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As many of you already know, I dislike eBay, in fact one might say I hate it with a passion. In fact, I refuse to buy any type of gaming device from the site. So, I was extremely pleased when in January of 2008 I read a post on the Digital Press forums from Dragon Warrior Jasen, that he was fed up with eBay and toying with the idea of making his own auction site dedicated to video games with minimal fees. When he came up with a name and made the site public a couple months later, I made sure I was one of the first to join GameGavel.com. I listed numerous auctions but had very little success, but I believed in the theory behind the site of no fees whatsoever and stuck with it. Later on in 2008 I came across another site, ChaseTheChuckwagon.com, with a similar philosophy of only charging a modest final selling fee. I quickly joined that site and have been listing auctions on there since.
[img align=right]http://www.chasingthechuckwagon.com/chuckwagon150.jpg[/img]
However, a couple days ago, I got the email that every other GameGavel member got from Jasen, stating that the site will be closing. Jasen blamed the closure on himself, but I do not believe that it was any one person's fault. I think the failure was the combined result of people not believing that a free auction site could work and sellers were charging the average eBay price instead of taking into account the fact that they're not paying 8%+ fees on their sale as they would with eBay.
[img align=left width=200 height=57]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/repository/07822GG LOGO.jpg[/img]Anyway, yesterday I got an email from GameGavel's Jasen Hicks and one from ChaseTheChuckwagon's Mike Kennedy, about half an hour apart stating that CTCW will be purchasing GameGavel's domain name and will be taking over operations.
Mike's plan is to co-brand both names, keeping the ChaseTheChuckwagon.comn name that some 2,000+ member knows and love and combining it with the more universal name of GameGavel.
So what this means for us, the gamers and collectors of the world, is a bigger and better site than has very modest final selling fees, that was built by gamers/collectors for gamers/collectors.
[img align=right]http://www.rfgeneration.com/images/treasure_chronicles/Club_Nintendo.png[/img]
Japan has know the sweet loyalty program known as "Club Nintendo" for years, Europe has had "Nintendo VIP 24:7" since the Gamecube launched over 6 years ago and "Club Nintendo" since the launch of the Wii. But, Nintendo wasn't nice enough to give North America a Club Nintendo just yet. In fact, even South Africa has had a Club Nintendo for six months already.
But, in October 2008, it was revealed that Club Nintendo was coming to North America. And to the instant relief of millions of Nintendo fans, was launched December 15. But, as anyone who tried to sign up already knows, the site was rather buggy, in fact it didn't really work at all. Many who tried to sign up for the first time couldn't get it to work and nearly everyone who tried transferring their "My Nintendo" information found that the system just wouldn't let them log in.
I know I was one of the first to be elated and aggravated with the system in the same 5 minutes. I tried at least twice a day to log in, but was always met with a "your username or password are incorrect" message. Finally, today I tried and was instantly logged in, and was given the opportunity for my first survey. I promptly gave "World of Goo" a glowing review and received my 10 coins.
So, now that I've mentioned "coins" you may be wondering what they are. Well, they're points that you use to "buy" stuff from Club Nintendo. Many people out there feel the prizes right now are terrible, but I think there are some very nice things to be had.
For 800 coins, you get the Game & Watch Collection for DS.
For 600, you get a White Nintendo DS Game Card Case.
For 800, you get Hanafuda Cards. The picture shows a huge stack, but it doesn't say how many you actually get.
500 coins get you Mario Party Playing Cards or Animal Crossing Playing Cards.
600 gets you a Mario Nintendo DS Game Rack.
600 gets you either a Black, Super Mario Bros. Theme, or Animal Crossing Theme Nintendo DS Game Card and Stylus Set.
400 gets you a Nintendo DS Lite Case (Silver).
And 300 will get you a Wii Remote Holder.
As you can see, the prizes are heavily geared towards the DS, with only one item for the Wii. Many users are complaining that Club Nintendo isn't giving North America the same awesome prizes that Japan gives away, such as a Super Famicom style Classic Controller for the Wii and unreleased games such as Tingle's Balloon Fight DS and Exclamation Warriors Sakeburein. But I feel the prizes they are offering are very good, for a program that has just started up. I know I really want three of the available items, and I'm confident Nintendo will be adding new stuff after not too long.
The only major drawback to the system I see is that only first party Nintendo games can be registered, and only new ones at that. So all the GameCube games you have won't get you any points. I think that is a big mistake for Nintendo because they should give their loyal customers something for their years of money, not just people jumping on the Wii/DS bandwagon. Wouldn't is be amazing if we could register our hundreds of NES, SNES, and N64 games 
So Nintendo fans, head on over to https://club.nintendo.com/ and sign up to start receiving your free stuff. A word of advice I noticed with the site, before you register games, it looks like you can add games to a "Intend to Buy" list first and then register them to receive 10 extra coins.
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This is NES_Rules's Blog.
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Welcome to my blog. I started off my blogging career in 2008 with my weekly Treasure Hunt Chronicles which was a huge success. So it's become a staple of RF Generation during the garage sale and flea market season. So be sure to check back each Monday to check out my newest treasures.
I'll also have other blog entries popping up occasionally, so make sure you keep it tuned to Channel 3! |
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