Today I discovered the enemy

[Rejinx]

Today I was driving past a pawn shop I don't normally stop at and they had a going out of business sign, so I decided to stop in.  And there he was looking though the N64 games, an Ebay reseller.  He was about 50 years old and was talking about how stupid kids would pay way to much money for video games.  He was in front of me, so he had first pick.  He picked up like 25 diffrent games for $3 a piece.  I was getting pissed  knowing he was going to make a killing off those games, and he knew what he was doing because all he left was a bunch of sports games and stuff like Tony Hawk 2.  In the end all I got was  Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Command & Conquer, Perfect Dark for the N64 and Tony Hawk 3 for the Gameboy color.  Oh, and the knowledge that my biggest competition in town was a got damn reseller.

[INVOK3R]

Don't worry I'll secretly outbid all of his auctions and then never pay him for them...
 

[Fuyukaze]

When I first saw the topic, the first thing that poped into my head was the thought "so he finaly looked in a mirror".
Sorry, for some reason that made me laugh.

You've finaly met first hand the reason most people hate e-bay and how popular gaming as a hobby has become due to it.  Lots of people love to mention how it makes posible the wide selection of games that are hard to find in various regions more easy to acess, or, games that are just plain rare more findable.  The problem is so many people have come to view it as a means to make a quick buck.  We always hear about how someone found something for a few bucks, put it online for auction and made thousands off it.  Everyone hears about how games bout at yardsales for a quarter are sold for many times that.  The person you met today is just one of them.  I know there are e-bay sellers in my own area who haunt the same locations I shop at.  I always hear about how I came a day too late and how someone walked out with a bunch of boxed games and such.  I see the same 50 snes games at a local pawn shop every time I drop by.  Sometimes, they actualy have something in there I want, more often then not it's a failure.

[Tynstar]

Don't worry I'll secretly outbid all of his auctions and then never pay him for them...
 

That would be great.

[NES_Rules]

There's an old guy at the flea market I frequent that buys games at garage sales and pawn shops and then sells them on eBay.  But he at least takes them to the flea market and tries to sell them at reasonable prices first.  And then sells whatever is left on eBay. I did get a boxed copy of Krusty's Funhouse (NES) from him for $3 though.

[wrldstrman]

But the biggest reason there are so many resellers is just that  people are stupid enough to pay redicolus prices for them...

[udisi]

While resellers can be a pain in the ass locally I agree, they do make things easier to find on ebay and for the more common games actually get cheaper. I mean if you can buy a lot of 200 nes games at an average of $2-3 any given day that's better than most idependant game stores can compete with or even what gamestop could compete with when they carried them.  While I agree much of the prices on ebay are more than I want to spend on the more popular or rare games, the games bring that amount over and over. Which constitutes more of a going market rate rather than people over paying. I love Contra Force for the NES but I'd never paid the $30-$40 is brings cart only on ebay, but hey that's what the demand has set the price at. What about current gen titles, why would you ever pay $50 + tax at retail when you can buy it off ebay for a $30. The only reason I could see you buying a used game from gamestop over ebay is that you coud inspect it before buying.

The real problem here is that gamers/collecters are cheap people. We're always looking for a deal. Not long ago, deals could be had...There're weren't as many collectors, the internet wasn't the big market it is today, and people actually had garage sales to get rid of stuff rather than flipping their stuff on ebay.

Times have changed, ebay has provided not only a place for people to get rid of things they don't use anymore, but has also given them a resource to find out what to ask for their things. The reason people used to find a box of atari games with a quadrun in it for .25 was because the only other alternative to selling it for a quarter was to throw it away, or donate it to goodwill for whatever tax writeoff they could get for it.

Now I know it sucks to walk into a place and see a reseller getting the games you were after, but you could have just as easily been beating by another collecter, and I garentee you when you're lucky enough to find a score there's another collector or reseller that wasn't far behind you. You win some you lose more nowadays, but thats because the classic game market has exploded in the last 5 years. Most collectors have only been collecting for a few years and you have to compete with all these new people too. In the late 90's you could go all kinds of places and find classic games for nothing, and they'd probably been sitting there forever. It was still rare to run into but you could get stadium events from funcoland for $3.99, and you know most people would have looked at it as the outdated powerpad game it was and wouldn't have paid a dollar for it.

I feel you're pain losing out, but you have to understand that the market dictates it.

[Rejinx]

Well, when it comes to cheap I am the master.  When madden 2007 came out I went stright out and bought madden 2005. When GTA: Liberty City Stories come out, I bought Vice City.  But I am the only collector in my city, or at least the only one who really hunts.  I don't mind losing a score to someone who is going to play the game, but I damn reseller!  The pickings are already slim in my backwoods town.  The last thing I want to have to compete with is the entire world through ebay.  A damn reseller is nothing but a damn middleman, a used car sales men.  I say get a real job and build something or fix something.
haha, I sound like a old man.

[Three]

I remember perfect dark.  That game rocks it old school. 8^)   hhee that looks like Dexter from that TV show.

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

You mean he had his backed turned to you and you didn't end him?

I'm disappointed.

[ganonbanned]

Don't worry I'll secretly outbid all of his auctions and then never pay him for them...
 

ah, the joy of having multiple ebay accounts

[justabum]

hey, I'm a used car salesman

[Dev1anc3]

I can't say much about reselling. I do about the same thing, but all of the money I make from it goes to other games/consoles most of the time. If it wasn't for me going to flea markets/pawn shops/yard sales scavenging for games with resale value, my collection wouldn't be nowhere near what it is today...   , but I doubt the guy you're talking about is reselling those games to finance his video game collection.

[cverz2]

I can't say much about reselling. I do about the same thing, but all of the money I make from it goes to other games/consoles most of the time. If it wasn't for me going to flea markets/pawn shops/yard sales scavenging for games with resale value, my collection wouldn't be nowhere near what it is today...   , but I doubt the guy you're talking about is reselling those games to finance his video game collection.

I agree... I live paycheck to paycheck and I fund all my collecting through reselling on Ebay, Craigslist, and a few others.  If not for reselling on Ebay I wouldn't be able to buy very many games.
It's all about timing. Sometimes you find the gems and sometimes all thats left is Shaq Fu or NBA Live 95 LOL

[Fuyukaze]

After a bit more thought about it, I decided to play devils advocate.
Think about it for a moment.  What if the roles here had been reversed and you instead were the one to get there a few moments before he had and instead were the one leaving the small stuff for someone else?  How would you feel about it?  You'd be feelin rather grand as well.  Would you be making smart ass coments about how stupid you thought your end consumers are for any extras you picked up for sale or trade?  I'd hope not.  In the end both of you had an equal chance to get the stuff.  There are worse conditions.  It could have been a game store like gamestop, gamecrazy, or such where they advertise a huge sale and all the good titles have been picked clean not by other customers but by the very people that work there.  It's one thing to have bad timing but when you dont even have a chance, it's quite an annoyance.  Be happy when you have the chance to get anything at all.