It Feels like 1997(and updates)

The Tokyo Game Show is going on this year, and I am getting a feeling I have not had for a long long time. In the olden days, Nintendo set the standard for what came from Japan and what stayed. Some times their decisions seemed rather arbitrary, with even hugely popular game series for the time getting passed up for localization(Secret of Mana 2 for example). It really took the Sony Playstation to open up Japan to us, suddenly the cost of localizing a game was pretty much the cost of paying for a translation. The hardware aspect was super cheap(Cd-roms), and so the cost of a translation team was justified. We are not quite in the 1995 era, a time where even Chrono Trigger barely got green lit to come to America. It does feel like 1997ish to me though. In 1997 you could get a magazine(websites written on thin pieces of mashed trees) and go through the Tokyo Gameshow pictures and say with confidence "coming to America, not coming to America, coming to America, NEVER coming to America". The cost of translation is starting to even become hard to justify to Japanese developers. If Japan is going to do it, then we need to do it ourselves. We are missing out on some wonderful games. Working Designs was an American company that pioneered translations by AMERICANS. They said "if Japan is not going to do it, then we will". Sadly Working Designs is not around any longer, and whatever new company they have made to soak up investing money does not really do a lot of games. Don't get me wrong, I love me some good American RPG's, but even the best of them are rooted in scifi novels and tv shows I have personally watched. I can pick apart even Mass Effect by revealing what Twilight Zone or Star Trek episode they got their bit of dialogue from. As much as Japan gets crap for having a "status quo" mentality, US rpg's have not evolved since the 80's. I guess I'll have to look to Europe for my Deus Ex's and Witchers. Of course all of this means small release numbers of some rare gems out of Japan.... sometimes the collector in me disgusts me :P Ok, rant off. Updates on. I have only a few PS1 updates to go before I feel like I've said all I can really say of it. Soon I will be adding to my Sega Genesis collection(FINALLY) and so I will have moved to adding info about that system. I know the Sega Genesis is not as well represented on the internet as the SNES was, but there are tons of missed out goodies on that system on par or even better than what the SNES offered. My next updates will include a guide to collecting manuals, as well as a resource for comparing manuals to make sure you have a real one and not a photocopy. Also a final statement on PS1 collecting.

The Science of Rarity: A Look at Suikoden 2

The number one rule of rarity is the amount of available product or commodity.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Suikoden had large shipments sent to America, but the sales were rather small in comparison. I started seeing cases of these games pop up in super markets being sold for 10 bucks, and this was before our super markets started carrying anything that wasn't from the rental area. Enough RPG-starved, early buying PS1 pioneers bought the game to warrant a sequel being localized. The sequel arrived, but gamers found that little had changed since Suikoden. In a world of RPG's with 3D fighting and long CGI cutscenes of important events, Suikoden 2 looked 5 years old upon release. A few people did not mind and they bought the game anyway. These people become important later...

From Game Collecting with Rick

Suikoden 2 sold badly. Well under what was expected when compared to its competition. If there was even a 2nd shipment of more copies of this game, it was a trickle. Not that it mattered, the internet was just getting started on word of mouth. Suikoden 2's success is pulled from those few people that loved the game making lots of noise about it over the internet. Soon everyone wanted to try it, and copies that were left over were snatched up. These were not collectors, these were people that wanted to play a hidden gem of a game. I remember when Suikoden 3 came out, a rumor came about that there would be no more shipped here... and players not wanting to be left in the dust like with Suikoden 2 stormed the stores and bought up every copy they could find. This proved to not be the truth, there was plenty to go around at that time. Either way, this tipped off Ebay. Ebay speculators ran up the price of Suikoden 2 to above $100 over night.

From Game Collecting with Rick

The price briefly dipped when it was announced Suikoden 1 and 2 were coming to the PSP. Only later we found out that it was not coming to America... price shot up again. Repeat this with Suikoden coming to the PS3's PSN network for download, there has yet to be a rating given to Suikoden 2, meaning we are no where near it coming to PSN. So let's look at the rarity checklist:

Small print run due to poor sales: Check

Players buying up unopened copies so they can PLAY them. Check.

Ebay speculators buying up remaining stock. Check

No additional versions of the game. Check.

Look at the other valuable RPG's on the PS1. Lunar came out on the GBA and Sega CD. Final Fantasy 7 sold MILLIONS and is on the PSN. Even Valkerye Profile has a re-release on the PSP. The only legal way to play Suikoden 2 in English is to buy a copy from the original pressings. That makes it rare.

More Than Games: Guides!

Misconceptions, misconceptions misconceptions. Strategy guides are considered glorious to some and reprehensible to others. Some claim that game makers started putting in activities in their games that would force you to buy a strategy guide to figure out(wrongly accused is the chocobo racing in FF7 for example). Others call them a crutch that bad game players use to make up for their lack of skill. I myself kind of look down upon using a guide on the first time through... but I game for the surprises, and hate spoilers with a passion. I can accept that there are people out there that just do not play the way I do. But this post is about collecting, and strategy guides are just as collectible as anything else in the industry. Some companies have made limited runs of a guide, or made special hardback editions of the guides, and if you like to collect, it is viable to go for these. Monetarily? Probably not. You're probably going to pay more than you'll ever get back for these, but there are reasons to collect.

