bojay1997

I actually had a seller basically tell me that last week when I received a badly damaged item that was shipped in a flimsy bubble envelope with no other padding that ended up arriving with massive dents and tears in the outer game box. He said the post office wouldn't have accepted the package in that condition if they didn't think it would arrive safely and undamaged. I didn't really know what to say to the guy, other than to immediately file an Ebay claim when he refused to accept a return for a refund.

Sellers can say whatever they want, but Ebay won't back them up. If the item is not as described, the buyer will always be able to return the item for a full refund.

Agree. Not sure why everyone is complaining now. This has been going on for years now and Gamestop's approach is no different than any other retailer that approaches a publisher to get an exclusive whether that's DLC, steel book packaging, a poster or soundtrack or anything else. Gamers should be mad at the publishers for pushing out games that require additional purchases rather than a retailer that is just looking for a competitive advantage against other retailers doing the same thing.

I'm not understanding what you are trying to say. All of the Imagic silver box games in sealed cases I have ever seen on the Intellivision have been factory shrink-wrapped. Are you saying you've found cases of Imagic Intellivision games where the games were not shrink-wrapped?

Intellivision games were shrink-wrap sealed except for the later releases. Atari 2600 first party early release games through the early 80s were generally not sealed, other than those box variants that actually had a glue seal on top and bottom. Some manufacturers like Imagic did factory shrink-wrap their games. Activision did not until roughly 1983 or later. Many of the shrink-wrap sealed 2600 games from the period1977 through 1982/83 that pop up on Ebay were sealed by liquidators or distributors and didn't leave the factory that way.

My experiences have been pretty much identical to yours with B&C, Video 61 and 2600.com. I will say that the only concern I have with Best is that Brad is more than willing to assemble his own "rare" Atari items from original Atari components and has no issue with reshrinkwrapping games or other items that may not necessarily be factory new.

You're incorrect about people not having a conception of the Internet in 1983. Services like Compuserve (under the name Micronet through Radio Shack) were definitely around and people very involved in the academic and scientific and corporate business communities were using networked computers well before 1983. I don't think anyone had a firm idea of what the Internet could become, but to say that nobody talked about networked computers is just incorrect. As for female programmers and hackers, while they were rarer than their male counterparts, they certainly existed. Indeed, a large number of women programmers were involved in both the ENIAC and UNIVAC projects. http://www.trs-80.org/compuserve/

That's very unfortunate. I agree with you that it's pretty pointless to defend the seller in this case and while I can understand being overwhelmed with a larger scale business, it would be very easy for the seller to simply slow or stop listing things until they get the issues resolved or stop taking orders on 2600.com if they can't provide proper customer support. I guess this is just a case of greed getting the best of a previously great seller.

I dcn't know if you're intentionally misquoting me or what. I said it doesn't make it any less of an auction. You're correct that this website doesn't have some application to automatically run Ebay style auctions. That doesn't change the fact that auctions have been run here on the forums for many years and have only tapered off in the past few years. You're right, end prices may be slightly lower, but I know whenever I have extra items I try to sell them here and DP first because I think it's nice to help other collectors. Similarly, just because something is sold here or on other forums and not Ebay doesn't mean it's necessarily cheap because there are some people with very deep pockets here including many people that regularly win some of the more prominent Ebay auctions for classic games. As others have pointed out, besides the high fees, Ebay also is irrationally pro-Buyer and that means there is a chance of any given auction resulting in having to refund a buyer or take an item back, even if the claim is not legitimate.

Ebay is only one form of auction. As others have suggested, you can post items and say that you will accept the highest offer until a set date and time. The seller then can either keep the bid amount secret or actually post the highest bid. The seller can also go back to bidders who have been outbid and see if they want to increase their bids. Auctions were run that way for many years here and elsewhere. Just because it's not in real time doesn't make it any less of an auction.

Members here and on other classic gaming forums used to run forum auctions all the time. While there are advantages to Ebay like wider reach and potentially higher prices bid, there are also downsides like the 10% they take on top of Paypal fees. I just don't agree that we should be encouraging people to always sell on Ebay, especially if they are willing to do auctions here for the benefit of forum members.

