What the hell is this? VGcollector.com?

[portnoyd]

http://www.vgcollector.com/

For those of you who didn't make it to PC5, a flyer with what is shown on the site was inserted into the giveaway bag I won, and passed out as a sponsor flyer. Can I ask, what the hell is this? Is this Manci-inspired? I don't like the looks of it, as it seems to be a Beckett type deal, as opposed to Manci, which, for the majority, is a retromag, which I do like.

Anyone know how to fit in game lists with checkboxes for 'Atari to XBox', while still having room for actual content? That's a lot of games to cram into 48 pages...

dave

[Cow Bell Man]

I don't know. It sounds like a gimic to me. However, that NES contest sound sweet.

[gamergary]

They said 48 color pages but maybe there are more black and white pages because you really can't cram all those games into 48 pages.

[tholly]

They said 48 color pages but maybe there are more black and white pages because you really can't cram all those games into 48 pages.


im willing to bet that the color pages will be articles and such and the price lists themselves will be small print black and white pages. could be an intersting magazine to pick up, at least the 1st issue

[nesuser2]

The words "Price Guide Magazine" piss me off.....but who am I?

[orrimarrko]

I believe that I said this verbatim before...

THIS WILL RUIN THE HOBBY!! I'm not going to get into it, but I actually referred to the Beckett's guide and similar guides as to examples.

Sure enough - some greedy bastards are going to put a similar "LAST WORD IN VIDEO GAME PRICES" publication out there. Morons buy them, and next thing you know, you can't go to a garage sale without some retard referencing the "guide".

I know I'm over emphasizing for effect here, but trust me, this will NOT have a positive effect on the hobby.

I can only refer to Star Wars toy collecting as the best example.

Oh well...

[nesuser2]

I believe that I said this verbatim before...

THIS WILL RUIN THE HOBBY!! I'm not going to get into it, but I actually referred to the Beckett's guide and similar guides as to examples.

Sure enough - some greedy bastards are going to put a similar "LAST WORD IN VIDEO GAME PRICES" publication out there. Morons buy them, and next thing you know, you can't go to a garage sale without some retard referencing the "guide".

I know I'm over emphasizing for effect here, but trust me, this will NOT have a positive effect on the hobby.

I can only refer to Star Wars toy collecting as the best example.

Oh well...

These were my thoughts, when it's a guide.....everybody buys in that ever had any interest. And it's nearly getting that way with video games anyways. I see NES games at garage sales all the time for like $8-10 a game. Games like, John Elway's QB or PA Football. The real pit of NES quality...really. I don't mind NES's sportsline but these are the pits(IMO) anyways....I have wanted them before, but not for that price. I inquire and they tell me something like "they're collectible" and I get the same response with Atari 2600 games.....ya, atari 2600 games WERE collectible. Things just get blown out of proportion and it ruins it for the die hards. I can't wait to see how much fun it is once every child in America gets his grubby paws on this :roll:

[anagrama]

Yecch. I can picture it now: "Final Fantasy - very rare - $100"
Surely someone involved in the scene would have heard of this in advance if they had done any decent amount of research. Or is it all gonna based on eBay prices? I've got a real sinking feeling about this...

[punkoffgirl]

Why is it going to ruin the hobby if occasionally you actually have to pay the amount a particular game is worth?

[kainemaxwell]

I can see now fights breaking out over prices between the DP Guide and the VGcollector...

[Ed Oscuro]

We'll handle this. If people want to pay high prices and sellers start offering games at such high prices, there's not much to do about that.

Besides, most of the games I buy seem to be around $30 each, but some are around $50 or even $100 (average).

[anagrama]

Why is it going to ruin the hobby if occasionally you actually have to pay the amount a particular game is worth?

Occasionally paying what a game is actually worth = fair enough.
Being faced with a deluge of sellers asking ridiculous prices because they read it in a badly-researched quick cash-in price guide = where the problem lies.

Still, wait and see, I guess. Ya never know, it might so good that it makes the whole DP team redundant. ;) ahem.

[Griking]

I believe that I said this verbatim before...

THIS WILL RUIN THE HOBBY!! I'm not going to get into it, but I actually referred to the Beckett's guide and similar guides as to examples.

Sure enough - some greedy bastards are going to put a similar "LAST WORD IN VIDEO GAME PRICES" publication out there. Morons buy them, and next thing you know, you can't go to a garage sale without some retard referencing the "guide".

I know I'm over emphasizing for effect here, but trust me, this will NOT have a positive effect on the hobby.

I can only refer to Star Wars toy collecting as the best example.

