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Yard Sales/Flea Markets/General used games talk

Its sunday, and thats when in germany people move out to sell stuff on flea markets. Thats a cool thing.

Today I went off and got those fun things:
ohyeaaah9nem.jpg

Even found an Atari, but I'm not really interested in pre-NES era gaming. Also found Gamegear games but no Gamegear ;(


Lets talk about used or rare games you acquired lately.
Finding certain gems is always fun, and sharing stories is also pretty cool.
Pics are welcome!
 

Linkachu

Hero of Pizza
Staff member
Administrator
Can't say I've found anything recently, but within the past 5 years I've found Donkey Kong Country 1 and 2 at a Trade/Sell store, an unwrapped copy of Final Fantasy 8, and a Dreamcast. I'm pretty sure there's more I've picked up, but I can't think of the names right now. My brother recently bought a crap load of games off a friend though, which included Breath of Fire 3 (the only BoF game we'd never owned).

I love checking out the used game sections at Gaming Expos because you never know what you'll find. I'm forever on the lookout for a copy of the original Star Ocean 2 and Tales of the Abyss, both of which I don't expect to find... but hey, it could happen if I keep looking. :)
 

Doctor Oak

Staff member
Overlord
On the subject of used games, while personal trading is more than fair enough (it's the bedrock of humanity, really), the used game industry is an abhorrent practice that continues to get worse and worse for all involved.

Users trading games in get paid a pittance of what the game is worth, both new and to the shop then selling it on. They'll pay you £10 or so at most for a game not a month old, and sell it at less than a fiver less than the price of a new game, making a £20-£30 markup on it and keeping all that money for themselves. Not for you, the person who owns the goods they want and thus should be in the position of power, not for the developers or the publishers, who will never see a penny of that game sold on again. That may not seem like a problem for the occasional sale, but we all know that these shops will push the used game over the new game every single time. It's not 'cos the consumer can save a fiver or a tenner on the price of the game they want, it's 'cos they make an extra 200%+ profit on that sale, and to hang with everyone else in the process.

If you want to buy used games, buy them from friends, in second hand shops (where the money, at least, goes to charity), from market traders (though don't buy the pirate ones :p, for your own sake if nothing else) or on sites like eBay. This is what the grey market for second hand goods is meant to be, not just some way for retailers to screw over everyone involved in the games industry - including their own customers - in pure greed.

Rant aside, I've made my fair share of second hand hauls. Most of my retro gaming consoles (my SNES, N64, another Playstation and another Mega Drive) I've picked up from working in a charity shop. We weren't actually allowed to sell electronic goods (because firstly, we can't cover the warranty, and secondly 'cos it could be dangerous if they're faulty), so instead of binning them, I took them and left a totally unrelated donation. I also managed to pick up a number of games each for them - though my SNES collection is still just Street Fighter and a football game.

I also, yeaaars ago, but still during the Mega Drive's prime, managed to use my primary school's annual May Fair (and a few other car boot sales) to pick up the vast majority of my treasured Master System collection. Back then, it was nigh on impossible to find these games -second hand OR new. The Master System was technically still supported by Sega - but the shops sure as hell didn't. Aside from most of the games I got as a kid in the first couple of years of its life, the majority of my Master System games were picked up by hunting every car boot sale we could find for people practically giving them away. The Master System never set the world alight like its competitor, and mine has always been as broken as hell, but I still love the little bastard.
 
While its true that the business practices of certain retailers like gamestop are comparable to the mafia, I still sometimes buy used games there if I find something rare or really cheap. God of War 3 costed 80euros back then when it was released. That was crazy. Now I got it used for 27euros, which is really an ok-ish price. Sometimes I just dont give a crap about the guy who sold his game for so little, when I can get a game for that cheap afterwards. They could just have sold it on amazon or ebay. That would be the smarter option for them.

I know that this is basically supporting the wrong side, but then again, many developers nowadays piss me off too. Something like Project Ten Dollars is one of the worst things I have heard of in the industry so far.
This is something that ONLY happens in the Video games business, and no other so far. Unless you count downloadable movies and music maybe. The thought of buying something used, and then getting forced to pay extra to be able to use the whole content is crazy. And its a trend thats becoming more and more popular.
You can already see that developers think of many ways to completely shut down the 2nd hand market. Another of those things is preorder DLC or a kind of changed version of the project 10 dollar thing, day 1 DLC with codes.

