Yard Sale Gaming: Seeking The Truth

[StephenArdrey]

I am unsure, about broad cultural appeal on this one. In the United States, when people want to make some extra cash, they sell their stuff out on the lawn. This is actually, if your are working on one, a great way to legally build up a retro game collection. There are some precautions you should take when buying games at yard sales.

Arrg, Pirates

Let's say, you walk up to someones lawn, and they are selling their shit. You start going through stacks of games, and you also manage to remember some of the shit, I thought you should play. Suddenly, you come across this.



It's Bobby's World, a game that RWS made when they were RPS. There is one issue, with this gem, that you may not know. It wasn't ever released. What are you holding then?

A reproduction, you will see a lot of these at flea markets. They have no value, other than being a game, that you can kind of show off to people. That being said, be aware of things that seem almost to good to be true with huge price tags. You can occasionally, find something really great for little to nothing but this isn't always the case.

If it's .50 cents, then it's not an issue. Some people think this is a great way to make some quick cash, and if you are eager to find something great, they will take advantage of that. It takes time, to find what you are looking for at these types of sales. Just remember this rule.

Know Your Saints And Cents



This game might be overrated, but on occasion you can find a copy for 5 bucks at a garage sale. This currently fetches, over 150 on eBay, depending on it's condition. Knowing what something is worth, saves you a lot of time and money. Don't be afraid, to look at eBay on your phone, just do it on your phone, and in your car.



That's a battery, on a Sega Saturn. You always want to check this area, before buying one from any yard sale or flea market. That's because, batteries can carode, and damage the board completely. Inspecting a product, shouldn't rise any alarms from the people selling it. If it does, don't buy. A lot of early CD based systems, were like this.



Old NES, SNES, Genesis, and other cartridge based systems used them as well. You can't really see if the core has been rotted on these, until you get it home. Just keep that in mind, and price accordingly. You should also be familiar on how much people around you are charging retail for these games. Why pay for a guarentee, that your not going to get with an individual sale?

Don't Drown

It's easy, to get in over your head at these things. Just know what you can do, and stick to it. I will post some tutorials later, on how to correctlyrefirbish these games. If you don't know how to do something, then don't. Older systems, have some minor problems from time to time, but most of these can be taken care of easily. Beware of arcade cabinets.

Arcade cabinets, can cause you to hemmorage money quickly. Displays, aren't cheap and neither are replacement boards. You also can't get the full value out of cabinets, if you have to replace it with a non-original board. Original boards for games, can get ungodly high and you turn a 100 investment, into a 1500 dollar one quickly.



If you find an old pinball machine, have them plug it in for you. It doesn't take much time, and if you are a serious buyer, then they shouldn't mind doing it. These older machines require a lot of TLC. Think to yourself, do I have the time to care for this project?

Closing A Deal

Never, accept the sticker value, unless it's something really good. There is always room to budge, in a downwardly direction. Explain yourself calmly, carefully, and politely. If they don't budge, then start weighing your options and then make a decision. It's that easy, just be sure to be vocal with who you are dealing with.

Most of all, have fun. Do it because you love games and want to make your collection bigger or just want to save a few bucks. Don't ever think, that your going to make a fortune, because your not. You may save some older games from the land fill, and create yourself something to be proud of. Now, I am thirsty, so I am going to have a Dr. Pepper and shut the fuck up. Take Care.

[SlimDurst]

I used to be big into retro collecting last year and the year before,then i discovered steam and all of my cartridges are slowly rotting on the shelf.

[StephenArdrey]

I used to be big into retro collecting last year and the year before,then i discovered steam and all of my cartridges are slowly rotting on the shelf.

The best thing to do, is sit on them and keep the maintnance up on them. About once a month, clean them properly, and let them sit. You never know when something is going to be ungodly valuable. FF 7, for instance.

Unless you want to get rid of them, and here is another piece of advice. Depending on what and how many of what you have, then weigh the pros and cons of lot vs. individual sales.

[The_YongGrand]

I like the article. It's about retro-gaming too, so I should have an opinion on this.

Some NES games have batteries inside for saving high-scores. Unless if it's cheap, like a dollar, just pick one up and pray that the batteries ain't leaking shit into it. Same goes for the certain game consoles which contains backup-batteries.

Back then in my place 8-bitters are not in the generic authentic NES catridges sold because they are too expensive. I can write an entire page about them, but I don't feel like doing it. I had never seen a grey NES game catridge like that before - I've seen coloured, smaller, and with 99999999-in-one types.

Not even the PlayStation 1 is spared though - many years back when my mother's friend's bought a PS for her kid, she got a box full of pirated games inside.

Piracy became that rampant even before Y2K hits the other computers.

[StephenArdrey]

I like the article. It's about retro-gaming too, so I should have an opinion on this.

Some NES games have batteries inside for saving high-scores. Unless if it's cheap, like a dollar, just pick one up and pray that the batteries ain't leaking shit into it. Same goes for the certain game consoles which contains backup-batteries.

Back then in my place 8-bitters are not in the generic authentic NES catridges sold because they are too expensive. I can write an entire page about them, but I don't feel like doing it. I had never seen a grey NES game catridge like that before - I've seen coloured, smaller, and with 99999999-in-one types.

Not even the PlayStation 1 is spared though - many years back when my mother's friend's bought a PS for her kid, she got a box full of pirated games inside.

