Heroes of Time: Getting to Know Christian Defilippi

Good morning, everyone, my name is Christian, class of ’79, and I work as a consultant at a financial institution.  

My greatest passions are traveling around Europe with my Volkswagen van, going for some nice road bike rides, and, of course, collecting and playing video games. 

My adventure in the world of gaming began thanks to my childhood friend Alex, when one day he invited me to his house to show me something amazing: the new Nintendo NES!  

It was love at first sight. We spent hours and hours playing Pro Wrestling, Metroid, Mach Rider, Kid Icarus, Faxanadu, Section Z... Even today I vividly remember every screen, every level, and every secret of all those games. 

That Christmas, under the tree, I found a blazing new NES with Super Mario Bros., Gun.Smoke and The Legend of Zelda.  

Games I loved to pieces and that I still guard jealously to this day; I literally wore them out from all the hours I spent on them. I'm amazed at how, after almost forty years, those cartridges still work perfectly, including the save battery! 

I remember very well the difficulty of advancing through the various levels, whether it was Mega Man or Zelda. There wasn't any online guide: just attempts, trial after trial. Often, when you were stuck, you would go to sleep and during the night you had a stroke of genius about how to beat the next stage. 

Pure magic. Today I own the era's historical titles and I am reclaiming all those I longed for, looking at the windows of toy stores.

Since then, for every birthday, a school promotion or Christmas, the gift was always one: a video game. First for the NES, then for the Super Nintendo, the Nintendo 64, and so on. The collection, of course, began to take shape seriously since I started working. Throughout my life I have always alternated moments of "real" life practicing cycling with sessions of "virtual" experiences with video games, always trying to identify as much as possible with the role of the moment.

What were the main reasons why you wanted to grade the title you brought to us? Beyond the nostalgic aspects related to the game, are there other motivations behind the choice to entrust yourself to the TGM grading procedure. 

I've only recently taken "Grading" into account, not to speculate about it, but to preserve and enhance in the best possible way the titles I am most attached to, focusing exclusively on games that I managed to find new and sealed. I have many NES 8-bit and Super Nintendo 16-bit titles, strictly in the Italian PAL version or at most the European version, all complete. 

Every game has its own story, as does its owner; the bond that forms goes far beyond the simple owner-object pairing. When the title was finally returned to you, properly graded, what did you feel?

The first games I have enjoyed belong to The Legend of Zelda series (for DS, 3DS, Wii, Wii U and GameCube) and they have just come back in... a sight to behold! A real feast for the eyes, stunning to display in a shop window. Of each of these, anyway, I always keep an open copy with which I play regularly.

To conclude, we can only ask you the quintessential standard question: which aspects of our service did you like the most? Thank you not only for giving us your time, but also for choosing to put your trust in us!

In The Games Market I found professionals who are truly passionate, highly skilled, and very willing to provide information about the service and to clarify every minor doubt. I am happy to have turned to them: they represent one of the very few Italian realities to offer such a professional service. I really hope they will establish themselves more and more internationally as well; they deserve it!