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Post by Weasel on Mar 17, 2007 17:43:41 GMT -5
I am a frequent used-game purchaser. Those of you familiar with used-game purchases are aware that many times you'll get a game that does not come with a case. I currently have a few such games.
DVD cases are easy to get. A quick search at pricewatch.com found a retailer selling them in bulk. But what I'm trying to find out is where I can make wholesale purchases for PSP and DS game cases - the same kind used in commercial games, not those crappy plastic "GAME CARD ARMOR" cases. I want cases that won't look awful when paired against my brand new games on the media shelf in my room.
Anybody know where I can get cases like that?
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Post by YourAverageJoe on Mar 17, 2007 18:35:23 GMT -5
Sorry, but my best guess is eBay.
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Post by vysethebold on Mar 17, 2007 19:28:14 GMT -5
Gamestop/EB frequently gets display boxes from Nintendo for upcoming DS games. When the games come out they use them for used games that are traded in without cases. They usually have a couple in the back that they are not using. Just ask them for one with your next purchase and they may give you one for free. It helps if you know the employees already but you should be able to get one if you are nice. I know you can also order them directly from Nintendo if you want bulk purchases. Here is the link to the Nintendo online store: store.nintendo.com/They should have links there for parts and accessories. Click on the system you want (DS in this case) and you can click on a link for DS game cases where you can buy them in 1, 5, or 10. I hope this helps you.
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Post by Shellshock on Mar 18, 2007 19:13:11 GMT -5
You can also save yourself a lot of money by storing your games in your harddrive, like yours truly. Get yourself flashcarts and mod chips and only buy the games you really like. After a couple of months you'll forget you even wanted to show off that shelf full of shiny cases. Supporting the industry is fine, but paying more than 20 bucks for a game is just ridiculous.
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Post by vysethebold on Mar 18, 2007 21:00:05 GMT -5
I totally disagree. I think a game's price is worth it many times. Doing what you do is stealing and taking money away from people that work really hard to bring you the games you love.
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Post by savagepencil on Mar 19, 2007 10:26:22 GMT -5
You can also save yourself a lot of money by storing your games in your harddrive, like yours truly. Get yourself flashcarts and mod chips and only buy the games you really like. After a couple of months you'll forget you even wanted to show off that shelf full of shiny cases. Supporting the industry is fine, but paying more than 20 bucks for a game is just ridiculous. Please let me know where you work so I can start robbing you in return. This is the most ignorant post on these boards.
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Post by kyouki on Mar 19, 2007 11:45:07 GMT -5
I can understand someone having a "cut off" point... but $20?! And then to pirate the games you "want" but don't "really want enough?" that cost more than $20? Sounds like piracy justification to me. That's like saying you'll only buy albums you really love but only if they are $5 or less. :/ Come on.
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Post by YourAverageJoe on Mar 19, 2007 16:17:25 GMT -5
I personally pirate lots of stuff, but I always make sure to buy anything that really deserves my money. In fact, trying a game out is lots better than having to read through biased reviews.
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Post by Shellshock on Mar 19, 2007 20:46:50 GMT -5
I can understand someone having a "cut off" point... but $20?! And then to pirate the games you "want" but don't "really want enough?" that cost more than $20? Sounds like piracy justification to me. That's like saying you'll only buy albums you really love but only if they are $5 or less. :/ Come on. Yes, $20. I'm sure most of you have already enjoyed the awesome Resident Evil 4 for PS2. But even being a fan of the series, I'm only about to buy it now that it's under $20. I would love to enjoy Final Fantasy 12, but alas it's $45 used. Maybe in a couple of months. We all have our price limits, and mine is $20. A PS3 for $600? Sure. Production costs for it go up to $1500, but milking consumers with BluRay discs at $60 to recover the loses? No way. Production costs for digital media are probably between 5 and 10 bucks, add a couple of more bucks for the artists, designers and programmers and you'll reach 20, maybe 25 dollars. So where do the other 25 bucks go? Beloved corporate america. I used to have over 100 original music CDs, SNES cartridges and NES too... Plus I currently have over 200 DVD movies and go to the theater religiously. So I like to think I have payed my dues. $20 for a used PS2 game? Sure. $60 for and Xbox 360 game? F*** that.
