Scumdogg

Unfortunately living in the direct path of hurricanes is good for job options so I think I will be hanging around for a while in Texas. I do have a 2 story house with an attic and All my games stay in plastic boxes. So unless my house is completely destroyed the water won't get them. BTW who is your insurance company. State Farm. They're pretty awesome as far as both our car and renter's insurance goes. They give discounts the more things you have covered with them, so the extra rider (which is substantial) for our toys, video games, etc. ended up costing very little.

We got my toy and video game collections added to our renter's insurance, it was easy. They just accepted a guesstimated figure on everything. That being said, it's irresponsible to keep a large video game collection directly in the path of hurricanes. Sure, insurance might replace it for you, but those copies will be lost forever. You should move.

I think my rarest Atari 2600 games max out at like a 6. As much as i enjoy collecting, i just can't justify the moneys on a lot of the rarest stuff. So while i may only have sixes, almost all my games were found in the wild! Frogger II (which i had for *years* before i even knew it was uncommon) Gremlins And...wow. I guess that's it. I do have a lot of 4's and 5's though. Go me!

Luckily in my area a lot of thrift stores still put out whatever games they get in...whether the price will be fair is always kinda up in the air though. But my question was less "where are all the games?" and more "who is buying all these games all of a sudden?". Because I visit a couple shops pretty frequently, so i see the stuff go out, and then i don't see it anymore in a day or two. I know eBay has something to do with it, there's a large group of resellers out there for just about every product one could imagine, who don't actually have any predetermined understanding of what will sell. They just hope to make their money back selling en masse. I just thought since i don't exactly have my finger on the pulse of today's youth, the answer might lie there. The few game collectors i know in person are all pretty focused in their collecting. One sort of fits the hoarder definition but he's kind of realized it by this point. All i know is that the crowd i see frequenting the classic game scalpers at flea markets is getting younger and younger, like high school age, thought it might be the same general crowd that's also raiding the thrifts.

This is just a general curiosity thread...not targeted at anyone specific, but concerning a general trend i've noticed over the past couple years, based on message boards, other internet contacts, and flea market/thrift store observations. Is it just me or is there a tremendous upswing of people, especially on the slightly younger end of the game collecting crowd, indiscriminately buying every single video game they see for any system, regardless of condition or intent to play? Much has been made of the fact that video games aren't as cheap or easy to find as they used to be "in the wild". That all basically comes down to eBay though, with help from the growing "retro-gamer" population. But i've noticed something odd. Loose disc-based games in generic jewel cases. SNES and Genesis sports titles. Copies of Asteroids, Combat, and Pac-Man. All of this stuff used to absolutely languish at thrift stores and flea markets, but it certainly doesn't seem to anymore. I can go to one of my favorite local thrift stores and see a pile of five or six loose sports titles for the Genesis, possibly the most undesirable of all things amongst traditional game collectors, marked $2.99 each in marker across the label. Surely this would deter anyone who might even *consider* buying them for any purpose....a high price AND label-destroying marker. But not so! I'll go back a couple days later and they'll be GONE. An N64 bundled with two 99-cent bin games for $50? Sold. Playstation 1 console with no cables, controllers or games at $20? Gone. Then i look at thrift store or flea market finds posted on various message boards and read long lists of games that people couldn't possibly be playing. You bought Madden 94, 95, and 96 all in one day for $3 each with a little Super Black Bass on the side? Really? Why? Planning on chasing that down with a stack of loose PS2 shovelware? So, my fellow gamers and collectors, i say to you..."What the hell?". What's going on here? Don't get me wrong, i like having a nice video game collection. I have over 1000 games and about 25 systems. But i've chosen the Sega Genesis as my "100%" collection and i only buy complete titles. For every other system i buy only games that i have every intention of playing, even if it's just for comedy value. I'm looking at you, Captain Novolin. So did i miss something and it's suddenly "cool" to be a video game hoarder? Mind you, i'm not talking about people that maintain beautiful collections of thousands of well-kept games, i'm focusing more on the trend to buy each and every video game related item one sees on the secondhand market, regardless of price, condition, or interest level. I want to know who these people are that are happily buying up every single video game to hit the southern Ohio thrift store circuit. Why did you pay $3 for a Dreamcast Web Browser?

I think Nintendo's actually got these lines engraved on a plaque inside their corporate headquarters.

Just make sure he's considerate on them. The next kid runs into me on those things at a store or flea market gets drop-kicked. Never know how many others like me there are out there.

I love how people will recommend Wii games and then go "I lost interest in this halfway through". Damn man, just admit that it's not a good game then! You don't have to defend every purchase or every Wii game. Don't try to get this guy to spend money on games that aren't top-notch. Also, add me to the list of people that got bored with Twilight Princess. Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass are both superior Zelda games. My Wii-owning advice. Don't buy ANYTHING that's cross-platform on the Wii unless the Wii is all you have. The controls only really work well on like three or four games for the system that i've played, and that's stretching it. My other advice is that you'd probably be better off owning a 360 if you don't already. The price gap has about closed, and the Wii library is seriously lacking (what else does Nintendo have on deck after the ever-delayed Brawl? Nothing?).

So this is why my local Target didn't have any good post-Christmas clearance games! They were all at Goodwill! Got two games for the 360, sealed. All-Pro Football 2K8 for $10, and Tomb Raider Legend for $4. Not too shabby, especially for Goodwill. I can't believe they weren't $20! These didn't have Target tags on them, so i don't know if i got completely boned or not. The Target tags were still on a few other games in the stack though, and the prices seemed pretty close to Goodwill's markup overall.

That's one of the most horrifying things i've ever heard. A nuisance?!?

Monster in My Pocket came with a toy, i don't think M.U.S.C.L.E. did.

I saw a copy of GH III in Goodwill a while back, and the first thing that popped into my head was "Why the hell would such an expensive and popular game be at a Goodwill, IN THE BOX?". The second thought that popped into my head was "It's broken, of course". Your instincts were good the first time around, i wouldn't bother with the third one you see.

I've never purchased a boxed game on eBay, for this exact reason. Once though, i did buy a toy...the Dragon Walker from the old Masters of the Universe line. It was complete in the box, and the shipping costs were exhorbitant because it's a little on the big side. I received it WRAPPED IN INSIDE-OUT CHRISTMAS PAPER!!! The box the Dragon Walker comes in is one of those old window-boxes, with the fragile plastic window that displays the toy. By the time i got it the window was completely punched out, and the resulting loss in package integrity had caused the box to be nearly ripped in two. There was a hole that had been re-taped in the wrapping paper itself, and half the toy was missing. I gave the seller a negative when he refused a refund, and he gave me a negative feedback in return. I had to fight to get it withdrawn. I don't really buy things on eBay anymore.

That's not as bad as having grown up in the reign of 2D, seeing 2D hit new levels of amazing in games like Castlevania SotN, and then watching it all crash down around you in favor of "realistic" games with 50 polygon count characters featuring four colors, no textures, and forearms like cinderblocks. I was worried for the entire run of the Playstation and Saturn that games might never get good again. It's only been in recent years since the panic has subsided that i've even started collecting games for those two systems.

Yup. All of the main actors signed contracts to finish the last two films. Woo! I hadn't heard this, i thought the fate of the last movie was still questionable. Good news.