Oh well...


So how is this any different from what DP here is doing with it's prive guide? This isn't a new thing that they're doing, it's just another price guide. Is the DP guide a bad thing because people may use it to base the prices they sell their video games for at their tag sales?

I think that selfishness plays a small part in all the negativity that I'm reading. The fear seems to be that videogame collecting will become more mainstream and that all of the rare and quality stuff will become harder and more costlier to come by for all existing collecters.

I personally think that all of the attention that our hobby has been getting recently has helped legitimize our hobby. This can only lead to more game game stores, magazines and shows; things which I'd personally love to see.

As far as the prices in these guides go, they can slap any value that they want on a game, it doesn't mean that a person's going to pay that amount for the game. Buyers dictite value and prices. Not sellers and not price guides.

[Sniderman]

I think that selfishness plays a small part in all the negativity that I'm reading. The fear seems to be that videogame collecting will become more mainstream and that all of the rare and quality stuff will become harder and more costlier to come by for all existing collecters.

I personally think that all of the attention that our hobby has been getting recently has helped legitimize our hobby. This can only lead to more game game stores, magazines and shows; things which I'd personally love to see.Nope, that's not where I'm coming from, though I can see where you'd get that idea. At the risk of coming across as an elitist snob, I'm deathly afraid when any hobby is "discovered" by the mainstream. Case-in-point: Beanie Babies were just these cute little toys that a handful of collectors bought and enjoyed. Then Mr. and Mrs. Flea Market discovered the "collectibility" of them and - voila - chaos. Could'nt find any of the little bastards anywhere, as they had all been bought up cheap and were being resold at an insane price. Price guides exploded across the landscape. People didn't collect 'em to enjoy them - they HORDED them simply 'cause "they worth moneys!"

Granted, it took several years, but the market finally fell out and you can get the rarest of Beanie Babies for just a few pennies nowadays. But it was Hellish for the "real" collectors for a while.

And you can substitute Magic cards, Pokemon cards, baseball cards, comic books, Tickle Me Elmo, Cabbage Patch Kids, or any number of "pop culture collectibles" in this. I simply see a period of mainstream opportunists gouging the collectors on the horizon. When anything goes mainstream, it gets diluted. I like it when retrogaming is low key and under the radar. Keeps the prices sane.

For me personally, I am *not* in "The more, the merrier" camp. But it could just be the paranoia talkin'. ;)

[nesuser2]

I think the difference between the collectors guide and the DP guide would be that the DP guide contains "sane" prices. This one probably won't...they'll do a quick check of ebay and go with 80-90% of the highest one sold.

[djb1986]

The thing you have to realize is that on older systems the amount of games out there is shrinking every day due to natural disaster, tossing it out, it stops working or whatever; but the amount of collectors is growing.

The DP Guide is directed toward collectors. This new guide seems directed toward the rest of the people.

That is why having more than one guide is bad. Meh.

[rolenta]

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?0375720383

[Sniderman]

Ye Gods.

:roll:

[punkoffgirl]

Well, it's not due out until August 10th.

[maxlords]

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?0375720383


All he's written before that is strategy guides. I'd love to hear what makes him qualified to give a round set of prices on arcade games, handhelds AND classic games. I don't know ANYONE who's singularly qualified to do all those!

[sisko]

Possibly.... I mean the average joe selling their old system and a handful of games at a yard sale will still probably have no idea this mag exists, just like they don't know that the DP guide exists, and their prices won't be influenced. That is, unless some idiot buyer mentions it.

Though the permanent booths at flea markets probably will pick up on this, and it will have an equalizing effect. For example, one booth I go to charges $5 for Combat (2600), and only $5 for Iron Storm (Saturn).

I think your best bet is to hope for a quiet and limited release, and breath a word of it to no one. The magazine will either become so obscur it can be only ordered online, or it will just fold.

[chadtower]

Beanie Babies were just these cute little toys that a handful of collectors bought and enjoyed. Then Mr. and Mrs. Flea Market discovered the "collectibility" of them and - voila - chaos. Could'nt find any of the little bastards anywhere, as they had all been bought up cheap and were being resold at an insane price. Price guides exploded across the landscape. People didn't collect 'em to enjoy them - they HORDED them simply 'cause "they worth moneys!"

Beanie Babies don't map directly in this case. Beanie Babies were an artificial market - they were being produced and collected at the same time. The sellers always hid the fact that there could be in fact an infinite amount of the items that people were trying to get. This is half of what killed them. Every time people thought they were getting close to a complete collection Ty would just make more. It was dumb. Games aren't like that once they're out of retail. Nintendo isn't going to release new NES games nor are they going to make any more of the ones that exist. At least in that regard this is a safer market than Beanie Babies ever were.