From Game Collecting with Rick

What I have here is an art book, Final Fantasy 9's US artbook. Most art books of the PS1 era stay overseas. They are hard to come by, so for those that love "the chase" will love importing this kind of stuff. For the average collector, that is just a bit too far. Once you pay 40 dollars for an art book, you have to import it from Japan most likely, and what happens if your book is damaged in the transit? Not a happy thought to a collector.

From Game Collecting with Rick

This beautiful page of Vagrant Story artwork is not from an art book. This is the strategy guide. Many strategy guides are wonderful collections of character and landscape art. The hunt comes in because you have to find the ones that actually have this kind of stuff and not just screenshots of the game.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Strategy guides are also useful to breath some new life into a game you have played many times and years before. You can find stuff you did not know about, and perhaps even find whole stories you had never found before. Suikoden is a series where people want the strategy guides to gather all the characters. Suikoden has a kind of Pokemon collector's line to it, and if you collect all the characters, you open entire chapters of game play. Bad translations, especially in the first and 2nd game, have made it almost impossible to get all of them without a strategy guide. Sure there are Gamefaqs, but why not get some excellent artwork found in the guides as well.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Guide hunting for the average game is cheap. As I said, this is not a monetary collection market(as of 2011). Five to seven dollars will get you the guides to most games. There are a few famous guides, but they almost always are more infamous than famous. The Brady guide to Final Fantasy 7 spoils the story of the entire game in the first 10 pages. Why not own that little bit of game history? The newest is the Mortal Kombat guide. A guide with very high quality photo paper and binding, but almost no helpful information. Its production cost is so high, they confirmed they will not be printing another set. So it will become rare, and even if it is not particularly helpful, it is very pretty. Cheap, plentiful, tons of options, beautiful artwork and even rares to track down. Sounds like another home run for a collector's market to me.


I need a banner down here, I dont how the end of my posts get lost in the legalize.

Collecting Guide: PS1 Fighting Games Part 2

The Playstation was made for the future... and the future was all polygons. A Playstation disc had enough memory to hold 10x the amount of any 2D fighter of this era. The problem was it did not have the ram to hold all the character animations during play.

This lead to Arcade ports that basically lost the draw to the game. The "Capcom Vs" series was the most hurt by this. You could not have true tag-team fighting in this series on the Playstation 1. Poor sales and a low number brought out in the USA means these are collector's gold. Using 1 on 1 combat in these might not be arcade perfect, but they are fun. Plus any kid from the era will love hearing the voice actors from the Saturday Morning cartoons doing the in game voices(Dodd will always be Wolverine to me).

From Game Collecting with Rick

Street Fight Alpha will be collectible in the same way Final Fantasy is. That was THE Street Fighter to have during this era. Three is my favorite and is also interesting because they replaced a lot of the special effects with polygons, freeing up memory for more animation. Genius. It is also the only way to get a Street Fighter Alpha 3 done this way and with the single player challenges, a great game with tons of content.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Guilty Gear came out of left field. Unlike other 2D fighters on the PS1, it had HUGE and DETAILED characters that were not supposed to be possible on the PS1. Its music was not the classic fighter fair which was stuck on early techno and blips and bleeps. Its music was like a Motorhead album, it was fast, it was guitar heavy, it was METAL. Later their makers would become 2D fighter juggernauts, but the original is rare, collectible, and fun.



The Mortal Kombats sold very well on the system, but aren't in high demand. Mortal Kombat Trilogy is probably the most sought after, but I personally do not consider it a good game. Originally Mortal Kombat 3 was supposed to be a "killer app" for the Playstation, its nice to have the original rectangle case for historical reasons.

SNK's offerings are also sparse, but lack the real high praise editions of their franchises. Samurai Shodown 3 is rare enough, but not remembered very fondly by series fans. The King of Fighters releases are also rare, but their wide availability in better versions on other systems just does not lend itself to be sought after.

Collection Spotlight: Final Fantasy XII Collector's Edition

I came across my Final Fantasy 12 Collector's edition in a happenstance situation. I had went to buy Suikoden 4 and Dragon Quest 8, in used condition. Even though it looked in nice condition, the Dragon Quest 8 was actually flawed and would not even spin up in my PS2. So I returned them the day that this Collector Edition showed up new in the store.

Let's first look at the packaging.

From Game Collecting with Rick

While this Collector's Edition does not really have the flare of a Working Designs set, it does have some really cool features. First off, the case is metal. What you're seeing there is inset lettering, stamped into a metal case with a aged copper/bronze patina. It LOOKS like some epic before you even touch the game.

Opening up the case we find just a single extra disc of content, along with the game disc and the manual. The bonus disc is rather nice, and has some short documentaries on the making of the game. Nowhere near that of the Working Design sets, but still very good if you are a fan of the game.

From Game Collecting with Rick

DO NOT WATCH IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS! Its definitely for post-game watching.