Extreme greed is a standard nowadays. Even today when I was at the flea market, certain people charged CRAZY prices for games that people used to play back in the day. Some stuff was so expensive, that I could have easily bought them off ebay, paid the shipping and still end up saving money.

I am slowly developing a certain apathy towards the industry and most people involved.


The fact that DLC, DRM and stuff like project 10 dollars exist might be nice for companies right now, but this could screw me over in a couple of years. When the servers for activations go down, or the shops with the project 10 dollar options go offline, then I might get stuck with no way to play the game I actually bought.
Blizzard with SC2 is a nice offender in that regard.
I like to buy old games. I often rebuy old games that I either lost, gave away or somehow got rid of. Sometimes I find classics that I havent played before. With all those things mentioned before that wont be possible though.
DLC only games are already problematic because if servers go down, and my HDD fails, I'll be stuck with nothing.



that was my little rant, considering the situation :o



Also: Getting Sega consoles in germany used is hell. Those things werent popular at all it seems.
I still need a saturn and a dreamcast. Might have to import.
 

Doctor Oak

Staff member
Overlord
The 'project 10 dollar' (and similar) stuff is hardly greed though. Is it wrong to want to get paid for people making use of your work? It doesn't really do much more than balance out the effect of the used game industry, and if you're saving $20 on getting a game used, and have to spend another $10 to play the online multiplayer (which isn't exactly game ruining for the most part if you don't bother), you're still saving $10 anyway, while the developer and publisher get something in return. It's a bit dodgy when it comes to unlocking other game content still on the disc, but for online multiplayer, considering the developer needs to run that online service for you, I don't really think it's unfair of them to expect some payment one way or another for doing so.
 
I am somehow ok with the project 10 dollar and Online, as seen in Mortal Kombat (but then again, buying mortal kombat is odd).

But then again, I think that they're just testing the waters for more future restrictions.
Day 1 on disc DLC appeared slowly too. Nowadays its almost considered a faux pas if you dont charge for on disc content.

I mean, lack of multiplayer wouldnt even be a problem if the servers went down anyways.

But its still a thing that only appears in videogames. I dont want to know what would happen if someone would restrict DVDs or Books in such a way somehow.

I just dont like the way many things nowadays evolve.
The call of duty premium service is something that should actually be free.It really doesnt deliver anything special.I dont even play those games , but I'm observing that stuff.
Blizzard adding premium services to WoW, a game that already costs quite a bit monthly is also asking for it.

I just dont know. It might be overreaction, but to me it looks like certain business practices are becoming popular, some of which really arent that great for the consumer.
 
Once upon a time I used to go to the flea market in Germany which is really great as many people from different parts approach there, like you even I used to get lots of games, but this days I didn’t went there so couldn’t able to bring games from there. From the list of game brought by you I love playing metal gear solid 3 which is really great game,enjoyed a lot playing it on the HDTV,the graphics was just amazing. It looks good to share the views on the games played by you and at the same time it will be funny.
 
Its that time again!
I gathered some money and set out to the two Flea markets we had going on in town today.
This is what I found:
2011-10-10_04-37-51_31yo24.jpg

paid ~40euro for all of it and an additional 3,50 for a big cappuccino and a double cheeseburger.

Personal highlight would be Metal Gear Solid, but Fire Emblem for 5€ only surprised me positively. Never got into the Series, now I will try to.

There is an alarming lack of Snes games on fleamarkets nowadays. And many who sell those push the prices up REALLY hard. Higher than what you would find on Amazon even. I guess they have the patience and wait for a poor sucker that wants to hand out the money for that one game he liked so much back then.
 
I recently bought about 10 Playstation 2 games they were selling them for 50p each in my local shop so I thought 10 games for £5 sounds like a bargain to me :))
 
I bought two generic new gamecube controllers, the buttons ain't worked, so I bought a used gamestop controller which lasted 10 months, so I bought a NEW gamestop controller, broke in two weeks.

The Irony of gamestop and the trash of generic. I learnt my lesson the hard way, analyze carefully the prices before you buy.

In videogames, I never bought at good prices, learned that the hard way, however, I waited nearly a decade for the gamecube to be worth $40 USD's to buy it. :D
 
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