I'm glad I'm not the only one seeing this as a huge ripoff. I give the guy kuddos for marketing them and selling them, as he's making a pretty decent profit. In fact, if I only needed 1 case, maybe 2, I might purchase them. But, if you're casing everything you own, you're just throwing money to the wind that could be spend on more games.
Not to mention that he's profiting from all the hard work of the members on TCP while not contributing anything to the community, like all the leaches that download and sell covers from the site.
He is making an absolute killing off you. I have purchased several 100 universal game case boxes to do my own cases. My old printer stopped working so I had to buy a new printer and even after all that I am still WAY under what he's charging you for the cases. Obviously do whatever makes you happy but you are paying much, much more than you would for doing it yourself.
That's a huge problem in my opinion. I do not have the ability to create covers myself and I do use TheCoverProject.net for my covers but I won't date try to make money off other's hard work. That's just not right.Originally Posted by wiggyx
^^^ This.
I have contributed a few raw scans (some rare ones) over the past year or so at TCP, and just shake my head when weeks later I see that same cover has suddenly become available for sale on eBay. Coincidence? Seems unlikely.
Couple thoughts.
I thought OfficeMax and such would not print these due to copyright reasons? I guess that may depend on the store and whether they enforce it.
I have only bought one of these cases; I am not sure it was from the ebay store discussed here, but I am sure it was produced roughly the same way.
I would only buy these for a game I consider 'must be cased not to protect it'. A game that costs more than a few bucks. In my case it was a reproduction of Secret of Mana 2. I have a substantial RPG collection so in my mind it needed a case. Also, it seems to me that these cases add to the value of the cart/game by almost $10, thought not nearly as much as the original box/manual combo would.
My hope is to find a local spot to print, rather than fighting with the price of ink and make my own except when it is worth buying one.
It is up to the employee handling it. I've had some say they're ok with it and others take issue with it when I first tried.
Some will, some won't. Sometimes it just depends on the employee that you talk to.
There's literally like 2 sources for the cases, and they are indeed all the same.
It's a crap-shoot with regards to added value. Based on what I've sold and what I've seen sold on ebay, the added value isn't at all consistent.
There are FAQs on TCP outlining where you have the best chance of getting covers printed and how to have them printed (Office Max and the like very often screw up and print at the wrong scale).
I wish I had this problem :P
My house is so small, I have to keep my carts in boxes & tubs under my bed, which generally keeps them dust-free. I'd be more inclined to spend money to purchase the NES dust jackets or SNES dust covers before shelling out for this stuff, though the idea of UGC boxes & printing my own inserts (I have a nice color laser printer) is quite tempting, assuming I ever have space/room to display them out somewhere. If that happens, I might have to think about this for all my incomplete games.
Twitter Facebook YouTube Tumblr My personal blog
Game Boy Guru project - I'm attempting to collect, play, & review every North American Game Boy release!
I can't see how custom cases add value unless you're one of the suckers paying for them.
You can buy like 100 universal cases for like $60 bucks and can print the highest quality paper and ink for 100 games at kinkos for under $10 bucks.
Then just trim the edges and done. It's less then a dollar a game to do. The only reason I don't do it is space restrictions. Those universal cases are way too fat and big. I can make the space if I wanted but I have no desire to display my collection.
I was tempted to start the project at one point and was looking at all the cases on TCP. I am glad I changed my mind.
People rarely ever come to my house but once I make more friends I still wouldn't want them knowing the kind of collection I have. Even if they are your best friend words gets around and if a bad person finds out it can bring trouble your way.
It's also why I don't do a lot of bragging. Even though I'm about to have insurance there is like a thousand dollar deductible.
You'd be surprised at how many people I knew involved with precious metals couldn't keep their mouth shut and end up in bad situations. Far as any one is concerned I only own 6 video games and I lost all the rest in a boating accident while on a fishing trip.
Last edited by needler420; 06-20-2013 at 12:01 PM.
The morale of the story is don't invite shady people in your house? I don't understand your life.
Not letting shady people in your house is common sense.
Aren't you the one who got robbed of you're video game collection? I recall reading a post about it awhile back.
If anything whether it was a stranger or linked to someone you knew, point is you should get where I'm coming from considering you had your games stolen.
statistically speaking I'm pretty sure there is a high % of robberies where the victims are associated with the perpetrator more so then a random robbery from a stranger.
