
Collection of 6,850 video games and 330 consoles up for sale on Ebay for $550K - mikek
http://www.ebay.com/itm/OVER-30-years-of-VIDEOGAMES-COLLECTION-The-story-of-VideoGames-/121062811693
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Irregardless
This makes me wonder: How will today's games be preserved in a collection like
this?

I'm sure the DRM servers for games like Assassin's Creed won't be maintained
for more than another decade, if that. Then, you have all kinds of PC games
with limited authorizations. Most people also have numerous digital games tied
to their Steam / Origin / Amazon accounts. If any of those disappear, you
could lose a big chunk of your collection. There's no way to pass those games
on to anyone else even if the services are still around.

It seems piracy is the only hope of preserving today's games for future
generations.

~~~
rikacomet
Totally true, given the additional facts that a collector would pay a big
amount for getting a mint piece of something he may have already, but in a bad
shape. Plus, a lot of them are Japanese versions, which will appeal to those,
who only have a USA version, after all, japanese voice-dubs are really world
apart!

I also found some pieces that I would pay a lot to have, but then again the
problem is I can't have them individually. Maybe some gaming site or community
or museum can pick this up?

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citricsquid
The speculation on reddit is that the collection isn't worth close to $50k,
let alone $550k, because the real gold in the collection has long since been
sold off and what remains is just a collection of old games and consoles,
games and consoles that aren't rare or hard to acquire elsewhere.

~~~
klodolph
Or you could just, you know, check the list.

From the pictures it looks like all the good consoles are in there,
Playstations, Dreamcast, the Nintendos, Atari, plus handhelds. Then it seems
there are a bunch of special edition consoles.

As for games, I keep on seeing great games in there, including recent ones and
old classics. Many are obviously imported and that's fairly expensive with the
current Yen/Dollar exchange rate. Here's a picture of what appears to my eyes
to be nearly every Zelda game: <http://imageshack.us/photo/my-
images/713/517ie.jpg/> Every Mario game: <http://imageshack.us/photo/my-
images/441/513ku.jpg/> and OH DEAR LORD it's the "Mother" series:
<http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/525/506p.jpg/>

Let me tell you about "Mother". You have to sell your kidneys to get those
games. They're some of the best games ever written and they're also some of
the hardest to find.

Update: Now that I have looked at the actual list I see it contains some other
incredible pieces, such as a _sealed_ copy of Chrono Trigger (in 2008 one such
copy sold for $1,217), Bubble Bobble part 2 (at least $100), Sonic the
Hedgehog ($300+), Suikoden II ($140+), Virtual Lab ($900+), SD Gundam
Dimension Wars ($700+), Jack Bros. ($120+), sealed Ibara ($180+), ...

Update 2: That sealed copy of Chrono Trigger is for the DS, sorry. But Virtual
Lab looks legit.

~~~
meaty
These are all artificial values i.e. they are a niche and you have to find
someone who wants to pay that for it.

Technically, my signed (by Bill Gates and Paul Allen) copy of "The MS-DOS
Encyclopedia" was supposedly worth about £500 but it went on eBay for £25. And
for that I had a nice curry.

~~~
madaxe
All values are artificial. Everything is worth whatever someone is prepared to
pay for it.

If someone buys this lot for $550k, it's worth $550k.

You probably could have found a buyer willing to pay £500 for your intaglio,
but it's all about market reach.

This is why sniping on eBay for badly listed stuff can still earn you a small
fortune. I bought a pair of mislabeled oil paintings with provenance on eBay
for £45, and sold them at Sotheby's for, um, more than that.

~~~
polymatter
Oil painting with provenance go to Sotheby's. Ok, thats a given.

But where would you go to find a buyer for computer manuals signed by
billionaires? Or old computer games and long obsolete hardware?

I always imagined you'd have to have a specific contact in mind when you buy
such things and hope to flog it to them. And to whom do you go to if you had
the money and wanted niche object X?

~~~
madaxe
Sotheby's, still. You'll find there are plenty of real-world auction houses
who do specialist auctions and sell really esoteric stuff to a specialist
audience.

Also, you can always re-sell on eBay and break up the lot.

