbers, and are thus in extremely high demand among collectors of oddities. Clockwise from top left: *Space Invaders Virtual Collection*, *Virtual Bowling*, *SD Gundam Dimension War* and *Virtual Lab*. *Photo: Cody Pickens*
CODY PICKENS03panzer-dragoon-saga-2
My copy of *Panzer Dragoon Saga*, which I bought in an Electronics Boutique for about $40 brand new. As one of the final releases for the ill-fated Sega Saturn, and an excellent role-playing game, both collectors and players want this four-disc game and are willing to pay upwards of $300 for it today. *Photo: Cody Pickens*
CODY PICKENS04gold-punch-out
Before *Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!*, there was this Japanese release, which was only given away as a prize in a contest run by Nintendo. I, ah, might have overpaid for this, but I just love *Punch-Out!!* and had to have it. *Photo: Cody Pickens*
CODY PICKENS05cd-i-zelda-games
Nintendo is extremely protective of its popular franchises. One rare slip-up that it made was to allow the electronics maker Phillips to create games based on *The Legend of Zelda* for CD-i, an early compact disc-based game console. They were terrible, but *Zelda* fans want them in their collections anyway. *Photo: Cody Pickens*
CODY PICKENS06final-fight-guy
*Final Fight Guy* was not sold in stores; it was exclusively offered as a rental through Blockbuster Video. When the chain sold off their old stock, this made it out into the world. Finding one with the box and manual, as shown here, is extremely tricky since they were often damaged, destroyed or thrown away. *Photo: Cody Pickens*
CODY PICKENS07earthbound
A charming, cute and humorous role-playing game, *Earthbound* came in an oversized box (it included a strategy guide to help players through its weird world). A low print run and an expansive cult following makes this extremely valuable today. Although Nintendo has released many of its classic titles as downloadable content for Wii, it has skipped this one. Should it ever re-release *Earthbound* as a download, the price of the original will plummet from the dizzying heights it currently enjoys. *Photo: Cody Pickens*
