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A podcast for anybody who's collecting things, even in this economy! The show focuses on a variety of collectables, including retro games, trading cards, old consoles, DVDs, and more. Every other week we'll meet a different guest and learn about the things they collect and how they maintain their favorite hobbies without going broke.
Welcome. I'm Dan, and this is the first episode of Sticker Shock Collector's Edition, the podcast where we talk to people about the things they collect, specifically things that maybe cost a bit of money or time or just take up space in their living quarters. My personal collecting hobbies kinda revolve around video games, but lately I've been really getting into collecting movies and shows, things like that, getting the physical media for those things. And from there, I've also been kind of getting into rebuilding old game consoles and things like that. With that in mind, just to set expectations for this show, a lot of the things we talk about will probably have a gaming undertone to them.
Dan:But the second episode, for example, won't be specifically about video games. And I think as this goes forward, we'll talk to more and more people who collect all sorts of stuff, niche things, things like that. I have a lot of people in mind, a lot of people have agreed to do the show, which I'm very, very excited about. My hope with the show is selfishly, I just wanna learn about the interesting niche things that people are finding and are passionate about. But I've also found that when I talk to people about the interesting objects they collect and fill their home with, I learn a lot about them.
Dan:I learn a lot about what they value, and it really changes the way I approach collecting anything myself. Anyway, this will be the only episode where I do such a long introduction for myself. But basically, each episode will open with this type type of format where I talk for a bit, set expectations, and then the rest of the show, we'll invite our guest in. And we'll have a page on our Patreon where you can see show notes and things like that. We'll advertise all that stuff at the end though.
Dan:But let's get into what I actually wanna talk about today. Growing up, it was a very common practice to trade in old games for new ones. Like, a new release would come out. You know, you'd finish it, maybe you wouldn't, but eventually, something else would catch your interest. And, I mean, if you grew up like I did, having multiple games, like too many games wasn't allowed.
Dan:So trading them in, trading them up for the new thing was very normalized. So much so that multiple franchises at one point existed purely to make the process of trading in a game super easy and even fun. Now, at least in The US, we have one place for that pretty much, and we'll talk about them later. But the act of making a physical video game predates me by a long shot. I mean, the Atari was in the nineteen seventies.
Dan:I think there are probably different computers that could run games even before that. And what would happen? The games would get older. The technology would get better, and they'd stop making those older games in favor of making newer ones. So it shouldn't have been a surprise that when I went to rebuild my gaming collection, it was kind of expensive.
Dan:I never really had a massive collection of games growing up, but I am trying to get my hands on some things that I would have liked to have played or things that I did own at one time that I really, really enjoyed. And as I'm trying to rebuild that collection, I'm running into some barriers. So far, it's been pretty easy to find people selling the things that I want. But if you go to the usual suspects like GameStop or eBay, the prices are absolutely out of hand. And we're not even talking for things that are in great condition.
Dan:Some stuff doesn't even come with its original packaging. And when I say original packaging, I'm not talking about the cardboard box that n 64 games came out. I threw those away all the time. I'm talking about the plastic cases that had the manuals in them. The stuff that I figured everyone would keep because it's what you store the game in.
Dan:So as I've been going through the motions here and as I typically do when I start to get frustrated, I was venting. And I was venting to a friend of mine who turns out was doing something similar. He's searching online, and he's going out with his list of games he's trying to get, and he's running into the exact same issues. And I wanted to have him on as a first guest because, well, for one, it's just relevant to the things that I'm currently interested in. But two, he definitely has some interesting stories from his journeys trying to get things and also some tips to try and, like, help people who are also out there trying to rebuild their collections or maybe they just wanna try some retro games.
Dan:Maybe they're younger and they never had this stuff growing up and it looks interesting to them. He's a content creator like myself, and it was very cathartic to sit down with him and talk all of this out. So I hope you enjoy the first episode of Sticker Shock Collector's Edition. Let's bring them in. Alright.
Dan:Welcome, Wilbo. Hi. Tell everyone who you are and what you collect.
Wilbo:Well, I'm Wilbo. I collect a lot of Game Boy and Game Boy Advance stuff. I'm like really into that. And then I also like to collect everything below like Xbox three sixty.
Dan:So Xbox three sixty and older?
Wilbo:Well, I just happen to have like a big Xbox three sixty collection, but I don't collect it. So like a little older than that, like PlayStation two, one, Dreamcasts.
Dan:How much of what you have is from your childhood that you've kind of carried into adulthood versus how much you've gone out and like bought kinda recently?
Wilbo:Well, so I when I was moving, right, I had a box and it was like retro game box. Right? And we were cleaning out my basement and unfortunately, I ended up throwing it away. What? So a lot of my yeah.
Wilbo:A lot of my old games have unfortunately been trashed which hurts me every day that I think about it.
Dan:Oh my gosh. And so
Wilbo:but I still have all of my Xbox three sixty games and a lot of them are like shovelware, unfortunately. So and and like Wii and all of pretty much all like the disc games I still have. So I still have my PlayStation one and stuff but my like cartridge ones are kinda, like, gone. So Wow. I I kept, a little bit and I've just been rebuilding my collection slowly ever since then.
