RedTank

Taking advantage of an uneducated seller and posting a 10-minute video about it? More power to him if that's the way he wants to collect, but it feels a bit unethical to me. Thankfully it doesn't appear to be all that valuable in the grand scheme of things. I guess that's why I'm more of a player than a collector; this aspect of the hobby, the idea that duping someone is something to be celebrated, makes me uncomfortable.

Uh, congrats for ripping someone off I guess? Hope they don't check YouTube.

Fair enough, I guess I should lurk more before I post. Like others I went through my "wow" phase with emulation and moved on. Still, I think it's a nice alternative when games are otherwise unavailable, or licensing issues rear their ugly head.

Incorrect. ROM dumps and versions change (IE: MAME) and are rendered incompatible with different revisions. Mainstream OS's, disposable motherboards and chipsets come and go. 95 is not the same as 98. PIII is not the same as PII MMX. PIV is not the same as your iCoreX. ME is not the same as XP, blah, blah, Windoze, Blah... Can't tell you how many Win95 games I own I cannot currently play. And then there's all those DOS games... I decided to test this out. I have an ancient version of MAME32 stored on an old back-up drive, haven't touched it in 6-7 years. Dumped the executable onto my current hardware -- a quad-core Windows 7 machine -- and it runs just fine. Now maybe it won't work with newer games, but the old classics that interest me are there -- many of which aren't available via traditional means. And between Windows compatibility mode and DOSBox I rarely have trouble running my old store-bought PC games like Wing Commander 3 or Ultima VII. Unless your position is that I must play them on a dusty old 486DX to preserve that authentic DOS experience. Nuts to that. Says someone with lower standards not looking, caring or appreciating a genuine experience. There's a ton of differences in how vintage gaming manipulated and used the color palette and imperfections of NTSC to their advantage that's simply incompatible with LCD technology. I'm beginning to wonder who is more annoying -- downloaders with entitlement issues or rabid collectors who set themselves up as sole arbiters for the hobby and how it must be enjoyed. My nephew was exposed to old Atari games via the Flashback and loved the experience. I play legally purchased PC Engine CDs via Magic Engine because I don't want to shell out $300+ for a TurboDuo -- it will eventually die, but I'll always have a computer. If you're interested in Dracula X but don't want to shell out $100+ for the original (and a means to play it) you can purchase legally emulated versions on the Wii and PSP for a fraction of the cost. There are at least a dozen retro game collections available for the PS2 -- perhaps they're not 100% perfect, but they're close enough for the average gamer to offset the effort and cost of maintaining old systems and large collections of games. None of this sounds like a bad thing to me, even if it's not your cup of tea. I buy MP3s via iTunes every now and then, but generally stick with ripping purchased CDs. I also buy games on Steam. Ultimately it's the content that's important, not the hunk of plastic it's stored on. I understand the appeal of playing the real thing on the real hardware -- I still own just about every system I ever bought, and just picked up an Atari 7800. But it's just not practical for a lot of people, especially with CRTs facing extinction. We'll eventually reach a point where your TV won't have any hook-ups in the back, it will all be wireless and cloud-based. What happens then?

Not a huge collector here... for me it's more of an ethical dilemma than a question of authenticity. I can certainly rationalize that the original creators of, say, the copy of Strider I bought today won't see a dime from that purchase -- so in that sense there's probably not much difference. But still, it just doesn't feel right... especially for games that are readily available today via legal means. (retro collections, etc) But then there are titles stuck in licensing hell, like the Capcom D&D games, that help to muddy the waters. Unless you have a Saturn that can play imports and lots of spare cash, or the actual arcade boards, you'll never play these legally. I think it also takes some fun out of the hobby when every game ever made is a mere mouse click away -- stumbling upon something you never knew existed is all part of the fun. Once it's reduced down to a list of files on a hard drive there's nothing left to discover. (more or less)

If you expect a premium price you need to put in some effort -- you didn't bother to list the games, and the photos are so small that most of the cart labels are illegible. How is the buyer supposed to know what's included in the auction?

I don't mind paying a little more if it saves me months of fruitless trips to every thrift store and flea market in the area. Don't forget to factor that wasted time into the equation.

Sort of reposted from the Game Gavel topic... I recently used them for the first time. While it was a decent experience, there are too many niggling little problems to keep me from going back on a regular basis: -- The items I purchased didn't have concrete shipping fees, so I committed to buy without knowing the final cost. It worked out fine, I'm sure it was done that way so they could charge the actual shipping price -- but I'd be leery of taking that leap of faith again. With eBay it's all spelled out up front. Sure I could have emailed the guy, but that's a hassle. -- Unless I did something wrong, my PayPal payment was not captured by the Game Gavel site. Perhaps there are some technological hurdles involved here, but again that's something the site should track. I had the email confirmation from PayPal, but I still questioned if the sale actually went through. -- I don't spend as much time sitting in front of a desktop/laptop as I used to do, I'm often checking Web sites on my iPhone or iPad. Game Gavel routinely crashes my phone's Web browser, and when it doesn't there's a major input lag in the search box. It's better on the iPad, but still slow. I'm sure I'll give it another try if i see something I want. But as someone else said, the main selling point seems to be cheaper listing fees which is irrelevant to buyers. (especially if the savings aren't passed on) Things like selection and convenience are far more important, and they won't challenge eBay there anytime soon.

They offer incredible deals and bundles that help offset some of the angst around not owning the physical product... there are regular midweek and weekend sales, blowout holiday deals, etc. I snagged Civ IV and all the expansions for a mere $10 last year.

Some feedback from a first time user... I paid for an item using the PayPal button, and of course PayPal has a record of the transaction -- but GameGavel doesn't reflect the fact that I've done so. Perhaps this is an API limitation, but some sort of indication sure would be handy. I'm assuming the status needs to be updated manually by the seller. (or maybe I did something wrong) It seems to vary by seller, but shipping costs can be quite vague. You might want to require that sellers post concrete numbers or policies -- otherwise buyers are taking a leap of faith that exorbitant shipping and handling fees won't be tacked on to their legally binding bid after the sale. In my case it was fine, but are there any measures in place to prevent someone from saying "yeah, it'll cost $35 to ship that loose 2600 cart?" The site's mobile performance leaves a lot to be desired. It often locks my iPhone 4 Web browser, and when it doesn't there's a significant delay between typing into the search bar and the text being displayed. My iPad struggles a bit as well.

Here's a discussion about it: http://www.sega-16.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-11911.html I'm no language expert, but the lack of hiragana or katakana made me think it was Chinese as opposed to Japanese too.

I like the projector idea -- it would have more of a "wow" factor than two 2600 screens scrunched onto one HDTV. Plus you could take it outside after dark: http://vimeo.com/4135816

Maybe this is too simple, but my Sony Bravia has a side-by-side display option. Will only output sound from one or the other though.