I have no idea, but how do you know they didn't message the seller and offer to pay the extra money for a proper box? I've done that before and the sellers I have worked with have been more than happy to oblige as long as I cover the difference. In addition, some people don't care about the box and just want a NOS player. In any event, why does it matter to you either way why people bid what they bid?

Could be or it could have been stock that was never wrapped and shipped out. Best often uses NOS boxes, inserts, manuals and other components to essentially assemble "new" products including games and even whole consoles or computers. If you're collecting factory sealed stuff, Best is not the place to get it from.

It's hard to say, but I know Best Electronics has a shrinkwrap machine and they regularly re-wrap NIB items, so I wouldn't count on that being factory wrap if that's what you're worried about.

Please explain why you created an entirely new user name for about the third or fourth time. Could it be that you have a terrible reputation here and you lied to many of us by agreeing to deals that you refused to honor? Perhaps it's because you committed fraud by claiming you only had one of certain items and then magically kept finding more and more copies. This guy is not to be trusted and I hope nobody on here tries to do a deal with him. Do a search under his old user name "Ozma Wars" to get all the details.

Hey look everybody, Ozma Wars is back with a fraudulent new user name. Aren't there forum rules about this kind of thing?

Well, it's only $100 and it does play quite a bit of the Vita's library. It also acts as a streaming box for Playstation TV and other video and content services. It seems like a bargain to me.

Fair enough, but there is definitely a need for Joe to explain what is going on here and why he no longer responds to e-mails and phone calls. I've bought from both Jerry and Joe over the years and the items were always shipped within a day or two of placing the order and communication was always fast. If people are now waiting weeks or months to get what they ordered and not receiving replies to e-mails and phone calls, something is definitely up and it's been going on for a few months now based on the prior posts. Having a good track record counts for something, but more recent poor customer service can kill that hard earned reputation in a very short period of time.

Yes, it appears to be a recent thing in the last few months. This is probably the third or fourth recent thread I have seen complaining about a total lack of response from 2600.com. People have indicated that they get what they ordered eventually (some are saying it can take a month or more) but no longer get any response from e-mail or phone inquiries. Also, the inventory on 2600.com hasn't been updated in months. It appears they have moved over to Ebay selling under the name Video Game Gallery. Really not sure what's going on, but there is obviously a problem based on the multiple complaints I have seen recently. I know there are people here that know the owner of 2600.com, but despite one or two of them saying they would reach out, I'm not aware that they have been able to shed any light on the recent lapses in speed and responsiveness.

Not sure what you mean, but it does play retail Vita game carts.

Unless you know for sure how they arrived at that number, it is anything but "factual". For all we know, they were just repeating some early Apple PR hype as I am 100% sure Katz and Kunkel didn't ever sit down and count Apple or any other computer or console's releases. I have great respect for the EG team and that particular publication, but having re-read many of the issues in recent years, there was plenty they got wrong.

Almost $157 including shipping at the current exchange rate.

I agree that the vent hole appears to be in a similar position, the hangtab seems similar and the general seam pattern is similar. Your seams look a lot less think and they are much more even, however. It could just be the plastic starting to break down or dirt accumulation on the one that was just sold. I think your exemplar makes me somewhat more convinced that the Coleco game that just sold has factory wrap, although it's still not conclusive by any stretch.

Looks like the City is moving forward with trying to profit from the games recovered. http://www.alamogordonews.com/alamogordo-news/ci_25862460/city-still-deciding-what-do-atari-games

I'm certainly not messing with him. I have collected sealed games for many years and this particular item has a lot of red flags. The size and sloppiness of the seams along with the extensive wear under the wrap are big problems. I think ultimately it's going to be one of those items that is incapable of ever determining if it's legit or not unless it's actually opened. Indeed, while I strongly oppose VGA grading for a number of reasons, I suspect in this particular case, even they would probably send it back as incapable of conclusively determining whether it's factory sealed or not.