Ever think about the journey your games took before you got them?

[drunkninja]

I think about this once in a while, especially with my rare games. I sometimes wonder what journey that game must have taken to wind up new on a store shelf, to sitting in a basket at a thrift store, to my own collection.

[TheRealist50]

sometimes I think about what a game has gone through to get to me. But its not as interesting as a sports card from the 50's, just think about it, that card has been in circulation for more then 50 years. God only knows who and how many people held onto it before I did.

[modest9797]

I thought about the origin of this one Madden 07 I saw in gamestop with brown stuff smeared on it. Then I stopped.

[BrYaN55]

Now imagine an old penny from 18xx!!!!!!!!!!

But yes, that's strange to think about what journey a game took before finally come to you.

It's almost impossible to think that games were still at the same place in a warehouse for 20 years without being moved at least a couple of time. So they have to move a little... Who knows where they ended up to sleep all these years...

[jb143]

You could start a site like www.wheresmario.com alla www.wheresgeorge.com

Of course it would only work for everyone after you and you'd have to write on the cart.

[otaku]

yeah I've done it quite often especially with rare stuff or systems. I'm really big on the history of cars though

[garagesaleking!!]

lol modest.

I do it all the time. My sisters friend gave me a bag of super nintendo stuff a few years ago. The one game has a whole corner that looked like it was sawed off. I think it was the game super adventure island. Of course it had to be good game that was damaged. I knew the story though, her dog chewed on it.

I think about it with old cameras. i saw this camera from 1940's or something once. all the pictures that thing has taken? wow.

[Pantechnicon]

I've considered the question before, but in the end I don't see there being a lot of story material to the journey of an older (i.e. - pre-Gamestop era) videogame as opposed to, say, an old coin.

Game gets bought new. Game gets played. Game languishes on a shelf or a box somewhere - potentially for several years - until someone decides to sell it. In between these high points there might be an interim step such as "Game was traded/sold/given to/from a friend." That seems to be it. The whys behind such transitions might have some interesting details, but in terms of the hows I don't see a lot of room for interesting variations.

Seeing somebody's name written on a cart is always interesting to me. At one point "Tommy Lujan" considered his copy of Majora's Mask (N64) personally valuable enough to write his name on it in case - what? - it got stolen by a classmate or a burglar? Fair enough reasoning when Tommy was presumably under 13 and Majora's Mask was his awesome new Christmas present. And when I found Tommy's game in a box full of 8-track tapes at Thrift Town and priced at $2.99, I had to wonder what changed in Tommy's mindset so much that this thing was suddenly no longer so precious?

(/me puts cart in N64...no, I hadn't done that yet)

Heck, Tommy only got five hearts?! Why, Tommy, why?

[Cryomancer]

I've got a master system that may have a minor amusing story about it. Names removed to protect the innocent and also because I am terrible with names and have forgotten. I got it from someone at one of Kamino's get togethers. The guy I got it from said he had found it in a goodwill in WI I believe. There is a corner busted off on the thing, I was wondering how it had gotten damaged. Someone else there overheard us and said that he also goes to the same Goodwill on occasion, and remembers seeing a master system there that he accidently dropped onto the floor and then put back on the shelf. If he was the one who broke the corner off or not is unsure, it may very well have been like that before he got there.

If these events are true and all happen to be the same system (pretty well impossible to prove), that means a Master System may sat in a goodwill, was possibly damaged by and passed on by a DP member, then later purchased by another, and then later still traded to yet another DP member during a meetup of mostly DP members. I am amused.

[Greg2600]

Frankly, where'sgeorge whatever is something I don't want to know. Money is a bastion for germs, yuck! As for games, when you get a bulk lot off somebody, you pretty much know that these were one person's, and kind of feel good that they will continue to be preserved. Otherwise, I just pretend I had them the whole time!

[skaar]

I got my Mario 2 back off a kid in grade 5 I had loaned it to, and it was rattling. It worked ok, but I still gave him shit for it.

I finally got it open with some tools from the office one summer and found a flattened pepsi cap inside the cart. I have no idea how or why he put it in there considering the special screws and all that.

I try not to think about all the names in sharpie on the back of carts. Someone had "TREVOR" and a phone number on a copy of Lolo I traded a kid in school for. I called the number on the back and he said that the guy I bought it off had borrowed it and never returned it. We got his mom invovled, I got my money back, Trevor got his game back and I made a new friend. He gave me the Lolo when he moved away too :D

[jcalder8]

I always wonder about the person when I buy a game with a name written on it.

[nestlekwik]

Much like a few other responses, I always wonder about games that have names written on them. Most particularly, my copy of Jackal that has "Joey" written on it.

[maxlords]

Yeah...I think about this. That's why I clean my games when I get em :D

[NytroSkull7]

After some of the labels and as modest said the colors of "stuff" on the carts i have to wonder sometimes what stuff that cart went through before being laid to rest in my game cabinet.

[NES_Rules]

I've actually thought about this a lot. I imagine how awesome it would be if every game I ever bought had a GPS tracking unit in it, and then I could watch on a screen how they came to be in my collection. And then watch some go across the country as I sell them.

[Haoie]

Even the oldest games will only have been in circulation some 25-35 years.

My stuff is maybe 10-15 years old at the most. A relatively short lifespan.

[mr.soul]

My copy of Dig Dug for 2600 came with a bunch of numbers and things written all over the label in pen. I do wonder what it all was. I'm assuming someone was on the phone and didn't have a piece of paper.