Granted, it took several years, but the market finally fell out and you can get the rarest of Beanie Babies for just a few pennies nowadays. But it was Hellish for the "real" collectors for a while.

So, what, we have to wait it out if this happens? Wouldn't bother me that much. Sure, it would be harder to get games for a couple of years. What's the worst case here? I have the chance to catch up on the 750 games in my collection I've never even tried? It would be a bad thing if the market were to go mainstream, yes, but remember that if it does go mainstream at least we'll have access to the games at SOME price. What with Gamestop and most retail chains doing away with older used games it's getting pretty hard to find anything but the most common around my way anyway. I have to imagine that soon the only way I'm going to be able to find anything above an R3 is via ebay.

[maxlords]

{edit}

[digitalpress]

I think competition is good for ANY business, and that extends to any hobby.

Who wants to have a lone organization or individual dictating how things should go? Though our DP products always take in the feedback of the community in general, it shouldn't be allowed to stand alone in the marketplace.

First of all, having two books will give you a better indication of the actual value of an item. If two sources agree, it's better reference than a single source, isn't it? For that matter, isn't three, four, five or more just more data to better assist in coming to the true value? It's an extension of what DP already does - polls and queries as many sources as possible to come to one "right" number. This just adds more data to the mix.

Competitively speaking, I welcome all comers. If they turn out to be good sources, that only motivates me to top it (I really do have that gaming-competitive spirit burning in everything I do). If they turn out to be poor sources, it only emphasizes how much knowledge and dedication our team (and this community) has. Add to this the fact that I never expect to make a penny on anything I do in this hobby, and I think I can safely say that I'm happy to usher in these new guys.

We were approached by the VG Collector magazine but cannot assist them as we are under verbal contract with Manci Games, but I hope they do well.

Competition is always a good thing.

That's my two meseta.

[chadtower]

He also knew about Digital Press and Joe, so I assume he's done his homework on other game publications. Seemed like a fairly nice guy. Either way, it doesn't sound like they'll have CRAZY prices, but if they're going to be averaging out retailer prices, I can see it being heavily skewed, especially with how random some retailers are. I suspect there will be more making it up from the 5 writers than actual checking with retailers.

Great, so another list that shows a copy of Genesis Ms. Pacman being worth $25, any Disney game being $20... basically, the big name licenses never go down in price with any type of scale to the rest of the library for a given system. That's the one thing I hate about places like Gamestop.

[maxlords]

I did some digging and not only is this a LEGIT mag that's been picked up by distributors (including Diamond...the biggest comic book distributor there is) but it sounds like they're also very professional and know what they're doing. I won't be able to judge the price guide until I see it, but it seems like this could be a valuable resource! From what I've learned, I wish that DP COULD partner with these guys as well!

Anyway, I'd say that this is a GOOD thing as well people. Whether you agree with the prices or not (and I get the impression that they won't be NUTS) it WILL legitimize the hooby more, and maybe it'll keep more of the pawns away from the stupid high eBay prices!

[blissfulnoise]

Looking at this, it may not be a bad thing. Case in point: comic books. In the mid 90s they were going like hot cakes. Every Image #1 would be worth 3 times the cover price the day it was released. I remember seeing Spawn #1 going for 40-60 bucks. Now, you can't pass them for the price of the paper they're printed on. However, the prices of highly collectable comics (Action Comics #1) remained pretty stable. The moral of the story: be smarter than the 'collectors' and wait out fads.

My hope is that "if" (and this is a big if) classic video gaming becomes a more popular hobby in terms of collectability, it will burn out relatively fast and send prices into the gutter (see the beanie baby example earlier). That's an inevitability if you start finding Final Fantasy for 60 bucks. The only way the hobby will be sustainable for the masses is if prices don't fluctuate too much from where they're at (not that they're not crazy already). e.g. I find it ridiculous that Radiant Silvergun goes for 150-200 on ebay now for a game that had HUGE quantities sold in Japan.

In any case, assuming the bubble does pop and Karnov on the NES starts fetching 30 bucks. I've got a TON of doubles and triples I'll dump right into the market and wait for prices to go back to normal. :D

[Sniderman]

Well, after a bit of digging myself (and after some of the posts here), I've decided to be a bit more open-minded. My concern was that this was to be a "price guide written by some investor/guide-writer (and not by a collector/hobbyist)." I was also concerned that this was going to be written for "the average joe," ie, "eBay resellers/flea market vendors/pawn shop owners."

