What do you HATE about collecting?

[darko]

I decided to start this thread because there is one thing I absolutely hate, no....LOATH that's related to video game collecting. It is the most terrible abomination that I can even fathom as a collector of anything. Stickers.

Price tags, anti-theft shit, etc. They all suck. They suck because most of them do their job waaaay too well. You might be lucky enough to peel one off with a single try, but 99% of the time it takes much more effort than that. Some stores (like my local favorite Vintage Stock) use stickers that are very easily removed. They peel off like the window decals your 1st grade teacher let you put up in her classroom to help decorate for Christmas. My beef is not with these. Actually, I applaud stores that use them because it's like they actually stopped and thought for 10 seconds before making the decision. A store needs price tags and stickers make the most sense to satisfy that need. I get it. However, some places just go overboard.

Take GameShit for example. They feel the need to unwrap their games and THEN put price tags directly on the case. Thus, when you remove said price tag you have to deal with sticker residue and the possibility of messing up the case before you even play the stupid thing. Some GSs even remove the artwork and put the sticker right on the spine! If you're lucky enough to stumble into a GS that still sells you a game that's simply been unwrapped (you know, so every Tom, Dick and Harry can finger your future collectable without protection before you save it from video game purgatory) you have to deal with the anti-theft sticker. This is basically the most unholy of them all. It's the stickiest most frustrating piece of garbage ever invented. Who exactly produces this thing, the same people who make super glue? Seriously. You all know what I'm talking about. I've literally had to pull off 7 stickers from one case from GS. Two on the front, two on the back, two on the artwork and an anti-theft bastard.


Here is a prime example of just how ridiculous stickers can be. I bought the LoZ: Wind Waker guide this evening from Vintage Stock (the place with nice, happy stickers). I go to peel off the price tag and to my horror there is a GS sticker hiding under it! I immediately break out the GooGone for removal. GooGone is an awesome tool for the fight agains sticker abuse but there's one little catch to using it properly; you really have to get a bit of a sticker off before it can get down to business. I begin GENTLY peeling a piece of the GS monster off and it literally began pulling the clear cover of the guide off with it. I mean, really? GS is so worried that someone is going to try to peel off the price tag on a strategy guide that they use something that literally bonds to the book? This is not my first rodeo but I was still pissed. Usually, I can get any sticker off without any damage but Nintendo guides can be a bit tricky. I don't know if they use a cheaper material to make the covers or what, but I've run into the issue with them before. The only reason I was so angry this time is because I've been looking for a nice copy of this guide for years. The ink on the cover comes right off when you peel away the clear coating:



Now this is not a new hatred by any means. It's also not a hate thread on GS (plenty of other stores pull the same sticker garbage). I've been anti-sticker for as long as I can remember. CDs, DVDs, game carts, game boxes, used game discs (you've all peeled a sticker off of a game that came from blockbuster I'm sure), etc, etc, etc. I could go on and on. I highly doubt that I'm alone on this one!

[byron]

Stickers..

The back labels of so many of my SNES cartridges have been ruined by freaking stickers.

When I first discovered those wonderful yellow stickers used by Vintage Stock I fell to my knees and wept for joy. Not like those horrible, awful, nasty, hateful stickers Goodwill started using recently. Anybody else seen 'em? They're nine feet long and adhere strongly enough to repair small aircraft.

[scott]

Oh man I HATE HATE stickers. It's not so bad on a dvd case, cause you can usually pull them off w/o too much trouble. Though my local GS had a policy for a while where they would stick the sticker INSIDE the PLASTIC on THE ARTWORK. Even folks that worked there didn't understand that decision...

You want to see some horrible stickerness? Here is my cart for Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness. Apparently it was a Family Video rental copy originally. Then it looks like it went through the ringer of sticker hell. Not to mention the Family Video sticker tore the back sticker to pieces.



