Did you ever write your name on your game cartridges?

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

[video=youtube;wiAewVwP3nU]

New quick video ! (Watching not necessary ) Looking through some loose NES cartridges I noticed this name written on with permanent marker, so being late at night I thought I would upload this quick little video asking "Did YOU ever write your name on your cartridges?" - As collectors we often come across them, often research how to remove them but it did make me think about how or why people did this, sometimes it was kids who did not know better and would mark everything they owned in some fashion, maybe because we did not think of decreasing value or ever parting with our precious games? I sometimes wonder about the people who owned them previously, why they sold or traded them etc.

[Pixelboy]

Writing anything on a video game cartridge = desecration

 

I could never do it, neither now or back when I was a kid.

[carlsson]

I would put stickers with my name on them. Yes, those can easily be removed in case of theft but if the idea is just to identify whose item it is and everyone are to be trusted, it works just as well.

 

Regarding writing on cartridges, I know a lot of people asking for the developers' signatures on certain cartridges which I suppose is a different kettle of fish though in practise does the same to a cartridge as writing my own name on it.

[+save2600]

I'd periodically lend some of my VCS games to a friend or two BITD. While I always thought the practice of writing your name on games was extremely tacky, even as a kid, my Dad insisted on scratching a little X in the corner of the cart's I lent out. I still have some of those cartridges.

[Flojomojo]

They were so expensive (especially to a kid) I could see how they'd want to brand them so they wouldn't walk away. Especially with some NES games which would be played non-stop for months.

 

It's not something I did or would have done, though.

[HoshiChiri]

Nah- my cartridge gaming days were spent on a military base so small, I could practically bike the full length of it. Lending carts wasn't really a thing as a result- you simply went to the other kid's house & played with them. Ironically, we did actually have a game stolen once, so it may have helped- but we ended up getting it back anyway when the other parents got wise to the situation. That's a whole story onto itself, tho'...

 

I used to have some carts from a friend that she'd written her name on- it did nothing to stop my brother from stealing them, becuase he didn't have them out anywhere for me to prove they were taken. For all I know, he sold them (he went through a bad phase in his teenage years). That resulted in my current habit of keeping a catalog of my collection- I used to have to count my games once a week to make sure nothing was missing.

 

Personally, I don't mind so much as it can usually be removed. It's just one of those interesting relics of the era. (Now, a disc game with a name written on it would be a hard pass, as I'd be worried about the ink affecting the data layer.)

[Eltigro]

Nope. I didn't loan mine out much and they rarely left the house.

[DragonGrafx-16]

Anyone ever write their names on HuCards? They even have a line for it on the back.

[TheCoolDave]

Personalty, I never did but, I had some with names.... but, with a little work, even perm marker can be removed.... as long as it's not on the label...

 

Trust me, I picked up boxes of games with all names on all of them... 95% of them you could not tell there was ever writing on them...

[zzip]

Since my real name is Mario E.T. Starbattle, a suprising number of games came with my name pre-printed!

[Rick Dangerous]

Writing anything on a video game cartridge = desecration

 

I could never do it, neither now or back when I was a kid.

 

This... I was dumb enough to throw away some boxes as a kid but at least i knew enough not to write on my carts..

[Gentlegamer]

No, I was "that kid" who never let you borrow or touch my games.

[Rick Dangerous]

No, I was "that kid" who never let you borrow or touch my games.

 

I was that kid too and you know why? I find even to this day that if you lend anyone anything you may as well give it to them, because you are never going to see your shit again.

[roadrunner]

The only thing worse than writing on a cart is people who put a address label on it.

[digdugnate]

No, I was "that kid" who never let you borrow or touch my games.

 

 

 

I was that kid too and you know why? I find even to this day that if you lend anyone anything you may as well give it to them, because you are never going to see your shit again.

 

This right here sums me up, too. I am SO anal about my stuff- i have been trying to chill with it since I've had my kiddos but it's hard.

 

Edit to add: HELL NO i wouldn't write on my cartridges.

[fiddlepaddle]

I never did, but I've received a lot of games that have a first name written on it using a Sharpie. I also regularly get CDs and LPs that have names and/or phone numbers on them, often with printed labels. I think sometimes people who have roommates do this to prevent confusion when someone moves out.

