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Stores Neglecting Old Videogame Packaging?
Thanks to GamerDad for its editorial discussing the poor condition of older console games sold by videogame stores. The writer notes: "Getting N64 games in any kind of reasonable [boxed] condition seems to be next to impossible... even more shocking is the state of their SNES and Genesis stock." He continues: "With SNES games, I can sort of understand that the deterioration of cardboard would leave you with just the cartridge and the manual eventually, but apparently the stores are now just throwing out the manual if the box is torn/useless. Even Genesis cartridges, sold in those hard shell boxes, are rarely found in their original packaging anymore. It's the systematic destruction of our gaming history." The piece concludes: "Is it really so hard to maintain a policy of keeping the product in similar condition to how it's traded in or maybe even stop accepting bare games altogether to give your customers more reason to take care of their games to retain value?" What's the solution, if any, to this problem?
Along similar lines, it's not all that hard to track down a copy of Duck Hunt for the NES at the average gaming store. Just try to find a computer game from that era, though. Or even fifteen years later.
As is the case with so many collectibles these days, I'm afraid that eBay is our only hope.
DecafJedi
my weblog: apropos of something
I mostly agree with gamerdad on the article; the state of most preowned games out there is disgusting --- at EB.
Smaller stores tend to have much better preowneds, for instance. I think the culprit is that most 'casual' gamers don't take care of their games (because they ARE casual gamers -- gaming isnt their 'passion'.. similar to people who don't take care of their cars VS people who love their cars), and only know of EB as a place to buy and sell them (again, because they ARE casual gamers, and don't know too much about anything about them), and therefore are also more likely to trade them in (yet again, because they ARE casual gamers, and therefore don't care to keep them).
end result -- people who dont care about theit games trading many of them into the most popular places.
Also, just my feelings on the subject...
I feel that while it IS "nice" to keep them, i have no real problem with it when i lose a cardboard box. its only when i lose a plastic case (pc cd jewel case, XBOX dvd case) that i have a problem, because then the game doesn't feel complete. Manuals are my biggest pet peeve, partially because games of old used to have huge ones, and that used to be worth like 50% of the cost, and i guess that feeling hasn't worn off.
Newsie, Moderator, www.tauniverse.com
The problem is that, in most places, older systems aren't worth the trouble. The prices at EB are fixed so high that most people won't want to buy them, even though most are traded in without the box or instructions. Tetris for Nintendo (NES) is going for $39.99 CDN preowned, cart-only. No one's going to buy that, but that's what it's priced at.
The N64 games at my local EB are all the ones that no one wants - that's why they got traded in. No one buys them, they just use EB as a clearinghouse to get rid of the crap they wish they'd never bought.
No one cares about N64 games because there's no money in them.
The condition they're in really depends on who owned them before. I've seen a lot of games in mint condition (I saw a copy of Syphon Filter that looked like it had never been played), but I've seen a lot of games where people just don't care about what condition their games are in. Looking through the local EB's collection, most of the games without original cases are wrestling games. Shock.
The fact of the matter is, these are pre-owned games. They are used. They were played by someone else. No, they're not in excellent condition. That's why they're cheaper. Get over it.
--Dan
With SNES games, I can sort of understand that the deterioration of cardboard would leave you with just the cartridge and the manual eventually, but apparently the stores are now just throwing out the manual if the box is torn/useless. Even Genesis cartridges, sold in those hard shell boxes, are rarely found in their original packaging anymore. It's the systematic destruction of our gaming history."
SNES, Genesis, and N64 (mentioned earlier) have about as much to do with "gaming history" as Chevy Chevettes have to do with automotive history. The oldest among them, the Sega Genesis, came out in 1989 with a Motorola 68000 CPU. The SNES came out in 1991 while the N64 came out in 1996!
If you want real video gaming history worth saving, then look to the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972 as the first home video game. Then there is the Fairchild Channel F, which was released in 1976 and the first video game system to use cartridges. In 1977, the wildly successful Atari 2600 was released, Atari's first cartridge-based video game console. And let's not forget the Vectrex of 1982, the first and only home video game using vector graphics which it displayed on its own monitor.
Video gaming history isn't about a bunch of johnny-come-lately Japanese executives who sought to get rich with slickly packaged, mass market products. It's about pioneers like Ralph Baer, who, in 1967 prototyped what would become the Magnavox Odyssey. It's about visionaries wile Nolan Bushnell who founded Atari and conceived Pong in 1976.
I run a used games shop, we do about 25grand a month. NES and SNES games are rarely seen in a box, and when they are, we leave them that way. Genesis games, and don't ask me why, don't sell in the clamshell...I have pondered this fact for days at a time, it makes no sense. The moment I take them out of the clamshell, they sell. I just don't get it, I've always thought of the Genesis cases as actually being useful but I guess most people just don't care for them.