One pet peeve I have involving collecting games, other than stickers, is either people listing games online as Rare, when we all know otherwise. I once saw Batman for NES listed as a "Super Rare" game with a tag of 40+ on it. Ya, Right. Not when I can go to my local used game store and they have 15 copies for a couple bucks a pop. Or, games listed as "Collector Quality" when all it is, is the cart and maybe a dust sleeve. WTF? That's not collector quality. Some people, ha.

[hexen]

@darko I agree. Stickers are a major pain in the ass, especially when they put them on delicate labels or the super annoying ones that leave the slanted 'VOID' marks all over them. Same goes for permanent marker on cartridges, there just isn't an effective way to remove it that i know of...

However, what annoys me most about collecting is how it is starting to become mainstream. No, I'm not some hipster who was only doing it 'before it was cool', quite the opposite is true. Hipsters are actually the problem. All of the sudden they consider retro game collecting trendy and have started an massive upward rise in price. Supply and demand is understandable, and of course supply is falling due to lack of production, but it is causing sellers to start to think that even the lowliest games are solid gold. The phrase "X is worth this much on eBay" is something I am hearing more and more. This would be OK if the eBay price they where quoting wasn't a lazy look at a list of buy-it-nows posted for 5x the game's value. This would eventually work itself out, but I am sure that people who are doing it for these reasons are actually paying these ridiculous prices due to not being educated and causing sellers to actually beleive this inflated value is correct. A terrible store I've mentioned before that sells FF6 carts only for $100 could not stay in business otherwise. People must be buying, despite the readily available information on the web for a game like FF6's value. This has caused the price of games I bought before this hike to increase, sure, but my video games are not an investment because I never (unless under dire circumstances) intend to sell. If all of the sudden old video games became so unpopular they where only worth the plastic they where made of and my collection was worthless monetarily, I'd be just fine with that as I'd be able to expand my collection without dealing with these insufferable people.

[jobocan]

What I hate about game collecting? It has a lot to do with hexen's problem really. And that is: Resellers.

I hate those bastards, especially the ones that actually brag about ripping people off. Not that all resellers are bad off course (there's one in a nearby flea market that I don't have too many problems with beyond a few slightly overpriced games and the fact that he knows the ebay value of rarer games), but most of them are just terrible. There's this one guy at the crappier local Flea Market who will buy games from another reseller that already overprices his stuff, and he'll overprice them even more. For example, he'll sell Conker's Bad Fur Day and Super Mario RPG for 80-90$ each which is just crazy, and he says that people will pay those insane prices because he tells them that these games are rare (despite him always having multiple copies of them...). The moment I decided to never buy from him(as if the previous situationwasn't enough) was when he told a kid that Final Fantasy Dissidia on PSP was rare and tried selling it for 20$ (in terrible shape), when, at the time, it was 10$ in stores, NEW.
As a close second, I hate all those people selling retro games on the local Kijiji/Craigslist, selling for around the same price as the bad resellers at local flea markets, sometimes more. For a completely random example, there's one time I found Flintstones: Surprise at Dinosaur Peak on there... the guy tried selling it for 400$, claiming it had "sentimental value" for him... And it seems everyone finds terrible excuses to price games high. Let's just put it this way: finding NES systems with no games included for 100$ isn't rare.

So, basically, the part I hate about collecting games is the actual "going around and finding games" element... it seriously sucks to even find games around here, so I HAVE to resort to online more often than not since there are basically no good sources for games nearby, and online is almost always a better deal (specifically jjgames.com, they have good sales every month or 2 if you sign up to their newsletter).

[madmax]

So far the only thing that I have encountered that has gotten me pretty upset is that someone wrote on the Final Fantasy (NES) map. Thus making it worthless <.< It wasn't listed when i bought the map and the person had a good reputation (ebay). It's really irritating, I'll need to eventually get another one. Bleh

[kirbysuperstar]

The scarcity of anything older than the PS2 in Australia. I'm sure the local postie knows my name as "that guy who gets all the international packages".

