A Pierce County family says a burglar smashed through their front door and walked off with more than 850 Nintendo games that Roger Holler had been collecting since 1984 — a 40-year haul worth more than $50,000 that his family says was meant to help fund his grandchildren's college tuition or serve as their inheritance.
The break-in damaged parts of the home's front door, according to FOX 13 Seattle, which first reported the theft. The family has reported the burglary to the Pierce County Sheriff's Office, and the outlet's reporting indicates the stolen haul also included Roger Holler's wife's tennis bracelet alongside the game collection.
A Decades-Long Bonding Ritual, Gone
For the Holler family, the games were never just cardboard boxes and cartridges. Chris Sterling, a family member, said his family spent more than 30 years driving to game stores and building memories together, according to the same report. Holler and his children turned collecting Nintendo games into a decades-long bonding experience, one that spanned generations and, until now, was expected to keep giving back financially long after the console lights dimmed.
Family members reported on social media that the break-in happened at Holler's residence in Puyallup, a city roughly 10 miles southeast of Tacoma. Among the more than 850 games taken, the collection reportedly included rare copies individually worth small fortunes — a detail that underscores just how lucrative the vintage gaming market has become for anyone looking to offload stolen goods quickly.
What Washington Law Says About the Break-In
Under Washington's RCW 9A.52.025, residential burglary is charged as a Class B felony, carrying up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000 upon conviction. State law under RCW 9A.52.040 also allows courts and juries to infer criminal intent whenever someone unlawfully enters or remains inside a dwelling, shifting the burden to any defendant to show the entry wasn't meant to facilitate a crime.
No suspects have been named in connection with the Holler burglary. Anyone with information has been urged to contact local law enforcement immediately.
Vintage Games Have Become a Six-Figure Market
The Holler collection's five-figure valuation isn't far-fetched given how the retro gaming market has ballooned in recent years. Average retro video game prices spiked 42% between February 2020 and May 2021 alone, driven by fixed supply and surging collector demand, according to pricing platform PriceCharting. That surge has produced eye-popping individual sales: an unopened 1985 copy of Super Mario Bros. sold for $2 million on the investment platform Rally in August 2021, after Rally had originally acquired it for $140,000 the year before, per CNET. A sealed 1987 copy of The Legend of Zelda separately fetched $870,000 at a Heritage Auctions sale that same year, as reported by CBS News.
That kind of appreciation has made vintage Nintendo cartridges an attractive target for thieves who can liquidate stolen collections through online marketplaces, pawn shops, or private collector networks. Pierce County has already seen a related case this year: in March, the Pierce County Sheriff's Office investigated a break-in at a Graham gaming store where two suspects stole hundreds of Pokémon trading card packs, Graham sitting just south of Puyallup.
Part of a Broader Pattern in Pierce County
The Holler burglary also echoes a case Hoodline covered from a Puyallup storage unit in March 2025, when thieves stole $62,000 worth of property — including 60 firearms and a collection of Park West paintings — from a facility in the same city.
The theft comes even as statewide property crime trends move in the opposite direction. The Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs reported in August that statewide property crime dropped 21.3% in 2025 compared to the year before. But that decline hasn't translated into more resources for investigators: FBI data published the same month showed Washington ranks 51st out of all 50 states and Washington D.C. in law enforcement officers per capita, with officials estimating the state would need roughly 1,600 additional officers to climb out of the bottom rankings, according to FOX 13 Seattle. For a family waiting on detectives to track down four decades of memories, that staffing gap could make an already difficult case even harder to crack.
