Collector’s Corner
Anne Bras has a penchant for the collecting boxed PC games
This month’s collector has an impressive collection of big box PC games
This month we have another record holder in Collector’s Corner, Anne Bras aka the PC King, from Zaandam, Holland. We’ll get to the record shortly – in the meantime, how did Anne begin to collect for the PC? “The first PC game I bought was Day Of The Tentacle at a market,” he begins. “It was only €2.50! Of course, I wasn’t aware how much it would be worth in the future, but because we already lived in the era of games in DVD boxes, I started to realise how beautiful these big PC game boxes really are. From this moment, I was a boxed PC games collector.”
Having acquired a collection of around 600 games from a friend in the Netherlands, Anne realised that he was now the owner of the largest collection of PC games in
his home country. “It then crossed my mind that I might actually have the largest collection in the world! I knew a lot of other great collectors, but had a feeling my amount was above theirs. So that’s when I decided to go for the world record.” That was the easy part; with just over 2,000 games in his collection, the process of applying for the record would prove a little painful. “They obviously needed picture as proof,” says Anne, “and, of course, an empty game box doesn’t count. I had to take out a game, open it up, unless sealed, display everything nicely for a picture, take the picture, put everything back and then get the next game.” This process took
Anne five years before the next hurdles appeared. “There was an official counting where a notary, main witness and two friends counted and checked all the games; then there was some paperwork and after a couple of bumps I was able to send it all off to the Guinness World Records.”
In addition to the mass of games in his collection, Anne also owns several iconic gaming items, including…a broken keyboard? “One day John Romero lost a game of Quake against Ronan Pearce,” he smiles. “The keyboard started to malfunction due to repeated beatings from John, and he said, ‘I think this keyboard was built with a built-in beating detector. As soon as you start thrashing it, it instantly turns off, and the harder you thrash it, the longer it stays off.’ Both John and Brenda were very kind, and shipped the keyboard to me. It is signed by both John Romero and Ronan Pearce.” Anne also owns a very rare copy of
‘Duke Nukum’, an alternative name for Duke Nukem before Apogee realised the name wasn’t copyrighted after all.
But Anne’s Jewel In The Crown is his certificate, received three months after the submission of his collection. But for him, the adventure doesn’t stop there. “There are still so many games missing from my collection. I actually have a passion for preserving gaming history and sharing it with the world, so I’m very grateful for all the people that have donated their games.” To that end, all of Anne’s collection is available for viewing at the Games & Computers museum in Zwolle, Netherlands, which sounds like a perfect afternoon out to us.