[urbanchaos]

I think it's the same thing as alot of people who already posted here: resellers...

I hate the bastards that really think they know everything, and try to sell you games that aren't worthing that much. Yeah, try to make me believe that a beaten-up copy of Friday the 13th on NES is very rare and worth 20$....

[scott]

the bastards that really think they know everything...

I was talking to a reseller the other day, selling him on vgcollect, and he didn't know anything about variations. I was explaining the disc variants on some of the Working Designs games, like Dragon Force, and the difference between an original release and a Majesco release SNES game.  The only thing he really knew was that there are regular editions, collector's editions and "greatest hits" editions, and that he can get "way more for a black label PS1 game, than a Greatest Hits version". I educated him over the course of the conversation, but at the same time I didn't mention if certain variant Saturn discs are supposedly worth more that others. Ha

[forte]

Stickers are a big one for me, and so is people writing in stuff. I've had to replace several manuals that came with CIB games I got on eBay because the seller neglected to mention someone had written down a password or something. Another thing I hate is cigarette smoke. I got a great deal on a Sega Saturn lot, and damned if I didn't get them reeking of smoke. Took two weeks to get it all out between windexing the cases and putting dryer sheets in the paperwork. Yet another instance of sellers not giving full disclosure.

[urbanchaos]

the bastards that really think they know everything...

I was talking to a reseller the other day, selling him on vgcollect, and he didn't know anything about variations. I was explaining the disc variants on some of the Working Designs games, like Dragon Force, and the difference between an original release and a Majesco release SNES game.  The only thing he really knew was that there are regular editions, collector's editions and "greatest hits" editions, and that he can get "way more for a black label PS1 game, than a Greatest Hits version". I educated him over the course of the conversation, but at the same time I didn't mention if certain variant Saturn discs are supposedly worth more that others. Ha

Ha!

I was talking about one in particular I had to encounter at a local store. He was all like " yeah, yeah, that's rare and that's rare ", but damn, friday the 13th is nowhere near rare and a beaten up copy certainly isn't worth 20$!!!

[monochrome]

Slabbed/graded games.  If you want to do this with your factory-sealed whatever, that's fine.  I'm not judging.  

However, I just take offense to the idea that some group of so-called experts put an arbitrary number on a holofoil sticker, hermetically seal your (already) sealed game in a plastic coffin, and tack-on several hundred dollars to the "value".  Die.

I don't mind stickers, sometimes they add character.  That character lets you know they've been unloved.  They've been traded around like a drug addict, from halfway house to halfway house.  They've done time in an unsafe retail environment.  They have been in a bin with others of their kind.  

A game without stickers, with a decent label has a better chance of having been in the hands of a caring collector or at least shelved somewhere safe.  

I also hate ebay "buy it now" prices, not because of how high they are, but because every two-bit swap meet seller or pawn shop cashier will just do a quick search and then quote you a "buy it now" price (probably from a complete copy), even on a loose game, forcing you to have to fight harder for a decent deal on a game that may have been through the ringer, quality-wise.

[brettybluevein]

However, I just take offense to the idea that some group of so-called experts put an arbitrary number on a holofoil sticker, hermetically seal your (already) sealed game in a plastic coffin, and tack-on several hundred dollars to the "value".  Die.

Holy hell do I feel this way! I mean, who the f*ck are they really and why are they the authority again? Because they registered the website before anyone else? C'mon. And I went there just for kicks to see how much game grading is...wow, they must be making some serious cash considering what they charge to grade a single game. The only thing I like are their cases, I wish I had some for myself

[mojoeskateco]

I hate the stickers as well

Gamestop in my area finally started using easy to peel stickers.

Also marker writing bothers me although mr. Clean magic eraser works like a charm

[scott]

Also marker writing bothers me although mr. Clean magic eraser works like a charm

Oh, ill try this. I have a few games that I picked up used, my LoZ: link to the past is horrible, marker everywhere.