[HN Gopher] The $100K+ forgery scandal that's roiling PC game co...
___________________________________________________________________
The $100K+ forgery scandal that's roiling PC game collecting
Author : DeadNeurons
Score : 99 points
Date : 2022-06-08 19:52 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| xwowsersx wrote:
| Pardon my ignorance, but can someone explain what is forged
| exactly? The packaging and/or CD or disks are forged?
| unclekev wrote:
| >can someone explain what is forged exactly?
|
| The boxes and packaging, also most of the disks inside the
| boxes were found to be blank.
| drcode wrote:
| I'd love to invest in a really nice fossil sometime to put on my
| desk, maybe a small dinosaur skull or an unusually cool looking
| trilobite
|
| But I can never do this, because I could never feel certain that
| I didn't purchase a forgery
| Liquix wrote:
| "You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I
| put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is
| juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I
| realize..?
|
| Ignorance is bliss."
|
| _- Cypher, The Matrix_
| krustyburger wrote:
| I'm, uh, not sure you're supposed to identify with that
| character.
| dubswithus wrote:
| It's not hard for a charismatic person to fool a lot of very
| intelligent people. Hardy Rodenstock fooled Michael Broadbent.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Billionaires-Vinegar-Mystery-Worlds-E...
| mattw2121 wrote:
| One of the largest regrets I have is getting rid of all my Apple
| ][e stuff. I kept it for years in attics as I moved from house to
| house. I had a couple of ][e's, disk drives, ImageWriter printer,
| Apple monitors, and so many original software titles including
| manuals and boxes. (Of course I had 2-3 large boxes of copies
| too).
|
| About 5 years ago I was moving house and just got rid of
| everything because I was tired of moving it. I started regretting
| it 6 months later and even more today.
| jandrese wrote:
| The hardware might have been worth a lot to the right person,
| but finding that connection is easier said than done.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Everything old is cool and expensive again. This is why I hate
| throwing stuff out. I hate how society denigrates hoarders.
| They [the hoarders] were right.
| ghaff wrote:
| The problem is that the stuff probably isn't worth much--and it
| probably isn't worth much to you either if it's gathering dust
| in the attic. I keep a few old game boxes in my office
| bookcase. I have a few old computers up in the attic. (An
| Osborne someone gave me and a couple old DG/Ones. Also a huge
| pile of laserdiscs and player.) Probably someone would love to
| take off my hands and might even pay a few dollars. But there's
| a very real limit to how much effort I'm going to put into
| finding that person locally.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I've heard some of the authors of the Multiple Arcade Machine
| Emulator (MAME) project say that the main goal of the
| software is to preserve the old hardware in code form; the
| ability to play games on it is just a nice side effect. I
| used to think that this was just a way of sidestepping piracy
| debates, but having been around the block a time or two now,
| I see some merit to it. But I suspect they still play games
| on it ;)
| bombcar wrote:
| The "huge pile" can actually make it easier - lay the
| laserdiscs out on the floor, take a picture, sell the whole
| thing as a lot on eBay. Sure there might be some rare ones or
| something, but if there is that's just all the more likely to
| help it sell.
| ghaff wrote:
| At some point, I'll probably take a shot at a local take it
| or leave it first. Then maybe I'll decide it's worth
| shipping for the right money.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| With reference to another post somewhere: I got rid of a $$$
| guitar because 'i can only play one at a time', and i kept the
| one i enjoyed (<$300) playing more. Dont regret a thing and i
| dont see any lost $$. Quite the opposite. Good riddance to
| something i wasn't using? Did i lose out? Nope. Not to me....i
| could have dropped it the next day, or could've got stolen..
| I'm very happy to consider anything i own as $0 value, despite
| what i paid for it.
| technothrasher wrote:
| That would be "Apple //e". They stopped the brackets after the
| Apple ][+ was discontinued.
|
| Ok, yes, I'm still jealous that everybody else had a //e. I
| also had the early Amiga 2000 with the bad ROM revision, the
| base model NextStation, and I don't even want to talk about my
| non-turbo Porsche 944.
| sorenjan wrote:
| You'll always have the memories of the good times you shared
| together, and they're probably better than the real thing
| anyway.
