The Australian retro hunting rant thread

Oh and I can say there are some pawn shops that don't take retro games and that Idea kinda forces some people on gumtree or ebay. Also now that cashies has a webstore I see game auctions on there and as cool as the are it can be a real pain losing stuff at near cost price because of it
Maybe if collectors weren't so up for fighting up the value of games in Australia prices wouldn't be higher than they generally should.

 

A few of the car forums I (used to) venture on weren't bad at the time, but now it all seems to be PS3, XBOX360 or PSP.....

 

Cashie's webstore isn't bad. I've gotten a few hard-to-get items from there. Most stores pack very well too.

It's not collectors ruining the market, it's sellers who have no bloody clue what they are selling and think EVERYTHING is rare. Search for an XBOX controller, they'll all be like $30-$50 just for the sake of it. "###AUSSIE SELLER###" Anything with that in the title is laughable. XBOX isn't even retro and sellers think everything is super rare. -_-

 

So "Rare Aussie seller" is the key?

I giggle at all the Sega/Mega CD's on ebay Australia..... Bloody cheaper to get from America or the UK WITH shipping....fuckers. I was buying Dreamcasts from the UK as it worked out about $20 cheaper than getting them here (and easier).

 

The key to comedy yes

 

Thanks for the insight into GT omp

I keep forgetting that they are trying to make money.

They seem to get a lot of their stuff from the UK and put stickers with AU rating which I find annoying, if I wanted a UK game I'd use ozgameshop. However, I do use them more often than ebay when selling stuff, mostly common games that I wouldn't get much on ebay anyway after all the fees have been paid, and doubles of games that in one way or another I don't want to keep because of poor condition or what not. Works out for me!
I also love to physically inspect the game I'm buying, don't know how many times I had to resell a game from ebay because it wasn't described properly on purpose...

 

There is a valid reason for that, they can source the games from the UK cheaper than their (Australian) suppliers can. Differences of up to around the $20 mark per game (new release) is the norm.

Essentially everything they get can be sourced by themselves cheaper (anywhere from a few cents to a few dollars). So things like N64 toggles, 72 pin connectors, aftermarket controllers etc. The supplier (I think head office runs it) is convenient I suppose as it is just a few clicks of the mouse, but if they spend the time (say on ebay) they can get the same stuff for cheaper. I guess also having the account with the supplier, means they can have it now and pay later.

They have run into issues before from the supplier though, one I can remember were with NES aftermarket controllers not working on Aussie consoles as they were based on the US controller. The console needs to be modified (diodes bypassed) in order for them to work. They ended up sourcing genuine controllers from the UK and re-furbishing/cleaning them up for sale/bundling up with consoles.

 

Also they can get games in quicker like Mortal Kombat Komplete - They got it in when R18 was official while the rest of the stores are still waiting months later (Official Release date is Early May 2013 LOL for those not in the know). Obviously most of us got it on Launch but still.

 

Wait, Gametraders are still in business? I thought they'd all shutdown like a year or two ago? Literally every GT store I know of is gone (five stores in Melbourne's eastern suburbs), so I'm kind of surprised that they still exist.

I actually found a complete-with-spinecard Japanese copy of Sega Rally for the Saturn at Camberwell Market a few years ago. Cost me like $10.

JB Hi-Fi are doing this at some stores now, too.

 

There's a difference between making money and ripping customers off blindly. Which Gametraders are doing.

All stores in Australia now except EB I think, are ordering UK releases and marking them up to be the same price as an Australia release. Those stickers are to cover up that they are imports since nowhere else does that.

JB are doing the right thing by telling customers that these copies are in fact imports, and don't cover anything up at all. A bright yellow sticker says "Import" and are in different location to the rest of the titles and not mixed with the others. Larger stores like Kmart, Target and Big W are also racking in imports but nothing mentioning they are imports. That's just plain wrong in my opinion, especially since they are charging the same price as a Australia release.

 

Yeah, I understand why they are doing it

 

I (we) know you don't like Gamtraders.

Please for my/your enjoyment, please have a look at ANYTHING from Games Workshop (Warhammer/Warhammer 40k) and their publishing arm Black Library. You can alternate between the different countries, Black Library has a drop down box at the top to select between the different countries. When you have done that, report back on how TRUELY Australians get royaly ripped! Refer to the big paint set or starter pack as a good selection of lol'iness.

Even on downloadable content (audio books/drama's), It takes the piss, I used to like making the miniatures (but never played the game apart from Space Crusade which was a poor mans version of WH40K) but the prices...... I get my books and CD's from Book Depository.

Not being a smart ass, being dead set honest.

 

My point of the last post is that they should be HONEST with what they are selling.

They just covery everything up, and they rip people off. There's no doubt about it. There was a few retro stores in melbourne that were pricing things reasonably, and rent was higher there.
Anyway I don't know the market for warhammer shit, what I'm saying is, they are ripping customers off blindly who don't understand the market 100% and they pray on those people to stay afloat. Not an honest business at all.

 

Ultimately I do agree with you to some degree. I do recall they had "favourite" customers who had too much money. One instance was a boxed N64 (some lucky special Pikachu version maybe?) that was put aside for a particular customer. Someone else came in and saw it, I think they sold it to him for $350 or thereabouts. I don't know the story they told the guy who had it "put aside" (if I knew the true story I would be pissed).

So yes there have been instances where I do agree with you.

But I have gotten a few good purchases from there especially when they do a retro clean out. I got CIB Knuckles Chaotix for 32X for $5 as it was the NTSC version.

I understand you are upset so I will forgive the Warhammer Shit remark lol!

 

But now apparently the law states that game discs need to have an Australian Rating on the actual disc to be sold in stores. So I was told when I tried to trade in a UK game at JB Hi-fi. So hmm I don't know

 

I don't think warhammer is shit lol, just I say shit when I mean stuff. anyway

I agree with you too, but the point being they can't be sneaky about their stock. There's plenty of things that need to be reviewed.

It's odd when I wanted to trade in things they didn't want to take them because they were NTSC, when I pointed to a NTSC copy of Super Mario Bros All-Stars in the cabinet "Ohhh, I let SOME through" -_- You do or don't?

With the Classifications thing, it IS the law here, however for trade ins and what not it's not required that's for newly published titles that are released in Australia and get classified by Australia.

 

I picked up a white gameboy advance, final fantasy 6, kingdom hearts and some no name title all for the low low price of 1 usd at a garage sale last week. He wanted 5 bucks for the lot ,but I haggled him down to 1 dollar.

 

I've picked up games and consoles for much cheaper than they go for on eBay at Cash Converters but some Cash Cons stores have much better prices than others and the cheap stuff usually sells quickly, so you have to visit regularly.

In Melbourne, Savers has been a great place to buy games and systems for under $10 although my nearest store (Dandenong) closed down recently. The numbers do seem to be shrinking but that's expected, the older these games and systems get, the harder they will be to find.

Physical auctions (not online) can be great for games. I've bought boxes of junk for $2 that had some games in them and I got to look in the boxes before hand, so I knew what I was buying.

Pong console $2.99 at Savers Dandenong
Donkey Kong 64 $15 at Cash Converters Dandenong. I didn't like it, so I sold it for $40 on eBay, the price sticker removed easily.

I've gotten other games cheap but I usually remove the price sticker. I should be taking pictures of before and after.

 

Shudup....lol

 

Where are these Auctions? wonder if there are any in Sydney. I know Wagga has the Rundles Auctions and when I was there I did end up seeing stuff like a Sega Lock on, A CIB Nintendo and the Motorised (not the wooden board) pacman board game. But that was ages ago now:/