My method of looting garage sales for videogames was mentioned on The Consumerist last week. How cool is that?! For those of you that didn’t see the video, it was just me showing off games I bought at garage sales the weekend before. Below the video I listed how much the games were going for on eBay, compared to how much I paid for them.
Anyway, I skimmed through the comments left at the Consumerist. A few of them argued that if I were to include shipping fees, etc I wouldn’t have made as big of a profit as I “thought” I did. A valid point. But I don’t buy these games to make a profit. In fact, I don’t plan on ever selling my games. As much as I’m a gamer I’m a collector, and it would take a LOT (and I mean a lot) for me to sell anything in my collection. After all, I’ve spent 18 years accruing this crap. I imagine selling anything out of my nerd haven would feel like I’m selling a piece of myself. Nah’msayin?
As for the logic behind the eBay value, I think of it as if I were to walk into a second-hand game store. How much would I have to pay for this game, or how much would the store buy it for?
There’s a part of me that has always hated selling off my old video games. But I’ve done it primarily because I couldn’t see myself playing them too often if ever again. There are a lot of newer games that I want to get into and so between that and kids I just don’t have the time for older games. I suppose I could keep them as just a collection, but that has never really appealed to me.