Dan:So Do you know I'm gonna I'm what I'm trying to do right now is make you cry. Do you know what cartridges ended up in the landfill?
Wilbo:Yes. I do.
Dan:What are the tell me the worst ones.
Wilbo:Okay. Pretty much all of my Pokemon games. So Pokemon yellow, ruby, sapphire. I had two sapphires, emerald.
Dan:We're gonna talk a little bit today about how much those are going for right now and it's gonna be prime.
Wilbo:Great. All of my DS ones, so Pokemon Pearl, Diamond, I think I had black and all just all the DS cartridges that are Pokemon related all all gone. You know, and then I had a bunch of like random Game Boy games that are kinda good like Kirby. I I really like the Kirby games so I collected those. This is horrible.
Wilbo:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's pretty bad. So it's pretty bad.
Dan:Okay. Just trying to make it positive. Like, this is good. You know, you have kind of like an origin story here. And Yeah.
Dan:Yeah. You're going out and you're trying to rebuild your collection. Tell me about how that's going for you.
Wilbo:Well, I kind of like collected before because like I would say after COVID it got extremely popular. But I started collecting a little before that, like in like 2015. Like rebuilding my collection a little bit. So it was a little bit easier. Like, I could walk into GameStop even in, like, twenty fifteen, sixteen and find, like Like, I bought Pokemon HeartGold for a pretty good price at GameStop.
Wilbo:But ever since COVID, after it's been kinda crazy, like, I can't find any good prices for some of the games. I honestly thought I would have more time. So I, like, slowly was collecting, but then, like, after this COVID hit, it's been kinda crazy with the prices.
Dan:I've noticed that as well. And it kinda feels like a lot of hobbies have been hit by this. It's just that 2020 was like the year that everything kinda feels like it exploded. And I have a feeling that this is gonna be a theme because just for some inside baseball for everyone listening, I actually have already recorded episode two of this podcast, and that that comes up in that episode. We like, it's the exact same thing for the subject of the next episode as well.
Dan:As soon as COVID hit, this particular hobby just exploded. I get I'm just teasing you now for the next episode. So with that coming up soon, I actually wanna get into, like, some of the prices of this stuff because I have my own kind of, like, experience to share, and I'm sure this is, like, this will relate to you as well. Take a guess as to how much you think a copy, like an authentic copy of Pokemon Ruby is going for right now on eBay.
Wilbo:Like a $112.
Dan:That's pretty close. That's pretty close. So the range could be for for one that doesn't look too bad, for like, it's kinda beat up, but the label's still there and stuff. I I see one for $75. There is one kinda similar for $80, but I don't have to scroll far to find one's a $130.
Dan:And they they're boasting that they replaced the battery in it.
Wilbo:Actually, those so in those games for the the battery, the save doesn't matter, because it's on like the the RAM.
Dan:Oh, what's the battery for in those in the Game Boy Advance ones?
Wilbo:It's for time based events. So like your berries won't be able to grow. That's pretty much the only downside.
Dan:Okay. I was thinking of the Game Boy ones. Yeah.
Wilbo:Yeah. The Game Boy ones, the battery matters.
Dan:So new battery, your berries will grow. That's good. Yeah. $70 is pretty consistent for a beat up copy of Pokemon Ruby. But if you wanna find one that looks nice, $120,140.
Dan:There's another 140. I'm just scrolling through eBay right now, kind of cherry picking the the big ones. And this is like the journey I recently went on because I'm also trying to collect these games again. And the thing that I found very, very interesting is that alongside these 70 to a $140 copies of Pokemon Ruby, there are $20 copies of Pokemon Ruby.
Wilbo:Interesting. Wow. Why don't I just buy one of those, Dan?
Dan:Why don't you just buy one of those?
Wilbo:Because they're fake.
Dan:This is why I wanted to talk to somebody about this because I I was like, And you click on them, and, yes, they are fake. And usually, the person listing it is proudly selling it as inauthentic. Like, they they'll use words like, hey. This isn't authentic, or they'll say a non OEM version of the game. Oh, yeah.
Dan:Which is just really funny. And they do sell them at reasonable prices. And you look at the pictures Yeah. And it it does when you compare them side by side, it does look like they're a little off, but they look good overall. Like, they look really good.
Wilbo:They are they look really good.
Dan:The reviews are also positive, meaning people are buying this stuff and going, yeah, it works.
Wilbo:Yeah. So it does work, like, but there's, like, a high risk that one day your save file just won't be there anymore. That's like one of the main problems with these fakes in my opinion. It's just like the save reliability and then also the compatibility with like If I were to buy a fake copy of Pokemon Ruby, I wouldn't be able to connect that to like Pokemon Colosseum or something or I wouldn't be able to trade with a real copy. Well, some of them do.
Wilbo:Most of them don't work with a real copy if you were gonna trade Pokemon over.
Dan:Why is
Wilbo:that? I Because the ROM is a little different I think. I'm I'm not entirely sure. For example, like when I was at a classic game fest, it's like a festival I went to that sells classic games. Yeah.
