Old Computer Game Covers - Collectible, Or Just Nostalgia? 152
zentechno writes "While cleaning out some very old boxes in a long-untouched closet, I discovered my first supply of PC games, some of which came out when 386s were new. While there's almost zero use for these, I still think the cover art is quite cool. I found the original Zork, its sequels, Enchanter, and Sorcerer from InfoCom, Star Trek: 'The Kobayashi Alternative' from Simon & Schuster, Pool of Radiance and Eye of the Beholder from SSI, Loom by Lucas Games, Nuclear War from New World, Annals of Rome and FireZone from PSS, Sidewinder from EA, and Defender of the Crown from Mindscape, to name many. I loved these games, and wonder if there's any sort of serious collector's market out there as exists for vinyl album art — or is it just a personal thing?"
I know I'll always hang on to my copies of Star Control II and Think Quick! from when I was a wee PC gamer. What's still rattling around in your closet?
sim game boxes (Score:2, Interesting)
Ogre! (Score:5, Insightful)
I've still got my original C64 Ogre box. Complete with rulebook, backstory, and even the radiation badge. Although the radiation dots have long since maxed out.
They just don't go out of their way to add cool stuff to games like this today, AFAIK. Like an actual working radiation detector.
Re:Ogre! (Score:5, Insightful)
also, the future of gaming is probably steam and similar. just look at games via xbox live or the ps3 equivalent.
still, this reminds me of when i bought a b-17 fight sim for amiga 500. it came with a microprose sweater, a history book about the b-17, and i think two manuals. one that covered everything for the game in detail, and one that simply held the hotkeys and interface guides.
all this for a game that came on 5 (iirc) 3,5" diskettes...
last fight sim i bought didnt even come with a hotkey list printed. i had to print the pdf myself.
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Re:Ogre! (Score:5, Insightful)
You may not trust the steam servers to be running in 25+ years, but the steam program lets you back up any and all of your games. You tell it which ones you want to back up, whether you're backing them up to CD, DVD, or a network share, and it will compress and burn them for you. When the steam servers die, boot up your steam client and restore the games. Run them in "offline mode."
If that doesn't work for whatever reason, you can always apply one of the many no-steam/no-CD cracks they have out there. Before steam, I would never have purchased a "digital download" copy of a game; I want my box and CD. But, steam saves me gas (or shipping), isn't run by some fly-by-night company, gives me the all-important instant gratification, and makes it ridiculously simple to back games up.
Other than your steam username and password, there's no DRM, either. Install the games on as many computers as you want, as many times as you want. (Of course, multiple users can't log into the same steam account at the same time.) No CD checking, no Starforce - I wouldn't buy Bioshock, for example, anywhere except on steam.
The only problem is that there's no secondary market - there's effectively no way for you to sell steam games you've purchased; somebody in another discussion on slashdot brought up the "right of first sale" problem. So, if you like selling used games back to Gamestop, then avoid steam.
But, all the games that I've had 25+ years ago (well, OK, 10-15) like Might and Magic III, IV, and V have all since decayed. Some of the floppies just plain wore out being boxed up on a shelf for so long; I had to pkzip the installed game onto a couple dozen floppies and move it off my 486 to get a "backup." Good thing I still had the manuals, too - finding manual passwords is an even more invasive form of DRM in my opinion, though MicroProse handled them better than most.
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Other than your steam username and password, there's no DRM, either.
"Other than having DRM there's no DRM either"
Sucker.
---
Don't be fooled, slashdot has many lying astroturfers [wikipedia.org] fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion. FUD [wikipedia.org] too.
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Playing games and putting GameStop out of business at the same time? BE STILL MY HEART.
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These days you barley get a printed manual.
Strangely enough, today there are quite a few gamers who are not in touch with "the scene" and more likely to buy games, even though the internet makes piracy so much easier.
I think that might be a reason why such things fell out of favor.
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Not only TANPIN, TANIE!
nethack--the only game that matters
hawk
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There's special editions of many of the big games. I saw a Halo 3 set with all sorts of extras. Sure they can't throw it into every box, but plenty of diehard fans will pay a little extra for something cool.
Steam, etc, are certainly the future for mass distribution, but there's always a market for something truly special. I wouldn't consider these special editions to be investmen
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and even the radiation badge. Although the radiation dots have long since maxed out.
(I hate preview. I always click it and then go on to something else thinking I've submitted.)
Star Control II (Score:2)
It is quite enjoyable to play still, and whoever wrote it spent a good deal of effort making space travel details realistic: with star colors, marked habitable zones and even reasonable approximation to spaceflight dynamics.
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Layne
Go to the source (Score:5, Insightful)
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Personally I loved FF7, but lost the game during a move (I think), so I paid dearly for it on eBay (compared to the RRP, at least). Even though I had downloaded a copy the box and manual etc still have a sentimental value that was worth extra to me.
