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When I was a kid my mother made me put labels with my name on them on my handheld systems because I brought them to school. She feared my Gameboys getting mistakenly (or purposely) claimed by another child.

We'd put one on the battery cover and then one inside the battery cover too, so if someone actually tried to steal the system and claim it as theirs by peeling off the outside sticker, there could be a potential supersleuth-esque reveal of the truth with the inner one ("If it really were yours, would it have my name... BENEATH THE BATTERIES?!")

Interestingly I never put my names on my cartridges, but I did on some of my manuals. I suppose the reasoning there was that the booklet could fall out or be easily misplaced. That said, I've only misplaced one in my life, and that was last year during a move. I'm so ticked. But hopefully it'll turn up.

I do love it when I get carts that have writing on them, though. It does have a certain charm for me.

@CFFJR
It says "Oka Takuma".

I have several carts with names on them, but I don't let it bug me.

I never wrote on games myself. The closest I came to that was writing cheat codes on the back of a manual (which I would never do now, neither the cheating nor writing on manuals.)

brunoafh wrote:@CFFJR
It says "Oka Takuma".

Ha, cool.

Thanks man!

Years ago a friend decided to write my name on one of my N64 carts to avoid mixing it up with his.
Fortunately it was a super common that I ended up replacing, but this is why I now more closely guard "the precious".

I actually have a few of them back home. One of them had a label with name and address which is odd. Some of them had dragon ball characters or speedy Gonzales on the label. Maybe I can show you all some someday.

I imagine that the branding of games is some parent's ironclad defense against stolen property. Jimmy lost one too many games and now his name must go on each and every cartridge that leaves the house.

I never gave it much thought until now, and I always just Magic Eraser those suckers right off, but maybe I'll leave them now. It's so...authentic. And pretty funny.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Sol-Deace-game-Sega-Genesis-/120827347599?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item1c21df028f

Here's a classic example!

Back in the 80s, I would make temporary trades with friends where we would borrow each other's games. After having a few lousy people take the game I loaned them and let someone else borrow it (the double trade), I started getting upset about my games getting lost, so I got stickers and put my name and other contact info on the games with a sticker so they could find their way back to me.

Interestingly, I never did this, either. I seem to find it more in more these days when buying old used carts, though. I always wonder what the purpose was. My buddies and I would swap games all the time as kids, but we all had so few that it was easily remembered who's was who's.