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Where Do You Get The Games?
rafemonkey writes: "After nearly ten years, sysadmining has finally broken me. It's not the computers or the long hours, it's the freakin' users ... But, that's beside the point. In looking for an escape route, I settled on the idea of opening a used/classic video game shop. I'm fairly comfortable with busines plans, taxes and all the "mechanical" things, but the big question is: How do you get your inventory to start? Are there places you can get a bulk order of atari 5200 carts? Are there suppliers in japan who will wholesale you the really cool stuff? Or do I have to spend the next six months at conventions and lurking on eBay? TIA!"
..we steal our games. Why bother buying them when you can steal the ROMs online? After all, copyright law is evil when it gets in the way of us getting free stuff.
I'm afraid your business model doesn't take into account the fact that people who are interested in your product are terrible thieves.
So I sez to him, I ain't givin' you no damn three-fity.
Unless you are going to be running a little kiosk or whatever using EBAY as a platform you are fuck'd, my friend.
The overhead starting this up, anywhere in meatspace where people will come and buy the stuff, is staggering.
That is why most games for "leet people" e.g. classic cult favorite games etc. get sold on the Net.
Niche market.
If you are selling the latest thing, then you have to compete with Best Buy.
I wish you the best of luck, though. Perhaps you can find a meatspace location where the little kids down the street have industrious, thrifty parents who have not yet upgraded from their SNES and Atari systems, and thus are looking for games for them.
Otherwise your market's folks who would be looking on the Net for convenience's sake in the first place. and they havent the overhead so their prices are lower too.
Goat sex free since 2001
this slashdot article was about a guy with millions of Atari games. :P
 
maybe if you still hurry, you can buy them all out and resell them
wait until you meet retail customers. Seriously, as a survivor of the retail business (3 looong years as a salesman and front-line face-to-face tech support), I'm here to tell you: You Ain't Seen Nothing, Yet (tm)!
:-)
Well, good luck, cuz you're gonna need it. I just wish I could see the look on your face when you have to answer the question for the seventh time in the same day (NO! C64's DON'T run if you snap off the cartridge inside the computer), and realize that users actually aren't that bad
The problem with owning and operating a classic-gaming shop is not going to be getting the games, I think, but competing with some of the very, very good game emulators out there.
/. in the past.
For example, I own an old Nintendo (Famicom) machine that I have kept in working order since childhood. Despite that fact, I play any Nintendo games I want to on Nesticle. Mario 3? Despite the fact that the Mario All-stars SNES (Supa Famicom) cartridge sits *on* my desk, I will load up SNES9x and play it, Zelda 3, Mario-Kart and all the other really great SNES games with my keyboard.
Older games, especially arcade boxes, have fallen into a kind of legal swamp because they're not really public domain but are treated that way anyway. They're even more easy to come by. Dozens, if not hundreds of really good Mame Rom sites exist on the net right now. They're very rarely shut down, SFAIK. YOu can get even more on Usenet, IRC, and Hotline. Build-Your-Own upright Mame box instructions have been posted to
Atari 2600-5200, NEC, and various other emulators are floating around out there. Considering the average speed and power of modern computers, they run the emulators easily while MP3's download in the background.
If you're going to sell Classic Games, I reccomend that you cater to collectors and arcades, people who are interested in *having* rather than *playing*. Otherwise, you're going to have a very hard time.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
On Ebay and other online auction sites, it seems there is only a market for old games that are rare or were only produced in limited quantities. Since people can download an emulator and roms to play most of the old games, there is no reason for them to keep an old atari hanging around. Also, they can download the roms for free.
If you want to be profitable, you should try to obtain an inventory of only games that are collectors' items, and and old videogame memrobilia you can find. That's the stuff (along with old full-size game machines) that sells.
Lenny
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
If you want to stay in business for more than a month or two, I would suggest you focus your inventory on the newer systems as this is where 95% of the market is right now. PS2, DC, N64 are where its at. Or at least where the money is at right now. If you deal with systems like this you have the advantage of high demand and relatively low prices for inventory. Before everyone starts screaming at me, let me explain...
If you are a brick and mortar operation that buys stuff from folks who walk in, then you know that you'll be paying them probably 20% of what its worth (Don't agree with me? Try selling anything to funcoland or a used CD store). Plus there will be plenty of kids showing up with a pile of newer RPGs that they beat in a week who just want anything they can get for them. These are the same kids who want to buy the newer stuff, not the 5200 carts.
Not that their isn't a market for the older stuff. Its just that you need to realize that the vintage games will be a small percentage of your business. In reality, if you want to move rarer items (original Tengen Tetris for NES for example) you will probably have to sell on eBay to get the price you want. That is the reality of the Niche business.
Basically what I'm saying is that the bulk of your inventory (and $$$) will be tied up with the newer stuff. So don't worry about combing conventions for copies of Yar's Revenge with the missprinted label (no, I don't know if this exists)
For what its worth.
Pete
The sole purpose of the Internet is to get porn and bomb making plans into the hands of children.
I hear there's a place in New Mexico that has a horde of Atari games.
Of course... you'd have to bring a shovel....
If you have not bought at least a game or two for yourself, you probably don't know the market as well as the people who have been collecting these games for a couple years.
So the answer to your question is: Yes. Spend a few months getting into the game collector scene via eBay and other trading resources, as a hobbiest. After a few months of doing so, you might learn that there are reasons why nobody else has gotten rich doing this yet... or you might realize that it's a rich gold mine that few know about... or you might find a way to enter the business in a way that has not already been tried.
In short, know the market first, then think about entering it.
In the mean time, there might be something that you already know a lot about which you can use to start a business. Look at the guys at ThinkGeek. They turned a fondness for pithy little geek sig files into their own little T-shirt and bumper-sticker empire.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.