Inside the mind of a collector: Gary Leeds

I don't know if you have looked at the Games Played Leaderboard lately... but there are some people sitting on top of that list with quite a few games under their belt. Turns out most of these individuals are hard core collectors... I was curious about who they were, so I sent out a quick interview...  Cold Justice, cc99999 x3h,  Gary Leeds, and s1u5h13 answered the call!

Here is the man, the myth, the legend, Gary Leeds:

1. When did you start collecting the what got you into it?
Well I will give 2 answers here, I guess I started collecting games as such in about 1983 when I got a Vic-20. I went out of my way as a 12-13 year old to try to get every game released for it, saving money and getting games that were sold from someones front room with the photocopied inlays (no, not copies, but the old low produced home written software, walking for miles each weekend to my local computer game stockists seeing if they had anything new in, even trying the odd junk shop to see if they got anything I hadn't. Sadly I sold my Vic-20 collection when I upgraded to a C128 and in the last 10 years regretted it. I had tapes of stuff nobody has archived off for emulation that are now long gone.

For the 360 its been about 18 months now. As for what got me into it, well I bought 3 360 games off eBay for about $15, the burger king games, to go with my fairly healthy at the time collection of PAL games. Of course they didn't work on my PAL set up, but they did work on my original XBOX (which I have modded to use as an emulation station, the side effects of which means it plays any region game) and thought they were not bad so set about getting a US 360, which after import and postage cost about $500, then came finding that the Americans had games not out in the UK so started importing them, and then thought why not complete the set and get a JAP 360, which I did around Christmas last year. Funny enough the JAP 360 was the one I had to travel least for, the seller on eBay was about 2 miles away from me and it cost me less for a premium JAP console than my Premium UK one. Also the Total Games Played Leaderboard on 360voice pushed me to buy titles I never would have just to get my numbers up.

2. Out of all the systems you have collected for which was the most fun?
Well the 360 has been the most expensive that's for sure. Probably the most fun was trying to get a collection of Commodore computers from the Vic 20 onwards. They had loads of prototypes never officially released but some escaped when they went bust. You try tracking down a C65 prototype, not a hope in hell. I have traveled quite a way to get some rate Commodore gear so I would say that was the most fun (and the challenge still goes on)

3. What are some of the unique challenges collecting for the 360?
Two words, multi regions. How can it be that the same game released in the Asia regions (so only playing on the JAP 360) can have 2 different game titles? Well Everyparty does. Or Saints Row, that can appear 3 times on your GS but only twice on the 360voice blog (US/PAL & JAP Versions are called "Saints Row" so only appear once on 360voice and the German one is called "Saints Row BRD"). Anyone who wants the set will end up buying the wrong version at some point. What would be nice is if there was some way of accessing every game ID Microsoft have allocated along with the game title associated with it.

4. What keeps you going?
Well as you all know, I'm never going to be the worlds greatest gamer but I do like to leave a mark for the right reasons in peoples mind. So I am the "git with all the games" :) Also since cc99999 has pushed for the top spot that has forced me to go out and get virtually everything available. Without him I could have saved about $3000 and still been top.

5. Out of every game in your collection pick the one you are most proud of?
I can't really pick one, but there are 3 that I'm proud to have, Saints Row BRD, The Darkness (German) and Conan NG. Why? because cc99999 doesn't have them :) But as its a friendly rivalry between me and him I will help him get them on his card .

Do you think you qualify as a collector? Let me know and we can find out your story too!