CLeaning games/consoles before sending them?

[jay_red]

Just curious as to what you guys feel about cleaning your stuff before you sell/trade it? Whenever I am getting ready to send something I always give it a once over to make sure it looks presentable, sometimes it looks ok at home, and I start to pack it up at work and notice it looks much worse in the bright florescent light, and have to clean it up again. When someone opens what I have sent them, I want it to look good, and have them happy to go straight to using it.

Now the other side of this is that I have recieved items in the mail that were in need of some cleaning, and while I dont really mind taking stuff apart and making it look close to new, it would be nice to get stuff that has the same care taken to it as what I send out. I guess some people feel that once its in the box and gone its out of their hair, and dont need to worry about it.


*Disclaimer*
This is not specific to anyone on this forum, and I am not trying to send any subtle messages to anyone I have traded with here. This is a thread I have been thinking about for a little bit now, and was not sparked by any recent trades made

[Ziggy]

It's all about going the extra mile when selling, which most people don't. Judging from most eBay and Craigslist adds, people don't know how to sell things properly. It seems like common sense, but I guess it isn't. You want your items for sale to look their best, that will give you your best chances of selling the item for the best price. Taking proper pictures helps too, which is another thing people tend to suck at. So, dirty items and bad pics.

Judging from all the stuff I've bought in the past, most people don't clean their stuff before selling it. It just seems like a no brainer to me. But at the same time, I know that items that look dirty in pics will sell for less money usually. So I've been able to score things for cheap just because they didn't look good in the pics. But yeah, it can be a pain in the ass having to clean things you just purchased. Lazy sellers? Or they just don't realize?

eBay and Craigslist aside, you'd think a store would pay better attention to this... but no. When I had a local Play N Trade, most of the carts were really dirty. You'd think, since they're a store and already trying to get top dollar, they'd spend the few minutes on each cart to make it presentable. But no, a lot of the carts had grime, marker, and/or stickers. All of which could come off easily. Most people don't realize how easily, which is why there's a loss of sales (or on eBay, cheaper price).

[jay_red]

eBay and Craigslist aside, you'd think a store would pay better attention to this... but no. When I had a local Play N Trade, most of the carts were really dirty. You'd think, since they're a store and already trying to get top dollar, they'd spend the few minutes on each cart to make it presentable. But no, a lot of the carts had grime, marker, and/or stickers. All of which could come off easily. Most people don't realize how easily, which is why there's a loss of sales (or on eBay, cheaper price).

I have gotten things from my local used record/game/movie spot that has looked horrible, it blows me away that they will take in some stuff and just slap on a price tag and put it back on the shelf. I expect it at Goodwill, but not an established place like this.

Edit:
And right after I hit submit, I realized why they do it, because someone will buy it and clean it up themselves I guess.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I clean all of my items before I post them in my B/S/T thread, and I take pictures of them so that people know exactly what they will be receiving if they purchase from me. I also do not want any disappointed buyers; so, try to be a little over-descriptive of a game's faults in my B/S/T thread.

I clean games for the B/S/T forum the same way that I clean them for my personal collection. I clean carts by wiping the exterior with a moist paper towel and immediately drying them with a dry paper towel. (I skip this step and use only a dry paper towel if I think that a moist paper towel will damage the label in any way.) I take great care not to get any water on the contacts, which I usually dust with a can of compressed air. As a general rule, I do not disassemble carts or consoles for cleaning if they are in working condition.

I clean discs with a clean, dry micro-fiber cloth. I have only rarely encountered discs with "gunk" on them. I would not sell - or keep - a disc with gunk on the "data" side of the disc. If there is something on the "art" side of the disc, however, I will usually try to wipe it off with a moist paper towel and - as with carts - dry it immediately. (I don't know if it would do anything, but I take great care not to get any moisture on the "data" side of the disc.) If a disc does not read, I will take it to a local store for resurfacing - which I have discovered does not do too much - but I would never sell a disc that I have had resurfaced.

I test games before placing them in my B/S/T thread by watching the opening cinematics and playing through the first level of the game. If I am unable to test a game for some reason (i.e., if I do not own the console for it), then I state that in my B/S/T and discount the price of the item appropriately.

I am curious, however, what the general rule is with regard to testing games. If people responding to this topic would speak to that topic, I would appreciate it.

EDIT: I remove marker on carts with a Mr. Clean "Magic Eraser" and I remove stickers and sticker residue to the best of my ability without damaging the case. (CRTgamer has posted some guides on this topic on the forums.)

[BoringSupreez]

I always clean carts and discs before sending them. Usually I don't bother with the cases unless there's visible dirt on them. As for consoles, I clean them up before even taking any pictures or listing them.

Edit: as far as testing goes, I load the game into the first level, or, if it's a racing game or something, into a quick match.

[Ziggy]

Edit:
And right after I hit submit, I realized why they do it, because someone will buy it and clean it up themselves I guess.

Yeah, but how many people WONT buy the dirty item? I bet most people wont. Eye appeal is buy appeal. If you had the choice between two copies of Super Mario World, for the same price, one was mint looking while the other was dirty...

I am curious, however, what the general rule is with regard to testing games. If people responding to this topic would speak to that topic, I would appreciate it.

One example I like to bring up, in regards to this, is a copy of Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for Saturn that I bought off eBay. The seller listed it as "tested, works." When I got it in the mail, there's was a nice scratch on the disc. When I tried the game out, it would load and appeared to work fine, but as soon as you try to load a match it would freeze.

So, simply powering on a game and claiming that it works is not good enough. Of course, we don't always have the time to test every inch of a game, but I have a good idea for suspect optical discs. If the disc has a scratch (beyond light scratches) you could try and rip the disc to an image. So a Saturn game, for example, you could just use ImgBurn to rip it to BIN/CUE. If you get errors during the read, you know you have a problem.

[prfsnl_gmr]

That's a great idea. Thanks for the tip.

[Ziggy]

Unfortunately that trick wont work so easily for carts. You'd have to have the hardware to read the carts which most people don't. If you do, you could easily dump the cart then compare your dump to a known good dump ( [!] )of the game. But it's also not really needed for carts, not as much as discs anyway. The memory on carts can have bit rot. Some claim mask ROMs will last forever and ever, but I'm not so sure. What I do know is the Sevin once sent me a Frogger SNES cart to repair. It was a Majesco reissue, and I found it to have a bad mask ROM. Though my theory is that it was actually a OTP EPROM or EEPROM, and not an actual mask ROM, being as those reissue carts were made cheaper (black and white manuals, lower quality labels on carts). But since mask ROMs store their data randomly (so I've read) you should be able to sufficiently test them by just playing the game for a few minutes. That'll access a bunch of different areas on the memory. Could it miss a portion of data that only appears late in an RPG? Of course, but like I said above.

But I think I should note that, out of the hundreds of carts I own, I've never seen a mask ROM go bad. Only that Majesco "mask ROM".


Bleh, going off topic.

[Hobie-wan]

To me, the cleaning and testing are all part of checking something out I just got. It doesn't matter if I'm keeping it or passing it on.

Of course if I'm passing it on, then I spray a nice even coat of contact poison to make it shine.