This weekend I spent some time at one of the weirder shrines to capitalism I've ever attended. Held in the same halls where geeks gather for PAX Australia, Collect Fest recently brought its Ebay-backed swathes of stalls to the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. With booths from hobbyists of all stripes from sneakers to film reels, the event lined MCEC with stall after stall of consumerism temptations. Well, unless you're a PC gamer.

Amongst the floods of Pokémon cards, I rather naïvely was hoping to find a treasure trove of old PC hardware to wax nostalgic over. Instead, the event was practically devoid of the best gaming platform. There was plenty of other bits, especially for retro console fans, but PC was shockingly under represented amongst the stalls.

I visited four stalls dedicated to videogame goods and poured over their offerings of older games and revamped consoles. Each generation was represented from the early days of gaming right up to last week, but the retro appeal was clear. Collectors of all ages grouped up around me to thumb through the boxes of caseless cartridges. Some did so while exchanging gleeful conversations with these stallholders over the early days of gaming, and others were laser-focussed hunting for gold amongst the shovelware.