The dream job

Traveling the world, buying retro video games!? Can that really be a job? 

You must have the best job in the world, I hear a lot. And yes, I can’t deny that I probably have the best job in the world. Even though there sometimes are some boring tasks like making endless lists of video games. Translating 500 Japanese titles, valuing and sorting them can be tricky. Also finding those few games that even the die hard collector seem to leave out somehow; unlicensed games, not-for-sale releases, homebrew etc. Being a spreadsheet junkie, I still find those things to be somewhat fun. It’s amazing to find that some serious collectors have almost no lists att all, trying to keep every game in their head instead.

So, how do you find them all? 

I started working for Lars Wingefors (CEO of Embracer Group) in 2018, collecting video games on my spare time. Getting paid and finding absolutely nothing the first months was a big despair. I finally found an almost complete collection of SEGA 32X PAL locally. After that things only got smoother and in 2019 we found our first really big collection, in Belgium. Then followed trips to Austria (Sunhede & seller Gschmeidler in helmet TV), Germany, Japan, Spain, United Kingdom etc. Wherever there is an amazing game collection; I’ll be there. 

At the moment it’s a snowball effect, every contact leads to two more which makes my job much easier. For example, Japanese otakus seem to be very shy but luckily we have a great contact over there that help us with every purchase. Many of the collectors are happy selling to us because we will preserve ther precious items for the future and don’t resell them immediately online. Often their collections has grown too big and taken over houses, lives and become to expensive/valuable to maintain. Most of them seem to have the same dream; open a game museum to let others enjoy the games. But even if we nerds possess the games and the knowledge about them there is a huge gap to hire premises and employees. Hopefully we can make their dreams come true in the future, showing of their awesome collections for the public.

And it is the best job in the world? 

Yes, it probably is.