Video Game Collecting

I’ve uploaded a PS Vita price guide over at video game price guides, you can check it out here: PS Vita Price Guide.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, and you’re interested in a Neo Geo Price Guide, go visit Video Game Price Guides because I just uploaded one. They are some amazingly expensive games, but probably worth every penny.

I’ve uploaded an Atari 5200 Price Guide over at videogamepriceguides.com. This was one of the easier price guides to produce. And it Atari 5200 isn’t your thing, well there is a price guide for NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy, Advance, PS1, PS2, PS3, Wii, Atari Lynx, 7800, 2600, ColecoVision, and more. WHEW!

An Atari 2600 Price Guide has been added to http://www.videogamepriceguides.com .  It’s still fairly new so hop over there and help identify mistakes and recommendations.

Recently a hater felt it was necessary to post a comment on videogamepriceguides.com bringing into question the accuracy of the pricing and went so far to imply that prices are artificially inflated. Also, without reading all of the text on the listing pages they decided to question the discrepancy from the list page vs. the listing page.  They ended their rant by saying the site is doing a disservice ‘to the community’.

There are many mistakes in the video  game price guide, no doubt.  But there are plenty of mistakes in other guides as well.  VGPG has never been promoted as the end all of pricing guides.  It has never been promoted as the authority in game prices.  The sight is simply another tool in the long list of video game price guide sites that have the same similar flaws.

The hater also felt it was necessary to bitch and moan about the lack of historical prices being available on the site.  This would be a cool feature, but does it matter?  You can’t travel back in time to buy or sell a video game.  Historical pricing might be important for some, but it’s not for others.  At this time I feel there is no need for VGPG to show historical data.

To clarify the pricing discrepancies: 1.) All of the prices are pulled from eBay.  It is the only resource that is accessible by probably everyone.  It takes in consideration of current auction and BuyItNow prices.  Is it perfect?  No.  This is why it’s a guide.  Guides are meant to point you in the right direction, and any site that claims they are the authority in pricing is full of it.  2.) Since it pulls from eBay discrepancies will arise.  People put the wrong titles in listings, ‘lots’ get considered when they shouldn’t, the list goes on and on.  There isn’t an accurate way to segregate out these listings from VGPG… at least not at this time.

It needs to be considered that the price guide is free.  Currently, there really isn’t any advertising.  I’m not affiliated with eBay in anyway except for my usage to buy and sale games.  I do not actively promote my listings on VGPG.  There is no reason to.

So let’s get to the brass tacks.  If you don’t like videogamepriceguides.com that is awesome.  Tell me what you’d like to see improved, and somewhere between my normal job, family, and other hobbies I might implement those changes.  If you hate the guide and would like me to recommend others go check out videogamepricecharts.com, digitpress.com, or nintendoage.com.  All three of those sites have price guides available. 

At the end of the day the value of a video game is what you put on it.  A fan will pay more.  A detractor will pay less.  If you can’t figure out what a game is worth to you without a guide, then perhaps game collecting isn’t for you.

And as for the site, well I will be implementing a solution here soon that will allow the prices in the guide, to never have to come under question.

A couple new features are coming to www.videogamepriceguides.com. The first is a feature called “Complete”.  Click “Complete” and only listings that are “Complete” will appear.  This is VERY useful for buying complete SEGA Genesis games.  The next feature is “No Sports”.  Click “No Sports” and all (well, to be honest, MOST) sports games are removed.

Combined “No Sports” with “Complete” and the already existing feature of “Free Shipping” and you’ll have a nice list of games to blow your tax refund on.

See an awesome deal on VideoGamePriceGuides.Com?  We’ve added a “Tweet This” link next to the Google Calendar link.  It’s currently available for Nintendo NES listings right now, but will be rolled out to all of the price guides soon.

So here is the first follow up of the 15 Nintendo Games for $2 each experiment.  The idea was to put ‘Best Offers’ in on 15 games for no more than $2 a piece.  There were also some rules:

1. The seller must have a rating of 98.5 or better
2. It must be a game that I do not own
3. The label must be in reasonable condition
4. No counter offer will be accepted

So what were the results?  After the first day I received counter offers on everything except the first four games.  Which this was probably to be expected.  On average it costs about $3.50 to ship a nintendo game, so at $2 a piece the seller is taking a loss of atleast $1.50 to break even on just shipping!  The remaining for expired.  There might have been a counter offer or two, but I was looking forward to having at least one of the offers accepted.  This just means I’ll have to try this again!

1. Al Unser Jr. Turbo Racing Expired
2. WWF Wrestlemania Expired
3. Swords and Serpents Expired
4. RollerGames Expired
5. Tecmo Baseball $3 counter offer
6. Solar Jetman $3 counter offer
7. M.U.S.C.L.E $4 counter offer
8. World Cup $4 counter offer
9. Bases Loaded 3 $3.99 counter offer
10. WWF Wrestlemania Challenge $3 counter offer
11. American Gladiators $4 counter offer
12. Rad Racer 2 $4 counter offer
13. Disney’s Adventures In The Magic Kingdom $3.50 counter offer
14. StarTropics $4 counter offer
15. SmashTv $4 counter offer

I did an experiment before in putting a bunch of random offers on Nintendo games.  I achieved mediocre success ultimately winning a copy of Duck Tales and 1943.  I decided to do another experiment with Free Shipping.

