Video game collecting is a fun and rewarding hobby. Not only are you able to pick up a wide range of interesting and cool items, they are interactive entertainment that can be played and enjoyed rather than just being knicknacks on a shelf.
With the explosion in the popularity of game collecting over the past decade, lots of annoyances have crept into the hobby that make collecting harder, more expensive and more frustrating. Here's some of my biggest pet peeves as a retro game collector.
Carts with no end labels
Image Source: Shut Up and Take My Yen
Most game cartridges were designed with forethought in mind, with the top/front of the cartridge sporting a label that you can clearly read when your cartridges are lined up on the shelf. Though some eschewed this common-sense format and featured labels that only have artwork on the front, so when stacked up on the shelf all you see is rows of blank plastic. What’s worse is this is a horrible trend by companies that did it right previously. Why did Atari and Nintendo abandon the top label on the Atari 5200 and Nintendo 64?
Many sources have popped up recently that offer complete sets of custom Nintendo 64 end labels so you can buy or print your own end labels, so scanning your collection isn't a frustrating endeavor.
Braggards
Image Source: Video Game Museum
Many times, I’ve seen game collectors post on forums and collecting sites their ‘haul’ photos, with comments like ‘here’s my pickup, did I do good?’ with photos full of rare and expensive games they claim to have picked up for next to nothing. These are rarely legit and often just collectors posting stuff they already had or bought for a fair price, but boasting about finding $1000 worth of games on Craigslist for $20. Its pretty obvious when they do it, but its still both irritating for everyone else and sets up unrealistic expectations for newer collectors.
Unrealistic prices
Speaking of prices, highly-publicized games like Stadium Events and articles about the valuable games you have stashed away in your attic have convinced lots of people with old games that they’re sitting on a goldmine. I’ve seen the same copy of Pac Man (Atari 2600) on my local Craiglist for months, with the seller asking $50 for it.
I once went to a garage sale where the sellers had a ton of retro games that weren’t priced. I let them know about Pricecharting and roughly what they’re worth at retail so they’ve got a good idea of what they should realistically charge for them at a garage sale. I came back the following day to see what was left and they marked everything at or higher than the prices on Pricecharting — at a freaking garage sale.
Needless to say, they hadn't sold anything since I was there the day before.
The untested gamble
Image Source: wccftech
While you can usually buy games without the fear of them being broken (at least cart-based games; disc based can be too scratched to salvage), consoles, accessories and controllers are a different story. I’ve bought multiple systems from Goodwill that weren’t tested and to my dismay, when I got them home and hooked them up they were D.O.A. I’ve bought dud PSPs, PS3s, Game Boys and other consoles that I had to just resell for parts because I’m not tech savvy enough to fix them myself.
Fakes
With the retro game market exploding over the past decade, with a similar spike in prices, unscrupulous scammers have taken to creating fakes of rare and expensive games by slapping a reproduction label of a rare game on a common title, shrinkwrapping games and selling them as factory sealed and even burning the rom of a rare game onto a game board and selling it as legit. Its really easy to get scammed if you don’t know the methods scammers use, so its common for people to end up with worthless fakes after shelling out uber-bucks for that rare title they’ve been searching for.
Cardboard
Image Source: Hughes Johnson
Until games started shipping on CD/DVD, most games were shipped in cardboard boxes. Sega got it right by using sturdy plastic cases for the Master System and Genesis, which makes complete Sega games far more viable. Atari/Nintendo/Intellivision/etc all used cardboard boxes that were thrown out far more often than saved, which sometimes makes the box for these games more valuable than the games themselves.
Do you collect video games? If so, what are you biggest pet peeves? Let's discuss!
Thanks for reading. As always, upvotes, resteems and comments are appreciated!
Cover Image Source: Scholarly Gamers