Man trades in 203 copies of night trap!

[otaku]

http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/9/6125693/night-trap-sega-game-trade

Had to share this. Crazy stuff would like to know what else he has. Never got around to owning or playing this game but am well aware of it they include an amusing video here. sewer shark is the most memorable fmv game for me

[ProjectCamaro]

He was probably given very little for them all too.


I wonder if when these hit the market if the price will go down or if the store will keep them off the open market only releasing a couple at a time to keep a price crash from happening.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Yeah, really. I'll bet the store didn't pay him more than $1 per copy.

Actually I'm surprised the store would even take 203 copies of NightTrap to begin with, let alone pay this guy for them. NightTrap is a dead weight game - one that most of the gaming public to visit that store wouldn't care about to begin with. Even more desirable dead weight games like SMB/DH a lot of game stores will refuse to take if you try and trade in more than 5 copies at once.

Sega CD games aren't very desirable to most of the gaming public to begin with, and it's not like he traded in 203 copies of Snatcher or Lunar or any of the other actually good Sega CD titles.

What the hell is the store going to do with 203 copies of NightTrap? They're gonna have that inventory for a long, long time. Unless they do some sort of promotion where if you spend $50 or more you get a free copy. That's the only way I see them depleting that kind of stock.

[Ponyone]

Night Trap is actually seeing a spike in popularity. There is a kickstarter for a remake and these days everyone is into so bad its good and retro cheese.

The game goes for about 18 loose and 38 complete.

[Jorpho]

Indeed, the timing with the Kickstarter can't be a coincidence.

[Gameguy]

Night Trap is one of the better games for the Sega CD, besides the insanely rare or expensive games. I can see why a store would buy them all. Plus, the guy brought the store a whole van or truck full of gaming stuff. The copies of Night Trap were just among the items he had. Still in bulk I don't expect him getting full value for everything, but he wanted to clear out a bunch of space at once so he wasn't looking for full value. I'm sure he didn't pay much for them in the first place, most likely just saved them from a dumpster at his work when they were recalled.

Here's the original article from Kotaku.

http://kotaku.com/guy-trades-in-203-copies-of-controversial-old-sega-game-1632225078

It really seems like these Kotaku articles are barely about anything. "Man sells old games to video game store".

[Pantechnicon]

I have lived in Albuquerque for nearly 20 years and have been a retrogame collector for about that same amount of time. First off, I know the shop these games were sold to and they're a pretty decent bunch. My guess is that they'll probably try to sell a number of these online, but not all at once so as not to flood the market.

Secondly, believe this or not, this isn't the first time that literally hundreds of copies of a single Sega CD title have been dumped on our local resale market.

Albuquerque used to be home to American Laser Games, who made a number of laserdisc-based light gun arcade titles like The Last Bounty Hunter & Mad Dog McCree. Naturally a good number of these games were ported to the home CD formats of the early 90s like 3DO, CD-i, and of course Sega CD.

When American Laser Games went out of business in the late 90s, they took all their unsold home inventory and dumped it on a number of thrift shops and used game stores. I have clear memories circa 1998 of being in a place called Thrift Town and seeing dozens of copies of McCree, Bounty Hunter, Who Shot Johnny Rock?, etc. for sale in addition to many, many unsold copies of their GameGun peripheral, all still brand new in the boxes and jewel cases.

Granted, these old light gun games aren't as rare as the original Night Trap, but from the standpoint of history of our local collecting scene, it is somewhat amusing to see history repeating itself here.

(As a final aside, just last Friday I happened to sell my own CIB copy of Night Trap v1 to a local fellow via Craigslist. Talk about getting out right before the market drops).

[A.C. Sativa]

Yeah, really. I'll bet the store didn't pay him more than $1 per copy.

I doubt he got anywhere near that much. More like $20 or so for all of them. And why would anyone buy 203 copies of the same game? Especially a game that (a): sucks, and (b): is for a system that's not very popular and didn't sell very well to begin with. He'll never sell them all, even if he prices them at 50 cents a piece.

[Bojay1997]

I doubt he got anywhere near that much. More like $20 or so for all of them. And why would anyone buy 203 copies of the same game? Especially a game that (a): sucks, and (b): is for a system that's not very popular and didn't sell very well to begin with. He'll never sell them all, even if he prices them at 50 cents a piece.

Night Trap does not suck. It's actually a fun game and it's just a shame the recent Kickstarter failed as it would have been great to have a version with HD video. Also, Night Trap sold over 800K units on the small number of platforms it was released on. I believe the Sega CD was the best selling version. As others pointed out, loose copies tend to go for up to $20 and the last few complete Sega CD copies went for over $50 on Ebay.