Wilbo:I, took my Analogue Pocket which is like this new, generation of Game Boy that plays Game Boy games that it's like a fan made Game Boy that uses a chip called like an f FPGA? FPGA. That's what it was.
Dan:I always mix up the letters but I know what you're talking about.
Wilbo:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Basically, the they, they emulate what like playing like on a real console would be.
Wilbo:But it's like with a new screen and new battery life and all that jazz. But anyway, there's this feature on it where you could put a game in and you can take a snapshot of it and you can see the name of the game. So I was looking at this copy of Pokemon Emerald because, like, this guy wanted to sell me one. And I took a snapshot of it and it said a different name than a regular real genuine copy. So that's one way I was able to tell.
Wilbo:And then like the label is just like ever so slightly different and you can like look since they're translucent and like see the inside of the board to see if it's different.
Dan:Yeah. Always look a little bit
Wilbo:Yeah. Yeah. A little bit off.
Dan:So how did this go? Like did you did you break the news to this person that they have like a fake copy of the game?
Wilbo:I did in fact do that. Because like okay, it was like a little bigger of a retailer and they had like a few copies of Pokemon Emerald. I would say like two or three. And the other two were genuine but that one wasn't. And so I told them and then they're like, oh, don't wanna sell a fake copy.
Wilbo:Thank you. And then they took it off the shelves. And I guess they didn't put it back, so they probably bought it from somebody too. Yeah. Unfortunately, they just have to eat the loss there.
Dan:That's unfortunate. I mean, as long as they had legitimate copies amongst the fake ones, I I give them the benefit of the doubt that they probably didn't know what they were.
Wilbo:I don't think they were trying to scam me or anything, but it's it's like kinda crazy that you have to look out for that kind of stuff. And most people won't even notice because most people that's why they got such good reviews on eBay. They just wanna play the game, you know. They don't care about all the trading or connectivity to other games and stuff like that. For example, I like on Reddit and stuff, I I like look at the classic game kind of subreddits to see what people are saying.
Wilbo:And this one person was really upset that they couldn't transfer their Pokemon up anymore from Emerald because their copy was fake. It wouldn't connect to Pal Park, which is how you transfer your Pokemon up all the way to the DS one. I feel kinda bad.
Dan:Yeah. I didn't know that these had like limited functionality. I figured what was happening is that the bootleggers were flashing the whole game onto the cartridge. And as long as on the cartridge, like, what what is the difference at that point? Like, because these get these things come into existence in Nintendo's factories.
Dan:Why why can't somebody make a smaller version of that factory in their in their garage and make these? I guess that's a factor a of like what you get what you pay for.
Wilbo:Yeah. I think they're using like cheaper chips too and everything, you know. So like the cost to make them is a little cheaper than Nintendo and that's why they can sell them to so cheap and everything.
Dan:So when you're at this like event that you're at, I like, it kinda surprises me that you found this at an event.
Wilbo:Yeah. I was surprised too. I was like, woah, an actual fake copy of something. This is crazy.
Dan:Yeah. I I would expect a seller who is doing this professionally to kind of like do those checks, you know?
Wilbo:Yeah. They had to like pass it off to a few people and then this guy was like, oh, yeah. This is fake.
Dan:Right. And the the thing is too the Analog Pocket is not the only device that can kind of detect this stuff. I have the Epilogue I forgot what it's called, like, Epilogue Pro or something. It's a it's a little device that sits on your desk. You plug it in the USB port, and you can take any Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance game, pop it in there.
Dan:And the whole point of this thing is if you are going to do a battery replacement to save your save data or something like that, you can back up the cartridge and it can, like, store your save data for you while you do the battery replacement and then flash your save back onto the cartridge, which is great. Like, nice little game preservation win. But it also tells you if the game is fake.
Wilbo:Yeah.
Dan:Yeah. It's a simple little $60 device and you plug the game in and without you asking it, it just has a thing where it says like authentic. And like oh, cool. Okay. That makes me feel good.
Dan:I didn't I didn't get, an inauthentic game. In some cases, people wouldn't even think about that. And so just imagine that little light turning red and you're like, oh, shoot. Oops.
Wilbo:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I understand the appeal of like playing the fake games though and like why because they they're so cheap and like you some people just want to experience a bit of nostalgia. But like, if you're wanting to keep your Pokemon and like transfer them up, not that like, not that many people are gonna wanna do that.
Wilbo:So they should at least label these very clearly that they're reproductions, but a lot of people don't do that. And some people just think they're buying the real one.
Dan:It is like, I I guess, a larger problem and one that will persist as time goes on. And that is like one of the things I wanted to chat a little bit about today because I've been wondering the ethics of this. So when I found this copy of like Pokemon Ruby and I started looking at the other Pokemon GBA games, because I I would like all of them, I was thinking to myself, what who who's benefiting from this? So you have the people who are charging $102,100 dollars in some cases for these copies of games. Then you have the people who are you could kind of look at it one of two ways, breaking the law by by remanufacturing these games that they don't have permission to remanufacture, or providing a service to people like you said, who don't necessarily need all the functionality.
