A Collector's Exhortation; or me getting irrationally upset at a buzzfeed list

Hello internet!  Justin here.  By now you've probably realized that when I claimed I would try to post something "every week" I obviously meant "every month."  Sorry about that, but genius (or mediocrity, in my case) can't be rushed and all that jazz...  

I started seriously collecting games during college.  It started small - a PS2 game here, a Gamecube game there; but quickly became a bit of an obsession of mine.  Today, I own somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 games spanning multiple generations, from the most common of PS2 to the rarest of Sega Saturn.  Point is, I know a bit about collecting old games and, side note, a crack addiction would probably be cheaper.

Pictured - Obsession

 Keeping this in mind you can imagine the horror on my face when I saw this posted to Facebook -


32 Of Your Childhood Toys That Are Worth An Absolute Fortune Now!
(Yes, even the prepositions and possessives are capitalized...  Godless heathens...)

Now, the article is clearly clickbait, as most buzzfeed articles are, but there is so much wrong and misleading with it that I can't let it slide (aside from calling video games "toys").  Of course, there are items outside of video games listed, but I imagine they are just as wrong.  The list seems to infer that getting rich is as easy as finding an old game and selling it, and many of the people I see posting it are making comments like "Oh why didn't I save those?!" or "I think I might have some of that stuff!"  I'm sorry to dash your dreams of owning a yacht with a pool so big it can fit another, smaller yacht (doubleyacht!), but this list is woefully inaccurate.  So before you go dig up your old copy of Brutal: Paws of Fury with dollar signs in your eyes let me clarify a few things and give you a bit of insight into my world.

On second thought, dig it up anyway

1 - The author doesn't seem to know how selling things online     works

Perhaps the most difficult thing about buying and selling old video games is pricing.  There's no stock market/hive mind tracking the value of video games that are no longer in production (obviously MSRP dictates the prices of those that are), so really the best we can do is follow trends - What are other people selling it for?  Is there any reason its value will depreciate in the near future?  Is there demand for it for some reason?  Was it recently discovered it cures cancer?

There are numerous reasons why a video game's value will change, and even why one becomes rare in the first place, but they are far too numerous to list here (maybe later).

Anyway, the point of this tirade is that everyone who has ever sold anything online knows that the sellers name their own price.  It would be one thing if the author was able to produce several listings at extremely high price point, but he literally just posted  single listings with an exorbitantly high prices, most likely listed by a crazy person (more on that later).  Simply traveling to Ebay and typing in "Game Boy Color" will debunk that ludicrious $1,689.89 price point.

2 - Condition is King

Okay, so you're doing research on the pricing of a game...  Let's say Aero the Acrobat.  You plug it into Amazon and immediately go "holy crap, people are selling this for $90!"  You create a listing for it and people start laughing at your price point, because you failed to take into account the fact that you played the hell out of it when you were younger.

Oh Aero, you truly were the red headed stepchild of the 90's "Heros with an attitude"

 "New" is a word that carries very specific meaning in the world of video game collecting.  It doesn't mean "looks like new," nor "I played it once and put it back in the box forever," nor even "I took it out of the box" (tisk tisk Gamestop).  New means never played, factory sealed and never opened.  You'll notice that the extremely expensive listings in the list are marked as new, but the author never points this out.  In fact, he encourages you to search your mothers basement, but unless your mother was a weirdo that bought you games she'd never let you play you're probably out of luck.  Also note that although being new adds maybe a couple hundred dollars to a games value, you'll almost never see anybody buying one for over $500 unless it is both new and super rare - M.U.S.H.A., PDS and Earthbound immediately come to mind.

So why do games in new condition fetch such a high price point?  Novelty really.  You own something nobody has ever used before, and there are very few games that exist in this state.  Only a select few will pursue a collection comprised of new games, as it forces the condition that actually playing them greatly depreciates their value.  Therefore, most of the people who buy them do so as an investment, not a hobby.  Sadly, because of this there are more than a few con artists with shrink wrap machines that list clearly used games as new, to the point where there are guides dedicated to telling the difference by how they are wrapped.  My rule of thumb is to always buy my games in person if possible, as even used listings online can be deceptive.

