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Comment by mentos | Hacker News Reader

Ha I had the same experience renting Xbox games from Blockbuster. Got to the point where I'd rent a stack of games, rip them to my modded Xbox in my car then return them to the drop bin to perplexed faces of employees inside who had just rung me up an hour earlier.

Don't think I played any of the games, for me the game was just amassing a library.

For what its worth I'm in game development now ha so maybe I've atoned for some of these 'crimes'

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Lol. My friend and I did the same with a local DVD vending machine. If you brought the disc back within a few hours the price was ridiculously low, so we had the laptop in the car with a cigarette adapter and ripped 700+ ISOs.

The irony is this was around 2002 to demo a video on demand over the Internet system to some execs at Microsoft. It was a really, really nice UI and nothing like it would be replicated for years, really until Netflix launched their own product.

The idea was summarily rejected as "people like having things on their shelves." A weird response because the same folks were paying me to destroy the CD market.

That's awesome, I've never heard of anyone ripping from their car.

It's interesting that you were collecting for the sake of collection and not gaming. It reminds me of people that go full tilt building PC gaming rigs, but never actually play anything.

I think this is a fascinating effect seen in almost any hobby. I wonder if there is a word for these sort of sub-hobbies or pre-hobbies. I think you can find it's parallels in cars, aquariums, 3d printers, wood working, etc.

"I think you can find it's parallels in cars, aquariums, 3d printers, wood working, etc."

Subtly closes the garage door

nuh uh

> wonder if there is a word for these sort of sub-hobbies or pre-hobbies

In photography circles, we would call this GAS - Gear Acquisition Syndrome - when people buy a lot of gear and gadgets but hardly use them.

In musician circles too.

Quite a lot of musical instruments are beautiful objects that you could display. While you could display electronic test equipment, even geeks usually don't.

There are a lot of rack shots on the Unifi subreddit.

I once owned a dozen synths but only ever played a specific one. At least I got rid of all but that one.

Electronics people use this term for collecting Test Equipment as well. Amusingly, on the EEVBlog forums, one of the largest and most active threads of all is the "Test Equipment Anonymous - Group Therapy Thread" which nominally exists to support those suffering from severe GAS.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonym...

Cyclists too, are notorious for frequently pointing out that the correct number of bicycles to own is always n+1, where n is equal to however many you currently own. :-)

Thankfully, n+1 is much cheaper as a runner than as a cyclist.

n + 1 feet?

This is called Guitar Acquisition Syndrome in guitar culture. :-)

Completionist

Some people get addicted to the tools of a hobby and not the hobby itself. Sometimes thinking they need the best of the best in order to produce the best.

I remember getting together with a high school friend when we were in our 20s and he talked about the massive amounts of pirated software he’d downloaded (over dial-up internet, no less), none of which he’d ever used.

On the gaming rig thing, I had a co-worker once who spent a lot of time buying and modding mid-level electric guitars. He was not really a player, he just liked doing the electronics work and being able to accept that was one of my milestones towards maturity.

The older we get, the more we and my friends tend to this nowadays. Downloading everything, legal or illegal, just "in case of" as we did our whole life, but don't have any time nor will to play anything anymore.

Size of Rom collection: 10k+

Of which have meticulously hand-picked artwork: 10k+

Of which actually played: 10

You're touching on something I've always been fascinated about...the game being the collection and building of the library itself. I suppose it's not that different from any other hobby centered around collectibles and yet with media, especially digital media, it always felt a bit different. I'm not sure why.

I think Leo Laporte once said something along the lines of some people are tool people and other people are doing people. Some like to obsess over the tools, some just want to get work done.

I saw another similar quote about amassing knowledge is pointless if you don't actually do something with it.

I think life is too complex to know if we use amassed knowledge enough. Or I tell myself that to feel better.

I’m always amused at how home cooks all have the meme $300 knives, then you see a pro chef explain their gear and it’s a $30 knife with plastic handle.

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