Dan:They just wanna play this game that they never got to play when they were younger. Then you've another option. You could skip both of those parties who don't work for the Pokemon Company or Nintendo and just pirate the thing, which also doesn't feel good.
Wilbo:That doesn't feel good at all. No.
Dan:And it's this big ethical dilemma. Another example, I'm sure you've heard of I'm sure everyone's heard of it by now. DK Oldies is like one of the biggest online used game retailers that there is.
Wilbo:Oh, yeah.
Dan:And a lot of the prices I'm seeing over there are they compare pretty heavily to the eBay ones. I think they are probably themselves going on eBay and buying up the cheaper ones and put pull them over to their store. I don't know that. I would just how do you get used games for if you're a used game store? You wait for trades and or you go and source them.
Dan:So the price of Pokemon, I think fire red on DK oldies was shocking. If you go on their website and type in Pokemon fire red, the game is listed on like their page in a few different ways. There's like a bunch of out of stock ones, and there's one, like, in stock listing. And I click on that. So it says $254.99, but they cross that out, and it actually says $170 is, like, the the deal that's going on right now.
Dan:Like, okay. That kinda matches some the eBay listings a little bit more. When you click into it, you find that there's two options. There's a good cartridge and a cosmetically flawed one. If you want the good cartridge that has like there's more like pristine condition, that is the $235.
Dan:And that's even weirder. Yeah. So it's it's $102.35 dollars, still still discounted, supposedly. And then the cosmetically flawed one is the one that is a 170 ish dollars. And Yeah.
Dan:That's a lot. Like, even the cosmetically flawed one is at the price where on eBay, the games are looking a lot better. Like, the cosmetic flaws are almost indistinguishable if they're there at all. Like, it's people who take really good care of them that sell them for those prices. And that's kinda what we're working with right now in terms of ways you can get your hands on these games.
Wilbo:Yeah. And and like, I I I also don't like with DK oldies that you can't really see the thing you're buying. It's like, you will be buying this, it'll come how it is. We'll just give you one of something. But like on eBay, you can see exactly what it is.
Wilbo:So but I understand the convenience, I guess.
Dan:Right. And that was like my biggest thing too is is it says cosmetically flawed and it has this big disclaimer is like it could have all kinds of stuff wrong with it. But I do think that if you're going to ask that kind of money and I don't wanna pick on them specifically. Like, a lot of people pick on them. Other other stores that sell used games also have pretty wild prices.
Dan:Yeah. I I think though that you owe it to customers to show them exactly what they're buying. And the only other comparison I can really make in terms of price is like, what what where else can you get this for reasonable price? And I you think GameStop, they sell used games. The thing is GameStop's stock of old games is not great.
Dan:They kinda stopped selling old games for a while, and then they brought it back. So I think they offloaded a lot of that stuff, and they're kind of rebuilding their supply. But they have Pokemon Fire Red version for, for for pro members, $53. Except they don't.
Wilbo:Wait. They well, okay. Sometimes, like rarely. GameStop recently has been having some stocks of some retro games and they've been pretty good prices. So you might get lucky one day, but then like, usually they don't really have a good stock of games that are really old, unfortunately.
Dan:Yeah. Often it will tell me that I can actually like put it in the cart as long as I'm willing to verify my address. And then as soon as I verify my address, it's like, oh, we don't have that.
Wilbo:Okay. Wait. Can I tell you a story about GameStop? Yes. Okay.
Wilbo:So I used to work at Tropical Smoothie which is like the smoothie place and they also serve some food. But next to Tropical Smoothie was a GameStop. So like every day after my shift, would just, like, go in the GameStop and, like, talk to people about games. Because, like, I didn't have a lot when I went to school, not a lot of people liked video games.
Dan:Oh.
Wilbo:And so I was, like, I was in, like, high school at this time. And they would have, like, some older games and this is during the Xbox March period of like selling games. And so they would have like a shelf for old retro games and stuff for pretty good prices. So like apparently, they have like a set time that they let it sit on the shelf before they get like too much inventory that they want to like make room on the shelves to put new inventory on.
Dan:Okay.
Wilbo:And with the old inventory, they would destroy the, the old games, basically. Because they didn't, corporate didn't really see, like, the value in them. And so, not only would they throw them at so they were throwing them out at just like in the dumpster and not really doing anything to them. But people started like realizing that GameStop was doing this so they would dumpster dive. And you could even find like old videos on YouTube about GameStop diving.
Wilbo:People still do it but they don't really throw away a lot of retro games anymore.
Dan:Are they still throwing away games in general?
Wilbo:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They are. No way.
Wilbo:Yeah. Yeah. So, well, it's not as much but they do throw away like some games and game cases. I watched one recently actually and there was like, I don't know, some like Lego games that were still in the case. Some like things they don't really deem that worth, you know?