Atari rarely has the box, Intellivision often does have the box (go figure)...NES games don't as I said above, but they also rarely have the original plastic slip cases they came in either.
It's a mystery to be sure.
This is somewhat tongue in cheek, so don't flame me off hand. But it's still interesting.
Ever think about what is REALLY killing the entertainment industries? Is it organized counterfitting? Or casual copying? Or file sharing?
Why doesn't anybody ever think of the used market as the real downfall of the entertainment industry? This is about used video games, most of which you can't get in stores anyway...but strech this out to music or movies. How many used music/movie stores are around where you live? How much business do they do? Chances are they do just as much, or maybe even more business than a normal record store.
Why is nobody talking about this? Why doesn't the RIAA do advertisements about how used sales take food out of the mouths of artists (which is MORE true than for P2P file sharing). Sure, it's legal. But the question is, is it ethical? How ethical is it to make money off of somebody elses's work..without them even getting a whiff of it?
Furthermore, this is more competition for the entertainment dollar. Spreading things even thinner.
Now, myself I'm torn on this issue. On one hand, I have a lot of pre-owned DVDs from my local movie store (buy 2 get 2 free builds your collection pretty fast). But at the same time, it really HAS to be affecting their real numbers. More-so than anything else really.
Again. Why isn't anybody talking about this?
Hardly. You want some of my mint condition 8 track tapes? Baseball cards and comic books are collectibles because it doesn't require any additional pieces to be useful. Video games would require some kind of player which I guarentee will be obsolete and unavailable in 30 years or so rare it isn't worth buying anyway. Besides, you just need the ROM image to emulate it.. who needs the original packaging?
I've heard reports of these older used games making up 5-10% of a store's sales. This may seem small...but think about how little the stores give when you trade in these games. The relative profit on a $3 Genesis game is far higher than for a $20 Game Boy Advance game.
Why, then, are they getting rid of these games? One of the biggest reasons is space. These cartridge games take up a fair amount of room that newer CD-based games just don't. If they don't have enough room for the actual games, where the heck would they put the boxes? It's far easier for the stores to just toss the packaging. Depressing, but that's the way it is...
This one still puzzles me - the Dreamcast isn't that old, and I know there's still demand for DC games. Oh well...
Goo goo g'joob.
I don't know why the author of the piece is complaining about packaging. I mean really, who the hell cares? Now if they were selling empty packaging, fair play. "Gaming history"? Don't be so melodramatic...
As for what I do, I keep all the boxes games come in, but I flatten them. That way I can still check out the box (since box art is as fun for me today as album art used to be), but it takes up virtually no space.
Only box I have right now that isn't flattened is Neverwinter Nights and it's expansions. Those boxes are just too purty to destroy:)
I can't speak for all stores and much of this has already been touched upon by everyone else, but I can't seem to shut up so...
In the case of older games (which includes N64 titles - maybe you've lost track of time, but the system launched well over 5 years ago), they don't get traded in with the boxes and the instructions to begin with. In fact, the cart themselves often times look like the owner stored them in a ditch in their backyard - literally. Dirt caked, labels peeled, etc. It's ridiculous the condition of the games I see float through my store, both old and new generation titles.
Another issue is space, as some have already pointed out. As it is, there's hardly any room to keep loose cartridges on the sales floor, much less boxes two to three times their size. A lot of people don't realize this, but most stores don't have some vast amount of storage space off the sales floor to hold all of this stuff. For instance, used Game Boy Advance games often DO arrive in their original packaging, manuals and all. Unfortunately, in my store in particular, there is simply no room to store these things. I can't deny that it sucks for the customer, particularly collectors. But it's not in my store's best interest to keep every box and manual that gets traded in or sold to us.
On the rare occasion that a mint condition NES/SNES/GENESIS game does come through, we do indeed keep the box and manual, but this is rare. For instance, a mint copy of Super Metroid rolled into town and it was a reason to celebrate indeed.
Finally, as far as him touching on the rumor of some places not taking back games/consoles/accessories for Dreamcast and older games...my store in particular stopped taking those games back as of today, actually. Other stores will carry them, but I'd expect to see them phased out in the near future. So it looks like Ebay and smaller, more specialized shops for that kind of thing.
In 100% of situations, I prefer to have the data on my computer where it takes zero cubic space, than in a box which takes up much-needed space. All this stuff is on the internet. And when I view the downloaded box art, it would look alot nicer on my 36" television (primary monitor) than it on a 5" cardboard piece-o-trash box.
Paper is obsolete.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com