[Dr. Dib]

While I've never really thought too hard of the subject (well besides this one Tetris cartridge...), but I have wondered about the SEGA CDX I bought at a resale shop. I've wondered what exactly happened to all the cords and Sonic CD. It had a save file for Sonic CD, but the game wasn't in the store.

[Blitzwing256]

I remeber I used to play magic the gathering (card game) with some chunky kid named jason okanowiz (something like that) and we'd play for ante, anyways in one game his ante card was a parituclarly valuable (to him) card called a nightmare, I totaly trounced him in that game, he really didn't want to lose his nightmare card so he offered to let me take all the snes games i was borrowing from him (about 10) minus tmnt tournament fighters for the card, I said find as this was still when snes was pretty popular and those games were expensive!, so time went on about 2 years later I was in the local eb games checking out all the snes games for sale, and guess what game was in the bin for 2.99? yup! a copy of tmnt tourny fighters with the kid's name plastered on it in marker, Jason okanowiz.

take that bitch!

[thetoxicone]

Living in Alaska now, I've found games at the pawns and thrifts here with rental store stickers from all across the lower 48 so I think about it occasionally and am quite glad for their journey since if all of them were still in the lower 48 I wouldn't be getting that many deals.

[Iron Draggon]

I wonder how my SNES Aero Fighters managed to get stocked at the one Toys R Us where I found it, while no other store in Houston ever got any... not even another Toys R Us... so why did they have it at that particular Toys R Us, and why didn't any of the other stores in Houston get it? it doesn't seem to make any sense... was that one store the first to get an order in for it, so they got it, while all the other stores were told that it wasn't in stock at the warehouse? I really wish I knew how that happened, but in the end, all I really care about is that I got it, brand new & sealed!

[Ed Oscuro]

I mostly try not to.

Most of the games I find are either obviously old stock or are in such terrible condition that I'd rather not think how many butts they've been up ;)

[mr.soul]

I remeber I used to play magic the gathering (card game) with some chunky kid named jason okanowiz (something like that) and we'd play for ante, anyways in one game his ante card was a parituclarly valuable (to him) card called a nightmare, I totaly trounced him in that game, he really didn't want to lose his nightmare card so he offered to let me take all the snes games i was borrowing from him (about 10) minus tmnt tournament fighters for the card, I said find as this was still when snes was pretty popular and those games were expensive!, so time went on about 2 years later I was in the local eb games checking out all the snes games for sale, and guess what game was in the bin for 2.99? yup! a copy of tmnt tourny fighters with the kid's name plastered on it in marker, Jason okanowiz.

take that bitch!

hahaha, that's awesome

[Ed Oscuro]

-OKAN0WNED

(hee hee)

[Trevelyan]

not my video games tbh, but i have some beat up vinyl im interested in.

[Raedon]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v246/little_demon65/1205183492013.jpg

[murdoc rose]

sometimes I think about what a game has gone through to get to me. But its not as interesting as a sports card from the 50's, just think about it, that card has been in circulation for more then 50 years. God only knows who and how many people held onto it before I did.

use to collect goudeys form the 30s so i've been there before.

As far as games goes this usually comes up when a game has a sticker from a rental place in another state or is half covered in marker. The really rare stuff is what is the most surprising.

Sometimes wish my toy collection could talk. No telling where man at arms has been lol

[johnthehero]

I thought this same question when I found that there's a Sonic 1 cartridge in the game store I used to work at that has an address label for a woman in Cleveland.

[Cryomancer]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v246/little_demon65/1205183492013.jpg

What about me?

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

http://www.journey-tribute.com/journey/resources/atari2600/cover.jpg

Sometimes I think about the journey that the Journey game took to get to my 2600 collection ...

[squirrelnut]

Here's oen for ya. I got an atari off of Ebay that Kurt Cobain used. I noticed that the lady selling it was from aberdeen, washington. it was part of a huge lot of video games. I asked the lady, in joking after some issues came up after shipping, if she knew kurt cobain. sure enough she actually did and had verifiable proof.

[GreatBazunka]

can't say i ever thought about this. But i do enjoy the history behind rare and obscure games like Action 52.

[PentiumMMX]

I wondered this about a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog I bought years ago from Game-X-Change. The back of the cartridge was covered in price stickers from Gamestop, EB Games, and pawn shops from across the US.

Looks like it was the community copy of Sonic LOL

[megasdkirby]

Interesting topic, but I fathom to think where some of our Xrated games were before getting them.

And "how" it was used'. And "what" is on them... :)

[squirrelnut]

I wondered this about a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog I bought years ago from Game-X-Change. The back of the cartridge was covered in price stickers from Gamestop, EB Games, and pawn shops from across the US.

Looks like it was the community copy of Sonic LOL

Caution, it may have VD.

[Rathiain]

I have a sticker from some video game store in Flordia on the back of a copy of megaman x. It looks like another sticker was once on top of it.....

[jdc]

Yep. Many years ago I was able to buy a sealed Genesis Model 2 NFL'94 Gift Set. I still have it, it's still sealed and I always wondered who it was that (maybe) got a new Genesis for Christmas and had no interest whatsoever in opening it and using it. What prompted them to eventually sell it to the second hand store where I happened to find it?

I bought an absolutely mint used Fender P-Bass guitar and eventually met the guy who had owned it originally. We were just talking music and bass guitars and he mentioned that he sold a new Fender that he didn't care for to a local shop a while back. We determined that the bass that I'd bought WAS indeed his.