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Post by kyouki on Mar 20, 2007 6:25:11 GMT -5
How much do you think it costs to make a game? First off all, the cost to make a disc are somewhere in the 5 cents per media range. That's not where the retail cost of the game comes in. The reason why games are $50 (now $60) is that games now cost millions of dollars to make and then the publisher takes a cut and then the distributer takes a cut and then the retail outlet takes a cut of that $50 (now $60). Have you ever finished a modern game? Think of how long that credits list is. Most companies release a handful of games a year. Ok, so now they have to cover the salaries and benefits of every person on those lists for the year, plus overhead, plus the rest of the budget (advertising, printing, development tools, etc).
It's cool you don't want to spend more than $20 per game. But that's a poor justification for piracy. If you're going to pirate games then just say "I pirate games because I don't like paying people for their work." Don't try to hide it behind this "there's no reason games should cost more than $20" nonsense. When you buy that $20 used game, how much of it do you think goes to your hated corporations? The markup on that used game is insane, and it all goes to filling the coffers of the EB/Gamestop corporate office. :/
If you're going that route you'd better not buy anything made in any developed country since the majority of the pricetag is going to benefit "evil corporations."
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Post by savagepencil on Mar 20, 2007 9:18:03 GMT -5
I can understand someone having a "cut off" point... but $20?! And then to pirate the games you "want" but don't "really want enough?" that cost more than $20? Sounds like piracy justification to me. That's like saying you'll only buy albums you really love but only if they are $5 or less. :/ Come on. Yes, $20. I'm sure most of you have already enjoyed the awesome Resident Evil 4 for PS2. But even being a fan of the series, I'm only about to buy it now that it's under $20. I would love to enjoy Final Fantasy 12, but alas it's $45 used. Maybe in a couple of months. We all have our price limits, and mine is $20. A PS3 for $600? Sure. Production costs for it go up to $1500, but milking consumers with BluRay discs at $60 to recover the loses? No way. Production costs for digital media are probably between 5 and 10 bucks, add a couple of more bucks for the artists, designers and programmers and you'll reach 20, maybe 25 dollars. So where do the other 25 bucks go? Beloved corporate america. I used to have over 100 original music CDs, SNES cartridges and NES too... Plus I currently have over 200 DVD movies and go to the theater religiously. So I like to think I have payed my dues. $20 for a used PS2 game? Sure. $60 for and Xbox 360 game? F*** that. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Do you know why games recently went from the usual $50 (which had held steady for about 15 years) to $60? Because we had to increase our team sizes by at least 25%. Many studios are running to stand still, not because publishers are rolling in all our hard-earned money, but because you have to move a lot of units just to break even. MOST GAMES BARELY BREAK EVEN, IF EVEN ACHIEVING THAT. This is due to poor quality of many games, true, but jerks like you who think they "deserve" to play our game without paying for it. Hardcore games are one of the hardest arenas to actually make money, but also the area where you'll see the greatest attempt at creating art, and you've just tried to justify theft on a board dedicated to that. The reason that you don't see anyone targeting the hardcore--the reason we didn't do Deus Ex 2 the same as the first one--is because it's not economically feasible to support it, especially with piracy so rampant. One game I worked on showed up on an FTP site before it was even released because of assholes like you. I've spent a lot of money on my own collection because I enjoy the hunt and like playing the games on the original systems. If I made some arbitrary line in the sand at $20 before resorting to stealing, that would have made my collection a whole lot smaller. Enjoy attempting to make some smug little response that just makes you even more of an evil little troll, dude.
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kain
New Member
Posts: 19
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Post by kain on Mar 20, 2007 10:35:59 GMT -5
Sh3llshock, you use phrases like "paid my dues" which indicate that there is a definite air of entitlement in your postings as you defend your stance on piracy as if corporate America has somehow not met your standards of pricing, and so you (and others like you - youraveragejoe) see it fit to take matters into your own hands.