| wiredfool wrote:
| My childhood //e, duodisk, epson clone printer and monitor are
| sitting in my parents garage. dusty, so the drives are probably
| shot now.
|
| They tossed the floppies about 5 years back, and that's
| probably what I would have wanted to save. Custom lode runner
| levels. That ultimate Iv saved game. The disks and disks of
| AppleWorks docs.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Same story here with my C64 and Amiga stuff. I did this around
| 2010. I miss my C64, my Amiga. However, it was instrumental in
| moving forward.
|
| While it still hurts and emulators are a different beast, it
| freed me. I filled the hole with doing modern stuff, like
| learning JavaScript back then.
|
| While I regret getting rid of my beloved hardware, I never
| regret the decision to move forward.
| Arrath wrote:
| Sigh. My school's computer lab had a pile of dust covered Apple
| ]['s sitting in the corner, circa 2005. I don't believe they'd
| been plugged in since having been moved into the new building
| ~1999. Myself and a friend offered to take them off the
| school's hands and free up the space, but were denied for <red
| tape bullshit>.
| II2II wrote:
| I sometimes have similar regrets, but remind myself that I can
| do far better things without the baggage of that old stuff.
| After all, what I truly miss is the spirit of the era rather
| than the physical artifacts. Much of that can be recreated by
| other means: emulation for the software, and electronics for
| the hardware.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| I'm more of the Marie Kondo style but couldn't get rid of the
| computers of my childhood: Atari 600 XL, Commodore 128, Amiga
| 500, Ti 99/4a (although that one I bought only a few years
| ago). My most prized possession is a very rare 5"1/4 floppy
| disk reader for the _Amiga_ (which was supposed to have 3 "1/2
| floppies): not the official Commodore 5"1/4 floppy disk reader
| (also a rarity) but a bootleg one.
|
| I've got two big boxes and when I move to another country,
| these come with me. We've already done three countries
| together. The Atari 600 XL and the Commodore 128 were still
| working during the first lockdown (I was stuck at home and took
| the time to test them).
|
| Once in a rare while I boot the non-modded, time capsule, C128
| of my teenage years and launch the game Commando just to hear
| the song on the SID chip.
|
| I take it they still bring me some joy!
| bowmessage wrote:
| Got rid of it - did you sell it, donate it, throw it away?
| mattw2121 wrote:
| Just left in the last attic :(
| popotamonga wrote:
| I still have an unopened nes with supermario+pistol and duck hunt
| i was given when i was 8 wonder if its worth anything
| blastro wrote:
| there's more to this story
| interlocutor2 wrote:
| I'm not a collector.
|
| I don't understand I don't understand paying a premium for a rare
| or old item that is easily replicated. The same goes for art
| forgeries. Why not buy a reproduction? There is no difference in
| the functional value of the item before and after this
| revelation. I assume these games are available for emulation. I'm
| sick of people bsing and scamming each other by turning fun
| things into investment vehicles.
| guardiangod wrote:
| >I don't understand I don't understand paying a premium for a
| rare or old item that is easily replicated.
|
| I once worked at the library of a university. Part of my job
| was to check the catalogue against the actual bookshelves to
| make sure the books are physically present.
|
| So I got to social science section. In particular the Communist
| Manifesto by Karl Marx.
|
| Now this is an national university with >170 years of history.
| The spreadsheet in my hand showed that there should be 9 copies
| of the 1908 edition on the shelf.
|
| I found none.
|
| Every copy has been stolen. The irony of this is just too much.
| Communism supporters stealing from the general public to
| satisfy their personal desire of collection.
|
| Aside. A regret I have was not checking out 'The Hitler Youth'
| at the same time. Although I suspect the university might have
| removed them from the shelves.
| the_lonely_road wrote:
| Why must they be communism supporters? I would like a copy
| for my collection and am an avid proponent of capitalism.
| guardiangod wrote:
| Fine. People would make the altruistic decision for the
| good of the greater public by not stealing from the general
| public (the university library).