Also included with those documentaries is a documentary about Final Fantasy the series as a whole, and has some really cool, if brief, information. The documentary is relatively spoiler free and safe to watch.

Continuing the tradition found in Final Fantasy 7, the case itself is adorned with some really nice artwork. I do not have the regular edition, so I do not know if it has this artwork on the inside.

From Game Collecting with Rick

The game itself is one of my favorites of all time, but it does have some real flaws to it. It has a side-quest system of quests that is as long as the main story... without actually having anything to do with the main story. People get caught up in this non-story, expecting a payoff, only to find out they've spent 60 hours and forgotten what the story is.

Then old school fans were upset that it was not Final Fantasy 6. New school fans were upset that it wasn't Final Fantasy 7. Still others were just glad it was not Final Fantasy 10-part3.



I think the game is wonderful. If they had strung the story together a little better it would be positively epic. Its story is political at first, but leads to a great mythological Xenogears-esque story about man choosing his own destiny in a world controlled by forces beyond his comprehension. The characters are a bit of a let down, but there are several gems in there including Balthier and Basch. Basch being one of the best characters in a Final Fantasy game ever. Balthier will remind you a bit of Locke and Setzer from FF6.

Pick it up if you're a fan of Matsuno's other work, its a can't miss. I can recommend it to open minded and patient gamers of RPG's also, and Final Fantasy fans that have gone through most of the other games. Newbie RPG players should probably steer clear.

Either way, grab the Collector's Edition. It is currently not all that rare to find, and costs perhaps 5 bucks more than the regular non-greatest hits edition of FF12. It is highly worth it for the "wow" case alone.

Collecting Guide: PS1 Fighting Games Part 1

Fighting Games, my second favorite genre. Here in part one I am going to go over the 3D fighting games because the Playstation 1 is the golden age of 3D fighters.

When the Playstation came out, it was famous for being much more lax than Nintendo with its licensing. The real challenge came if you wanted to make a game using 2D sprites or hand drawn graphics. Sony wanted the 3D.

Virtua Fighter never came to the Playstation 1, but it kicked off the 3D fighter craze. Namco was a huge Sony supporter in the early days and brought their less technical 3D fighter, Tekken. Just like any new genre, the 3D fighting Golden Age is full of experimental concepts, thrown together hogwash, and rare gems that no one played because the high budget stuff took the spotlight.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Rival Schools pictured above.

So if you're looking for fun 3D fighters I would suggest looking at the Tekken series. People argue over if Tekken 2 or 3 was better, you can't go wrong with either. Also great was Soul Blade, aka Soul Edge, aka the first in the Soul Caliber series. Capcom's best came in the form of Rival Schools, a game about Highschool students and teachers teaming up to beat the crap out of each other. Tons of characters and variety, a very fun game. Then we also have the Bloody Roar series, part 2 being my favorite. Your characters basically have 2 move sets. You start out as human, but you can work up a gauge that allows you to turn into a animal human hybrid(or Furry) during the match.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Let's get to some rares though.

Tobal No 1 was Squaresoft's first foray into the fighting genre. It featured the ability to move all over the place while fighting. I liken it to more of a 1 vs 1 beat'em up, but your mileage may vary. Anyway, its Squaresoft, so its collectable. Historically speaking, its "adventure" mode later inspired Tekken to include them, as well as several others. Other notables, this was Square's first PS1 game. It came with the Final Fantasy 7 demo. It's character designs are by the Dragon Ball Z artist.

Star Gladiator received a limited run here in the states. It was Capcom dipping their fingers into 3D fighting. As part 2 of this guide will tell you, they had some problems with the PS1, and Star Gladiator was meant to try and save them in the home market. It is a fun 3D weapon fighter, but its presentation pales in comparison to Soul Blade, especially with Soul Blades vast array of game modes.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Bushido Blade... ok, anything released by Square is collectible right now, that's just how it is. Bushido Blade was a unique, semi-historical fighter where one move could end the game. Two master of the game would fight for 10 minutes, parrying, blocking, and never scoring a hit... then in an inspired move, kill the opponent. Not made for people with ADD, this fighter is a cult classic... part 2 is collectible too, but not as fondly remembered... it was much more main stream.

Battle Arena Toshinden was one of those early games that was released in the larger rectangle PS1 cases. If you collected Magazines in the mid-90's, then you know there were about a billion covers with this game. Largely forgotten in time to better games, it was quite impressive looking when it was released. Full 3D backgrounds, impressive looking weapons and special moves. Voted Best Fighting Game of 1995 in Electronic Gaming Monthly, it was also voted their most overrated game they ever awarded.

There were several licensed fighting games that use pre-existing properties as their base. Star Wars: Masters of the Teras Kasi. Dungeons and Dragons: Iron and Blood. X-men Mutant Academy. Despite their gameplay, they are collectible because of their license.

There are several other 3D games you can find that are more rare. These just have not gotten on the collector's radar yet, or are so bad that no one wants to remember them.

The real collector's market is in the Playstation's 2D fighting games. Coming up in part 2, the Playstations lack of ram and generally bad 2D performance results in some of the rarest fighting games on the planet.

