Retro Game Collecting

has anyone broke into a collectors house?
you know.. not to steal anything or anything that but.. wouldn't it be funny?

Buy sell trade group on fb
Ebay and this local gaming store before that but fuck that

>>3800141
I buy off local buy/sell sites (Kijiji because I'm Canadian), I've also created a fake facebook account to join a local game buy and sell group. Usually the prices are fair (slightly under ebay) and when you factor in the cost of shipping, I'm saving money. Occasionally a great deal pops up.

There's a local game store chain also prices certain things to sell (Genesis, GBA) which I like to collect while maintain high prices on stuff that most people are after (SNES and N64).

If you're lucky enough to live in a city, I find that trade shows are a good place to find stuff. You're unlikely to find anything for insanely cheap but you'll find some uncommon games that you're looking for and most sellers are willing to haggle a little bit, especially if you buy a few things.

It's an expensive hobby and you're coming in at a pretty tough time if you're going to try and build a substantial collection but good luck.

File: OU6Dlp3.jpg (3MB, 5312x2988px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 5312x2988px

>>3800141
unless you have several thousand to sink into the hobby, just get flash carts. i've stopped collecting CIB games, its a complete waste of time and money, for something of such insignificance, fucking cheap cardboard. half the time the box is worth double the game.

pic related, my game collection, and im looking to sell it so i can get a new DSLR camera. for some reason i didnt show my pocky and rocky 2, that game alone is worth $500, probably more now as I bought over a year ago.

and i spent somewhere in the neighbourhood of $3200 for these games, and have had an offer of over double that so... i mean its a good investment. but i was pulling my hair out week after week, fretting over not getting a good deal, or missing out on a good deal, worrying about fake boards, or even fake boxes and shit. when you get into the high value games, like complete in box chrono triggers, haganes, etc etc you have to worry about scammers trying to sell you fake boxes.

do yourself a favour, and only collect carts, and cheap carts at that. better yet, just get flash carts. AND IM WARNING YOU, DO NOT COLLECT CIB ITS A HUGE WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY!!

I used to frequent Craigslist but lately it's been very dry, and even when I was hitting it was usually non-retro stuff.
Local game store was okay. They had nice prices sometimes and obscene prices elsewhere, snobby staff. I moved though, and have no clue where the nearest retro game store is now or if it's worthwhile to make a trip to it.
The flea market where I used to live had a nice retro stall that ended up using eBay prices for trash in Craigslist condition in the end. They went out but were good back before 2013.
Goodwill is usually pointless but I do sometimes find a quality 6th gen title.
And thanks to an anon, I have been using the Mercari app for my phone to look at deals, and it's been great so far. It's a meeting point for people too lazy to post on eBay and too scared to post on Craigslist, plus the convenience of easy posting means your garage sale moms will post the vidya they find in the attic for cheap. Of course there's lots of trash and overpriced things but there are a lot of items going for their market value or slightly less. I've gotten a couple of nice deals so far and seen things sell for really great prices too.

>>3800214
Cardboard box collecting is a masochistic game played by people who hate enjoying life.

>>3800214
I only get the box if it's really cheap. I own three games in the box, F-Zero X, Rogue Squadron, and Dragon Warrior Monsters 2. The last of those was a gift, and the first two were only about 20 bucks apiece. I know how nutty that can get.

If I'm gonna shell out for shelf candy, I'm just gonna get some repro cases and have something that'll last much longer with far less upkeep. Like what Genesis games used to come in. And I'm not above getting end labels for carts that need them either, and just storing them that way.

>>3800247
yes, yes it is.
i'd rather stab myself with bamboo shoots underneath my fingernails than spend $500 on another cib snes game. cib is for fucking nerds, or people with no common sense with money. literally buying anything else would be more meaningful I sometimes wonder how dumb I was to be spending hundreds and hundreds and thousands on fucking CARDBOARD. god, I'm going to look back on myself in a few years and hate myself. at least I made a profit, is what I tell myself, but one of the reasons why I haven't sold my set yet is I feel a lot of sentimental attachment to the games, because I spent literally hundreds of hours curating them.

