It’s said to be a kid thing or what adults do who do not want to “grow-up”, but without delving into that debate, maybe you’d certainly like to creatively and perhaps cheaply decorate a room with your video game passion, and if that is the case, read on.

Pictured: Some Nintendo Power posters, hanging on a wall. Find an issue of NP, tear out a poster and hang it somewhere.

Nintendo Power used to be the bees knees to showing your video game love, as many of you probably fondly recall sifting through Nintendo Power issues, ripping out the free posters that were included, and tacking them on your walls, and if you still do that, fantastic. However, since Nintendo Power will be resting its pen as of December, if you’re still interested in decorating your rooms to reflect your possible interest in video games, there are ways to go about that without Nintendo Power posters, including and beyond the obvious possibilities, such as buying a video game poster from Wal-Mart.

When it comes to the world of video game decorating, plunging cash down the drain is not the answer, although it will work, just be prepared to spend a ton more than someone who decorates cheaply and wisely to receive an identical result.

Most of the best video game memorabilia are the freebies, but there are some cool, low and high cost memorabilia, obviously. First on the discussion block are the freebies, then the easier stuff to get or do, and the generally more expensive.

Pictured: Two of many promotional GameStop window posters.

Pictured above are two promotional GameStop window posters, these along with any standee in the store are technically fair game for employees and customers, depending on the management at each GameStop location. Other video game shops may or may not give these away, and the likelihood of obtaining promotional material from bigger retailers such as Wal-Mart is near nonexistent, as they’re very strict on corporate policies. Overall, usually it is a store’s policy to throw away promotional material, but GameStop does not generally throw away material.

Instead of GameStop automatically throwing promotional material away, anyone interested in one of the promotionals can ask to have their name and number put on the item in question, and once this is done, the item technically belongs to the first person to ask for it, once GameStop is ready to dispose of it. With this in mind, it is usually wise to secure your reserve of the item by asking when it is supposed to be taken down, as GameStop does not typically hold on to items very long, more-less call the person who reserved said item. Therefore, be sure to check on it every once in a while.

Generally, most GameStop employees are accustomed to being asked for promotional items, so do not be afraid to ask. Also, be sure to act quickly as there will likely be another person trying to beat you to the punch.

There are cases though when taken down promotional material will just disappear or have someone else’s name put on it after yours, voiding your first-call. While potentially frustrating, it is best to not make a big deal about it. Overall there’s quite a bit of luck to it. The pay-off is likely to be satisfying though as you get a free promotional.

Pictured: Granted that you have any luck with obtaining GameStop promotional materials, you can make a set-up similar to this. The Zelda, Smash Bros., Metroid, Resident Evil 5, Punch-Out!! and World of Warcraft promotional items all came from GameStop.

There is also the possibility of decorating with your pre-order bonuses from GameStop, Amazon, so forth. For example, the Super Mario 3D Land keychain could be hung on the wall and naturally a Metroid Prime Trilogy poster could be stuck on the wall, and as shown in the above picture, a Resident Evil 5 Art Cell could sit right in front of a Playstation 2 (not visible because of the Wii games and art cell in front).

The Halo or World of Warcraft Mountain Dew soda cans and 2-liters you may of bought can also be used as decorations. There is no need to throw them away. The soda cans can be preserved by not ever opening them (not advised, because they could eventually explode if dropped) or poking a hole in the bottom. Their boxes can also be saved by duct taping where you opened shut or just pushing in the flaps, and 2-liters and other soda packaging can just be put on the floor somewhere once emptied or filled with colored sand. The cans can be put in corners, some on top of random things, so forth. The 12 or 24 pack boxes can be tacked on a wall or rest on a shelf. Really, it’s up to your imagination as to what to do with them. They’re not the cream of the crop collectibles you may want to display, but they can be cool to display.

This was made this for speech class, back in freshman year of high school. The speech was on Shigeru Miyamoto.

Something like what’s pictured above can be done anytime and by almost anyone, of any talent, assuming you have the ink and time. It’s a simple collage, but it’s definitely a cool one to show your love for Miyamoto and his games. Clearly though, a collage as noted can be done on any topic. If you wanted to, you could do one on Halo or Resident Evil or another famous video game talent such as Hideo Kojima (the creator of the Metal Gear Solid series).

Pictured: These are taped these to the front of a TV. The bottom middle picture of Sarah Kerrigan, below the Masked Man, is a good example of a drawing. It’s not a drawing, but rather a print out and put it where you see it now.

