When Roberto Dillon began collecting retro video games more than 12 years ago, he scoured auction sites and connected with niche groups of hobbyists to amass a personal archive that is now hundreds of titles strong. But at the time, there was a consensus among collectors that buying old games was “a sort of fad,” said the academic and game developer.
Most collectors were simply “nostalgic” for their childhood games, Dillon explained in a video interview. “There was no idea that games could become artifacts of the past that we want to conserve and preserve.”
But this appears to be changing. In early August, an unopened copy of “Super Mario Bros,” released in 1985, set a new world record when it sold for $2 million on the collectibles website Rally. Produced for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), it was the third vintage title to smash the…