Piracy became that rampant even before Y2K hits the other computers.

Piracy, has been going on since the Nintendo. It's nothing new, and as long as there has been media, there has been people copying it. It's just a fact of life, but I still think that most of the piracy numbers are off.

[MrDownerup]

I think so to. I've been know to download shit that I own,just because it's easier/faster than converting to new formats myself.

[SlimDurst]

Fuck,there were cartridge copiers back in the atari 2600 days

[StephenArdrey]

Fuck,there were cartridge copiers back in the atari 2600 days

And people started pirating music from the radio, as soon as there was cheap reusable media. I would record the local rock station, all night usually, during the 90's. It was just a lot easier, than buying the music. I know I wsn't the only one to do that either.

[The_YongGrand]

Fuck,there were cartridge copiers back in the atari 2600 days

And people started pirating music from the radio, as soon as there was cheap reusable media. I would record the local rock station, all night usually, during the 90's. It was just a lot easier, than buying the music. I know I wsn't the only one to do that either.

EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM) machines are all over the place back then. They can rip out that chip from the cartridge and duplicate it to another new one.

Worst of all with mass production they are using Mask ROM for these. The newer pirated NES games are using chip-on-board, which have all the RAMs and the ROMs consolidated under the black epoxy blob.

Technical stuff aside, those machines are available and they don't cost that much even back then.

[StephenArdrey]

Fuck,there were cartridge copiers back in the atari 2600 days

And people started pirating music from the radio, as soon as there was cheap reusable media. I would record the local rock station, all night usually, during the 90's. It was just a lot easier, than buying the music. I know I wsn't the only one to do that either.

EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable ROM) machines are all over the place back then. They can rip out that chip from the cartridge and duplicate it to another new one.

Worst of all with mass production they are using Mask ROM for these. The newer pirated NES games are using chip-on-board, which have all the RAMs and the ROMs consolidated under the black epoxy blob.

Technical stuff aside, those machines are available and they don't cost that much even back then.

I don't know, what the figures for video game piracy were furing the 80's and 90's. I know that the SEGA systems, were incredibly hard to pirate up until the Dreamcast. Actually, some SEGA games, namely the game Flashback, would error out and say they were pirated even though they were retail versions.

I know that a lot of people would share computer software as well. I never officially bought a copy of Doom 2, cause when you rented it for PC and installed it, it would play without the CD. People always made floppies of games and passed them around. It was an easy and cheap way to get your gaming fix. This was before the internet and I think it's about the same now.

[The_YongGrand]

I don't know, what the figures for video game piracy were furing the 80's and 90's. I know that the SEGA systems, were incredibly hard to pirate up until the Dreamcast. Actually, some SEGA games, namely the game Flashback, would error out and say they were pirated even though they were retail versions.

I know that a lot of people would share computer software as well. I never officially bought a copy of Doom 2, cause when you rented it for PC and installed it, it would play without the CD. People always made floppies of games and passed them around. It was an easy and cheap way to get your gaming fix. This was before the internet and I think it's about the same now.

Back in the late 90s, in a supermarket near me, there was a glass counter where the guy did sold video games.

I saw most of them with the NES, alongside with the nameless NES clones, and a few SNES. Most of them with coloured catridges, and with multiple games inside one. None of them are ever original, or none of them are clean. The games are awful modifications of ports from a higher-end consoles (Mortal Kombat 2 on the NES with pallete colours swapped and downsampled colours) and custom games which are written in Mandarin.

The Gameboy never got spared too - they sold a lot of cheap-ass pirated games there in the store. Gameboys were the most popular thing back then, my close friend got a hard-on everytime he thinks about them.

Sega Genesis' carts are never seen, only one or two and they usually are sold for a very high price. I saw Mortal Kombat 3 inside and like uh.. Sonic.

I played Doom 2 at my neighbour's home and 'rented' it a long time before I got the original copies in Steam. Back then, when we were at primary (or elementary for the Americans) schooling days, we would exchange diskettes of games, ranging from Lost Vikings to Mortal Kombat series.

[FaTony]

I think so to. I've been know to download shit that I own,just because it's easier/faster than converting to new formats myself.

Copyright 101: you don't own anything. Read EULAs next time.

[MrDownerup]

meh..you know what I mean.. point is,it was paid for @ some point.. PS I'm not talking about software either..

[Toploader]

Most knew what you meant, you 'own' the licence to use it, which is perfectly reasonable of course. I dunno why people keep coming out making a point that you don't own the game, of course you don't, that would then give you right to profit from it yourself for your 40 bucks investment and use all their assets within it for whatever you want.  I have always accepted and known without reading an EULA that me paying for a game means I'm paying for the right to use it for life, or DRM allowing sell that licence to someone else to use (although that's fast becoming redundant). 

[StephenArdrey]

Most knew what you meant, you 'own' the licence to use it, which is perfectly reasonable of course. I dunno why people keep coming out making a point that you don't own the game, of course you don't, that would then give you right to profit from it yourself for your 40 bucks investment and use all their assets within it for whatever you want.  I have always accepted and known without reading an EULA that me paying for a game means I'm paying for the right to use it for life, or DRM allowing sell that licence to someone else to use (although that's fast becoming redundant).

To be frank, their are a lot of things you don't technically own. Copyright law is so fuckiing strange and it can give anyone a head ache