Chances are most people who enjoyed the game would still have it, though.
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If it's always around, it will never be a relic... (Score:3, Interesting)
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1. It's too new (a 70s chair would hardly ever net anything at an antique auction), and it's from the era when people had figured out collecting old scrap may become valuable.
2. I doubt many will care. A good 70s recording still sounds damn good. A 70s game looks like complete shit, sure if you got good me
It's not the album art. (Score:2, Informative)
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About games (Score:1)
My first real game (chronologically) played on PC was, I think, Wolfestein3D and Dyna, quickly followd by Doom, Doom2, Quake, Quake2 and Quake3. I've stopped there. I have Quake4, but I didn't played it for more then 5 hours.
It's not that much about what game you play, I think there's more about the company and the atmosphere surroundin
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I still have a couple of hundred 143 Kb Apple floppies in a box somewhere, I had one of the biggest collections of Apple software in the area at the time. Dunno if they're still any good or not.
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BloodNet (Score:2, Interesting)
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I have a stack (almost 2 now, in fact) of game boxes that stretch from the floor to the ceiling
1st true PC game was a nethack port that came with our clone XT. Transfered to newer systems but it been awhile since i played. 1st retail i suspect was F-19 stealth fighter cause microprose did monochrome well.
hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
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only now that the pc have a equal number of specialist chips inside it, can it be outperformed.
btw, i recall reading that the number of artists that work on a game have grown 10 times or more since those days, yet the number of programmers have stayed largely static.
Re:hmm (Score:5, Informative)
You obviously haven't read the credits for a recent game
Compare Grand Theft Auto 4 core+engine team (Rockstar North+Rage) with GTA 1 core team (2008 vs 1997) approximately:
Coders: 40 vs 16
Artists: 88 vs 18
Design: 28 vs 6
Not including publisher credits since they never bear any resemblance to reality anyway.
And that is nothing like the size of credits on an EA game, which would outpopulate a small country...
Artists and content producers have scaled faster than coders, but there are still big coding teams out there.
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only now that the pc have a equal number of specialist chips inside it, can it be outperformed.
And by "only now" you mean back around the mid-90s, right ?
The Amiga was, indeed, impressive for its time - but its time was nearly 2 decades ago.
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I've gotten this a few times from silly people who had those front projection televisions in the late 70s/early 80s who swear up and down their television was brighter, clearer and had sharper color than current generation LCD panels. When in reality, they had overbearing reds and lost focus a couple of months after purchase.
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Hunt the Wumpus comes to mind.
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The simple rule if box art quality is inversely proportional to game quality, is that the better the box art the more imagination you need in the game. The box art can give you some idea of the world the author intended to portray even if the graphics weren't up to it.
Compilations (Score:5, Informative)
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I have Treasures I & II and an original Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy floppy for Mac sitting around in my study. I used to migrate the game files everytime I upgraded computer, I'd edited the client to give me a larger game screen than the 160 x 240 it started with.
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Vintage gaming is a thriving collectors scene.
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Star Control 2 (Score:2)
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It needs some command lines to make it use the PC menu and sounds, but it's much better than using the old binaries in dosbox. Supermelee works with other humans over network, and you can change the default random seed for the galaxy creation to play a "new" game.
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It's personal (Score:5, Insightful)
As a previous post says, it's how rare it is that counts. Basically, if you can still easily buy these games right now (and you can on Ebay for instance, with boxes intact even) then there will be little to no intrinsic value to these items.
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Maybe (Score:2)
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Indeed, there is a decent demand for boxes to cartridge games. Maybe it's because people were younger when they played those, as compared to computer games (PC, C64, etc.), maybe it's because it was just so much easier to make a PC game, so there are more of them and it's harder to conceive getting a "complete" collection, or maybe it's just because they were much more likely to get thrown away.
Also, Nintendo's production controls made a big difference. By preventing any serious overstocks, most NES games
Synonyms (Score:3, Funny)
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Betrayal At Krondor (Score:1)
what I miss from old games (Score:2)
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I collect them. (Score:5, Informative)
I consider my boxes to be interesting and nostalgic. Even if they aren't worth any money, I consider them to be important cultural artifacts - after all, was not my entire generation the first to be raised with video games? Most of the games has been preserved through emulation, but the boxes aren't so easily replicated.
Not quite sequels (Score:1)
Wish there was a market... old boxes fantastic (Score:2)
Frame 'em (Score:1)
So I found some nice long narrow picture frame (one of those with space for a bunch of photos in a row) and mounted them in there. I managed to get two of them, and they look really good hanging over my desk and flanking the monitor. You might be able to do something similar with your box art. Visitors might get a kick out of seeing the old titles a
Probably... (Score:2)
I suspect they'll be part of my kid's inheritance.