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Extremely relevant:
| https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf
| lupire wrote:
| To each according to their needs == take the book if you need
| it.
| NikolaNovak wrote:
| I tend to stay away from anything that's marketed as
| (Rare|Vintage|Antique|Original). It means there's a price
| premium, above and beyond functionality and use value, which
| I'm by default unwilling to pay (e.g. musical instruments,
| cameras, etc - when I pick up a new hobby, I tend to go through
| a fairly large number of things through Kijiji to try them out
| and get a feel, until I settle on something that works for me
| long term:)
|
| That being said, I understand in principle that there's an
| extra emotion & joy to be had with something possessing one of
| those attributes. Perhaps I'd enjoy a book signed by Arthur C.
| Clarke or guitar used by Mark Knopfler - though I'd make a
| point to read/play them rather than hide and never touch. On
| any given day, I have higher priorities for my money. Others
| with more money or different priorities, however, will make
| different choices.
|
| (This simplistic framework is complicated by the notion of
| "Value" of course; some people believe, or tell themselves,
| that this is an "Investment"; like many things, this then
| becomes a abstract tower built on mutual belief, and people
| become invested [har] in believing ever so strongly. This can
| lead to interesting conversations unless & until you realize
| you have different axiomatic principles / beliefs / value
| perception).
| danuker wrote:
| Not only is there no functional advantage to buying the real
| thing, there is no easy way to prove for certain that you have
| the real thing, so even speculation is difficult.
| hydrok9 wrote:
| The thrill of owning something significant is the reason. It's
| like owning a piece of history.
| lupire wrote:
| It's more like owning an NFT...
|
| The value of history is the story, which doesn't need to be
| attached to the object.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| One thing I find interesting about NFT collections is that
| the only reason it gets detractors attention is because it
| works .... so well? Like, we have _no idea_ how much the
| baseball card issuing organization made, especially not in
| real time. We have no idea the total supply, or revenue or
| trading volume. In NFTs we have that instantly.
|
| I think the NFT space just provides transparency into the
| size of the existing collectibles market.
|
| Even the proxies we have for digital gaming stuff is just
| buried deep in quarterly reports of a few publicly traded
| companies.
|
| Most of the facepalm worthy NFT headlines would be non-news
| if we even had the ability to compare it to the pre-
| existing collections market.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Then don't collect :)
|
| If replicas and copies of the thing make you happy, do that,
| other people do see value in originals, that's ok too.
| raspyberr wrote:
| And that's the reason I think copyright should be about 10
| years. People value "authenticity" even when it doesn't make
| sense. There's just something about having the "original" or
| the "true" one. With that in mind, I think that writers would
| still be able to sell their books and sequels even after other
| writers get access to their characters and worlds. It's almost
| like fanfiction vs actual author. Anyone could write The Winds
| of Winter. Someone somewhere probably has. But if they were
| able to release it alongside G.R.R. Martin, I know who I'd bet
| on having more sales.
| ManBlanket wrote:
| I'd prefer if someone who knew how to finish story without
| killing off the protagonist wrote this novel he's never going
| to write. It worked ONCE, one time. When Ned Stark was
| executed it was genuinely surprising and that first book was
| good enough to inspire many to finish the whole saga. By the
| end second novel I got the impression he was just trying to
| recycle the same story, peppering-in bits he picked up from
| writing workshops. Trying desperately to make new characters
| people might care about after killing-off anyone interesting.
| He has no idea how to finish a story other than an abrupt
| death. Woah, but wait but now Caitlin's a zombie or some
| shit... Yeah, no. Last you'll ever hear of that. I didn't
| realize what was going on until I went to an open mic comedy
| night. There was a shocking number of comedians who could
| draw you into a joke with a compelling hook, but only
| precious who could follow up with a real joke. The thought
| occurred to me, "This is Martin. A comedian who can't figure
| out how a joke works." He wrote 1 good book but never grew as
| an author. Now he's rich and old and I don't blame him if
| couldn't be bothered to give a shit. Oy, what am I even
| talking about now? Eh, I think a spiritual successor could
| take GoT a lot further than he ever will.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| > could take GoT a lot further
|
| Why would you want to do that? That horse is tired, that
| cow is milked, give it a rest.
