Now, with the interview, we have connected the dots: bronty is a collector, and withheld the artist's name so he could get the artworks for dirty cheap money. Why, had he told us who Tom Dubois was, I'm 100% certain someone would pay much better than what the artist received for those artworks (a computer, really). I'm sure he also kept the artist ignorant of how much those artworks were worth, because I bet my ass he'd not give them up for a computer when they are worth much more.
I'll skip being offended, but I'll just point out the gaps in your reasoning:
a) you don't know which pieces I purchased let alone what they are worth
b) you don't know what I paid Tom (the computer was a specific model at his request in lieu of an equivalent amount of cash)
c) you don't know when I purchased them
d) you don't know what the art was worth when I purchased it.
Long story short when I started buying this art from Tom and others nearly ten years ago, no one was interested in it, except myself and one other person. Almost none of this stuff ever makes its way onto ebay, but on the rare occasions when a piece did, it sat with zero bids except our own. There was no market at that time. In recent years, people have started to be interested and paid at times very good money. That not much different than the history with the games themselves, yes? Back when I started collecting the games themselves, gamees that are now $1000 and fought over you could buy for $100 or less with very little competition.
Would I have paid Tom more? In honesty, yes. I would have paid him anything I could afford. I offered him a price I thought was reasonable and almost double what those ebay auctions were getting because frankly I found that in general, I had to pay more privately than at ebay to make people want to bother selling. He accepted and I'm proud to have known him a little and to have the opportunity to look at some of his artwork from time to time, in the flesh.
Would anyone else have paid Tom more at the time? Not to my knowledge or belief, no. Would anyone else pay more now, years later? Sure.