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I keep them all (Score:2)
My Atari 800 floppies still boot (Score:1)
There seems to be a market (Score:2)
The Effects of Emulation? (Score:2)
Old games rule! (Score:1)
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Covers dont smell.. (Score:2, Interesting)
So, who's got one of these to sell (unscratched of course)?
Start a flickr stream! (Score:1)
AOL Floppy (Score:1, Funny)
Hmm... (Score:1)
Temple of Apshai: Curse of Ra for Atari 800... on Tape
Crush Crumble and Chomp for Atari 800... on Tape
Ultima III: Exodus (gorgeous box art) [coverbrowser.com] for Atari 800... on Disk
Lot's of Infocom games for Atari 800... on Disk
Actually... too many to list, really... I'm a pack rat.
Thexder (Score:2)
I think the disk has long gone bad, but the box and stuff is still there.
Wonder if its worth anything on ebay?
I've still got game boxes (Score:2)
I think the oddest one of them all is Sim Earth which was a pretty crappy game that no one really bought, but I still have the manual and disks and everything. You can tell I'm a LucasArts fan, haha.
Got the Zorkmid? (Score:2)
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Speaking of classic game cover art, the cover to Archon [geocaching.com] is now also on a geocoin [geocaching.com].
Sierra! (Score:2)
The box-art was simply amazing.
Let alone the game content.
Got rid of a lot.... (Score:2)
The "official" answer: It Depends (Score:5, Informative)
As someone who runs a software collector's mailing list [oldskool.org] and a co-author of a collectible software grading scale [mobygames.com], I think I'm qualified to report: It depends. The collectible value of software is pretty much the same as any other collectible:
The reason rarity != value is because, if nobody knows about it, nobody wants it. I own a fairly nice copy of Wibarm [mobygames.com], and I believe I'm the only one left in the USA to own it. But since nobody has heard about it, and it's not part of some Infocom/Sierra/Lucasarts legacy, nobody would offer me more than $20 for it.
Condition is obviously important. Incomplete items are worth nearly nothing, and even if it's complete it should be in decent condition (ie. the box isn't crushed). If it's in mint condition (still shrinkwrapped), you are holding gold.
One exception to this is diskettes: For reasons I don't quite agree with, most collectors feel that the condition of the diskette media is not nearly as important as the other materials, mainly because most of the software has been cracked and available. I disagree, because without working originals, you can never be sure if the cracked versions are complete (and in my experience easily 15% of them are not).
The ebay market for collectible software started to dry up around 2005, but for a very long time it was a hotbed of collectible software buying and selling. You can still find some reasonable bargains (ie. an average of $20-$30 a title) but most of the time it still costs $200 for a Kilrathi Saga [mobygames.com], or $1600 for an original Infocom Starcross Saucer [mobygames.com].
Gortek and the microchips (Score:2)
This was C64 software to teach you to program.
Lead character in Sterling's "Holy Fire" . . . (Score:2)
At one point she realizes how miserable she is, goes in for a radical rejuve treatment, and gives it all up.
tiny market (Score:2)
Atari 2600 (Score:1)
Or? (Score:2)
Collectible vs Nostalgic (Score:2)
It is nostalgic if you have a copy and no one else wants it.
See: Arcade Games -or- how they will be collected (Score:2)
Rare does not mean much. A Solvalou cockpit recently sold on eBay for around $300. A totally awesome game, and totally rare in the US. But there isn't any demand for it.
Take another game that is ultra-common, like Pac-Man, Centipede, Defender. They command a good price, and it is because people want them.
So price of collectible games is more tied to demand than supply. And there are times when a low su
I never have a clue about the collectors market (Score:2)
The main problem I see is the fact that software is easy to copy. Presently you can download most of the 2600 games. I've seen huge collections of 8bit computer games.
It's not like a comic book at the time wasn't easy to copy.
It's only collectible if... (Score:2)
The problem with 386 era games (Score:2)
Now at least games for mainstream systems have emulators, and the hardware is pretty cut and dry. This would includ
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I recall no issues with graphic adaptors. I had a Trident VGA card with a whopping 1MB of graphics RAM on my 386DX.
I can't think of the last ISA graphics adapter I had, since when I bought them chipset was of little concern. All I do remember is I had a Commodore B&W monitor which was an upgrade from Hercules monochrome. First card I bought wouldn't drive my monitor, the second card would. I also remember that you could upgrade the memory on these cards, and if you needed 512k or 1meg you could often pull the chips from a dead card and pop them onto another card.
What I do remember while 4bit 640x480 was pretty u
I have... (Score:2)
I also had 'Pac Man Fever' on a 45, but I sold it for about 100 times what I bought it for.
The Ones I'll Keep (Score:2)
Please scan them! (Score:2)
This will have zero effect on the collectibility of the games.
Maury