If you’re a talented artist, you could draw something video game related and tack it on your wall. You could also just find a cool video game computer wallpaper and print it out on regular or glossy computer paper, and tack those on a wall, as well, as shown in the picture above. Naturally though, things like this can be put anywhere as demonstrated the picture of wallpapers being scotch taped to the front of a television.

Pictured: This was another high school project for math class. It’s a fully functional kite, and is a lot more complicated to make than a collage, and is sitting on a wall, not soaring in the sky… Poor owl…

Although a bit more complicated than what has been talked about before and after this, staying on the theme of paper, we have what’s called papercrafts. Papercrafts can be extremely easy to frustrating, to construct. For example, here’s an easy one: Majora’s Mask, life-size version (not wearable), with lined directions here. This one is pictured below. Then you have something amazingly difficult, like this. Whatever you build though, you’ll likely be proud of and forever treasure it.

There is also another type of “papercraft” pictured below. The man in white next to the mountain, Gin Ichimaru, is a printed out character model, cut out, glued onto the front or back of a notebook and cut around again. Paperclips make-up his base, which allow it to stand independently. Although he is not a video game character, it is nonetheless an example of what you could do with a favorite video game character of yours.

Naturally there are other types of papercrafts out there, such as chibi papercrafts, so forth.

An Arwing, and a Triforce will be shown in a picture further down.

Pictured: Majora’s Mask (pictured in the top middle) is a papercraft, which partakes the role of The Eye of Sauron. To the bottom left area is Gin Ichimaru (the man in white), which is another version of a papercraft.

A lot of purchasing is required to snatch prizes from Club Nintendo and GameStop Power-up Rewards, but they’re technically free gifts. Gifts from either of these programs vary in quality and content, but for the most part most of them are rare and nice to display.

If you purchase a lot of Nintendo games, it is highly recommend that you sign-up for Club Nintendo (click here) and register your games (there is a piece of paper inside every new Nintendo published game with a code and some non-Nintendo published titles may have codes).

PowerUp Rewards is a program you sign-up for at GameStop, which gives you a subscription to Game Informer, store discounts, special deals and points for everything you buy to trade in for free collectibles, exactly like you can with Club Nintendo. Click here to learn more.

Naturally, you can purchase the exclusive items from both programs off eBay or Amazon, but sometimes the prices can be a bit steep.

Pictured: The fan, Mario pins in the box, and the figurine are all from Club Nintendo. The Star Fox dog tags are from PowerUp Rewards. Also, the cans shown to the left are what was referenced earlier in regard to the Halo and World of Warcraft soda. Finally, the Donkey Kong tower is Jenga, and the Mushroom is a candy jar (bought items).

Everyone at some point collected or played with toys, and while most, if not everyone eventually “grow” out of that phase, toys and figurines make fantastic display items. Some toys are extremely cheap in the couple of dollar range, and others are upwards to a couple hundred dollars, to a thousand.

Where each person purchases toys may vary. Garage sales, flea markets, trading post, Wal-Mart, Toys ‘R’ Us, GameStop, Amazon, and eBay are all great places to look. Just type in whatever you’re interested in at websites, followed by “figurine, toy, collectible”.

Pictured: None of the toys shown here are very expensive, but there are many which are, and if you want to find some high quality expensive video game toys, look no further than https://www.first4figures.com/

The displaying of video game shirts is another way of showing fandom. Stick a nail, thumbtack or a sticky hanger to a wall and hook a t-shirt on a hanger and hang it.

Now to a rather unique concept: displaying video game boxes, and game cartridges. Everyone has seen boxes lined-up on shelves. Stores like Wal-Mart have had this idea for years, showing the front of the box for each video game. The pictures below should demonstrate how this looks in a home setting, much easier than words.

Each game on the wall is held up by thumbtacks. Two on the bottom, and one to two on top. If you look closely at the far right of the Fire Emblem GameStop window poster, you can see the Super Mario 3D Land pre-order keychain that was mentioned earlier.

Pictured: Shown along with the boxes stacked in a corner are the Triforce and Arwing papercrafts.

NES games stack so well…

Because of what can be done with boxed copies and old NES, SNES, Atari cartridges, for the purpose of display, could further lead people to want boxes, instead of digital copies, as boxes are physical and much more flexible as to what can be done with them.

Hopefully everything said and shown will help start or improve your showing video game memorabilia.  Most, if not all the secrets regarding how so much could amassed is now revealed.

Now, if you don’t think we gave good enough advice as to how to decorate rooms with video game memorabilia or just want to show everyone some of your stuff, show or post us in the comment section below.