Science of Rarity: Green vs Black

Green vs Black is something that ignites some weird hostility. Venture outside of game collecting forums, and you will read some of the worst insults directed at collectors when someone brings this up. Perhaps I should start with telling you what it means.

When games in the Playstation 1 era came out, they were generally released with a black border down the left side. If a game sold around 250,000 units, the publisher had the option to release it in a new, cheaper variation with a green border and "Greatest Hits" title.

From Game Collecting with Rick

In the PS1 era, most if not ALL Green Labels have the exact same game on the disc. This is what you will encounter on said forums. Someone will say, "get the green label" then proceed to bash collecting. The usual collector stuff comes up, "if I had that kind of money to blow" or "only rich people" blah blah. I would be quite interested in seeing how much money these people throw away on renting movies or apartments. Everyone has the expenses, their hobbies. Anyway.

Yes, Green Labels do not change the game play at all, but then why not just get the PS1 download from the Playstation Network? Black Labels do cost more. The rarity is built in, as some of these games sold close to 10 million copies, with only the first million or so being black label. But there are more differences.

From Game Collecting with Rick

I am fortunate enough to have two copies of Xenogears and Final Fantasy 7. Each one I have a black copy and a green copy. I bought these before I became a collector, I just wanted to make sure I had the games in the future. Because of this, I have them both open.

I have always liked disc art, be it CD's or video games. My examples do not have incredible disc art, but it does show enough to prove my point here. On the left is the original black label discs. Final Fantasy 7's big difference is that the Green Label has a mirror finish over the whole thing, though it still has the frosted outlines of a meteor. The original is white painted with mirrored details. Xenogears is a little different. The black label has this wonderful mirrored image of the main character and the X/Cross, the Green Label is just white coated with zero detail.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Here with the manuals is another difference. In Xenogears we see that they add a green label on the side of the manual. I have heard that some companies ship a black and white version of their booklet with their green labels. Both of my examples do not.

From Game Collecting with Rick

This is interesting for a reason. I have come across 2 posts that I have to assume are 2 different people that said their Final Fantasy 7 Green Label had a black and white book, one even said "mostly greyish". That leads me to believe there are 2 possible explanations. My earlier generation FF7 got an old left over FF7 booklet... or someone is faking FF7 booklets to get more money.

From Game Collecting with Rick

And then I found this. The original black label game is on the left. It has the copy right text ending BEFORE it reaches Aeris' dress. The Green Label booklet has the text ending AFTER her dress! Its a different FONT! That is the ONLY difference I could find between the two. There is no FF7 green label booklet because it would ruin the artwork.

This also means the FF7 Green Labels had their own booklets printed for them! Someone IS faking FF7 booklets out there and selling them as "complete" sets!

Aside from the disc artwork, the rarity, and the manuals looking better for the black labels, there are also a few that came with sound track discs. These discs are largely excluded in Green Label.

I am not advocating being black label exclusive. I am merely pointing out that if you are a sound track fan, an artwork fan, perhaps you should look into it. If you just want the gameplay, then by all means go Green Label. I have several Green Label games that I do not care to track down the original. I just want my readers to be informed, and to not accept blindly a "there's no difference, get the Green Label" you might get at gaming forums.

Don't be that guy....

An article made its way around the video game community this week. It involved some reality show about buying foreclosed storage lockers. In this particular episode a guy found a ratty old stained Nintendo Entertainment System. He quickly turned it over, saying "please be a Nintendo 001 please be a Nintendo 001" and when he saw that it was, he jumped up and down and told the camera that he saw one on Ebay go for 13,000 dollars.

There are many things this guy did wrong.

First, he went on Ebay, looked for something insanely expensive and did a passing read about it. The listing was a Nintendo, 001 model, and 5 games. He tried to apply collector knowledge in one type of item to that of another. Nintendo 001 seems like it could be worth something. The only problem is that Nintendo 001's are ANY Nintendo of the United States type with the door. As in NOT top loading. As in EVERY NINTENDO SOLD IN THE UNITED STATES UNTIL 1993.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Hardly anyone calls those an NES 001. So the search doesn't show up often. They call it the Classic console. The NES 101 is a "Top Loader" so that is what they are called, "that top loading NES".

Next, he went out and got a case made for it, got it cleaned, and tried to make it look like a 13,000 dollar item when he tried to sell it to a collector. He invested money into something he had no real clue on how much it was worth. If something is not worth sentimental value to you, you probably should not blindly create custom carrying or display cases. What you might try to show off as nice could instead embarrass you when someone knowledgeable sees your presentation.

So if all that wasn't enough, he was so ignorant of the video game collecting market that he never bothered to look at the games that came with that 13,000 dollar system. Video game collecting is all in the games, not the systems, it is one of the first things a collector will learn. That system had a few of the video game buzzwords that should have caught his eye.

Unopened.

Sealed.

And most telling of all "Stadium Events".

If he had taken time to even google one of the "couple of games" in the package, he would find out that Stadium Events is the holy grail of Nintendo games at the moment. A sealed unopened copy of the United States version sold for over 40,000 dollars.

