[foreverflash]

What a great topic discussion Hippee. Kudos.

Most frustrating aspects of being a collector and collecting:

1. Publishers (not so much developers) milking consumers for money. This applies to games, movies, music and television. Well, pretty much all aspects of entertainment. A perfect example would be the upcoming AC3. Still 7 fucking months to go and they've already announced 3 different editions to be released in Europe and Australia. All with unique items or DLC. Why not put them all into 1 big edition and sell it numbered and limited in select parts of Europe, Australia and America? Say, limited to 10,000 units numbered? Hello? Is that too much to fucking ask for Ubisoft? Or even if they just sold some of the extra stuff (like the collectible coin in Join or Die edition) separately on ubiworkshop.com instead of making it exclusive to a different game edition. Fucking brilliant Ubisoft...
2. Here's a big one: What I like to call "fit to box" style shipping. The Industry standard shipping method for extremely valuable collectibles (like statues, folio books, replicas). Basically, what I've come to find is very disturbing. As a collector, the outer package/box of a collectible is just as much a part of the whole thing as the collectible itelf, yet, at least 75% or more of the leading collectible manufacturers and retailers in America (and abroad) do not care about keeping the outer package in good condition. In fact, they don't even care about keeping it intact! They only care about protecting the collectible INSIDE the outer collectible box. So they use "fit to box" shipping method with gives packages a 50/50 chance of being damaged. Of course we all know the "real" reason they use this packaging method: TO SAVE MONEY. It's all about maximizing profit. Greedy fucking bastards have to scrounge every last cent. Fit to box basically means you take the collector's item which is inside a collector's box and put it "box on box" in a shipping box and tape it up. No additional protection is used. This INFURIATES me beyond belief...
3. Dents! Dents! Aaaahhh!!!
4. Scuff marks. VERY VERY common on guides and certain types of boxes (like the US collector edition of Uncharted 3 type box).
5. Did I already say consumer milking...? Yea, all we are is fucking cattle to them...remember that people!
6. Not having enough money to get EVERYTHING I want ALL at ONCE! DAMN IT! GIVE ME MOAR!
7. Finding out about a game, tv or movie series you never heard of, falling madly in love at first sight and realizing how impossible it would be to "collect" for the series because it goes back too far or has too much material (an example of one I just found is "The Walking Dead" - yea, I know, exactly... or Batman)
8. Having to tear your hair out trying to search the globe for that "rare" item.
9. A bunch of other things that annoy the shit out of me but there are too many to list...