The effects of people with your mindset have had definite ill effects on the industry... from the recent increase in the development of subscription-based games (MMOs), to a focus on mass-market games aimed at "Joe Walmart" for the purpose of getting a suitable return on investment, to the intermittent controversies with anti-piracy measures such as root kits, Starforce, and inconveniences with Steam. The industry will adjust, and it will find ways to co-exist with the inevitability of piracy, but the form that this industry will take to survive is not neccesarily the form that we, as hardcore gamers, would find optimal. As savagepencil said, games that appeal only to the hardcore are a losing proposition from the business side because hardcore gamers tend to be tech-savvy individuals with likely connections to piracy distribution channels. It is much safer to make a crappy game based on a license than an original game because the bulk of the industry is supported by impulse gamers that are more likely to contribute to the purchase numbers than hardcore gamers... with the Madden series being the prime example of this.
Anyway, I don't expect you to change your ways from posts like this one, as I'm sure you're used to this sort of attack all the time when people in the industry find out that you feel justified in your piracy habits. I'm mainly chiming in on this thread in the hopes of reaching out to the others on the fence who see the folly in turning piracy into some kind of us-versus-them situation. There are plenty of games out there. You won't be able to play them all. That's just fact. If you find yourself needing to pirate games in order to "keep up" with what's out there, then you're not really playing those games, you're just collecting them in a meaningless pile.
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Post by savagepencil on Mar 20, 2007 10:41:06 GMT -5
I don't pay for gas that's over $2 a gallon. When it gets that high, that's when I start stealing it from my neighbor's truck.
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Post by Shellshock on Mar 20, 2007 11:52:10 GMT -5
How much do you think it costs to make a game? First off all, the cost to make a disc are somewhere in the 5 cents per media range. That's not where the retail cost of the game comes in. The reason why games are $50 (now $60) is that games now cost millions of dollars to make and then the publisher takes a cut and then the distributer takes a cut and then the retail outlet takes a cut of that $50 (now $60). Have you ever finished a modern game? Think of how long that credits list is. Most companies release a handful of games a year. Ok, so now they have to cover the salaries and benefits of every person on those lists for the year, plus overhead, plus the rest of the budget (advertising, printing, development tools, etc). It's cool you don't want to spend more than $20 per game. But that's a poor justification for piracy. If you're going to pirate games then just say "I pirate games because I don't like paying people for their work." Don't try to hide it behind this "there's no reason games should cost more than $20" nonsense. When you buy that $20 used game, how much of it do you think goes to your hated corporations? The markup on that used game is insane, and it all goes to filling the coffers of the EB/Gamestop corporate office. :/ If you're going that route you'd better not buy anything made in any developed country since the majority of the pricetag is going to benefit "evil corporations." Good point, but explain this: Star Wars episode 3 DVD: $20 when it first came out. Final Fantasy 12 for PS2: $50 when it first came out. Secondly, since we are discussing this controversial subject, I would like know your thoughts (whoever is reading this) on prices for rental games and movies. Usually around $4 for a movie and $6 for a game at Blockbuster, right? Is it a fair price? Would any less than that be considered stealing? And last but not least, what about kids in poor countries that can't afford to buy an original game because its price equals half their parents salary per month? Should they get to buy pirated games at a fraction of the original's price, or shouldn't they be playing at all if they can't afford it?
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Post by Discoalucard on Mar 20, 2007 12:16:31 GMT -5
Star Wars episode 3 DVD: $20 when it first came out. Final Fantasy 12 for PS2: $50 when it first came out. The movie and video game industry are entirely different. Movies get their first run in a movie theater, then go to DVD for a second run (then on to cable/TV for a third.) A vast majority of video games only have that single initial release in order to recoup its investment. Secondly, many more people buy or see movies than video games. I can't quote DVD sales, but very few video games hit the million seller mark. If video games had the same mass market appeal, then prices would theorhetically get lowered. The game market generally realizes that $50 is too high for the average person, which is why the mass market oriented games usually get released for $20 a year down the line, which is usually considered a sweet spot for impulse purchases from regular, non-hardcore gamers. Thirdly, video games have more a perceived value than movies, at least when it comes to quantity. When you buy a DVD, you watch it once or twice, and maybe lend it out, but it generally stays on the shelf after that. Video games should keep you occupied, for a bare minimum, five-ten hours, and much more for RPGs/sandbox games. Therefore, they can get away with charging $50 for an experience that's longer and (potentially) more fulfilling than a passive movie experience. When you get into poorer countries...well, that's an ethical argument I don't want to step into.
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