|
| But hey, I had David Gerrold's War Against the Chtorr for
| training wheels ;-)
| lupire wrote:
| How could someone read 1,2, or more books of GoT -- one of
| the greatest literary works of realism in character and
| worldbuilding -- and presumably enjoy them, and think that
| a tidy, satisfying ending is something possible, or even
| desirable.
| sumy23 wrote:
| What if you could perfectly replicate a loved one. Would you
| consider the replica equivalent to the original person? At
| least to me, there is something special and important in
| knowing that the original person was a part of my personal
| history. It's not about how they look or act, but it's our
| common context that's important.
| InvertedRhodium wrote:
| How would you know which one was the replica, and which on
| you had special attachment to?
| sumy23 wrote:
| You might not be able to tell. Just the existence of an
| indistinguishable copy could ruin your relationship with
| this person.
| scotty79 wrote:
| > Would you consider the replica equivalent to the original
| person?
|
| Yes. How could you not?
|
| My loved one died. If there was perfect replica of her
| somewhere ready to spin up how could I not consider her
| equivalent to original person?
| sumy23 wrote:
| Part of what makes loved ones special is that they're
| unique. We give people names because they're unique. We
| don't name things like bananas because they're fungible.
| Perhaps if you had the only one copy of a loved one, you
| could love that person as much as the original, but if
| loved ones could be copied arbitrarily, I think something
| would be lost.
| lupire wrote:
| sjburt wrote:
| What if they are two? Or 100? With different experiences
| post replication?
| plasticchris wrote:
| Calvin and Hobbes have this deep philosophical question
| it's best treatment imho
|
| https://calvinandhobbes.fandom.com/wiki/Duplicator
| plasticchris wrote:
| I'm not even a perfect replica of myself from a few minutes
| ago.
| bombcar wrote:
| But that goes even deeper into a bit of the weird aspect of
| collecting. If I have _my_ original 386 laying around, that
| is _mine_ and is the one I used; if I get _another_ one, even
| if it is the same make and model, it wasn 't _mine_ and so it
| 's basically just a copy.
|
| Part of it, of course, can be the "I couldn't get this when I
| was young, now I can" which drives up a lot of prices on old
| Lego sets, but there's more to it than just that, especially
| when collectors start buying items because they're rare, not
| because they once had them or wanted them.
| CyanBird wrote:
| > Would you consider the replica equivalent to the original
| person?
|
| Everyone would do this unless you believed in the intrinsic
| nature of soul
|
| Humans are the sum of their lived experiences and
| epigenetics, so if you could replicate both, to you as an
| observer what would be the difference?
| ManBlanket wrote:
| If they were indeed a perfect replica that fact wouldn't
| matter. They wouldn't know if they were a replica, you
| wouldn't, and only a 3rd party could ever tell you they
| weren't the person you love. At that point learning whether
| or not this person standing in front of you is a replica can
| only harm either party. Would you really subject yourselves
| to that information if it could only hurt someone you
| objectively love? It's not a light choice to be considered
| selfishly in a vacuum, because even if they are a replica
| they're still perfect and a person you genuinely do love. Why
| on earth would you want to learn something that would make
| you not love them, that would alienate them from their entire
| sense of self? Even if is the truth, nobody stands to gain
| from the information. So long as neither of you can tell the
| difference, the truth doesn't doesn't matter. Pretty sure
| this exact subject comes up in like 2 or 3 episodes of Rick
| and Morty.
| lupire wrote:
| The real risk with a replica is that you might later
| discover it is actually flawed in a functional way.
|
| That's why Amazon.com counterfeits are bad.
|
| But this risk doesn't really apply to video game boxes.
| stickfigure wrote:
| I hate to be the one to tell you but...
|
| Every time your loved one respirates, ingests food, and
| defecates, a portion of their body is replaced. The material
| person you know now may be completely different from the
| person you fell in love with.
| sumy23 wrote:
| It's not about the physical material, but rather the
| history, like the ship of Theseus.
| TylerE wrote:
| Hardly unique to gaming.
|
| In the guitar world it's a running joke that only 5000 of the the
| 1500 1959 Gibson Les Paul's survive.
|
| ($$$$, 6 digit prices for real ones is the rule, and top examples
| go for $500k+).