So how should you sell your old cartridge?  Or, if you're crazy like me and want to start a video game collection, what should you look for?  This sounds like a segue into an overly detailed explanation!  Well, there are several categories used games can fall into...

Cart(ridge)/Disc Only - By far the most common, both online and in brick and mortar stores.  Usually the product of people reading lists like the one this article is based around, or  people just wanting to make a quick buck by selling the old stuff just laying around.  When I look at a game in this state I consider a couple things.

•  How much would having the box/manual really add to its value?  An older, common game wouldn't gain much.
• What is the condition of the cartridge/disc itself?  For cartridges, are screws loose?  How does the board (the part you can actually see inside the cartridge) look?  Any stains? (Smoke?  Marker?  Blood?!)  For discs, are there scratches?  Foil damage?  Chips/Cracks? (Why are you trying to sell it at all then?!)
• Most importantly, does it look like it's going to work?  This and the above point usually go hand in hand, and if it's questionable I test it immediately when I arrive home.  Obviously collectors want games that work, so if your old copy of Chameleon Twist only sometimes works when you blow in it six times, angle it slightly to the right, spin around three times and sacrifice a baby goat to Shigeru Miyamoto, you better make a note of it and adjust the price accordingly.

I hear he prefers foals anyway...

Case, no manual - the second most common state.  Many people throw away, misplace, or otherwise lose manuals for games.  As a child, I would keep manuals in a drawer in my room and just read them every once and while (I was a weird kid), but most of them were lost in the great purge of 2003 (my mother donating most of my old games). This is far more common with discs than with cartridges, owing to the general flimsiness of cartridge boxes, with the notable exception of the Genesis shell cases, those will outlast humanity, and as a result the value of cartridges with boxes appreciate far more than their disc based brethren, even more so if the game has particularly memorable (read: bad) coverart, such as the infamous Mega Man 1 and 2 boxes.  Obviously, I do all the checks listed above, but now I have to check the condition of the case.

• For cartridges - Is there any notable staining or discoloration on the box?  Is the box ripped/torn in any way?  Is that weird little white, game holding insert present for Nintendo games?
• For discs - Is the jewel case cracked anywhere? This, thankfully, is easily remedied, as replacement jewel cases identical to the originals are easily available.  If there is a cover/back insert that is not the manual, is it present/a reproduction/a piss poor black and white printer reproduction cut out with rusty scissors?

Manual, no case - the third most common.  Exercise caution, as this type is very likely to be a previous rental and therefore subject to the torment of all the demon 90's children like my former sel).  The state of the manual is obviously paramount here.  Are there any tears/pages missing?  Any water damage or discoloration?  Are there passwords listed in the notes section in the back?  If so, hell yes, time to skip ahead!

Complete in Box (CIB) - Oh yeah, here we go, this is what I'm talking about.  This is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, this is free season passes to your favorite sporting event, this is whatever else makes you incredibly excited (naked ladies or something?) - the elusive complete in box used game, what every collector seeks to find.  Obviously these are the rarest and most expensive, but rightfully so.  While all the usual checks for quality are encouraged, you usually don't have to worry about it, as the previous owner(s) was almost assuredly either a person keeping it in good condition with the goal of selling it or a fellow collector needing extra money or seeking to escape the game (spoiler - you never truly escape).

JUST LOOK AT HOW PRETTY IT IS!

3. Crazy People

So what were we talking about again?  Oh, right, that list.  I mentioned listings by crazy people earlier, and its a surprisingly common phenomenon I've witnessed several times on online vendors like Ebay, Amazon, Etc..  If a game is even somewhat rare, there is this one guy that lists is at an extremely high price point like, $10,000 or something, sometimes even disc/cart only, and just sits on it...  Forever...  Its like he believes that any day now humanity is going to be enslaved by Russian Nazi Zombie Velociraptors, and the only way to liberate our race will be defeating the RNZV Overlord in a game of Yoshi's Cookie, and dammit, when that day comes they will gladly pay the price for the last one left on the Earth!

I spent entirely too much time on this...

So yeah, those are the reasons why that list is unbelievably stupid as well as a small glimpse inside the world of video game collecting.  See you all next time!