[bb_hood]

If you play through it with a guide its pretty fun. My favorite part is when you die, that one guys disconnects you by pulling out the wire in the sega genesis controller.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XskUhmka7dg

Your wasting time! Get over there now! Looks like your not up to this mission. Breaking contact.

[Pantechnicon]

And why would anyone buy 203 copies of the same game? Especially a game that (a): sucks, and (b): is for a system that's not very popular and didn't sell very well to begin with. He'll never sell them all, even if he prices them at 50 cents a piece.

Remember that in general a game store owner is going to have deeper pockets than "anyone", meaning your average collector, and could most likely easily afford offering the fellow a rate of $1 each, or maybe up to $3, and still come out ahead. Or, like most small store owners, he might have offered a better value for trade-in credit.

Second, according to the our local press (http://krqe.com/2014/09/09/controversial-video-game-in-high-demand-at-abq-store/), the shop is getting hit with offers from all around the world for copies of the game. Even if they cut the bottom out of the going rate on eBay and sold them individually for $25 each or so they're going to do just fine.

Lastly, here we all are (DP, IGN, Kotaku, etc) talking about a score at a locally-owned game shop (http://garetro.com/Blog/?page_id=769) with only two locations totaling maybe 1200 total square feet in size that exists in a state most people forget even exists, or believe is some sort of meth-infested hellhole owing to a defunct fictional TV series. You generally can't buy this kind of publicity without paying through the nose.

[FrankSerpico]

^Those Game Guns are fairly sought after among SCD collectors these days, I wonder if someone in the Albuquerque area still has a bunch hoarded away?

[Edmond Dantes]

What the hell is the store going to do with 203 copies of NightTrap?

I'd buy it for a dollar.

[mailman187666]

I've always loved Night Trap since I was a kid. I'd like to see a picture of all 203 copies, stacked up. Hell, if they bought each copy for $1-$3, I would have done the same thing.

[xelement5x]

^Those Game Guns are fairly sought after among SCD collectors these days, I wonder if someone in the Albuquerque area still has a bunch hoarded away?

I was going to say the same thing.

I've got a loose one I picked up free in a bundle but would love to get my hands on a boxed one. They're much more uncommon than the pink Justifier in my experience.

[Pantechnicon]

^Those Game Guns are fairly sought after among SCD collectors these days, I wonder if someone in the Albuquerque area still has a bunch hoarded away?

Huh...Wish I would have got on that at the time. Odds are good there are still a few floating around in some of the odds and ends bins or flea markets, but no way would they still be CIB. I'll keep my eyes open.

On a lark I stopped in to one Gamers Anonymous location today to get a glimpse of the fuss. Right behind the counter there they were: about 10 boxed copies of the game and below that roughly 20 more of them in jewel cases only and presumably waiting to be buffed (remember these were Blockbuster rentals).

The sales girl informed me that the big trade occurred at the other location, but that her store had been given a number of copies for sale as well. She didn't seem to know much about the press coverage or any external/international demand. Even though I had just traded my CIB copy last week, I couldn't resist picking another one up. They're selling the boxed ones for $15, so I got it for less than $10 since I had some store credit on file.

None of the boxed copies I saw had manuals (I looked through them all), and the jewel cases all had Blockbuster rental labels on them. Otherwise the discs I scrutinized seemed to be in good shape. $15 plus shipping is probably a good price if anyone else wants to get in in this.

[otaku]

well I had no idea about the kickstarter bit or the market but yes it seems to make some sense for both the seller and buyer given what I now know. Snatcher man I loved that game! can't imagine hundreds of copies of that! I remember dealing with a particular store back in my game collecting days that would often take my junk games to help me out and as a courtesy in order to get good stuff from me and keep me shopping

are we talking about the justifier guns? I had a set for my genesis wish I still did.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I'd buy it for a dollar.

Right, but consider the general populous. Hardcore retro gamers like you and I have the means to play Sega CD games, but most people do not. That's why it's dead weight inventory that will simply sit on the shelves even if the store doesn't attempt to make a profit and sell them for like $5 per copy. Nobody will really want them. I'd imagine that even in a major city, a sudden inventory of 203 copies might well 50 copies to the populous, still leaving them with over 150 games taking up inventory space that could be used for things that would sell better.

This is the primary reason many game stores do not sell TurboGrafx-16, Sega Saturn, GameGear, Neo-Geo AES, or even Dreamcast games; the market for them is a tiny fraction of the market for say, NES and SNES games. Even Genesis games aren't sold in a lot of places due to the lack of public interest.