I've been collecting games for years, but moreso in the last few years when the 'collectors' editions started appearing more and more. Back in the original Xbox era there weren't many CE's around. One I remember was Halo 2 CE which was more plentiful than the standard edition! lol
The CE's really started with the 360 and Oblivion, now every second game has a CE

. If I buy a game I always check to see if a CE is available and I very rarely sell or trade my games afterwards so I make sure I always buy sealed mint copies.