Wilbo:But they still do throw away games. They would throw away like crazy stuff back in the day and people realized this and started like dumpster diving for it. But then, GameStop realized, that they were dumpster diving and they just didn't want people on their property doing that. So, they started instructing the employees to destroy any games they were throwing away. So they would like take scissors to discs and like, take like another scissor and like cut cartridges like DS cartridges and all that and like throw them away so they can't be used.
Wilbo:So I was talking when I was talking to the workers they were like, yeah, it's it's bad. And they like they weren't allowed to take anything home either.
Dan:I'm gonna scream. I I just can't imagine. So like you sell your games to GameStop. You sell, like, a Pokemon cartridge, you're done with it, but maybe your old save data is on there and you you you go you go home that day and you think someone's gonna, like, maybe see my Pokemon and all the funny nicknames I gave them and all that stuff. Nope.
Dan:Right in the incinerator. Just gone.
Wilbo:Yeah. I don't know how how long exactly they sat on the shelves,
Dan:but yeah. It probably I have to imagine it's a pretty significant amount of time, but the idea that this is happening to this day still makes me want to just rage. There's so much waste in the world. Like, okay, my horrifying story about people throwing stuff away. If anyone's ever worked at a grocery store, I'm sure you can relate to this.
Dan:The at grocery stores, a lot of them have like a a deli kind of area and they make like fresh food all all day, you know, and people can come up and get chicken or pasta salad or whatever. I would come in. I was I was working like overnight for a while, and I did not do that very long. It's a it's a lot. So I would get to be there at the end of the day when everyone is kinda wrapping up their different sections of the store, and that was when the deli would come in.
Dan:And oftentimes, we're talking like two trash cans the size of big drums, like 50 gallon, or I I have no idea what the the size would be. Massive trash cans about, you know, half as tall as a person, and they were full to the brim of food that didn't get sold that day. Yeah. And they would be dumping that out. This is very common.
Dan:A lot of stores, grocery stores, do this, and there's there's different reasons they'll they'll tell you. It's like, well, we can't really give some of this food away. It's gonna be it's gonna go bad too soon, and then then reliable if someone eats it and gets hurt or whatever. Like, there's all kinds of different things that that go on that companies do to kind of justify throwing things away like that. But video games, like, can we not just donate them to like a children's hospital or something?
Wilbo:I know. Right? Like, they did just like a set aside a separate bin or something? Ugh. They thought basically, they were very forward future thinking.
Wilbo:They were like, okay, people aren't gonna want the older games when they can just get the newer ones. We gotta put up the new so they they reserved a lot of their shelves for like the new Xbox games or something like that. Like a lot of copies of Call of Duty and all that so, people could have enough stock, I guess.
Dan:I get it. I I mean, the store has limited space on the shelves.
Wilbo:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dan:But to tell the employees, uh-uh. You can't take this home. We they so they know it's valuable. Like, oh, well, that's like another form of compensation. Like, we can't work that in.
Dan:And you can't give them away. You can't donate them. Like, it would be just a tax write off. That's the thing. Companies love a tax write off.
Dan:You could just donate. You could tally up the value of all these games, have these overworked, underpaid employees sit there and scan all the games into some system that tallies them all up. You put them in a big cart and you take them down to your your local video game food bank and you're like, here. This is this is all the stuff we didn't sell this year. Do you know what
Wilbo:a SKU is, right? An SKU? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Wilbo:That's like basically the identifying number of like how you determine what a product is or whatever. They deleted, like, because I talked to the employees about this, they deleted all of their older SKU numbers for the the older games. Eventually, at one point in one certain year, I don't remember when it was, like probably around 02/2010 or something like that, somewhere in that range, They just deleted all of their old SKUs and like got rid of all of their old stock and just didn't carry it anymore. So like I'm pretty sure they had like a massive purge during that day where they just like got either sold at a sale of what their old games or threw them away. I don't know.
Dan:Wait, was this an accident? Like they didn't mean to?
Wilbo:No. This is this is corporate. Because I I also did research about this before this podcast just to make sure I had it right because it sounded crazy in my head. Okay. The corporate basically said that they don't wanna carry the older games anymore because they didn't see the value in them.
Wilbo:They just wanted to sell the newer releases and digital cards.
Dan:I'm gonna have to ask you to link me to this story just so I can put it in the show notes. I I want I want people to able to see this for themselves. This is
Wilbo:I I will.
Dan:This is information that's publicly available. This isn't some big scoop or anything. I'm just shocked because I naively thought that these games at GameStop, like, they didn't get sold, we're just kind of sitting in the back or maybe they ship them off to a more centralized warehouse where they could just be sold over time online?
Wilbo:Yeah. I think they do have warehouses for it, but they they must I I don't know all the insider information.
Dan:I'm just, yeah, my jaw is on the floor because I am here I I'm like, Wilbo, I wanna do this podcast where I talk about these retro games because you're never gonna believe this. But did you know games from the year that you just said, like 2007 and and beyond, are really hard to come by now to the point where they're being, like, resold for way nutty prices. And you're like, oh my gosh. I can totally relate to that. I it's enraging to think that some of the games I'm looking for right now existed in droves.
Dan:Like, just so many copies of them are just lost because this massive corporation was like, ah, you know, burn it. Just get rid of it. I don't want it anymore. It's just a travesty.
