The Video Game Critic

Wallyworld wrote:Honest question. How do you think I should go about buying let's say a rare pc engine game? It's not like i want to spend $100 on a game if there was a less expensive option. I search the selling history on a retro game and wait patiently to find a game selling on the low end of the curve. Like it or not these games are worth what the market will bear.

1. Turbo Everdrive
2. If it's a CD game, there's no copy protection, so make your own CD-Rs
2. Become part of the PC Engine community, and you will find people who sell for reasonable prices.
3. Don't be a collectard. The games aren't worth what the resellers and yuppy instant collectors have inflated them to.
4. OBEY

Gentlegamer wrote:1. Turbo Everdrive
2. If it's a CD game, there's no copy protection, so make your own CD-Rs
2. Become part of the PC Engine community, and you will find people who sell for reasonable prices.
3. Don't be a collectard. The games aren't worth what the resellers and yuppy instant collectors have inflated them to.
4. OBEY

With the exception of burning and ISO, the rest arent really great options. I am a member of a handful of forums and the vast majority of people base their prices off of ebay and/or that price chart thing. Ofcourse, if you look hard and long enough, you can always find the deal you want. However, that can take a long a$$ time, and the questions boils down to what is your time worth to you? should you spend all day searching forums and ebay to save a few bucks on a game, or just buy what you want when you want it?

Gentlegamer wrote:

Wallyworld wrote:Honest question. How do you think I should go about buying let's say a rare pc engine game? It's not like i want to spend $100 on a game if there was a less expensive option. I search the selling history on a retro game and wait patiently to find a game selling on the low end of the curve. Like it or not these games are worth what the market will bear.

1. Turbo Everdrive
2. If it's a CD game, there's no copy protection, so make your own CD-Rs
2. Become part of the PC Engine community, and you will find people who sell for reasonable prices.
3. Don't be a collectard. The games aren't worth what the resellers and yuppy instant collectors have inflated them to.
4. OBEY

Your suggesting the moral thing to do it pirate the game instead of buying the actual licensed copy?

That is a bizarre perspective if you ask me.

Let me show you what is happening when you drop "collector money" on classic games.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Akumajo-Dra ... 2516.l5255

That is a straight up bootleg. They are popping up with more and more frequency because of yuppy instant collectors who know jack about games but want the "prestige" of owning "rare" games.

That particular bootleg should be obvious to anyone with a brain, it's not the original. But the creator of that bootleg ran a scam of few years ago with counterfeit copies of Sapphire, and forged a letter from Hudson Soft claiming they were legit. They were almost identical. It caused a big scandal when everything was figured out. And you know what? There are fools who actually pay collector money ($500) for the bootlegs. The collectards have turned the bootleg, even when they know it's counterfeit, into a "rare collectible."

So dropping big coin for classic games is propping up the "collector market," the more money in it, the more it attracts scammers and bootleggers. You may have already bought a bootleg of something without knowing it. So you are participating in piracy by buying into the "collector market."

So yes, "pirate" 20-30 year old games and play them through emulation, on flash carts, or burning your own CDs rather than enrich scammers.

Or do you want to get on Dave's case for buying reproductions, ie pirated unauthorized copies of games?