Normally they know what they came for and they know what they are looking for. To what % these statistics are fact I'm not sure but I know it's not the first time hearing it.
Last edited by needler420; 06-20-2013 at 12:14 PM.
Color prints on legal (8x14) paper at FedEx/Kinkos are $1 each, plus the time spent on the computer printing 'em. I went this exact route because a) I didn't own a printer, and b) even if I did, the color laser they've got is much nicer.
Doing it this way came out to about $2 each with the cost of the cases factored in. Still way cheaper than getting them from this guy on eBay.
Yeah the policeman who came for the report was pretty sure it was related to people I knew, and I also think statistics are likely to corroborate higher incidence of having a relation between the thieves and the victim. But in my case they caught the 3 dudes a few months later (couldn't retrieve any of my stock tho), they just randomly targeted condos in the city.
What I did not get from your message is why you wouldn't want to share your collection with your friends. I assume it's a fairly important part of your life considering your involvement on this forum (and a few others I think?). I don't go out of my way to tell strangers I collect video games, but all my friends know I do. Gaming is not my whole life but considering I devote to this activity a fair share of my spare time, it's very likely to get in the conversation when I'm amongst friends.
Most people I know I'd say 90 percent of them have no idea I have an entire retro videogame room. They think I only have a wii in the living room lol. My 2 or 3 very good close friends come over and play old games with me every week. I don't boast to people about my collection or anything I "own" especially on facebook where i see fellow collectors and just random people posting pics everyday of there rare finds and I can easily find out where they live and rob them. I have had two friends that were robbed because of facebook posting about items they bought. One of the them had most of his game collection stolen. They took over a hundred snes games. I keep my shit private on places like facebook etc. for good reason. Pics of my game room only go on forums.
dirt cheap
back in the day, there was a guy selling these for dirt cheap. they had n-usa stamped on them. i suppose the dude got 'em from some where local.
i got a sh1t ton of 'em for a few tacos, and when i went back for him - i couldn't find a trace.
any ideas...?
I've considered these custom cases simply because I need a small handful, maybe less. 2 Genesis games that don't have cases; all of my SNES carts have dust sleeves, but putting into a clamshell case would be cool.
So, then, buying bulk Universal Game Cases would be silly for me, because I want such a small number.
But, $10 is steep; if I want, say, a Sonic 2 case, I could just buy the whole dang thing for under $10, but not something like Gaiares.
At least for Genesis, I could buy a cheap, shitty sports game and use that case.
The one thing that seems to be a drawback about these cases is the lack of space and/or tabs for manuals, for me, anyway; I love the utility of the Genesis style of case where I don't have to store anything separately.
Based on all the posts of needler's that I've read, he doesn't really have friends or want them. Poor little fella must have been seriously mind-fucked at some point in his life. He seems to think everyone is, or will be out to get him :/
You're over thinking it. The guy is just an obvious, bad troll and has pretty much admitted to that in a previous topic. Sooner he goes the way of The Shawn, the better.
I know he's a troll. Seriously though, he's super paranoid.
Paranoid about what? I don't even get paranoid when I smoke weed.
If by paranoid you mean about my game collection it's because I don't want to end up robbed of my collection like Xander did. That's doesn't mean none of my friends don't know about my collection.
It just means I don't post pics and make youtubes videos showing the extent of my collection to random strangers online. I love it when you knuckleheads do a unboxing showing the address at the same time. All while the youtube comments talk about how dumb and at risk you are for getting robbed.
If I recall Xander just stated the police officer who filed his police report told him him that he thinks the perpetrators are associated with him. Regardless if that is the case or not I'd rather be paranoid and safe about my collection then showboating it online just to gloat about it.
More so then me being paranoid I think someone is butt hurt about all the trouble I brought to their business and site about repros. Hope you been enjoying it. I haven't lost any sleep. I been reading some of the comments on your site and the trouble you have from it. I enjoy it. Good luck.
Last edited by needler420; 06-24-2013 at 05:15 AM.
Posting Permissions
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Similar agreements apply to other advertising or affiliate programs such as those from eBay, Google, etc.
Copyright © 1991 - Present of Digital Press. All rights reserved.
Reply With Quote