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.