Not only was this guy on the television wrong, he was not even in the right neighborhood of knowing anything he was trying to sell for 1,000's.

Oh and his Nintendo did not even work. It was not worth 20 bucks.

Do NOT be this guy. If you are going into this hobby for monetary value, DO research. It would have taken him less than 5 minutes to know what was going on here in this situation. What is worse is there are sellers and buyers both that do about as much research. It ends up inflating prices of things that shouldn't be expensive, putting games out of reach of people that just want to play them or reclcaim a bit of their childhood.

More Than Games: PS1 Controllers

Continuing the Playstation 1 focus, today I am going to talk about controllers. Thanks to Nintendo's notorious love of gimmicks when it comes to controllers, the controller collecting market is rather large. It can also be very fun. So let's set aside our game cartridges for a moment and look at another way to collect vintage video games: PS1 Controllers

From Game Collecting with Rick

Short short short history of controllers here. The Playstation was originally going to be a Super Nintendo CD system, similar to Sega CD. It was cancelled and Sony decided to go ahead with it on their own. They did not do much changing to the controller design.

Then Sony decided they needed an analog controller. While many point at the N64 as the reason, it was Sega that first put out its own analog controller, and Sony always saw itself as fighting the Saturn more than the N64.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Here is our first "collectable" controller. Most of you do not know it exists. Look at those analog buttons. They curve INWARD! This was the dual analog controller, and I had one because I needed a player 2 controller and this was only a little more costly. These were larger than any Dualshock released by Sony, and they did not have the shock yet. These are collectable because they are rare AND any Gran Turismo nut loved these controllers. The sticks were higher and the inward curve allowed more slip-free control.

From Game Collecting with Rick

The first gen dualshocks are pretty much how they are today. They were super heavy and felt real sturdy to me. They were small, and that turned some off on these, but the weight made you feel like you had a real controller in your hand.

But enough of history, what about the collecting? Well at this time Namco was the biggest player on the playstation. Tekken was burning up arcades and consoles. Ridge Racer was a huge reason for people to buy a Playstation. They were arguably the reason the Playstation did so well in its early years.

To support their racing games, they created this:

From Game Collecting with Rick

That controller twists in the middle like a steering wheel. It looks awkward, but from reviews I've read it was a wonderful controller. I have not had any personal experience with it, I never even saw one for sale, but it looks like a neat little piece of tech.

From Game Collecting with Rick

This looks like a light gun. For those that weren't around at the time, Light Gun games were HUGE in the arcades. Before Dance Dance Revolution, the gun games were the only thing saving arcades now that fighting games were dying out.

These controllers were lauded for their accuracy compared to other guns of the era, even Namco's earlier guns.

Collection Spotlight: Growlanser Generations Deluxe

There are many types of editions when it comes to the gaming world. There are press kits, review kits, developer editions, and so on. The most expensive Playstation game edition was a run of 40 for a very select few. The average player had no way of getting these nice collections of trinkets and memorabilia.

There was once a company named Working Designs. They specialized in bringing to the masses some quirky and favored cult classics from Japan. On top of this, they also created collector's editions that were sentimental for those that loved the series, and just plain neat for people new to the games.

From Game Collecting with Rick

I ordered this around 2005. This is Growlanser Generatioins Deluxe collection, and it was the last special edition that Working Designs did before they went out of business. This is the reason I bought it, out of loyalty. Their previous games I had been a fan of since seeing them on Sega CD, or reading about them in import reviews. Growlanser was before I got a taste for Tactics games(NIS reversed my views on them about a year later).

From Game Collecting with Rick

I have not gotten around to playing this yet, so some of it is still unopened as you can see in the picture. This is not a case of me wanting to keep things pristine, it is the case of me having too many games to... holy crap I almost said the forbidden phrase. I just have a lot of "back log" to play :)

From Game Collecting with Rick

This is the soundtrack that came with the game. The artwork for this game is legendary, as the artist is considered a national treasure of Japan by some people. Satoshi Urushihara is his name and he has done lots of famous stuff. Just do not Google his name if kids are around... he does lots of work in "mature" areas of anime as well as games and harmless manga.

From Game Collecting with Rick

This is some of the stuff I have not opened. First up is the deck of traditional playing cards that have "custom" artwork on them. A review said the artwork is just limited to their backing and the jokers, so I have not rushed to open them. I had been hoping it was something for each card, like the old X-men playing deck I had as a kid.

Beside it is a physical representation of the ring that is featured on the card box. It is made of some sort of metal with 3 fake gems inset. It is on a chain meant to be worn around your neck. I have not played the game, so I do not know the significance of it. I do know that Growlanser continues its stories as each sequel comes out, and this is part 2 and part 3, so perhaps it is very central to the story.

*part 1 was supposed to be released around the same time by Atlus, so Working Designs could not get the rights

From Game Collecting with Rick

This is my favorite bit of memorabilia included in a Working Designs set. It is an actual watch! I am sure it would turn my skin yellow and green if I wore it, so for sure I did not. It is still cool non-the-less and extremely nice for packing into a video game.

