Video Game Garage Sale - and some thoughts on vintage games

Those who know me, or who have stumbled upon this blog, know quite well that I like older video games. The graphics don't have to be flashy for me to be interested and in addition to this, from a purely financial standpoint FOR YEARS until just recently I found that I was a minimum of one generation behind in regards to video game consoles. I upgraded from N64 to GameCube when, as caretaker for my apartment building, I was charged with cleaning out an apartment with lots of abandoned stuff (which included a game cube).

This has never bothered me really. I always paid a little bit less than most people did for their games and sure I wasn't always on the forefront of gaming, but it was a small price to pay. I find that this has influence my interest in games as well. I like the new stuff that I now occasionally have access to, but I also love hunting down old games and playing through them (wait till you see the details of my new quest line).

Today I was able to check out a garage sale that was advertised on craigslist as a "game nerd garage sale," naturally I was intrigued. Despite the fact that some things had been picked over (I showed up on day 2 of the sale) I loved this sale. THIS GUY DID THINGS RIGHT.

 I managed to find a couple of cool things at reasonable prices. My good friend Juice had been looking for a new SNES, as his retro-duo is now failing to play super nintendo games (including the BattleToads Double Dragon copy I got him for his birthday).

We had discussed this dilemma, but used "retro" systems now cost more than they used to. Like I said though, props to this guy...he did it right. We got an SNES (no controllers, missing chords, but working) for 10 even.


It was an excellent experience and I found a couple cool things for my self as well:

• Sonic 2 (2$) I have sonic two in the sonic collection for genesis, but this will allow me to play w/knuckles
• Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt (2$) I don't even own an NES, but I think I'm supposed to own this.
• Madden 95 for gameboy (3$) Okay. This looks lame. It even looks unplayable in terms of badness, but! I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. It was 3 dollars and it was never removed from its original packaging.

The issue is not with this sale. This sale was excellent. Even though I missed FF Tactics , which I would have liked and possibly some other things given the number of cool things I saw. People seem to think that since they have owned some of these games for some time and as some old games go on ebay for extreme prices, they should charge these high high prices.

Some games ARE rare. I understand that. But not everything - even if its not an outdated sports game, is worth a ton of money. The internet has ruined this for us. Ebay sales of things and mint perfect sealed condition games paired with increase ability to make sales (ie: craigslist), has ironically made prices for older games go up dramatically.

I remember when you would see vintage games, or games even one generation back for cheap prices at thrift stores. This is no longer really a reality. Or if they are there...they are in glass display cases, along with rings and necklaces and for these same (too high) prices. Read this story if your interested in continuing to follow the logic of this rant. Basically this guy saw a game, in a vintage game store, that he had been hunting for. It was priced reasonably enough, but when he wanted to purchase it the store employee did an ebay search in front of his and raised the price drastically. Disgusting. Old does not mean rare and internet (with shipping as well) prices are not in person, in store, on craigslist prices. The situation has gotten rediculous and to the point, where I missed a fairly priced game on ebay, that I wanted and I was far more upset than I should have been. But the reality is that I will have a hard time getting it for a fair price now.

End of rant and tip of the hat to the true game lover running this sale today! I had to stop myself from buying StarFox for SNES, complete and in its original box for 15 $ (maybe slightly high, but by no means UNREASONABLE)

-Erik

Soundtrack of the moment: Vikings preseason game vs. Bills