Selling Your Whole Collection

[johnk_]

*mutters under his breath*

Not that I'd sell my games for my bike or anything... I really ride because it's so much cheaper than owning (and particularly insuring) a car. $300 on the bike, $100 a year on the insurance, and I'm alot more mobile than without it. Yes, there are practical reasons to own a motorcylce too.

you make valid points, and i can relate to the insurance thing.. insurance companies will pretty much rape anyone under 25 with a car , even with a perfect driving record..
and of course, i was kidding about that motorcyclist generalization...

certainly can't see selling my favorite games for a bike though..

but there seems to always be at least one game in my collection that i could do without.... might be safe to say that anyone else would agree (regarding their own collection).

[gamevet]

you make valid points, and i can relate to the insurance thing.. insurance companies will pretty much rape anyone under 25 with a car , even with a perfect driving record..

The insurance rate did'nt change much when I turned 26 either. I payed about $185 a month to insure my Mustang GT, but after I got married, we insured both vehicles and have renters insurance for around $220. Talk about prejudice.

[Johnny Nighttrain]

insurance on my bike is gonna cost me $500 year.

[Timber]

They were weak.

It is like any addiction. It's hard to finally admit your problem and start kicking it, and once you are getting yourself off of it, the cravings get worse and worse.

For example, I had a huge TurboDuo/Pc Engine collection which is now about half of what it used to be. I have the urge to play some Duo games all of the time, and I miss the chance to do so. But, at the end of the day, they were just games, and they weren't games that I can't live without.

To me, the more crap I get rid of that is just cluttering up my life, the better.

It certainly can be hard, though. Many of these collections I put a lot of work into. My NGPC collection, for example, good lord I busted my ass to put that together. Now, a lot of the major titles are gone, and I'm looking to get rid of the rest, the system, and all of the accessories as one pack. I'm looking to get rid of 90% of my Saturn collection, and once I do, I wonder if I can justify keeping the Saturn and those few games I kept at that point. And as much as it would pain me, I keep looking at my NeoGeo cart and realizing that while I have a handful of games for it, SamSho 2 is the only reason I keep it. It's just such a lovely system to have and look at, but almost pointless to keep keeping it for just that one game.

I think, too, that once we get to the level that most of us are at (or were at), we stop enjoying games as much as we used to. It becomes more about getting a game, running through it, and getting on to the next title that we're dying to own. When I purchased Silent Hill 3 recently, I did something that I've never done - I sat down and played through the game in every way that you could do before moving on. I took my time, I saw everything there was to see, I did everything there was to do. It wasn't just one of three or four games I bought in a short time period, and I really gave it my full attention for quite some time.

It was really nice doing that - really spending time with a game instead of thinking about what to move on to next. Part of that came from my year in Japan, where I had hardly any exposure to games. So, when I did, I ended up spending much more time with them and really giving them a good play-through.

How does this connect? I think that when we get into the "collection" mode, we sometimes start not looking at the individual games, and instead simply look at the collection. When you get rid of all of that, and only have a few core games to occupy your time, you start to really give them more of your time and attention.

Plus, if you buy a game and really play it through fully at that point, then you have less desire to go back and play it again later because of "incomplete" feelings.

And, I think a lot of people get too emotionally attatched to some games, and don't really "need" to keep a game around and play it a year or more later when they think that they do.

I'm coming to this mind set as well. I'm totally in collection mode and I'm playing less and less (I almost never finish a game). Just look at the link under my sig, 187 games and that's probably 2/3rds of my collection (not counting accessories, jebus are there a lot of 'em). How many of 'em do I play, a handful at best? I really need to cut this down to under 60 games and I think I'm going to work on that starting the week after next. The only collection I can't bare to part with is my GB/GBA stuff; I won't sell any of it for the world. And like shidoshi I've got a nice little DC collection I don't want to part with, it's all packed into a box and won't be opened for quite a while. I'm not selling it off but I'm not playing it much either.

I have a GC w/ 9 games and the GBA player; I haven't touched it for 2 months now. I've got Zelda WW, RE0, Skies of Arcadia & RE3 and together I've put maybe 8 hours into 'em. Ikaruga is the main reason I'm keeping it around (& I'd like to get VJ) but can I justify owning a system for 1 or 2 games? The Xbox is even worse, I bought it again to play KOTOR (which I love) and I can't get rid of it because of Halo 2 on the horizon. As for the PS2, I've got too many gems I play regularly to justify selling it (Rez w/ trance v, Gitaroo Man, Gradius 3 & 4, Klonoa 2, sub rebellion, suikoden 3) and even more PS1 games I can't force myself to sell because I won't get anything for them (most of my shooters). Same goes for a lot of my older PC games, just can't get enough scratch to justify letting them go.

But I know that I have to. I'm unemployed right now and leaving for Vegas on Monday (yeah I know that's not the best idea, but I've had some loot saved for this for a while now) and getting back on Friday. Once I'm back expect a huge for sale list on trade depot board. I could use some money to live off of while I'm in school (finally going to take college seriously starting January), hopefully I'll only need a part time gig with minimal hours to get by. Me in school & working full time don’t mix well, I've tried it and never had any success.

[Jeremy]

Looking forward to that trade depot thread, Xeno. Hopefully, some wrestling games will be up for sale.

[JMET]

Every person that plays wrestling games should get kicked in the balls 5 times...

