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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?
The first thing I do when I get a game is throw out the cardboard packaging. Especially with computer games that have a single CD and MAYBE a registration card in them. I used to keep the boxes but when I moved I found I had 30 big software boxes that I had never touched again. Do you want my mint condition Willy Beamish case?
They have a hard time finding older (5+ years old) used videogames with intact original packaging with the documentation present!
As opposed to all the other old used products on the shelves with well-preserved packaging . . .
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
Quite frankly I doubt anybody really cares. Sure it is nice to get games in good condition and in a box and all, but the games the article is talking about are unlikely to be sold brand new (most are no longer being produce), and if you are buying a second hand game then you often expect things like this.
It isn't like the stores are getting games in good condition and delibrately beating them up; they get the game in the condition it is traded in, and if people aren't willing to buy it in that condition it isn't like they are being forced to.
I certainly don't like the suggestion of stores not accepting bare games in order to teach those people a lesson - if someone is desperately looking for an old copy of a game, do you think they would prefer the choice of mint condition or not at all? I think once they get desperate enough they will buy the game sans box and manual, and be pleased with their purchase...
It will be interesting to see how sought after any well-preserved games will be in their original packaging. I can easily imagine they'll be our grandchildren's baseball cards.
Hello! it's used!
If I was his editor I'd slap him on the back of the head for wasting his time. I've rarely even at gamestop seen new games in their boxes except todays games that come in DVD cases.
I'll do him a favor though. I wont sell my copy of KOTOR that the cat scratched up the box. Maybe then he can rest in peace.
If you're going to save the packaging for every game, and no one else does, eventually that complete product will be worth money over and above the value of the game itself. The simple fact is that I don't really appreciate the retail package of a game, once I own that game, and I'd rather use the space for other things, just like every other normal person. The packaging was meant to be disposable. They made it out of paper for chrissakes. If you're different, then so be it. In 50 years when universities are offering "video game packages of the 20th century: a monological examination" as a class, you'll have saved cultural obscura and done your job as a pop-cultural historian. The world will thank you.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
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
But many people with a sense of nostalgia will just want to play the old games, and some documentation would be nice. I recently had an urge to play Ultima IV again (which was released as freeware some years back). Luckily a little googling uncovered numerous Ultima documentation projects that archive complete documentation for all the Ultima games. Some had scans of the originals, others had them transcribed into doc or ascii.
Another case is when I go and rent the odd game and the docs always seem to be missing. Again, its google to the rescue. I'm a little more hesitant about this though, as unauthorized online copies of instructions for new games may promote piracy (or at least make it more convienent). But for a game that's way past it's peak sales window, getting instructions on the internet can be a godsend.
One final option is www.gamefaqs.com which have walkthroughs and FAQs for just about every game imaginable. They dont make the full documentation available, but the FAQs will often have basic gameplay instructions to at least get you started.
Scan the boxes and manuals, and upload them to the internet. There are already collections floating around. Sure it is illegal, but many things that shouldn't be are. This is one of them.
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
The condition of preowned games also depends on the store you go to. The EB that I work at is full of gamers. If something comes in with the box/instructions, we keep it that way, regardless of policy. Unfortunately, not many people kept their old stuff in good condition until they traded it in. I doubt that 10-15 years ago, anyone thought that games like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger would be so widely sought after like they are now. Also ask the person there if they have anything stored on the back shelves. I know we keep alot of our mint condition older stock out of the bins for the sole purpose of them not getting damaged while they are out there.
It boggles my mind that the author's first theory on the lack of good mint old boxes is that the cardboard has fallen apart and that his second is that stores must be throwing them away. It seems to me to be FAR more likely that what's happening is that people like me DON'T KEEP OUR PACKAGING. I have a lot of games and a pretty small appartment. When I pack to move, my first thought isn't "oh man, I'd better work out how to fit all of this cardboard into the moving van".