Have you ever checked out Barnes and Nobel? The "collectibles" bookshelf is filled with price guides for Barbies, Pez dispensors, Ertl toys, Marx action figures, Star Wars figs, Star Trek memorabilia, etc. And if you look at the author's bios on these, you'll see that the author churns out guides, though he obviously isn't a collector of ANY of these items. That drives me nuts.

So, as long as the focus of VGC is clear and it's written by actual dudes who collect/enjoy vid games, I'll certainly give it a chance.

[rolenta]

What we need to do is convince any comic book collectors who begin collecting videogames thanks to the new price guides, is that number ones are also important in the videogame world. Therefore, an Atari 2600 Combat 01 is worth big bucks!!!!

[Sniderman]

What we need to do is convince any comic book collectors who begin collecting videogames thanks to the new price guides, is that number ones are also important in the videogame world. Therefore, an Atari 2600 Combat 01 is worth big bucks!!!!

Huzzah! :D And if a game was really popular "back in the day" and sold well, then it's really popular now and worth big bucks! Atari games like Pitfall, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Asteroids, etc. would fetch some serious scratch!

[nesuser2]

What we need to do is convince any comic book collectors who begin collecting videogames thanks to the new price guides, is that number ones are also important in the videogame world. Therefore, an Atari 2600 Combat 01 is worth big bucks!!!!

Huzzah! :D And if a game was really popular "back in the day" and sold well, then it's really popular now and worth big bucks! Atari games like Pitfall, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Asteroids, etc. would fetch some serious scratch!

That's the most evil plot I've ever heard, and I kinda like it :evil: SMB/DH :evil: SMB/DH :evil: SMB/DH :evil:

[VG Collector]

Greetings! Shawn from Video Game Collector here. I just wanted to make a quick post and address some concerns. The first, and probably biggest concern, is the price guide. I will tell you that most of the dealers we talk to use Digital Press for their prices. Since we are reporting average prices, most of the older games will probably be priced very close to what Digital Press lists. Also, keep in mind that this is just a guide, and we won't last very long if the prices are off. We have some great people helping with the magazine. Tom Zjaba of Tomorrow's Heroes will be helping with the price guide. Another thing to keep in mind is that we will have checklists and prices for newer systems like PS2 and XBOX and that's the major reason for quarterly updates. Prices on classic games are pretty stable, but newer systems have lots of new releases, and quarterly updates will help collectors keep on top of things. One concern that is on target is our type size. I can honestly say the price guide section will give your eyes a workout!

[rareusgold]

I think that alot of people are afraid of progress in our hobby. While a price guide can be bad if it is done wrong. But it can be good if done right. Has any one seen the guide in question? I think you need to look at each one and judge it when it comes out. Is the DP guide bad because I would pay double or more for some of the games in there? No, It is just a guide and it has helped me learn far more than I could have on my own. I bet most of you complaining about the price guide own a DP Guide what is the difference?

I do agree that some of this negativity stems from selfishness. I understand that a lot of you want to get great finds for really cheap. Like a crazy climber for $1. I would love to do this forever. But it is not going to happen. You are going to have to face it. Classic Gaming is going mainstreem and NO ONE can stop progress. I know it is hard to look at your collection like an investment but you have to. And any one that doesn't, Ask yourself this question. Would I sell my best find for what I paid for it. I do not think so. Then it is an investment. Most of us collect because we love video games and NOT for an investment. But it is NOT bad too want your collection to increase in value.

I am in the Rare Coin business which is a very mature Hobby. Coin collectors are still ranting about price guide and they have been around in the coin business for 70 years. Rare coins have been a great store of wealth and had excellent return on investment over the past 100 years. (If you bought the right things). Even in the Rare coin business you can still get great deals from flea markets and there are 100's of price guide out there.

NOW for the person comparing Classic Game Collecting to Beany Babbies. That is CRAZY. There is NO comparison that can be made. Here is the reason from some one that make a living selling collectible items. ANYTHING that is collectible and valuable for the long term is NOT made to be collectible. Beany Babbies were made for the collectors market. Star Wars Figures (later ones), Baseball Cards (later ones), and Commic Books (later ones) were made for collectos. The early ones are worth a fortune. The reason is that they were made to play with, flip, or read. They were made for a reason other than to collect. That is why they are collectable. That is the reason it is usually better to stay away from the Collectors Edition (of anything). Video Games were made to play and not to collect that is why they will increase in value, Weather or not there is a price guide.

I am sorry for this long letter but I feal really strongly about the future of this hobby.