| jandrese wrote:
| It has been said you could build a nice house out of the
| fragments of the True Cross on display throughout the world.
| paulpauper wrote:
| I wonder how much fragments would be worth at auction (i'm
| sure Paul Allen tried and was denied)
| gumby wrote:
| And the buddha would have to have been 10 feet tall for all
| the relics in the various stupas of the world to be real.
|
| Frankly though, I consider authenticity overrated.
| sweettea wrote:
| One Charles de Fleury catalogued pieces of the true cross in
| the 1800s and found them to sum to 2% of a plausibly sized
| cross, not the oft-repeated claim that they add up to a large
| ship, or a nice house:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Cross#Dispersal_of_relics
| paragraph 6. While perhaps biased, it does seem plausible
| that a cataloguing of such claimed relics today would add up
| to a similar total volume.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| The famous John Calvin quote about relics comes from 1543,
| and many of the other quotes come from before 1000, while
| that catalogue is from the 1870.
|
| In between comes the Protestant Reformation, more than a
| century of religious wars across all of Europe where one
| side in many cases actively sought to destroy relics and
| the gradual conversion to Islam of many densely populated
| Christian areas.
|
| A catalogue from the 1870 is next to worthless for telling
| us how many relics existed in the early 1500s.
| bombcar wrote:
| I suspect the saying comes from a time more in the past
| when many _many_ false relics would abound. Once the fervor
| around them died off, any ones deemed fake would disappear
| from circulation and the total amount would dwindle.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Well, the total amount would dwindle.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Since the fragments were said to come from a single piece
| of wood in Constantinople (see the article linked above),
| it is not that surprising that their sum would be
| reasonable. Clearer-cut and a little more entertaining are
| the thirty or more "holy nails:"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Nail
|
| That said, I'd like to know the carbon date on those wooden
| fragments.
| pwython wrote:
| I just watched a video a few days ago comparing a $200 guitar
| to a $200,000 (Hauser) guitar.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPY9Mxg3OJQ
|
| Long story short, go for the $700-$2k guitar unless you're an
| "art collector" that will never play it.
|
| Then again, I doubt many people can tell the difference between
| a $200 guitar and a $700 one.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Same goes for vinyl. I love techno music from the 90th. It
| seems that there is an abundance of vinyl that magically
| survived 20 years of niche existence.
|
| Especially records from the legendary Harthouse label, seems to
| be ubiquitously available. Harthouse was famous for its limited
| edition policy and restricted selling of its records. They were
| very selective and that's how the famous "sound of Frankfurt"
| was born: access to Harthouse records was limited, and
| distribution took mainly place here in Frankfurt. It was tough
| back then to buy certain records even in the famous Delirium
| store.
|
| Nowadays you simply place an order in the Internets...
| Victerius wrote:
| freedomben wrote:
| IANA game collector so take my comment with a grain of salt,
| but no the goal is usually _not_ to play the game. Playing the
| game could damage /harm the original media. Many times the
| original shrink wrap hasn't even been removed.
|
| There are definitely some collectors who do play the games so
| this is not a universal statement.
| bombcar wrote:
| If it's _exceptionally_ rare, the collector will often work
| to make an image of the data (which is how the rare one
| discussed was found, the image revealed a pirate copy).
| daperor630 wrote:
| Well, that's just it though. The packaging, storage medium, art
| and documents that come with these games are not identical, and
| in a couple examples given the game data is either corrupted,
| or of a pirated and modified version of the game.
|
| To draw an analogy, if I was a collector of vinyl records and I
| purchased a first edition album that actually turned out to be
| a poorly reproduced print made from modern MP3 files, with a
| label that was printed by some dude's inkjet printer at home, I
| would be furious.
| biot wrote:
| When a collector purchases the Ship of Theseus, they expect to
| get the Ship of Theseus, not some mere copy.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I see what you did there.
| 101008 wrote:
| Because that's the point of collecting. You do not purchase the
| material, but the history of the item. I say this as a book
| collector of first edition (among other stuff): I understand
| second printing may be identical to the first printing (or even
| better in some quality aspects), but the thrill of buying
| something that has history is what makes interesting.