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nevster
What's up with having so many of one console? Eg, all these PS2s?
<http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/607/dsc03114h.jpg/>

~~~
weiran
All the different revisions?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2#Hardware_revision...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_2#Hardware_revisions)

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DigitalSea
The inner child inside of me is screaming, "Bank loan, bank loan, bank loan
you're an adult now the bank will gladly lend you money to relive your
childhood!", but the inner and in debt mid twenty year old I really am is
saying, "Keep dreaming" — a museum should buy these, $550K is probably a
bargain considering the total collection could be close to a million maybe
even more in a few short years.

~~~
pfisch
I don't think the bank would loan an in debt mid twenty year old over half a
million dollars to buy videogames.

~~~
malux85
You'd be surprised.

Every time I walk into the bank here in the UK, they literally beg me to take
out a loan because I have no debt and a good income.

Last time I was in there, I had to get quite angry at the customer service
person because she just wouldn't drop it. I did the polite "No thanks", "No,
really, I'm not interested", "No THANK YOU", "Look, I'm going to start
shouting in a minute, I have told you NO" and they STILL kept pushing

~~~
tomwalker
This is my experience too.

Whenever I enter a bank to deposit an occasional cheque they are desperate to
offer personal loans, investment advice, mortgages, credit cards etc.

A polite decline is often ignored and they aggressively go for the sale.

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nevster
Anyone else with their mouth agape as they scroll down the listing looking at
those images? 8-0

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rikacomet
When I checked both the versions of his full list:

Mega: running

Dropbox: Error (509) This account's public links are generating too much
traffic and have been temporarily disabled!

<http://i46.tinypic.com/w9jtia.png>

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davidroberts
My question is: why is he selling? lf he is wealthy enough to have accumulated
all these games and consoles in the first place and not care about probably
making twice as much by selling piece-by-piece, I don't think it's for the
money. Maybe his SO said it's either me or the video games. The fact that he
spent literally months of eight hour days lovingly cataloging and
photographing everything seems to show that the flame still burns that led him
to collect them in the first place.

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retrogradeorbit
Is it all still in the original, unopened packaging? A lot of collectors like
it like that.

Personally I think it's way overpriced. The seller is factoring their own
sentimentality into the price, something unlikely to be shared by others. At
$50 a game and $200 a console, it's still only $408K.

But then, maybe there's a sentimental billionaire who wants it...

~~~
gu
You have to consider the condition and rarity of some of the games. I only
skimmed the listing, but he does has quite a few gems. In recent years, prices
for "retro games" have ballooned. You'll be surprised what games in a great
condition go for.

Just to mention a couple of examples:

\- Earthbound (SNES) has a market value of up to over $300

\- Chrono Trigger (SNES) normally sells for several hundred dollars as well.

\- Neo Geo AES carts are coveted by collectors.

\- Progear (CPS2) is one of the most sought after PCBs in the shmup scene,
still selling for hundreds of dollars.

Also, sealed games sell for quite a premium.

I do think that if he took the time to sell the items individually, he would
make more money. Then again, this would also involve a quite substantial
investment of time.

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nestlequ1k
Feel sorry for this dude. A lifetime collecting, imagine all the time
organizing and buying these things, and the cost. Unless this goes for a lot
over the initial asking price, he's sort of getting a raw deal.

Sad to see a life wasted like that. But I guess he isn't the only person whose
lives video games have ruined (WoW).

~~~
InclinedPlane
Go through your old tax returns for the last 10 years (or just extrapolate or
use your memory). Add up all of your total gross income for those years then
ask yourself where all that money has gone.

The answer is: your life. If it was spent well, having fun, making friends,
deepening relationships, making meaningful connections in life, etc. then it
was worth it regardless of the cost. Money is just paper, the best use of it
is in the service of creating happiness or well-being.

~~~
h0w412d
Well said. But I have to point out that buying experiences gives far more
happiness and satisfaction than buying things. Sure he might have had great
times with friends and family through those video games, but that's still a
lot of stuff.

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supervillain
I couldn't see the Steel Battalion controller for the original Xbox.

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kristopher
A lot of history here. Could be worth more than a mere half a million.

