How you should act when you have rare games to sell.

[Ed Oscuro]

Follow DreamTR's example.

Note: I mean more recently, not the earlier example. This sort of clears out some old, bad juju regarding an epic bad sale attempt, which I'm glad to put far behind.

If you can't log into Digital Press, the upshot was this: Dude blames people for not paying deposits (on the order of, oh, $1000) to grab old NES / SNES prototypes out of boxes and ship them out, and doesn't care enough to sell them properly. Fun for the whole family! Now, he's actually pulled out some specific games and he may even take a picture of the game running if you ask. Although it seems the auctions were pulled (anti-prototype policy maybe?)

[mr_m0nks]

Buyer beware.

[Skykid]

Ed Obscuro - Posts: 14,610

Jesus Ed, don't you have a job man?

[sven666]

Jesus Ed, don't you have a job man?

maybe hes a full-time digitpress moderator?

[Lordstar]

there is a house near me which is for sale. it is beautiful but if you want to view the house you need to pay a deposit of £100. thwe house is worth about 1.5 mil . For that you can look around the house you could even take a shit in there toilet.v so what would I get some 1000USD? a few piuctures of a bare board possibley pluged in to a console running a game? pass Even if protos did get me wet (I can get that) I would not be too happy with this.

[robivy64]

This is obviously a thread to rally support for Ed.

[Lordstar]

Like he needs help from us. He is never wrong

[undamned]

You should act nice. More people will buy your stuff.
-ud

[Elixir]

Prototype or no prototype, you're not getting an insurance claim on a "$2,500 dollar game cartridge".

[Ganelon]

What's wrong with DreamTR? He's always seemed to be a reasonable and honest guy to me...

[Ed Oscuro]

This is obviously a thread to rally support for Ed.

Understandable to think that, but not really. I just wanted to expand the discussion of this behavior, and besides, DreamTR is always amusing. I don't have a desire to get back into that market any time soon

What's wrong with DreamTR? He's always seemed to be a reasonable and honest guy to me...

Beyond the obvious - which is that he apparently experiences bouts of psychosis from time to time, i.e. imagining states of affairs that don't exist - I would pay attention to what Portnoyd was mentioning there, and throw in a dose of cynicism too.

It's hard to read DreamTR. Sometimes he likes to rail on about how much he's done for the gaming community by letting great deals slip, or by sitting on his stash of protos (his stance on ROMz devaluing prototypes seems based mainly on a fear of bootlegs, but that's pretty much the only negative there). Other times he does things which seem lazy or plain poorly thought-out like listing items which eBay will pull, or (more importantly) which he won't sell properly. I note that whoever bought the prototype I mentioned over there disappeared into the woodwork with their trinket; lending cred to the theory that it was nothing special and they paid too much.

Yes, he won't ever be tied to a lie about a specific item he's selling, but if you look at discussions revolving around him, you'll note that the thread that continually runs through them is that he misrepresents what he has by tying arbitrary prices to them, insisting it's fair (in the absence of any market valuation whatsoever) and insisting "that's what it's worth" just like any demented Craigslister, and then refusing to provide any further information. Ultimately, the manufactured "allure" of a DreamTR prototype, along with the hype he personally generates, ends up misrepresenting what he sells. There's no doubt in my mind that the person who bought that prototype did it simply because of the Castlevania marque, and thankfully for once I was able to resist that siren song.

Whatever the case may be, the guy is either willingly or inadvertently taking advantage of the naivete of some buyers, and I think people should demand more for their money, at the least. Of course, he's just one guy, so he can't skew whatever market exists for old review copies of games singlehandedly.

Jesus Ed, don't you have a job man?

maybe hes a full-time digitpress moderator?

DP is something I used to do at my old job. Yes, we had some good-lookin' - wait, what were we talking about again?

I've been posting there on and off since 2002, so yeah, stuff adds up.

Don't worry though, I've been spending much more time in the "real world" this last year.

[Ganelon]

Whatever the case may be, the guy is either willingly or inadvertently taking advantage of the naivete of some buyers, and I think people should demand more for their money, at the least. Of course, he's just one guy, so he can't skew whatever market exists for old review copies of games singlehandedly.

I can sympathize with that view but honestly, how many niche game sellers don't do that nowadays? I'd ballpark it at 30%. If you want to troll on sales that are way above market value, we have plenty here...

Besides, the buyers have free will. I can only blame them for letting themselves be taken advantage of (if they even feel that way for obtaining such a rarity). It should be clear most prototypes are similar to the real thing (esp. since US gaming media don't normally get early JP protos).

I question his not providing more pics and info (since even 10 minutes to sell a $1000 game isn't bad) but still, it's not something you're entitled to. It's his sale and best offers plus a high BIN is a good mechanism for selling.

Also, I'm pretty sure he's just going by the normal price distribution of games as a rough indicator to sell his protos; naturally, Castlevania will be more in demand than a Madden prototype. It's still an arbitrary BIN price, but having best offers in there turns everything back into an auction format, but at the discretion of the seller. It's easier to think of it as having a dream price and then having a reserve totally up to the seller.

[icbluscrn]

i see nothing wrong with what dreamtr is doing, if it was me i might do the same thing i want the most money possible i also like his response to picture collectors that was funny and true.if he does not want to supply pics thats on him and if you would buy with pics thats on the buyer.

[FRO]

You should act nice. More people will buy your stuff.
-ud

LOL, well said. You should price it fairly. That means don't gouge people $250 for Radiant Silvergun when you know full-well it isn't really worth that much. You shouldn't have paid half that to begin with, and shouldn't be selling it for that price. You should remember that some of us are more frugal & refuse to pay more than twice the original retail price for a used game. If you can do that, you'll have regular customers that will come back for more.

[Ed Oscuro]

i also like his response to picture collectors that was funny and true.

Maybe he's run across people like that, but now I know he's just flung that allegation out there carelessly. Dude hallucinates things.

Also, I'm pretty sure he's just going by the normal price distribution of games as a rough indicator to sell his protos;

I think you're assuming he actually puts some thought into it. I think he just goes "is this a known brand or not" and then sets an arbitrary price. I'd be able to say more going by the prices he had set on eBay (he had somebody else list them for him) but, surprise, they got pulled because they're against eBay rules, which is something anybody with a passing knowledge of selling should be aware of.

That means don't gouge people $250 for Radiant Silvergun when you know full-well it isn't really worth that much.

LOL, that wasn't undamned's auction, was it? I think I vaguely remember this.