Wilbo:I have to imagine that they kept, like, I don't know. I don't know what their warehouse situation is, but I have to imagine they kept some of it. But then they, like, around 2015 or something like that or 2014, they quietly added back their SKUs. So like, for older games. And they started selling them again through like the GameStop classic service because they saw the demand.
Wilbo:But, at that point they had already destroyed or gotten rid of their stock. Like a lot of
Dan:This is exactly why I'm, like, getting into this stuff again now. Just just not not I didn't know this, but just the idea that it's difficult to get this stuff. It's and it should be cherished. You know? This is stuff that we should value because our options are like, our other options are either, you know, fight over the scraps that are left from, I guess, the GameStop purge of the early two thousands, or we can all give our money to bootleggers, or we can emulate these games by by getting them from dubious links online.
Dan:And it I don't think that's any skin off Nintendo's back if people do that because they they don't give us a way to get these games. The ones we're talking about specifically on their own modern services. Like, the Pokemon games don't exist in currently, at the time we're recording this, don't exist in the library right now, the Game Wave events library. So until that happens, people are making that that moral argument of, like, oh, it's fine to pirate this. I don't if it's against the law, my stance is we'll know it's not.
Dan:Like, objectively, it's not fine because we've made laws that say it's not fine. But it's also not okay to like price them up at these wild prices, making them to a point where they're completely unattainable. What what tips do you have for trying to like get your hands on stuff today for a reasonable price?
Wilbo:That's it's hard. Facebook marketplace has been pretty like it but this is like if you wanna go in person Mhmm. You know, like make in person deals. Facebook Marketplace is a pretty good place for like people who genuinely wanna get rid of their older games for a fair price. And like people I don't wanna say taking advantage of certain people but, some people might not know exactly what they have.
Wilbo:You could, offer them a very fair price that isn't like too crazy but be like, oh hey, this is a Pokemon game and it's actually worth this. I'd be willing to pay you this if you come meet me in person, you know? Is what a lot of people have doing been doing to like get better deals on those types of games.
Dan:Right.
Wilbo:Other than that, it's been hard to come across. I also, like, I wanted to play Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire so I bought Japanese copies because there's a lot more Japanese copies of older, like, Japanese games, that are, like, than, US. So you would just have to play the game in Japanese. Which I did. I've been doing.
Wilbo:Did did you find it difficult or was it Yes. Okay. It's a little difficult but with a game like Pokemon you're spamming the same move often so like it's not too bad and then you could use Google Translate or Lens or whatever.
Dan:Because even the remakes, the three d s remakes of, Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby are also no longer in print, and there's no digital storefront to get them from anymore. Like, those are also games that if that I happen to own, thankfully, but if you don't own them, there's no, like, legitimate way to get them other than these things we've been talking about. So Facebook Marketplace is one. I will say that eBay, you know, for for the the dangers I was pointing out earlier, it's still probably my favorite way to get this
Wilbo:stuff. Yeah.
Dan:Yeah. It just takes a bit of research. You wanna always look at a couple things. Look at the reviews of the seller. Look at how long they've been selling.
Dan:Because even if they're in the high nineties, meaning they've had a couple negative reviews in their time. If they've been doing this for so many years, okay, people are bound to make mistakes. But if they haven't been around very long and you see that they're in, like, the high 90 percentile of of positive reviews, but they only have, like, a few dozen reviews, then there's a kind of a problem there. That's that's a mistake made in a very short amount of time. And then my other my other tip for eBay, pay attention to the country it's coming from because I've made the mistake of buying stuff that is actually coming from, like, Japan or China.
Dan:It's the English copy of, like, a game, for example. But thanks to the moment in history we live in right now, there's tariffs on everything. And so people will happily sell you something and you'll forget that, like, it's gonna get shipped over here from overseas, and then it's gonna be hit with a tariff and you're gonna have to deal with that. So those are kind of my tips. Make sure it's within your home country for, like, the easiest, smoothest transaction, and make sure the seller has good reviews.
Dan:And make sure you read the description because if I didn't read the description of those inauthentic games, I would never have seen that they were openly admitting that the game was inauthentic.
Wilbo:Yeah. It's it's very important to read the description. And it's like kinda hard, like eBay's UI sometimes a little hard to follow because they have like the product description and then they have like the seller's description of the product. And so like, you have to read very carefully and make sure that you you can see what the seller actually wrote compared to what like the generated whatever like Pokemon HeartGold is a game where you can but then the seller will be like, this is a fake copy or something in the description, the actual description.
Dan:It's I mean, that keeps their reviews positive because if they openly admit that and people know what they're buying, then it's, you know, everyone's fine. And then, I guess the the last tip, which you've already kind of like talked about a little bit, is just going out in person to places like you went to a game expo of sorts.
Wilbo:Yeah. And I was able to get a good deal on a couple of games.
Dan:Was there anything in particular you're looking for while you were
Wilbo:I was. I was looking for Kirby Return to Dreamland. Unfortunately, they didn't have that. Well, they did. But the problem is a lot of vendors get like first pick of all the good games and stuff and like some people get in early through other reasons.