>>3800257
bruh, if you want to collect cheaper games, that'ts totally cool espescially if its for a game you like a lot. but i was blowing 300,400,800 dollars at a time for fucking boxes and plastic. i was truely an autistic nintentoddler.

>>3800267
Like I said, I'm trying my best to not get into that territory and just having a respectable collection of games for my consoles. I only got those because they fell squarely in the Monkey Island rule.

>>3800214

Honestly thinking of getting into retro collecting like OP. A lot I'd like to experience, but one thing I learned quickly during my searching so far is that if I want something boxed, it's going to be an import

Language barrier is going to be a pain for me, but for text light games, it shouldn't be too bad, but RPGs are going to be a struggle. At least it's a struggle with vastly cheaper carts, like 8$ for CiB JP Chrono Trigger.

Flashcarts also don't really appeal to me, as I feel that if I am not going for the real carts, I may as well emulate and deal with whatever minor disadvantages come with it.

Here's how to make collecting fun again
1. Don't buy online as often
Goodwill, flea markets, even pawn shops can have a good deal or two. Take a few day trips to shop at niche shop.

2. Expand your tastes.
Buy everything that looks interesting. Now, that doesn't mean that money has no value, just if it's neat buy it.

3. Repair stuff
Buy that shitty broken PS1 that's been sitting on your di's shelve for 9 years. Fix it and sell that sumbitch for some more games

4. Ask co-workers and friends if they got any old stuff
Self explanatory. You might just dig up a gold mine.

5. Play your fucking games.
(^:

>>3800240
>Mercari
https://www.mercari.com/search/?page=2&keyword=sega%20genesis

>that one guy selling all those plug-and-play systems
>all those other people listing it as a "sega genesis"

>>3800141
Facebook groups
Charity shops
Pawn shops
Auction houses
Car boot sales
Yard sales

Basically avoid eBay, amazon and all them. Now I'm selling most of mine and getting flash carts

>where do you find decent prices

About eight years ago.

I'll find the odd pricey ps1 rpg for $5 at the flea market maybe once a year and I got every week year round.

File: Common problem in Super NES software approval process.png (292KB, 752x1028px) Image search: [Google]

292KB, 752x1028px

>>3800141
>Calling the NES a "Nintendo"
>Calling the SNES a "Super Nintendo"

>>3800827
Yeah but that happens on every BST type site.
Actually, some of the best deals I've ever gotten on eBay have been mislabelled listings, people who don't know what they got will sell valuable goods for pennies. I once bought a copy of Dragon Ball Z Daizenshuu Volume 7 for $12 by searching "dragonball book".

>>3801123
Sometime EOPs can be good for something.

>>3801014
Jesus, people still care about this?

File: FB_IMG_1480350022324.jpg (49KB, 1074x771px) Image search: [Google]

49KB, 1074x771px

Collecting is really fun, but it's becoming more and more difficult with prices needlessly rising.

Games like Super Castlevania 4 and Final Fantasy III SNES have held a reasonable value at around $40-50 for a good while now. So that's a nice start if you like those for example.

Meanwhile, be prepared to make compromises. The 6 Mega Man NES titles shot up in price in the past few years. I just settled for the 3ds Legacy collection because 1. They're pretty much 1:1 ports and 2. They're on a cart. Much cheaper and I get the same experience and satisfaction from it. Some might disagree with this point or even specific example, but I see it as a smarter decision financially because there's no real reason to throw more money into the bin for more or less the same experience. Just do research so you know you aren't buying a shoddy port like the silent hill HD collection.

>>3801682
I had heard that the 3ds version of the Legacy collection has issues. Is there any reason not to get the Anniversary Collection instead?

I am still considering getting into collecting, but the prices are definitely off putting, and importing does seem to be the way to go for some games, JRPGs tend to be vastly cheaper in japan, but language barrier for text heavy games is quite difficult to surpass.

It kinda sucks having retro shops and flea markets be quite a distance away from me, that or they just grab the average ebay prices.