I do have a lesson to impart here at the end. If you are ordering things like this, and you care about box condition, you need to contact the seller before you even place your order. Be it SNES boxes, NES Boxes or Working Design special edition, most sellers just see a game and throw it in something and ship it. They actually stuffed this box in an envelope and sent it USPS. My corner was ruined, which lead to my watch's case being smushed and my sound track being crumpled. If this had been something I wanted for unopened collection purposes, I would have been furious(I was still pretty angry).

Miracles of Modern Technology

Emulators.

NO WAIT. WAIT. Keep reading, I have some info you might like.

Emulators are a dirty word for many game collectors, especially those that value having "the real thing". I understand this, I hate buying digital music and movies. Something about someone needing a court ordered search warrant to take my stuff away comforts me... anyway.

Not all Emulation is bad, and it is not all dubious downloading from the internet. First let me explain what Emulators actually are. They work LIKE a game system, without BEING the original game system. That's it. That is why EMULATORS are legal, as long as doesn't use code from a system, it is legal.

But downloading the games are illegal right?

Yes... well no... well yes.

Ok, the law lets you have ONE digital back up of anything you own. If you OWN a wide video game collection, you can download an own a copy of each game. You own a Zelda NES cart, then you can legally own a copy of that data(Rom form is the common one) and do with it what you will. Play it legally on emulators for example.

Why does that help? Well keep reading.

Emulation is also legal on the hardware area. We all know NES's wear out, and we all know PS1's die faster than micro-black holes in the Hadron Collider. There are legal physical hardware emulators that work with the REAL games!

From Game Collecting with Rick

Yes! You can buy one of these LEGALLY(as long as you get the right ones of course), and you can put in your prized Mike Tyson's Punch Out cart and play the real thing on your TV.

But Rick, if I have an NES what is the point?

Well that one above plays both NES and SNES games, and there is ones that will do NES, SNES, and Genesis games. That way you don't have to have all these treasured systems hooked up to the back of your TV, wearing out the sockets because 3 game systems are daisy chained back there.

Ok, but I also I said having those backup roms can be useful.

When you are traveling, you can't bring your game collection with you. It is probably too large. There are several legal hand held emulators out there too. They are the size of Gameboy DS's or even smaller.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Legally play the games you own on these and have great fun.

We game collectors can co-exist peacefully with the Emulator crowd, they have tools that add longevity and FUN to our collections. Utilize them.


Upcoming posts. More spotlights from my collection. Collecting more than just the games. And another look into the Science of Rarity.

Did They Really Look This Bad?

You know the old saying, that we all look at the past through the lenses of rose tinted glasses. Lately though I hear people say "I don't remember these games looking so bad" In some respects this IS nostalgia.

But that is not what I am talking about.

They mean that they don't remember edges being so hard, and characters looking kind of weird. Some people blame an emulator, saying it was coded badly. Some people just accept that when they were younger they did not notice this because they did not know better. Both of these assumptions are wrong. It is our TV's.

New television and computer displays are super sharp, high definition and "progressive" displays.

Back in the day, televisions for half a century used scanlines of empty space. When programmers made these games they took these into consideration. TV's "blurred" the lines so that we did not notice this as much, and programmers used the blur to make nice looking graphics.

From Game Collecting with Rick

The problem... people don't believe it. Why? Because there are lots of types of TV's still out there, and many of them look the same even though their technology is different.

"It says HD on the screen" "I payed 1200 bucks for this TV 3 years ago, its HD" "Top of the line when I got it"

It is one of the reasons why there are STILL people that say they don't see a difference in HD gaming from SD gaming. People think(because of good marketing) they all have high definition, advanced displays. Its not the consumer's fault really, for 50+ years all TV's were basically the same, a tv is a tv is a tv.... but not anymore.

My living room has this type of TV.

From Game Collecting with Rick

My friend's game room has this type of TV.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Both look the same, but the technology behind them are very different. My living room TV is actually the OLD kind of TV, a smaller tube TV that is projected. Old game systems look GREAT on these. If I had room, I would own one of these just for my pre-HD systems.

My friend's TV is actually a small LCD screen that is projected to the front. Old game systems look decent on these. Why? Any projected screen is going to have SOME blurring, and it just so happens that for scanline information like the old systems, it is enough blurring to look decent.

Neither is true High Definition 1 per 1 displays. My living room TV makes my Playstation 3 look like crap though, and my friend's TV makes the Playstation 3 look wonderful.

My game room TV is a full on HD LCD flat panel display. Old games look like crap on it. This spurred my interest in learning all the different types of TV technology because it did not make sense to me. For years I was told new tv's make NES look bad, but I did not notice it for a decade because of the TV's I owned or my friends owned.

So people that are really into the retro scene want a tube television. There is almost no tube televisions being imported into the US now. The ones that are, are 12 inch VCR combo TV's that are mostly used for surveillance. Your best bet is to find a Good Will. Good Will has good 15-32 inch tube televisions for 20-30 bucks all the time.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Hoard your panasonics and your sony tube TV's, you might cash in later.