Wilbo:I don't really know. And then I was able to find a couple PS two games and stuff, so that was fun.
Dan:Which ones?
Wilbo:Oh, well, there's this game called Lifeline that I I played on, like, the emulators. And so I I wanted to own a real copy and so I bought it. It's this game where you use voice commands to control your character and you guide her out of a spaceship situation and you're like the guy in the chair who's on the security cameras.
Dan:I don't
Wilbo:know, it's a really unique game and I like it, so I wanted it.
Dan:How do you input the voice commands?
Wilbo:You connect your it came with a headset mic that you connect to the Playstation and, you say like, walk here, shoot, dodge, dodge right. It does get tedious.
Dan:Did you get that accessory? Did you need it?
Wilbo:I do still need the accessory to Oh no. Play I couldn't find it complete but apparently any headset mic will work so. That was
Dan:gonna be my next question, like, you just plug in whatever? Okay.
Wilbo:Yeah yeah yeah. I don't know. I like weird games like that. There's like a charm to it.
Dan:I've never heard of that. That sounds like I would have had a blast with it, growing up if
Wilbo:I had that. It could get a little frustrating. It gets a little difficult.
Dan:I was already yelling at the games. I mean, having them hear me would probably have been helpful.
Wilbo:But I love the story. It's it's really nice. It's classic sci fi kind of thing.
Dan:That's cool. My last tip for getting games as well is gonna be buying a lot of games. And when I say lot, I don't mean buy a lot of games. I mean, buy games that are in a lot together. Like
Wilbo:Oh, yeah. For sure.
Dan:Yeah. And you can get some pretty good deals, especially if now this is a risk. You're taking don't know. I'm just gonna put a disclaimer. You're taking a risk if you're listening to me right now and do this.
Dan:But you can buy oftentimes cartridges that are, like, labeled as ones that are not working. And sometimes, in fact, in a lot of cases, it's really a matter of opening them up. Like n 64, for example, you open up the cartridge and you use isopropyl alcohol and you gently scrub off the, you know, junk on the contacts. And I've I watched a video about this where someone bought, like, a 100 or so cartridges, and every single one worked. They just took them all apart, did that, put them back together, every single cartridge turned on.
Dan:Yeah. So you can't you can't do much if it's chipped or anything if the if the motherboard has been broken. Obviously, you can't do much about that. But if the seller is saying, yeah, these games don't reliably, like, turn on or whatever, but there's stuff in there that you want. There's not that much risk if you're if you're willing to get a little technical, you're willing to buy a couple extra tools.
Dan:The and that's what got me into, like, some more some deeper parts of this hobby. I've started to fix up old Game Boys, and I bought a a lot of six broken Game Boys. And three of them came back to life just by opening them up and, like, scrubbing them real good. Some of them were beyond repair. They obviously had, water damage and and kinds of stuff wrong with them.
Dan:Mhmm. And I was replacing the screens anyway. All of them had busted screens, but, like, it felt really good to be able to kind of, like, give some of these Game Boys a a new life just because I wanted to. I just felt like it. I I wasn't even in the market for Game Boy.
Dan:I was just bored. And I'm like, oh, I I like doing these old Game Boy mods. That sounds like a lot of Yeah.
Wilbo:I love fixing up gold consoles too. That's what I used to like like, even in college I loved fixing up old Game Boy SPs. It is really fun to like clean it up, give it new life, maybe do like a screen mod on it or something.
Dan:Yeah. Classic console mods right now are just a really fun way to get into these hobbies and pretty accessible. I mean, you'll you'll spend some money if you are gonna do screen replacements and things like that, but it it definitely gives the hobby like this whole new kind of like purpose to it. You you could turn around and maybe sell those modded consoles so they actually go to a home with somebody who's gonna use them. You could collect those yourself and just have like a little collection of like stuff that you fixed And I'm I'm really like at a stage where I'm just getting into all of that.
Wilbo:Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really fun to learn too. I know this is like getting into the the the nerd, really nerd stuff though, you know. A lot of people just wanna play their old games but if you're willing to, it's a really fun like little project to be like, oh, I wanna maybe clean up this old Game Boy.
Wilbo:And some of the like, something as simple as like buying isopropyl alcohol and cleaning it a little bit and like just taking it apart is like a really good start if you ever wanted to get into doing something like that. So I think that's really good advice.
Dan:I'm also learning to solder and you you specifically, I pestered a lot with like tips and stuff like you
Wilbo:Oh, yeah.
Dan:You helped me find a good soldering kit. And then I I don't even know how late it got. It must have been late for you because it was late for me. You were still taking my questions, like, while I was sitting there making a huge mess, in my kitchen trying to fix this Game Boy.
Wilbo:I love stuff like that though. I don't know. Even if it like, the dead of night, I would answer.
Dan:Those I think sum up the tips pretty well. You can buy sometimes broken games and as as long as GameStop didn't take their scissors to them, you could probably fix them up and have yourself a a nice little collection that didn't cost too much, which is probably how I'm going to continue to expand my n 64 collection. Well, I think this will probably have to be a separate episode, maybe with you or or, I don't know, someone else out there who gets one of these. I I actually bought the the analog three d. Oh.