Using http://www.videogamepriceguides.com/ I isolated fifteen games that currently are being sold with free shipping and that have a “Best Offer” feature.  The rules are:

1. The seller must have a rating of 98.5 or better
2. It must be a game that I do not own
3. The label must be in reasonable condition
4. No counter offer will be accepted

So let’s deal.  The fifteen games are as follows:
1. Al Unser Jr. Turbo Racing
2. WWF Wrestlemania
3. Swords and Serpents
4. RollerGames
5. Tecmo Baseball
6. Solar Jetman
7. M.U.S.C.L.E
8. World Cup
9. Bases Loaded 3
10. WWF Wrestlemania Challenge
11. American Gladiators
12. Rad Racer 2
13. Disney’s Adventures In The Magic Kingdom
14. StarTropics
15. SmashTv

So there you have it.  Tomorrow I’ll post an update, and once more after the 48 hours have expired.  It will be interesting to see how many are actually one.  On average it costs between $2.50 and $3.50 to ship a game, so in theory any of these would force the seller to lose money.  But a few of the Nintendo games came from the same seller.

Depending on the success (or unsuccess) we’ll try this again but for $3 an item

Visit again for part 2

Part 1: Shinobi

Some people associate personal memories and events in their lives from the popular music, movies, or world events that were happening at the time.  With myself, I associate the events from my life with videogames.

Such is the case with Shinobi.  I first saw the arcade game in 1988.  It was at a 7-11 here in Las Vegas on the corner of Bonanza and Pecos.  My elementary school was going to have a 4th of July fireworks stand in the parking lot and I went there to check it out.  Instead of buying fireworks I blew a bunch of money on Shinobi.  Eventually it was released on the NES by Tengen.

I played it once or twice on the NES at a friends house and I remember briefly owning a copy but now twenty years later, I don’t recall what happened to my copy.  Then about a week ago I thought about the game and remember how crazy stupid it was:  The children of the leaders of the world were kidnapped and you need to rescue them!  Awesome.  The arcade game had a slightly different plot in that the children of Ninja’s were kidnapped.  Whatever.  It does explain why all the kid’s have Katanas behind them.  Who cares, let’s move on.

I decided that it was imperative to own a copy again, and besides… if I’m going to collect all of the original Nintendo games, I’d eventually have to get it.  I thought I saw a copy at Play N Trade here locally, but it was a bust.  It looked like their retro inventory was wiped out from the holidays. 

So I went back to the one place I knew I’d find a copy: http://www.videogamepriceguides.com/

Shinobi was pricey.  Too pricey!  It seemed that many eBay sellers who didn’t specialize in games felt a used, scuffed copy with a partial label was worth $40 or more.  Some were more reasonable, and I was willing to buy it, even if I felt it was a little overpriced.  PedroGames.Com, one of my favorite sellers, had copies for about $9 plus shipping.  But I had already spent my Pedro budget, and had already exceeded my complete budget for January.

Then suddenly like the ninja in Shinobi… poof!  There it was… a reasonably priced copy from highly rated seller LukieGames.Com.  Like that Progressive Insurance commerical, sometimes PedroGames.Com is the cheapest, and sometimes it’s not.  (This doesn’t mean I’m jumping the PedroGames Ship!  PedroGames has a huge inventory, super fast shipping, discounted shipping, an easy to read and navigate eBay store, and oftentimes very competitive prices.)

If you’ve ever looked at retro games on eBay you’ve seen listings from LukieGames.Com.  You had to of.  They even have a website that isn’t an eBay store.  I’ve browsed through their listings many times before, but it wasn’t until the reasonably priced Shinobi appeared that I ever paid that much attention to them. 

LukieGames.Com… so is it pronounced “Lucky” or “Luke-E”?  I was dying to know so I asked.  Turns out it’s “Luke-E” and the story of the name is pretty cute, but unrelated to this post, so I’ll save it for them to explain.

So what is the verdict?  Good?  Bad?  Otherwise?  I’d say that buying Shinobi from LukieGames.Com was an A+ experience.  The game arrived exactly as described.  There was a little bit of grime on the label, but the game was released 21 years ago, and for the cheap price I got it for I don’t mind cleaning it up a little.  There was a sticker on the case, which in most cases I’d say is a big no-no, but the adhesive is so weak, and it wasn’t on the label of the game so it wasn’t a big deal at all.  Perhaps it’s used for inventory purposes, or maybe it’s a neat viral way to advertise.  Either way it wasn’t a distraction at all.

I’m going to make a couple more LukieGames.Com purchases in the next couple weeks, and I’ll share with you how it goes, but for now it’s time to play Shinobi…