GAME Collecting Pet Peeves - So Annoying!

[Metal Jesus]

 

What are your top 3 game collecting pet peeves? Examples like stickers on cases, missing booklets, scratched discs etc.

Kelsey & I tell you our pet peeves in the video, but what are yours?

 

Oh, and sorry @SWLovinist for calling you out in the video! But the teasing is all in good fun

[BassGuitari]

Stickers on labels is definitely a biggie. Worse are the big foil stickers video stores used to practically giftwrap their cartridges with; you're better off just leaving those on than trying to remove them.

eBay speculators like happiestsellerever are another one. Same with sellers who try to corner the market by buying up everything and reselling at ridiculously inflated prices, like that jackass who was buying up every Odyssey set that came up on eBay...and also happiestsellerever. Luckily they can be ignored, but people who don't know better see their outrageous asking prices and think that's what a given item should go for. Then they come here and try to sell the dirt-ass-common Atari 2600 they found in mom's attic for $300 and get all mad and indignant when people tell them they're asking too much and accuse people of trying to lowball them or rip them off, at which point the thread devolves into an unintelligible avalanche of Hello-Shatner-Bicycle-Crackpipe-Triangle-Van-Kitty references.

More eBay fun: snipers, and boxed games shipped in bubbleopes.

Game convention fun: going back to a vendor to buy something you've been eying up, only to find that it's gone. Bonus: later seeing the guy who bought it walking around with it.

[icemanxp300]

I absolutely despise stickers. They are my most hated especially when idiots put them on boxes! Whats worse is when a Game store employee puts them on boxes! What is that a boxed Chrono Trigger that you are asking $400 for because it is SOOOO collectable yet you put a damn sticker on the cardboard box!

 

I actually just ran into a GameCube game that had a sticker on the insert of the spine. I was like seriously, they seriously went through the trouble to pull out the insert from under the plastic to put the sticker on the Paper insert! Very irritating, however they will come off

 

Blockbuster rental stickers and the foal security stickers are the most irritating I have come across. While I can get them off "some surfaces" it is not worth the time and hassle for most games.

 

If the label is glossy you can get most off, if they are not coated, give it up and call it a day lol.

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

I absolutley despise stickers being placed on cartridges and labels. At times Game Stop would place 3 or 4 of their "Used" stickers on different areas of the plastic cases sometimes even on the discs!!

 

I also hate that they throw away the original game cases for the Playstation 2, Xbox, Game Cube, PS3, 360 cases with their generic cases or circular envelopes. I've had experiences that I get a scratched up and defective disc as they never tested it or cleaned it. While at it they sometimes even throw away the instruction manuals. That is what made me quit shopping there and still do to this day.

 

On an ebay standpoint I hate shill bidders, assholes that snipe at the very end to place a ridiculous bid price and won't pay for the item only to be auctioned again and the same results after all the waiting. One time I had an Atari 7800 console shipped to me in bubbleope several years ago and boy was I pissed!! Bubbleope is good for a loose cart, never for anything else!

[high voltage]

Missing Instructions is a big peeve with me, but stickers too. In UK the shops used to take the game out the box and match up the game and the empty box with a sticker each. Why? Kids used to nick the games, so they got taken out of the box and put behind the counter.

[Blazing Lazers]

The really annoying thing about stickers is when they're years old and reflect way outdated prices. I don't appreciate being reminded that Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis or Battlefront II could easily be had at Gameflop not so long ago for mere fractions of what they can sell for now. Bonus annoyance points when you buy a game off Ebay and there's still old store stickers on it- as though the seller is trying to flaunt their blatant profiteering.

[mehguy]

The sticker residue when you try to peel of stickers. It pisses me off . just gotta remember to use a hair dryer when removing stickers.

[teh_lurv]

I don't mind rental stickers so much as long as they aren't disgusting looking. I think they are a pretty cool patina that adds a bit or story to the carts. But if the stickers are peeling off with hair/dirt stuck to them or otherwise look nasty, yeah they gotta go.

