I haven't been around here much and got bored with my collection thread but my Mega Drive acquisitions cannot be tamed it seems. I'm going to revamp the collection thread some time as I've decided to focus on the quality of my PAL MD collection as well as quantity. I'm going to go for those tricky, rare and expensive titles which will make Joe Average Mega Drive Collector go 'oooh'. To that end I present for you this little gem...
The Accompanying story...
A retro game shop which I occasionally visit closed down a while back without my knowledge. All the stock ended up on ebay as .99c auctions with no pictures. I bid on a few odds and ends knowing I would be there that week and planning on picking them up. I rocked up to the shop only to find it empty, no contact details, noting. I messaged the dude over ebay to ask what was going on and didn't get a response. A few days later he opened up unpaid item cases against me. I messaged him again explaining the situation, remaining polite against the odds. Long story short-ish, I finally got in touch about a week after the auctions ended and went to his place to pick up the items....
He had a room set up with all the remaining games. I got everything I came for and bought a few more Master System games off him for fifty cents to a dollar a pop. He reveals to me that he owes ebay 5 grand in listing fees which he isn't going to be able to play. This is because his listings were done in the most haphazard rushed way imaginable. Turns out he is financially ruined and just needs whatever cash he can muster. I knew he had Ecco Jr. from seeing it in his shop (yes that is his price tag on it, priced from ebay BINs I guess) and I asked how he managed to acquire that title. Turns out someone just brought it into the shop and he bought it for a song, allegedly not realising its value at the time. I asked what he wanted for it, thinking it would be in the hundreds based on the fact that we both knew its ebay value. He goes "make me an offer" so I said 'OK, $45". He goes 'I'll do it for $40'. Hahaha, nice.
I didn't have much cash or a phone on me so I used his phone to pay him with paypal. He had one of those Samsung phones with the mammoth screen and his wallpaper was large tessellating photos of vaginas. The whole interaction was incredibly odd but I thrive on these kind of encounters with the weirder extreme of humanity. After I made him feel less uncomfortable about the vaginas he opened up to me about how he has been crying about losing his shop and about all the money he owes people. At the end of the day I feel elated about getting a really rare game for what I feel was a sweet price and I’m glad I went against my instincts to be a vindictive prick about his conduct as a shop keeper and ebayer. I hope somebody appreciated my story.
Cool story. Guy seems pretty dense about money. If he is in that much trouble, 'giving away' what he has that could recover some of the debt seems idiotic.
Ecco Jr to me, is like Sonic The Hedgehog for SMS in NTSC. No real point shelling out dumb money for game that can cost a fraction in another region.
Yeah separation anxiety is another example (dime a dozen on the genesis, demented for the MD). It is a bit silly. I can readily admit that the bananas pricing is the only reason I actually wanted this game. Though I'm gonna give it a good play now I've lashed out (or hermetically seal it and nab a $5 genesis copy as my play cart!)
RCBH928 wrote:it amazes me how much about games you guys know...
You could probably start a thread about the most obscure game you can imagine and I can almost guarantee you someone else here has probably played it or at least heard of it.
RCBH928 wrote:it amazes me how much about games you guys know...
You could probably start a thread about the most obscure game you can imagine and I can almost guarantee you someone else here has probably played it or at least heard of it.
What's most amazing to me is that fact that not one of us has even really scratched the surface.
I mean, who here owns a ZX Spectrum? And how big was that game library - 5,000 games? What about the PC-88? Sharp X-1? TRS-80 and Commodore PET games? Chinese and Korean games? There's a whole world of gaming out there that's virtually forgotten or untouched.
RCBH928 wrote:it amazes me how much about games you guys know...
You could probably start a thread about the most obscure game you can imagine and I can almost guarantee you someone else here has probably played it or at least heard of it.
What's most amazing to me is that fact that not one of us has even really scratched the surface.
I mean, who here owns a ZX Spectrum? And how big was that game library - 5,000 games? What about the PC-88? Sharp X-1? TRS-80 and Commodore PET games? Chinese and Korean games? There's a whole world of gaming out there that's virtually forgotten or untouched.
I'd absolutely be willing to bet someone here has a few of those systems, particularly the Speccy and the PC-88.
I know we're not exactly drowning in UK members, but I'd almost guarantee someone owns a ZX Spectrum. They were just so incredibly common here.