Edited May 18, 2019 by fiddlepaddle

[Reaperman]

I don't generally write on my games (exception at the bottom), however, I'm one of the few who really likes it when others do.

 

I like seeing kids' names and even sometimes old phone numbers. I like it when I get a whole batch from the same kid, and imagine I'm growing up with their gaming experience. On a related note, I also like price tags, especially bright starburst sale/clearance stickers and stacked/layered price tags.

For me it's not really about being cheap (though I am cheap), it's about seeing bits of the story behind things, I wonder where they all came from, etc.

 

I generally prefer these imperfections to a clean copy, so long as the label is in otherwise good shape. (for whatever reason half torn-off labels are where I draw the line)

 

The one exception to my 'no writing' rule is that I've started writing the word 'fake' on the back of most repro carts (as I do in this repro review video) because I don't want my wife to get flack selling them when I die. I haven't managed to convince myself to do it to my star fox 2, or my fancy tactics ogre repro, my brain will only let me do it to the chinese ones.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Reaperman

[HoshiChiri]

The one exception to my 'no writing' rule is that I've started writing the word 'fake' on the back of most repro carts (as I do in this repro review video) because I don't want my wife to get flack selling them when I die. I haven't managed to convince myself to do it to my star fox 2, or my fancy tactics ogre repro, my brain will only let me do it to the chinese ones.

Get some of those cart protector boxes & write "fake" on them. Same result, but clean carts.

[BigO]

I never did write my name on my games because they weren't "my" games. I had three brothers. And, I knew only one other person with the same console and they the same games I had and then some. I wonder, was it an "only child" thing to write first or full names on a game cartridge? Or maybe other kids didn't didn't have to share. We didn't have that kind of money.

 

I kind of like getting 2600 cartridges with personal identification on them. I have one somewhere that has a sticker with a doctor's office information. I can kind of now share in the memory of "that doctor's office that had the Atari in the waiting room when we were kids".

[Reaperman]

I never did write my name on my games because they weren't "my" games. I had three brothers. And, I knew only one other person with the same console and they the same games I had and then some. I wonder, was it an "only child" thing to write first or full names on a game cartridge? Or maybe other kids didn't didn't have to share. We didn't have that kind of money.

 

 

I think it's mostly a 'when a toy goes to another house' thing, which is probably going to tend to happen more frequently with only children. I remember marking my micro machines with a dot of paint so I wouldn't get them mixed up with the neighbors.

[Tanooki]

Never and it has always annoyed me seeing games people have defaced with it. I really hate trying to get marker off of plastic and labels.

[0078265317]

I don't remember writing back then. But here are some examples I have from the years of collecting. Some ebay and some local stores. I don't remember.

 

http://mvvg.blogspot.com/2019/05/name-on-games.html

 

The tape is mine with the codes on the battle of olympus. But the whiteout and marker was how I got it if I remember.

[Gentlegamer]

No, I was "that kid" who never let you borrow or touch my games.

 

I should also note this is why I still have these games.

[jaybird3rd]

I never felt the need to do this, but my younger brothers were sometimes known to write their names on games. We didn't usually loan out our games, so they didn't do it because they were afraid of losing them. They were simply trying to hoard their favorite games from the other brothers; writing their names on the labels was their way of "calling dibs." Of course, that couldn't prevent someone else from playing the games anyway if they wanted to, so it didn't make any logical sense, but that's the way it was with a house full of competitive boys.

[+GoldLeader]

I Never did this with carts!

 

I did loan some to friends BITD and usually got them back.

 

As a guy who was in bands and ran sound, I did like to mark all of my cables, and sometimes mics with a splash of green spray paint. Shure SM 58s still walked off the stage if you weren't careful though, because every band had those and sometimes the vocalist of the band that played before or after legitimately thought it was theirs...Switching to AKG TriPower mics I preferred and nobody was using (probably because they were high dollar) solved this. I also had "personal" mics I didn't let anyone else use.

 

Back to carts, I've certainly got some in my collection from eBay lots or pawn shop purchases with names, or for that matter stickers from video rental stores and I never minded it. Although I prefer them to be clean, It usually helps you get the game for less and to me it adds to the history a little bit...Like the game has a story...My favorites being Super Famicom games with Japanese characters written on them in Sharpie marker, proving those kids were just like kids everywhere else I guess, though it seems much more rare to find Japanese games with names on them.