 

My personal pet peeve are sellers not cleaning horribly filthy games. I understand game stores/vendors can't clean every game to a spit shine, but I've encountered some pricey carts with pin connectors covered in grime and dead bugs. Bonus if all the seller does is slap a market price sticker to the game.

[7800fan]

Permanent marker on the game cart or CD. It's hard to clean the marker off textured area of the plastic like NES cart and often time impossible to clean the label or CD cover.

 

VGA! What's the point? All it does is drive the price up and make the game unplayable. VGA are not a true authorities on rarities or value. Plus with sealed case, there's a risk of old battery going bad and leaking sometime in the future, which will destroy the board and eventually eat away the label or box. It would be silly to have a 95 graded sealed Zelda gold whose box looks like it's been attacked by worms.

[+GoldenWheels]

smokers are jokers!

 

[0078265317]

Top peeve is price. Its so hard to collect when things are jacked up so high like on ebay for example. Especially the rare ones. I mean most I have never heard of but some I really like and I can't play anymore because they are so rare and expensive.

[HoshiChiri]

I hate online sellers who don't adequately photograph/describe the game they're selling. You see a good price, you click on it- and it's a stock photo with a vague 'used as-is no returns' description. I just sit there thinking "Box? Manual? Any damage? How's the label? Is there sunfade? ANYTHING?" It's doubly bad when the game is scarce and it's the only guy with an affordable listing.

 

I also hate, hate, HATE that modern games are starting to skip having physical manuals. I've spent far too much time standing in a gamestop, looking up something on my phone to find out if the copy I'm holding is incomplete or just didn't come with anything else in the case. I actually appreciate Square on this one, because they started putting a lil' info box on the case that tells you if there's a paper manual or not. Very nice of them.

 

Most of the stickers/marker/etc don't bother me, I have a box full of cleaning stuff for that. I can get most things cleaned up (I almost want to get one of those Microsoft stickers now, for the challenge!)

[The Usotsuki]

If it has no pic and says "as is", I usually assume "destroyed"

[Austin]

My biggest pet peeve is not being able to find some decent looking chicks that are into the hobby. Seriously MJR, send some of your friends to the East Coast already.

[omegadot]

Blockbuster railroad track sticker on CDs and the awful giant sticker they tossed on N64 carts. Man I hate those. I do appreciate a mint game / console but I'm not too worried about a few things on the cart. Those old blockbuster stickers were thrown right over the art and were huge. In the case of the CD I'm pretty sure they make it less stable in there and can do actual damage. Some of the game shops in my area just refused to take them citing this issue.

[Schizophretard]

Using eBay as a price guide outside of eBay and sometimes using it as a price guide within eBay to come up with an outrageous BIN. Unless you have something you know to be truly rare then just start the auction at $.99 and we will show you what it is worth to us.

 

Rarity guides with number systems and people thinking games have an objective value. Either there are enough copies in existence for everyone interested(common) or there are not(rare). All games are worth the highest price one person is willing to pay out of the group of people that are looking at the time.

 

Searching and researching about a console, game, controller, etc. online. Sometimes I get frustrated trying to look for a very specific answer to something and will either find nothing, something vague, or multiple contradictory answers.

[mikey.shake]

I once bought a couple of carts from someone in New Mexico and they were so dirty and smelly it was like they'd been dug out of a landfill!

 

Great vid, MJ and Kelsey! The MJR team always puts out quality stuff, some of my favorite retro gaming content!

 

I think this thread has hit most of my highlights (stickers, ePay pricing shenanigans, etc). Those stickers that say "VOID" when you tear them up, leaving you not with one sticker, but fifty tiny, letter-shaped stickers really piss me off. Speaking of piss, finding what must clearly be mouse/rat/cat/dog/owner urine... ewwww. All those yellowed alcohol wipes. Sorry, anyway...

 

Most of the stuff that really, really gets me are the borderline-shady, kinda-exploitative practices I see here and there.