Science of Rarity: Collector's Edition

I want to tell you a story that chances are you can relate.

When I was a kid, Superman comics made headlines about how much they were worth. Popular Saturday morning cartoons got kids excited about many comic properties. The rare thing occurred when kids and adults agreed on a craze, and an explosion of comics occurred. Comics were selling by the millions per issue. Many comics publishers capitalized on this and made "alternate covers" for the same issue. Special editions with artwork by other artists on the cover.

From Game Collecting with Rick

These comics have pretty much stayed at retail price for 20 years.

No?

When I was a kid, a Honus Wagner card went for over 1 million dollars. The rare thing happened where kids and adults agreed on a craze, and an explosion of baseball cards occurred. Baseball sets got sub-sets, foil cards, signed inserts, and lots of other illusions of rarity.

If I wanted to re-buy every baseball card I ever owned as a kid, it MIGHT cost 100 bucks... I had thousands upon thousands.

Do you see my point here? Once something becomes collectible, companies like to capitalize on it. Chances are that nothing manufactured to be collectible is ever worth money. No one ever told us that Action Comics #1 was rare due to comic recycle drives for the war effort. Did anyone mention to the layman that Honus Wagner had his cards destroyed because they came in cigarette packs?

From Game Collecting with Rick

So be careful of this stuff if you are a new collector. Wait until you learn why things that are rare are worth money. Game collectors have their Honus Wagners and Action Comics #1's; games that sell for 1,000+ dollars. NONE of them have been collector's editions.

That is not to say collector editions are not worth their price, or that they don't gain in value. A couple of Working Design's collector editions have doubled their retail price or even more lately. I am simply saying that those days are coming to a close, retailers are learning how to capitalize this market.

These days, I am seeing single games with 5 different special edition variables. I am seeing games going NEW for $150 for the collector edition. Remember the comics that came out with variable covers. Remember that $150 for a vintage video game is considered "highly rare treasure" for its generation.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Just be careful out there, and if you want to buy collector editions and limited number items, think about WHY you want to buy them. Decide what is fun and do it for that reason. If the gamble is the enjoyment for you, then there is a lot of enjoyment out there for you these days. I will not judge :)

Many Kinds of Collecting Part 2

This post explains what I mean by "how far down the rabbit hole you go" in my very first post. Check that one out if you have not.

The very basis for what makes a good collecting hobby is that it is available to a wide variety of people at a wide variety of price points.

For around $50 you can get a well made Korean game system that will play SNES, NES, and Sega Genesis games. Its a great start, and you can buy the actual vintage systems later for 50-100 bucks in NEW playing condition. There is a guy I know on the net that even opens up the NES's and replaces parts, its amazing(more on him later, or email me if you're interested).

The actual game collecting is where your choices are. There are those that we'll call "barebone" collectors. They want a working game because they want to play them. They do not care about the bells and whistles as long as the game can be put into the system and played with friends and family.

From Game Collecting with Rick

You bring $50 with the intent on collecting barebones and you will leave with a very nice and very impressive collection of great games. Some classics such as Sonic 2 or Donkey Kong Country can be gotten for $2 online. If you're going barebones you might find yourself running out of games you KNOW pretty quickly. You might want to go a step up.

A step above this(and where my personal collection goals stand) is the Completionists. They want pretty much everything that came with the package. It adds a level of difficulty in the hunt for games that many find fun and challenging. You can't just go into a flea market expecting this, and you can't use just any old game website either. Your collection does grow slowly in comparison, and many Completionists have barebones collections as well.

From Game Collecting with Rick

This kind of collecting can add very little or a lot to a game's price. The Sega Genesis games came in sturdy cases that were used to store the games, and they can be found in great condition because of this. SNES, NES, and many PC games came in cardboard boxes that quickly deteriorated or were simply thrown away. It costs much more for an SNES with all the included materials than it does for a Genesis game.

The final type I am listing here are the Unopened collectors. These collectors look for the crem de la crem of the collecting world. They want the unopened boxes, unopened jewel cases, anything that has been untouched and unplayed is their bread and butter. They also pay large premiums for such. Because of this, there is a huge black market of fakes out there, especially for NES games. Entire books on the kinds of seams, the plastics, and the original serial numbers have been created to support this market.

From Game Collecting with Rick

This game was rated by the VGA. Like comic books, baseball cards, and other rare collectables, video games collectors have their own authentication companies. You send your games in, they rate them, charge you money and upsale you expensive casing, all so you can sell your 100 dollar game for 800 dollars. You should exercise caution with doing this, as there are a number of things collectors do not know about this practice, I will have a post on it later(its not a scam in my eyes, there are just some cautionary things you need to know)

As with anything else I've posted, almost everyone is a mix of these types. My dream is to have a small collection of VGA rated games, but my collection of barebone games that I can loan to friends and grab and play with my nephews without hesitation is my largest goal.

You mix and match as you can, and you make sure you have FUN. Unopened collectors find the fun in the hunt. Barebones collectors find the fun in the play. If you mix them all you have a nice fun collection to play that took you many years of having fun hunting them.

