When I was a kid, I remember promising myself that, when I was an adult with a real job and real money and no parents telling me what to do, I would spend my vast reserves of disposable income amassing a collection of every video game in existence. I wasn't able to follow through on that promise to myself, but devoted collector Michael Thomasson has, for all intents and purposes. Over the last 20 years, he has amassed over 11,000 distinct games in what's been certified by Guinness as the world's largest such collection.

And now it could be yours.

Thomasson is currently auctioning off his entire collection over at GameGavel in order to support "immediate family and extended family that have needs that need to be addressed." Bidding is already up to $50,000 since starting at just $1 late Wednesday, but the reserve price still isn't met, so you might have to really look into that second mortgage if you want to claim that you own more video games than literally anyone else.

To build up his collection, Thomasson says he exploited his position "operat[ing] seven independent gaming stores during the nineties and have worked for another chain for the last decade." He has also run the Good Deal Games website since 1998. That means he's been able to buy many pristine condition factory sealed titles before they are even put out for the public, and he snatched up rarities as they came across his desk via resale.

Over 8,300 games in the collection come complete with the box and manual, Thomasson says, and he has also collected over 100 distinct consoles, including incredibly obscure releases like the FM Towns Marty and the Brazil-exclusive Cougar Boy. The complete list of all the games and consoles in the collection takes a good 10 or 15 seconds to scroll through, even holding down the Page Down key. And that doesn't even count over 1,000 duplicates that Thomasson recently donated to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games.

You might think creating such a collection would break the bank, but Thomasson told RETRO Magazine that he sticks to a "regimented budget" that amounts to only about $3,000 a year on average. For that money, he's been able to add an average of roughly two games a day for the last 20 years. "I rarely pay more than $10 to $15 for anything," he told RETRO. "So, most of my items were bought inexpensively. I look for the deal and am patient. To get to the number of items I have with a limited budget, I had to be disciplined and extremely efficient."

Though he's reluctantly parting with his collection due to what he calls "responsibilities that I have made to others," Thomasson says he isn't leaving the gaming hobby or collecting behind. This isn't even the first time he's had to start his collection over from scratch: Thomasson says he paid for his wedding by selling off complete sets of TurboGrafx-16 and Sega Master System games in 1998. "I've sold my collection many times in the past and still managed to capture Guinness' attention, and it is entirely possible that I may again," he said.