Dan:For anyone who doesn't know
Wilbo:That looks nice.
Dan:Yeah. So Wilbur earlier mentioned the analog pocket, the FPGA console for Game Boy games.
Wilbo:Mhmm.
Dan:And what I just bought was from the same company, but it's for n 64 cartridges. So you plug in your n 64 cartridge and the promise is that it's going to take that and and upscale it to like four k. And it is going it's not emulating the game. It's running the game on original well, not a non original hardware, but it is running the cartridge. And that is so exciting because the game the n 64 games are the ones I kept from childhood.
Wilbo:Oh, awesome. Wait. What's your favorite n 64 game? Actually, wait. This is another podcast episode.
Dan:It could be, but I will, you know, for for teasing purposes, I it's not I don't wanna get anyone too excited. I it's probably gonna be Mario 64 because I'm that basic.
Wilbo:Nice.
Dan:But there's some others. Like, I have rampage, which is a lot of fun. You're a monster and you destroy a city. Mario Kart was always great, and I I'm really excited to play that again, like, in a in a living room setting. I have the controllers as well that eight Bit Do made to go along with the analog three d, which is not out yet at the time of recording this.
Dan:They keep delaying it. They just delayed it for, like, a third time till, like, the end of the year, which is really frustrating. But I got the controllers, and they're really cool. It's like, imagine if someone made an n 64 controller with all those buttons in the place in the weird places that they're in, but they made it feel like a normal controller and not that weird three pronged monstrosity we used to play with.
Wilbo:That sounds really cool. I don't know. I I I like the third party controllers that are coming out nowadays. Like, I have the, the SNES one from 8BitDo, and it's it's really nice.
Dan:So They they have a lot. Yeah. That company in particular has, like, a lot of different neat controllers. So I I got a couple of those, and it's just cool to imagine, like, pretty soon I'm gonna have an n 64 that has Bluetooth support and works with my modern television. And I still have my old n 64, but I don't have, like, a CRT to play it on.
Dan:So whatever I plug it into, it just looks terrible. I that's the kind of gamer
Wilbo:I That's how it's supposed to look, Dan.
Dan:I know. I know. But that's kind of gamer I am. I love playing old games with a fresh coat of paint on them.
Wilbo:Yeah. Yeah. It's it's nice to see the polygons sharp and like in four k too.
Dan:It's so fun. And so I I'm I'm really looking forward to it. The future of retro games, which is an ironic thing to say, despite how difficult these are to obtain, looks really good because the community has kind of come together and and made some really cool stuff.
Wilbo:Just to tie it in a little bit, you know how you were talking about GameStop, like, cutting old cartridges and stuff? Well
Dan:I don't wanna think about it anymore.
Wilbo:They would also do this with like because like they had distribution cartridges for the Pokemon and stuff, and so they would cut them and some people have went and repaired some of them and like gotten them working again. So I believe, you know, some of the stuff that was already destroyed could be like fixed and a lot of people are, like, making projects. For example, if you have, like, a really water damaged version of Pokemon Crystal, someone made, like, a whole new board you could order for it and, like, transfer the chips and stuff. So I think it's retro gaming is gonna be alive in like a lot of different ways with like the community making like different options to bring, bring it modern a little bit or like fix old ones more easily.
Dan:I I love that, the kind of project too. There's with the modded Game Boys, they have something like that too, where you can get a kind of a blank motherboard and transfer the chips of the Game Boy Advance onto it and have, a brand new Game Boy Advance. All you need is the CPU and the RAM. I did not know that was a thing for games, but that's not surprising. I I think that every everything is being made for retro games right now.
Dan:That is, that's just awesome. I love that.
Wilbo:Yeah. Yeah.
Dan:Yeah. So, Wilbo, thank you for being the the first guest on the podcast. I appreciate it.
Wilbo:Hey. No problem. No problem.
Dan:Where can people find you?
Wilbo:They could find me at youtube.com/wilbosworlds. Just all one word. W I l b o s world. Also on Twitch, I think. And that's it.
Dan:You think?
Wilbo:Oh, no. No. I'm on Instagram, TikTok, all the things too. Sometimes with an underscore.
Dan:Wait. Okay. So you might be on Twitch. You're definitely on YouTube, and sometimes there's an underscore in your name.
Wilbo:Yeah. So that that should give you all the information you need to find me pretty much.
Dan:I will just put some links, I guess, in the show notes. Thank you to Wilbo, and we will see you next time. Thank you for listening to Sticker Shock Collector's Edition. You can learn more about this episode and our show by following us Patreon. It's at patreon.com/stickershockpod, where you can subscribe for free to see our show notes and maybe any other images sent in by our guests featuring their collections, you know, things like that.
Dan:You can also find us on blue sky at sticker shock pod as well. Our podcast artwork was created by Han and music by composer Cleo. We have new episodes every other week, so hopefully we'll catch you in the next one.