The number one rule is to always have fun and never discriminate against someone for what they find fun. Get together, enjoy your games in all the ways you can, and be brothers and sisters of the game collection community.

The Many Kinds of Collecting

As said in my first post, there are many many different kinds of collecting someone can do when it comes to video game collecting. I will go over some, but there are many shades in between these types. Nothing says you can't be all of them if you want.

Our first two divisions are that among Player and Investor. These divisions happen between almost any kind of collectible hobby. The "Player" is the collector that focuses on using the items that they amass in their collection. Its the tea pot collector that brews tea in their pots, the pocket watch collector that wears a different one each day. A player's collection has posters hung on walls, game systems plugged into televisions, and games at the ready for some play time.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Not my room btw, but I am jealous.

The other division is the Investor. The Investor collects games for a monetary reason. Their meat and potatoes are the rare and rising in price. They usually have pristine collections of unopened games that have been left in wrappers for 20+ years. Their posters are rolled up and protected in cases. Their games are rated by a ratings board and they have charts of what games are selling for on Ebay. They do not care and have never played that rare game they have that is worth something, but that doesn't matter, its going to pay for their kid's college some day.

Now that's not a hard division, most collectors are a combination of the two. I myself have an unopened special edition of a game and would not mind having a couple of rated game. On the other hand I make sure I have a working and playable version of any game I own.

A few notes on this. Players tend to not spend as much money as an Investor. The cheapest an investor gets away with things is buying brand new games at retail, but these are usually the $100+ collector's edition. If they want the game rated, they are looking at $75-100 each attempt. A bad wrinkle in their new game could result in a less than satisfactory score, causing them to have to buy another set.

From Game Collecting with Rick

But do not be mistaken. Some people judge Investors, saying they are not enjoying the games as much as Players. I say this is just an misunderstanding. To Investors, these "whale hunts" ARE the enjoyment. A Player will find the game online, missing manuals, missing cases, and they can get away with looking for 3 minutes on Google, getting their game, and playing it in a few days. Investors will hunt for specific games for years. They will haggle and perhaps even trade parts of their collection to get that one whale they've wanted for so very long. If it was not fun for them, they would simply choose something else to invest in.

The key is to identify who you are dealing with when you are meeting other collectors. Learn to be friends, judge less, and work together to further each other's collections. Video game collecting flourishes with more people of all types.

Next post I'll talk about the next division; Complete vs Bare Bones

My Collection: PS1 Overview

I was never a fan of trading in my games for money.

About the time I got my first job, the PS1 was entering its mid-life, a time when a lot of people believe it had its best days. This is when my own PS1 collection really started. I did not buy all these as a "collector" I bought them as a "player" and I just never got rid of them.

From Game Collecting with Rick

You can click that for a larger view.

I'm not going in depth into the collection here, I'll go into what I have in more detail later. I also will try to give INFORMATION when I show you things from my collection. Its not just for vanity, I will include lessons, tips, and perhaps a review of the game.

I am personally going to start a Sega Genesis collection next, and this blog will chronicle that. My goals are to get each system's collection looking at least this nice(around 50 games and several memorabilia). So technically I am a noob when it comes to collecting in the "vintage" era of a game system, so even there you will learn as I learn.

The Perfect Hobby

My first post will answer the question "why is collecting video games a great hobby", or at least try to answer it anyway.

The best hobbies are ones that everyone can share in. Video game collecting has so many variations and so many entry points that just about anyone can move in and start. Due to the massive video game industry, chances are everyone that reads this will own at least one video game. Like collecting Tea Pots or Vinyl records, you can have a respectable collection for very little money.

From Game Collecting with Rick

Anyone born in the past 40 years likely has some memories on video games. With technology like it is, every couple of years a new format comes out and an old format starts to decline, this is PERFECT for spawning a collection industry. Not only are there rare games, but many times these rare games are also really great to play(like Chrono Trigger). On the flip side, many times the really common and really remembered games are very cheap as well(you can get Sonic 2 for 3 bucks).

From Game Collecting with Rick

The amount of games out there is staggering. Just like glassware, you can find games at yard sales, flea markets, Good Will, Pawn Shops, and even the new stuff at retail stores. New games are very collectible. If you want to stay away from vintage stuff, you can collect special editions of new games. Then there are things that are not even games. You can collect the hardware. Special or funky controllers, failed game concepts, gaming posters or store displays. Even if you focus on one game format(system), you would have lots of stuff to collect at all price points.

From Game Collecting with Rick

You do not even have to play video games to have fun finding, collecting and trading these games with people.

Collecting as an investment is currently a speculator's game, but if you are savvy and know the industry you can usually spot what is going to be worth more later. Unlike comics and baseball cards in the 90's, there are still some specially made collector's items that WILL be worth more later, not simply produced in the millions.

Yes, I believe video game collecting is currently one of the best new hobbies anyone can get in to. For fun. For profit. For nostalgia. For rarities. For commons. Expensive and cheap. It all depends on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.

This blog will chronicle my own collection, my own thoughts on the hobby, and give some advice on it as well.