| Animats wrote:
| _You do not purchase the material, but the history of the
| item._
|
| I don't really buy that for functional objects. I've restored
| old Teletype machines, some almost a century old, and
| provenance is not a big issue. In fact, because of the way
| they were maintained, many are not an original set. There are
| four main components of a Model 15, keyboard, typing unit,
| base, and motor. All are field-replaceable, and the first two
| are easily swappable without tools. Maintenance was often a
| swap, not field repair. The units went back to a repair
| depot, were repaired, cleaned, and oiled, and then went to
| another rental customer. Retired machines rarely have the
| original subunit combo, and nobody cares.
| sodality2 wrote:
| Is a video game any more of a "functional" item than a
| book? Or a vinyl record, in another analogy given in this
| thread?
| Victerius wrote:
| Well, if we were talking about century old paintings or art
| pieces I might understand, but 20-30 year old _video
| games_.......
|
| It's just not the same.
| synu wrote:
| Is there some specific date where you would allow for
| collectors to value an object? A 40 year old book? A 50
| year old car? A Magic the Gathering card from 31 years ago?
| An arcade console from 35? I'm curious what the calculus is
| here because it seems quite specific.
| Victerius wrote:
| It's quite subjective. It comes down to how popular
| culture romanticizes a thing. Popular culture has
| romanticized 50 year old cars, or old books, but it
| hasn't romanticized 35 year old gaming consoles. Why that
| is, I couldn't say.
| sushid wrote:
| How can you say that when there clearly is a market where
| people are willing to pay 5-6 figures for a videogame?
| synu wrote:
| It has though, clearly. That people are buying them and
| this article exists is the most obvious evidence, but
| there's a whole retrograming subculture out there who
| collects and plays with this stuff. Ready Player One was
| a recent retrogaming pop culture phenomenon. Try
| searching for a 35 year old console on eBay and be amazed
| at what you find.
| freedomben wrote:
| In many ways it's exactly the same. They're both art, both
| created by the original "artist."
|
| But it's normal for most people to think collectors of
| certain items are silly. I used to collect books, and most
| people think it's utterly stupid to obtain books and only
| read copies of them rather than the original (opening a
| binding causes it to deteriorate a little bit).
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| Your walls are compatible with 30 y.o. paintings, along
| with a century old, five centuries old or even a
| prehistoric ones (if you manage to find such).
|
| 99% of 20 y.o. games aren't compatible with anything newer
| than a 2010's hardware and for 30 year old games you can't
| even copy/try to run them on anything modern - floppies
| died ~2010.
|
| 20 y.o. video games are roughly equivalent of Late modern
| period art.
|
| 30 y.o. video games are somewhere between the classical
| antiquity and the Middle ages.
|
| 40 y.o. are closer to Egyptian Pyramids.
| TylerE wrote:
| Plus anything more than 20 years old looks wrong on a
| non-crt
| hydrok9 wrote:
| It's the same as in you are owning a piece of history
| (20-30 years ago is a LONG time ago in video games)
| LosWochosWeek wrote:
| > It's just not the same.
|
| To you.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| At one point, centuries old paintings were 20-30 years old.
| Someone made a conscious decision to keep them in pristine
| condition.
| Victerius wrote:
| To be fair, that's about all you can do with a painting:
| hanging it on a wall and keeping it clean. A better way
| for me to read your comment is: "No one made the decision
| to throw them out with the garbage."
| TylerE wrote:
| And many of them weren't considered special at the time.
|
| Van Gogh died a pauper, not having sold a single work
| during his short life.
| ev1 wrote:
| The content on the cassettes is random recording noise and not
| a playable game.
|
| The content on the disks are cracked copies that contain
| missing or modified data and are not the original game.
| Victerius wrote:
| Ah okay then I can understand. If the product is
| intentionally broken then it's fraud.
| synu wrote:
| It's fraud also if it's a forgery, even if the game worked.
| It was represented as an original when it was sold, not a
| high quality modern copy.
| ev1 wrote:
| Also yes, in the case of collecting, the point is "acquire
| bragging rights about an old object just because it's an
| original copy"
|
| If you wanted to just play it you'd just play it in an
| emulator.
