This is driving me ass crazy - collectible PC games/rarity

[portnoyd]

Ok, simple question: Are there any sites out there that deal with rare PC games, and what they're worth? The DP of PC games? I'm shit out of luck trying to find anything.

I ask because I dug up something that *should* be rare for the PC. It's a copy of Day of the Tentacle (sequel to Maniac Mansion) for the PC on 5 1/4" floppies. May not sound out of the ordinary, but I got them by sending my 3 1/2" disks to LucasArts, and they sent these back to me. 8 discs, all with official labels. Never officially sold in stores, only available by mail order, and potentially made on demand. If that doesn't scream (or talk loudly) rare, I don't know what does.

Anybody? There's got to be some forum somewhere where people talk about Alkalabeth and Ultima values.. right?

dave

[SoulBlazer]

The best forums I can suggest are those at Home of the Underdogs at www.the-underdogs.org

[Quintracker]

I'll go ahead and say the obvious, have you looked on ebay for certain titles? I've been meaning to do that for a while, I've got a bunch of old pc games I need to get rid of.

[portnoyd]

I'll go ahead and say the obvious, have you looked on ebay for certain titles? I've been meaning to do that for a while, I've got a bunch of old pc games I need to get rid of.

I have, and I can't tell if it's just stupid people, or actual value. Oh well. I'll try that forum out, thanks guys.

dave

[norkusa]

I don't know jack about the rarity of PC games, but whenever I see a complete PC strategy or rpg game in a pawn or thrift for cheap, I always pick it up. I just started doing this a month or two ago and have been making a killing on ebay with them. Paid $4 for each title and here's how I made out:

King's Quest Collection-$152
Chickamauga (civil war sim)-$40
Start Trek TNG: Birth Of The Federation-$45
People's General-$40
Stars!-$30

I think I did alright. And you can bet I'm going to keep my eyes open for this kind of stuff when I hit the thrifts now. Looking back, I can't believe how many used PC games I used to pass up because I though it was worthless.

[Lady Jaye]

When you buy old PC games on diskette or floppys (games that were opened, of course, not factory-sealed games), do you check whether the data can still be read before selling them? Or do you sell the games untested, as is?

[Scoots]

Agreed, there is not a lot of info to go on out there. We decided to add PC games at Fatman, but it's more of a llist of titles at this point. I wouldn't even want to guess at rarity/prices for most of it. Hell, just trying to maintain a list of titles is a ridiculous task.

[norkusa]

When you buy old PC games on diskette or floppys (games that were opened, of course, not factory-sealed games), do you check whether the data can still be read before selling them? Or do you sell the games untested, as is?

Actually, none of the games that I've sold were on diskette (all cd-rom's) so I never had to worry about that. If I saw a diskette version of a game at a thrift though, I'd be nervous about picking it up. Over time, those things will eventually de-magnetize and get erased, right?

[Cmosfm]

ass crazy! Tell a girl that your "ass crazy" and see what happens.

[Ed Oscuro]

Anybody? There's got to be some forum somewhere where people talk about Alkalabeth and Ultima values.. right?

Yeah, it's called A thread you didn't check ;) Akalabeth is probably very much in demand as well.

That Lucasarts "Day of the Tentacles" on five'n a quarters sounds pretty nice, for sure. Are the labels the same as on the 3.5 inch, or are they full size?

As for rare PC games...I'm very much surprised Norkusa made that much money off those games. I see unopened stuff on eBay all the time, and while most of it's very common, some really ain't -- I've seen some rare Infocom titles go for not much over $10.

[Ed Oscuro]

For those wondering how much Akalabeth would go for, Richard Garriot seems to have tried it out around 1999: Link

[Jorpho]

Instead of eBay, you can always try searching on GameTZ for games with high wanted:available ratios.

As I've mentioned before, there are some very rare adventure games that are worth a lot of money to the right people. Alice: An Interactive Museum, Discworld, The Neverhood, and Cassandra Galleries come to mind.

[portnoyd]

Anybody? There's got to be some forum somewhere where people talk about Alkalabeth and Ultima values.. right?

Yeah, it's called A thread you didn't check Akalabeth is probably very much in demand as well.

That Lucasarts "Day of the Tentacles" on five'n a quarters sounds pretty nice, for sure. Are the labels the same as on the 3.5 inch, or are they full size?

As for rare PC games...I'm very much surprised Norkusa made that much money off those games. I see unopened stuff on eBay all the time, and while most of it's very common, some really ain't -- I've seen some rare Infocom titles go for not much over $10.