 

"Untested" stuff marked at full price drives me nuts. For something covered in dust and 30 years old, if you expect me to buy it "untested", how about a few bucks off, as opposed to nearly the same price as a cleaned and refurbed one online? Sure, I'll save shipping, but there could be an inch of dust, a spatter of soda, or a pile of dead roaches in there.

 

"Olde = expensive". Grrr. I don't even want that torn-up, common Odyssey 2 box, but I'm mad that you're charging $35 just because it's "vintage". This goes double for Combat and Pac-Man 2600.

 

Know-it-all "experts" slinging glib soundbites (gleaned from youtube) and propagating misinformation to people who don't know better, and don't know that the so-called expert is full of B.S.. ("E.T.'s the worst game ever. It caused the video game crash of 1984.") There's one guy in particular I'm thinking of. He's like a real life cartoon. (North Shore retro gamers might know who I'm talking about.)

 

I really hate when online sellers only post one shadowy/overblown photo of a product where condition matters, like a boxed game. Sometimes it works in your favor, but that's just a big red flag to me.

 

These are "walk away" signs to me, for the most part. This should be fun. Let's not make it sleazy.

 

Oh, and stuff that smells like smoke. Yuck.

[darthkur]

I find it irritating when I go into thrift shops, especially Goodwill, where they have all the games inside a case but they're piled on top of each other with any identifying labels not facing outward toward the customer. That and they put multiple price stickers on everything, especially on the labels of cartridges.

[icemanxp300]

Speaking of goodwill. I went in yesterday and the morons had a gamecube for $49.99 they had (2) wavebirds $49.99 each, and a Mario kart double dash for $39.99. I just shook my head and walked away.

 

Even half off I'm not sure I would by them.... maybe the wavebirds but I already have 3 complete and a 4th missing the battery cover.

[high voltage]

Consoles used by children, got a PSone the other day with so much gunk in the controller ridges, had to toss them. Disgusting. Kiddie slime urgh the worst.

Edited February 12, 2016 by high voltage

[Schizophretard]

Consoles used by children...

[HoshiChiri]

Consoles used by children, got a PSone the other day with so much gunk in the controller ridges, had to toss them. Disgusting. Kiddie slime urgh the worst.

 

I remember cleaning the Playstation of a pair of kids I babysat for awhile, 2 & 6. It had French fries in it. They put French fries... inside... the Playstation.

 

I keep telling myself it was the 2 year old, for the sake of my sanity.

[Lendorien]

Goodwill, Writing on stuff with those damn grease markers, especially when they write on things that can't be easily cleaned.

 

Or worse yet, TAPING collectible boxes shut with box tape. Trying to remove that damn tape ends up ruining the box laminate 9 times out of 10.

 

And the labels. Always remove goodwill labels as soon as you can. if you can get it off without tearing, you can use the label to sticky up any residue left behind. It's actually pretty effective on laminated or plastic surfaces. But don't wait because the longer they're on, the harder they are to get off.

 

Another Goodwill irritation is finding a really desirable item on the shelf, but some jackwagon has stolen the CD out of the case or the wrong game is in it.

 

I'll agree with Darthkur on the games in the showcase thing. You end up calling someone over to open the case to look at them only to find that they're all worthless overpriced commons.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Lendorien

[Skippy B. Coyote]

My biggest one has got to be the prices on Shmups and RPGs. Whenever I'm trying to collect for pretty much any out of production console and go looking for good games to play on it I see the same thing over and over again. Most good games are $5 to $10, but if it's a Shmup or RPG? Oh no, that price is going up a good 10x for no other reason than the genre of the game.

[Games Retrospect]

Stickers are probably the worst, but I also hate games that are missing something. A few years ago, I remember going to a GameStop and finding a copy of Mega Man: Anniversary Collection and I didn't buy it because it didn't have the manual. I actually never played that game and I doubt I'll find a copy of that in the near future. Also, I bought Bully for the PlayStation 2 and it was just the disc in a yellow sleeve. So no case, manual or cover. I know that's not a rare game or anything like that, but it still drives me insane.