|
| I will point out that the history of video games is not
| that old in itself, meaning a several decade old game is
| falling into the "one of the first games made" vintage
| tier.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, the case of "this is something we knew existed but
| didn't have a copy of" makes a lot more sense than "I want
| to be one of 20 people who own a copy of this thing". Even
| the collectors openly admit to actually playing the games
| via emulators.
| wccrawford wrote:
| The goal of collecting is not to actually use the thing. It
| loses its value if you do. (This makes the whole thing bonkers,
| IMO.)
|
| Also, the packaging apparently wasn't identical. It was hand-
| cut at least some of the time and imperfect.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| There are as many goals in collecting as there are
| collectors. Many collectors do not want to use their items as
| some of the items are pushing 40 years old and will not last
| forever. Every disc read and manual flip subtracts from their
| life. This may all sound silly, but compare this to Silent
| Era films. 75% of films from that time period are gone,
| forever [0]. We are still in the beginnings of the medium of
| games and we could fall prey to the same mistakes as previous
| mediums. Some section of the medium must get locked down so
| that future historians can study them in as much detail as
| possible.
|
| [0]:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2013/12/most-
| ame...
| bombcar wrote:
| One advantage we have is the rapid increase in digital
| storage space means that many of these will _not_ be lost
| if we can get them imaged, many people can each have a copy
| of almost every known NES game in only a few hundred
| megabytes.
| lapetitejort wrote:
| What will be lost are the manuals, boxes, cloth maps.
| little post card inserts for some random warranty or
| club, and most importantly, the physical feel of all
| these things. That is the primary thing collectors want
| to preserve.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| The thing is, these are so arbitrary.
|
| I like buying used (not collectible) books, and once in a
| while I find artifacts used as bookmarks - a store
| receipt, an airline boarding pass, a newspaper clipping.
| These objects are fascinating to me; I'm briefly
| transported into the world of the person who originally
| bought the book and how different it seems from that of
| today. The details of the 'bonus item' are like clues to
| the identity of the mysterious reader that preceded me,
| whose identity and trajectory are as entertaining to
| speculate about as as the fictional or theoretical
| subject matter of the book itself.
|
| Over time, everything becomes an antique; competitive
| collecting (for well-defined subsets of items in a niche
| market) is arguably a way for people of similar
| temperaments and taste to locate each other socially, but
| the more effort they invest in this (by developing
| catalogues or price histories of their favored artifacts)
| the more likely they are to be crowded out speculators
| who recognize the hallmarks of an asset class without
| especially caring what they are attached to.
| bombcar wrote:
| There's something to the novelty of the old - I found a
| one cent coupon for Lysol or something like that inside
| the wall of the kitchen.
|
| No expiration date - I should try to use it!
| datalopers wrote:
| Clearly they should have included an authenticity NFT printed on
| synthetic polymers that can survive heat and strong electrical
| fields with embedded NFC chips for multisig validation.
| barnacled wrote:
| As somebody who has started collecting ultima box sets recently
| (pure nostalgia loved them as a kid) it's been mad to see how
| ultima 5 has gone from PS50 when I bought it a few years ago to
| maybe even PS250+ now. I was hoping I could got all of the
| ultimas but this makes me realise that 1 - 3 are probably out of
| reach (let alone akalabeth!)
| Ekaros wrote:
| I really wonder how many of these one can make and sell and is it
| really worth all the effort to go thorough the whole thing? At
| least from time and resources spend.
|
| Probably, still seems like quite a bit of work to get even this
| level.
| bombcar wrote:
| I could certainly see someone doing something like this _to
| keep the real one for themselves_ at low to no cost.
|
| Get super rare game for $10k, make as perfect a copy of it as
| you can, sell the copy for $10k, keep the original, even if
| privately.
|
| But if you're doing that, you wouldn't need to make disks
| containing obvious fakes.
| donthellbanme wrote:
| haunter wrote:
| The fact that all of these are in pristine condition should have
| been a black flag earlier. The whole commercial grading system is
| a joke but if only a handful of copies exist at all then it's
| extremely surprising that all of them are mint or near mint in
| condition after more than 30 years.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-08 23:00 UTC)