I saw that thread, hence why I asked for outside discussion. It got me wondering... is there any group that said "Shit that's rare, gimme" or is it just independent collecting colliding towards high prices?

The DotT discs are full size (for the 5 1/4" label area), and look professionally printed. I'm not so much after making money off them, as answering my curiousity.

And nork's post just makes me want to find this magic group/forum where rare PC games are discussed and decided. If it exists.

dave

[maxlords]

Well, I know there's not a TON of info out there, but I know of a few really rare titles:

Wing Commander: The Kilrathi Saga (WC 1-3 in a boxed set) goes for $150-200

Space Quest: The Collection goes for around $60 a copy

The Space Quest games, all complete and boxed, you're looking at around $100 for the lot

I've seen a few others, but I can't remember what they all are It's REALLY hit and miss for em!

[Ed Oscuro]

I saw that thread, hence why I asked for outside discussion. :) It got me wondering... is there any group that said "Shit that's rare, gimme" or is it just independent collecting colliding towards high prices?

I see. I bet the Ultima 1 pricing is due to independent collectors...the Ultima community possibly has an interest, but it's hard to say where your average UO gamer's loyalties lie...

I haven't seen any PC game discussion forums quite like we have here, but that doesn't mean they exist. I haven't seen anything to suggest there's any organized movement to set prices, certainly nothing like we have here. Pretty much everything in the PC market is low value. That may change, but at the moment...nothing on the radar, nothing at all. There's the Computers discussion forum on Classicgaming's Forumplanet forum, but even that's pretty dead. The lack of competition for a certain eBay seller's auctions also makes me wonder if there's any serious collecting going on for PC games...I wonder if people just think there's too much to collect for.

[calthaer]

I wouldn't say that it's "hit-or-miss," as most of those titles were popular brands back in the golden age of PC games - due in no small part to having many quality titles come out for each brand. If you've been a console-gamer your whole life and never kept up with which games were great PC games, then of course it's going to seem like a crap-shoot. It really isn't, though. Wing Commander was a hit, the Ultima games were always fairly successful, Sierra adventures always used to be successful, Lucasarts, Infocom, some old ECA (now EA) titles, Looking Glass Studios stuff usually goes for a decent price (System Shock 2 is currently their "big item" you could say - I consistently see it go for $30 or more whereas a few years back it was $10 new)...and some of it just depends who's looking on eBay and when.

[Jorpho]

Why don't you try Four Fat Chicks? It's an adventure gaming site, but there are some collectors there. I visit on occasion.

[brykasch]

Well if this gives you any examples-

I sold the following-

FFVII-35
Day of the Tentacle-20
Sam and Max:Hit The Road-20
Wing Commander III-25

And mind you those were just for the games themselves. Do a search on ebay. Some games you cna get decent scratch for. Mind you the point and clicks came from a lucasarts archive set. I wish they still had em for sale. I have 1-3 games only as they came in the worst cases. Well no cases actually , but if you bought em you knwo what I mean

[hu6800]

I have some, the older police quest, space hulk, doom , alone in the dark
and this one here...
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/hu6...lyBeammish.jpg

didnt know they were worth anything but i love to play them

[chaoticjelly]

I have been concentrating on selling PC games recently..
I too noticed lots of them about, and must of passed up many many of them..

But yes, some are worth a lot, and no, there aren't any lists out there that I know of.. I keep my own list in my head now.. generally, I buy all the PC games I can get my hands on, and list them on ebay, sure, some sell for what I paid for them i.e. generally £1 each or less.. but quite a few are worth a lot..

For example.. here is some of the games I have sold

Gary Grigsby's Pacific War (3.5" diskette) : £26
Day of the Tentacle (3.5" diskette) : £8
Daggerfall (Elder Scrolls 2) (CD ROM) : £25
Star Trek Birth of the Federation (CD ROM) : £26 (this was obtained at a high street shop, similar to the Gamestops in America, for £0.50p !!!)
Silent Service 2 (3.5" diskette) : £48.99 (!!!!!)
Monkey Island 1 & 2 (CD ROM) : £32 (disc in case only)
Monkey Island 1 (CD ROM) : £28 (disc in wallet only)
Gabriel Knight 1 : Sins of the Fathers : £39
Gabriel Knight 2 : The Beast Within : £20
Planescape Torment : £26

Basically, it's anything Sierra, anthing classicy/well remembered, good RPG's and adventure..

Hope this helps..

For CD ROMs I try the game, make sure it's not too scratched, for Disks, I check for dampness before buying (damp can erase the disks yes..) (if you flip back the metal protective cover, and look at the disk surface, small blotches mean damp, so you should be wary the disk may not work), I try and read the data where applicable.