>>3800141

>tfw one week I decide I like actual carts and collecting, the next I'm all about emulation, then the week after that I decide I may want to save up for flashcarts and the process endlessly repeats itself

I'm gonna get some flashcarts with my tax returns and decide what I wanna do once and for all. I admit I do love actual carts, but prices are discouraging, and I also like having everything under one roof, so emulators and flashcarts also appeal to me

What made some of you decide one or the other?

>>3801719
I've heard about some minor slowdowns, but nothing trumping over the already present slowdowns brought in from the NES versions. I haven't noticed anything off in my own playthroughs. Nothing that impacts your gameplay in any real way.

Anniversary collection has no button configuration but if you can find that then go for it.

>>3800141
>Flea market scumming
When you get tired of crying on the internet about high prices give it a try sport.

Just emulate people.
I bought a PSP when they came out, and have played every single worthwhile /vr/ game on it.
Nowadays you can buy one for £30, and there easy as fuck to install cfw on.
I really dont see the point of collecting these games, especially the ridculously priced ones like starcraft on n64, or that shitty nba game on megadrive.

>>3800541
>5. Play your fucking games.
Hold up for a sec, that´s too far m8

>boxes are almost as much as the carts
i'm ok with things being goofy like this. i'd be a little sad if instead the manuals and maps were expensive and the boxes were cheap.

>>3801719
>Is there any reason not to get the Anniversary Collection
i stopped playing it after i got to the end of spark man's stage and realized that the enemy spawns had been changed to trivialize the last platforming section. i doubt that was the only serious gameplay change but i wasn't going to keep playing to try to find more.

File: completeworks-cover4.jpg (95KB, 614x612px) Image search: [Google]

95KB, 614x612px

>>3802105
The reason for the changes is probably due to the games being based on the PSX Rockman Complete Works. I love the box art for the complete works, but famicom carts of the original versions are cheaper. I guess Legacy Collection is there if I need it, even though I'd prefer if they made a 1-10 collection

On retro I owned as a kid (GB,GBC,GBA and N64) I prefer buying physical, but I only go for the cartridge. Luckily I don´t see the appeal of owning the cardboard.
on modern I currently own (PSP and PS3) I buy physical, mostly 2nd hand (both are cheap as fuck to collect nowadays)
that´s all. I emulate everything else on PC and PSP.
And if I want something that applies to my buying stuff but is beyond 40-50 bucks I just get a repro of it. Mother saga, MGS GB and stuff like that.
I don`t spend a lot of money and I also got my authistic collector self covered.
Oh, and I play my games almost everyday. that helps a lot.

File: Basement.jpg (437KB, 1224x918px) Image search: [Google]

437KB, 1224x918px

>>3800141
unless you have been in retro collecting for 10+ years it is significantly better to just buy flashcarts and maybe a handful of childhood favorites if reasonably priced for nostaliga sake.

i mostly collect all originals and started back around 2002 but getting my turbo everdrive helped refuel the spark to collect more for that system as i was able to use it as a $86 super system card that also plays all hucard games vs paying $250 for a super system card that just enabled the ability to play more cd based games.

To me, only having the cartridge is actually more authentic to my childhood experience. Half of my games were bought used or lent to me anyways. The only boxed cartridge games I'm really interested in getting is maybe Street Fighter 2 Genesis and Mario 3.

>>3800214

Only a retard weekend-collector may be scammed with fake carts or boxes. Every serious collector take a look deeply on that when buying expensive games. Identify fake carts, labels or boxes is easy.

Go home and play with emulators, poorfag.

>>3800276
I may as well emulate and deal with whatever minor disadvantages come with it.

This is completely my view as well. I'm actually pretty happy emulating for most games and honestly never notice any issues. If I was going to start collecting it would be completely for the purpose of having a collection and nothing else.

File: 1486162684979.png (166KB, 264x314px) Image search: [Google]

166KB, 264x314px

>>3800141
>trying to get all ps1 namco classic games
>1 and 3 have a greatist hits version which looks like ass
>see on ebay a copy that isn't greatest hits
>buy it
>comes in mail
>it's greatest hits