[Timber]

Every person that plays wrestling games should get kicked in the balls 5 times...

Every person who bashes on wrestling games without playing Virtual Pro Wrestling 2's MMA engine should have their balls cut off. It's a damn good fighting game at it's core.

[Jeremy]

VPW2's MMA shit is awesome. Much better than anything available at th time, and it gives the officially licensed UFC games a run for their money.

[OmegaFlareX]

I happen to be in the final stages of thinning out my collection myself, so here's a bit of advice for the eBay thing:

1) Use Buy-it-now! As stated before, you can rake in the profits by having a high BIN price. A nickel per auction isn't much to ask.

2) Sell cheap or undesirable games in bundles! My personal strategy - sell everything separate first, then group together what you have left over and sell it as a bundle later. For instance, I put up 33 NES games, and sold all but 8 of them. I then listed those 8 as a value-bundle of-sorts: "Lot of 8 NES games - $1 each!" $1 each was my starting bid, $3 each if they used BIN. Sure enough, someone used BIN, so I made more than I should have, plus saved a lot on listing fees. I did the same thing with my SNES games that didn't sell, and I plan to do it with the 5 Genesis games I have left.

3) Be accurate in your descriptions! As a serious gamer, if I'm looking for a game on eBay, I usually skip over auctions that consist only of stuff like "BIOMETAL FOR SNES GAME ONLY $8 SHIPPING LOL" It's a good idea to state what the game is, what it comes with (if anything), and its physical condition.

4) Don't rape people for shipping! It should be no more than the actual cost, but most sellers charge extra to cover eBay's listing/final value fees (which is a good idea, IMO). Bundles should have their own set shipping cost ($6.50 for 8 NES games, etc.). Offer insurance, but don't force it, unless the item is valuable.

5) Clearly state the terms of the auction for the buyer! Put everything the buyer needs to know in the auction itself. If you take PayPal or BidPay, say so. If you don't want to ship internationally, say so. If you want your payment by 7 days after auction's close, say so. It's also a good idea to shoot auction winners a confirmation email that contains everything they need to know to pay. Still, a lot of eBay users are flat-out STUPID, so you'll have to deal with NPBs or late-payers, payments you can't accept, and complaints that they didn't get your emails. I personally have no tolerance for that kind of time-wasting crap, but it's a generally good idea to be patient with them so they actually pay you. Nonetheless, don't hesitate to file NPB reports or leave negative feedback for irresponsible users.

6) Make a template! Somewhat related to #5, you might want to write up an auction template in HTML that you can copy/paste into the listing form. Mine looks like this, for example. Doing this will save you a lot of time and effort. I also have pre-made text templates for typical emails I send to users after the auction.

That's all I have to offer. Selling on eBay is a serious pain in the ass (due to the stupidity of your buyers), but if you play your cards right, you'll come out of it rich. Have fun!

[Flik]

I'm coming to this mind set as well. I'm totally in collection mode and I'm playing less and less (I almost never finish a game). Just look at the link under my sig, 187 games and that's probably 2/3rds of my collection (not counting accessories, jebus are there a lot of 'em). How many of 'em do I play, a handful at best? I really need to cut this down to under 60 games and I think I'm going to work on that starting the week after next. The only collection I can't bare to part with is my GB/GBA stuff; I won't sell any of it for the world. And like shidoshi I've got a nice little DC collection I don't want to part with, it's all packed into a box and won't be opened for quite a while. I'm not selling it off but I'm not playing it much either.

I have a GC w/ 9 games and the GBA player; I haven't touched it for 2 months now. I've got Zelda WW, RE0, Skies of Arcadia & RE3 and together I've put maybe 8 hours into 'em. Ikaruga is the main reason I'm keeping it around (& I'd like to get VJ) but can I justify owning a system for 1 or 2 games? The Xbox is even worse, I bought it again to play KOTOR (which I love) and I can't get rid of it because of Halo 2 on the horizon. As for the PS2, I've got too many gems I play regularly to justify selling it (Rez w/ trance v, Gitaroo Man, Gradius 3 & 4, Klonoa 2, sub rebellion, suikoden 3) and even more PS1 games I can't force myself to sell because I won't get anything for them (most of my shooters). Same goes for a lot of my older PC games, just can't get enough scratch to justify letting them go.

But I know that I have to. I'm unemployed right now and leaving for Vegas on Monday (yeah I know that's not the best idea, but I've had some loot saved for this for a while now) and getting back on Friday. Once I'm back expect a huge for sale list on trade depot board. I could use some money to live off of while I'm in school (finally going to take college seriously starting January), hopefully I'll only need a part time gig with minimal hours to get by. Me in school & working full time don’t mix well, I've tried it and never had any success.

I'm the same way... my collection is huge - hell, I have over 120 NES games alone. I don't play most of them much, but my justification is that I'm paying next to nothing for all of it. With the exception of maybe 5 or 6 NES games, I did not spend over $1.00 on any NES game. Some of the stuff is kept cause I actually play it, other is kept as bartering for other items I may want.

I generally don't buy games unless they are cheap, and buying a new game is a rare occurence for me. Plus, if I do decide to ever get rid of some of my stuff, I know a lot of people who are interested, avoiding the whole Ebay thing. Luckily I've fallen into the trend of selling things I won't play much or ever at all, saving me money that way.

-Flik