I'm especially surprised, given that this article is coming from GamerDad. I mean if he's a dad, that means he has children, right? So maybe he's seen how children treat their toys? When I was a kid, I was pulling heads off of G.I. Joes. Do you think I was treating the packaging in a respectful manner?
From my point of view (I like games, not boxes) the only real problem that he raises in the entire article is that sometimes the games are missing the manual. Here are some solutions:
1) Don't worry about it, most games have ingame tutorials and most manuals were pretty useless. You can learn how to play by experimenting with the game.
2) Check out sites like GameFAQs. Many of the best written FAQs have instructions on how to play the game in the introductions.
3) Pay extra for games with manual (and box if you really want it). Then stores can pay kids selling games extra for their used games with manual (and box) and there will be incentive for them to take care of the product.
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
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 article isn't about CONSOLE history, but rather VIDEO GAME history. Classics like Zelda, Mario, Sonic, Final Fantasy...these games ARE about video gaming history. Yeah, the systems were mass produced for the home, but that doesn't make them worse. The NES, SNES, Genesis, they aren't all that old, but that doesn't mean they still aren't integral parts to video gaming history. I'd love to see where we would be today without these systems. Not to mention that in 30 years, these systems WILL be a huge part of video gaming history. I'll reiterate, just because they are fairly recent, that doesn't make them anyless important to history.
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?
Save your self-righteous rants for somewhere else.
When does something become history? In 5 years, will the SNES be part of history? How about 10? Surely at least in another 20 years, you'd have to classify the Genesis and SNES as 'history.'
Now, my point: what the hell is wrong with starting to preserve it *now*, before it's gone? There are some very, very good games on all of those systems. It'd be a shame to lose bits and pieces of them forever.
Similarly, as someone else pointed out earlier in the thread, baseball cards were just little pieces of cardboard too. I certainly don't expect the packaging from video games to appreciate in value as much as a Joe Namath card, maybe there's still some reason to hang onto this stuff while it's still *possible* to hang onto it.
You're probably too old to appreciate all of videogame history, anyway. I consider myself lucky to have gotten into video gaming when I did -- old enough to appreciate the real classics, young enough that I'm not afraid of new things. (sorry, cheap shot)
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
"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?"
Having worked at an EB for three years, I'll go ahead and state the obvious. Generally, the people who take care of games keep them. Those who don't tend to trade them in relatively early in the lifespan of the game. What happens is something of a trickle-down effect; as games drop in price, those who couldn't afford to buy them in the first place (kids, or families who don't put as much financial priority on video games) end up buying them. Lather, rinse, repeat.
With regards to game stores taking care of them, I can only speak for the store I work at. I've already mentioned that the people who take care of these games don't trade them in or already have. That means the conditions of the games these stores get is usually fairly subpar. I remember a few times when we would get an older system and games in immaculate condition. Dave isn't finding those because the game collectors, who would visit our store at least once or twice a week, bought those first. What's more is that if there are two copies of Starfox 64 on the shelf, and one is in top condition and the other is not, which is more likely to go first since they're under the same SKU?
Frankly, there's a lot of extremely obvious reasons why these games are not in the best of shape, some of which I'd provided. Why Dave didn't think this through before he wrote his article is beyond me. Maybe he thinks, quite mistakingly, that Steve Morgan of EB or some member of the gaming store echlon will read his article and suddenly agree with him. But if you're making the same amount of profit whether they are in good condition or poor condition (and these stores do), then why change the behavior? Moreover, the people who take care of games usually know they can get a heck of a lot more than $0.50 from EB for a mint condition game.
Your best bet, Dave, is to buy off of eBay and inevitably pay more for a game that is in mint condition. Surprise: you pay for what you get for. What's probably discouraging for Dave, though, is that if he hasn't thought of the obvious reasons why this has occured, he's probably not thought ahead to what's going to happen when the disc generation hits the same age that cartridges are now. Keepem while you gotem.