Days gone by: Buying games blind

[Exhuminator]

Honestly, I had incredibly good taste as a kid.* The only time I can remember getting burned on a purchase was when I bought Sword Of Sodan for Genesis blindly. I had saved up to buy The Immortal for Genesis originally. But when we got to Toys'R'Us, The Immortal was $75 and I only had $60. My mom wouldn't spot me the extra $15 for whatever reason. I had to take something home though, so I chose Sword Of Sodan for $55. I had made a bad decision, but I was stuck with it. The game's only redeeming value was it was incredibly gory with brutal death scenes, something I was looking for from The Immortal as well. Unfortunately the gameplay was pretty wonky with clunky assed controls. It wasn't a terrible game, but it wasn't worth 1991's $55 which in today's money is $96!

*I guess it helped that I read EGM religiously from 1989-1994, and that certainly helped me keep track of what was good and worth buying during those days.

[jvalentine98]

I think we retro collectors still make blind purchases these days. I will buy any Atari game I find in the wild whether or not I am familiar with it.

At this point, I don't. But then I'm a librarian, so I research pretty much everything anyway.

Well you mostly collect SNES, right?

You don't really stumble upon bins of $1 SNES games like you do with Atari. Wouldn't that be awesome though?

With the internet now you'd have to be a complete fool to go on ebay, see a SNES game for $75 and say "What the hell the cover looks cool, Buy it NOW!" Click and done. The fact you're on ebay looking at old SNES games means you probably researched anyway. As for a garage sale, I think most of us would drop $5 on a random game.

Of course this DOES happen. Somewhere out there is a guy who is now married with a family, and finds his old SNES in a closet. He knows nothing of video gaming since his childhood, he goes on ebay and over pays for something he thinks might be cool. It happens and the seller wins.

[Tanooki]

It happens a lot, right along with having deep pockets and a general lack of impatience or a lack of common sense. That's why the prices on SNES games have been in larger numbers per title escalated even nastier than the NES stuff. Sure the 8bit stuff has the high dollar mark on a few titles, mostly crap titles, but for bulk the SNES is the bigger beating for price, especially price with quality.

The stupidity shoved me over to Famicom and GBA were you don't see the problem anywhere as much, it's closer in sanity like the non-craziness in general with Genesis stuff.

I wouldn't blame anyone for using EGM in the 90-95 era for being a great magazine for Sega Genesis stuff as the editors always went for bat for Sega to the point of even stretching the truth into lies when comparing to the SNES but they also didn't play up a turd for Sega so it was a nice thing all around.

[ExedExes]

Sure the 8bit stuff has the high dollar mark on a few titles, mostly crap titles, but for bulk the SNES is the bigger beating for price, especially price with quality.

The stupidity shoved me over to Famicom and GBA were you don't see the problem anywhere as much, it's closer in sanity like the non-craziness in general with Genesis stuff.

I try to avoid getting anything SNES on eBay for that reason. This year I've done better finding better prices on SNES from the flea market and the retro store, believe it or not.

I had no idea Contra on the NES is going for around $20. Freaking CONTRA. Now that's messed up.

Thank goodness GBA has been pretty price friendly, online and off.

[Hobie-wan]

I had no idea Contra on the NES is going for around $20. Freaking CONTRA. Now that's messed up.

It was often $25-30 for a loose cart about 10 years ago. It took me a year before I got lucky and picked up a complete one for About $17

[jvalentine98]

Contra's going for $25? See at that point I have a hard time believing it's supply and demand. It's more you paying for pure nostalgia. Suddenly a treasured old game is going to sell for a ton because it's a treasured old game? It sold how many copies? It can't be rare. That's what drove me away from buying so many used games to begin with.

Take Silent Hill, the original. It sells for roughly the same price it did in 1999 when it was released. Never mind it was greatest hits and there's plenty out there. Same with FF7. It sold 9 million copies. There's plenty of FF7s out there. But it was selling for more than its original price. I just won't pay that much. I have the games that mean a lot to me and I won't come off that kind of money for something I might love.

I'm a little bit of a cheapskate. Ask my fiance. I'll print the coupons for the steak diner if it will save me $7 on tonight's bill. I HAVE the money, but I have it partially because I am a smart spender. I was always raised that just because you can afford something, doesn't mean you should pay full price.

For example, one of my fav things to collect is money, specifically coins. I have a few hundred dollars worth of gold dollars in a fireproof box in my closet. I have no desire to spend it, though. Life has to have more meaning

[RyaNtheSlayA]

In some ways, I miss being younger and not really worrying about what I played as long as I had fun. I bought lots of games blind when I was really young. Some excellent like Red Faction. Others not so much, like The Getaway.

These days though I'm working my ass off and don't really have the time or the money or desire to play the blind buying loto.

I tried that last year by buying Orion: Dino Beatdown (now Dino Horde) and that my friends was a mistake.

[jvalentine98]

In some ways, I miss being younger and not really worrying about what I played as long as I had fun. I bought lots of games blind when I was really young. Some excellent like Red Faction. Others not so much, like The Getaway.

These days though I'm working my ass off and don't really have the time or the money or desire to play the blind buying loto.

I tried that last year by buying Orion: Dino Beatdown (now Dino Horde) and that my friends was a mistake.

Heh, when you said Red Faction for whatever reason it made me think of Red Zone for Genesis. That was a horrible choice I made in about 94/95.

But for every Red Zone I chose there was a Liberty or Death.

[BogusMeatFactory]

Buying quality games blind was something my oldest brother had as a gift. We are talking stellar Sega Genesis games, Sega CD and Sega Saturn games when we were kids. It eventually turned into buying anything and everything when the Dreamcast came out. Still, you can't beat those times when you pick up a game and go, "Hmmm Panzer Dragoon Saga....sounds good," and buy it on a whim.

[KalessinDB]

"Days gone by" indeed. I STILL buy most of my games blind

Of course, I'm referring to mostly cart-based games I find in the wild (and the occasional cheapie disc game). Modern, expensive games get at least a cursory research, but if I buy 4 of those a year it's a big year for me.

But yeah... it was good times. The adventure's half the fun. Hell, the bad games themselves are sometimes half the fun if they're so bad that they're good (or at least, fun to watch someone else struggle with playing -- I'm looking at you, Deadly Towers)