[Shodan]

Damn! I just lost a game I was eyeing on Ebay to some guy who decided to go for the 'buy this now' option before I could bid. I didn't think anybody would want to pay US$10 for Ecoquest 1.

So does anyone know how often this game usually fetches on Ebay?

What's the highest price that's been paid for old games on auction sites?

I can't believe I let it get away. I'm all depressed now.

[gillyruless]

Where's eriq when you need him? I think he's the AG's resident Sierra collectible's guru.



I think the answer to your question depends on which version. The Sierra Discovery Series version (released in 1992 I believe) of EcoQuest can be actually had rather cheap.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=7164964092

But the original version (released in 1991) is a lot more expensive:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

[fov]

Here is the thread where Eriq taught us the ins and outs of Ecoquest.

[Shodan]

Oh my god! What's the difference between these versions? I had the disk version as a kid, and I really want to play the cd version...

Excellent link, thank you!

[fov]

In general, the difference is that the CD versions of Sierra games have voices and the disk versions don't. In some cases the copy protection is removed from the CD versions, too - because at the time they couldn't conceive of anyone pirating something as big as a CD.

[Kolzig]

Ecoquest 1 cd version has full digitized speech, like they used to say back in the day (or did they?)

I'd love to own an Ecoquest 2: The Secret of the Rainforest cd version, but it doesn't exist.

[SakSquash]

Oh man, do not get me started on buying old adventure games on ebay. It's where i've gotten most of mine, but what I hate about it is that people treat them like priceless antiques! I bought GK: The Beast Within for $15 and it almost killed me! I think it's retarded to charge that much for a game older then Michael Jackson nose! Good part about it though, was I came across a Monkey Island maddness disc in my house and put it on ebay and it sold for like $30, plus, before I sold it, I made a cop....nevermind. Point is, it's insane

[SirDave]

I must be missing something. How can $10-15 be 'too much' for a good adventure games no matter what their age? Let's forget for a moment that the very fact that good games like GK2 are not available at local stores makes them still worth at least that amount. If I have a game I don't want any more, it wouldn't be worth my time and trouble to sell it for anything less than $15 no matter how old it was. And then there's the fact that no one thinks anything of dropping $15 on a 90 minute movie & popcorn, but thinks twice about buying a game for $15 that provides a minimum of 10-15 hours of enjoyment. But that's just me I guess.

[Manhunter71]

Originally Posted by SirDave

I must be missing something. How can $10-15 be 'too much' for a good adventure games no matter what their age? Let's forget for a moment that the very fact that good games like GK2 are not available at local stores makes them still worth at least that amount. If I have a game I don't want any more, it wouldn't be worth my time and trouble to sell it for anything less than $15 no matter how old it was. And then there's the fact that no one thinks anything of dropping $15 on a 90 minute movie & popcorn, but thinks twice about buying a game for $15 that provides a minimum of 10-15 hours of enjoyment. But that's just me I guess.

It's not only you - $10-15 for a game?!!??!
Thats a bargain imo!
In the UK most new games are for sale at ÂŁ20-40, and used games are available for around ÂŁ10-20

[SakSquash]

Who the )*&$*#&$ pays $15 to see a movie?! Anyway, old games aren't worth that much, I don't care how good they are. A game isn't a good deal unless it's under $10. I just paid $10 shipped for Sins of the Fathers and it almost killed my soul!

[eriq]

oh my goodness.

[SirDave]

Originally Posted by temporaryscars

Who the )*&$*#&$ pays $15 to see a movie?! Anyway, old games aren't worth that much, I don't care how good they are. A game isn't a good deal unless it's under $10. I just paid $10 shipped for Sins of the Fathers and it almost killed my soul!

Okay, I don't know where you live, but let's take a closer look at this (and remember I added things like popcorn):

In the U.S.:
Typical full price for a ticket $8.50
Box of popcorn: $2.50
Drink $2.00
Candy $2.00
Transportation to movie: minimum $1.00 for gas
Total: $16.00
Make that $25-32 if you're taking someone.

But, okay maybe you're not paying anywhere near $15.00 to go to a movie. Here are the possiblities:

1) Mommy & daddy are paying for it still.
2) You go alone to a matinee, smuggle in popcorn & a drink from home and don't buy anything to eat.
3) You pay $15-16 based on the amounts I give above, but you go to a multiplex, stay for 10 hours and see 4 movies at once so in your mind you're paying only $4.00 for each movie.



As for 'a game isn't a good deal unless it's under $10': You list yourself as an aspiring journalist- you better hope people don't feel the same way about paying for the written word!

[lakerz]

Yeah really. I just spent $35 on a movie. $10X2 for me and my gf, $5 for large drink, $5 for medium popcorn, and like $4 for some licorice. This is not even including gas and drinks after. In comparison, spending $20 on a good game (adventure or not) is an amazing deal, although the former gives me a much better chance on getting some.

[SakSquash]

I buy a ticket, smuggle in candy from the dollar store and that's it! I spend maybe 6 or 7 bones. A movie isn't worth $15!

As for journalism, it's a labor of love, you def. don't do it for the money

[BerserkerTails]

I'm with Temporary Scars here, I always buy candy from other stores and just put it in one of my friends' bags.

Anyway, back on topic, I'd definately pay anywhere between 10-20 dollars on an old game such as Gabriel Knight 1 as long as the game was still in the box, with all the pack-ins. Though there are times when you get lucky. I once got The Colonel's Bequest with all the pack-ins (Even the pencil!) for 2 bucks.

[JHousequake]

Quick thing about buying Sierra's CD games on eBay; if the CD sports the MPC logo, it usually means that they'll be digitized speech which the floppy versions lack BUT if it's from the Sierra Classics line double-check if there is any difference. For example, games like Leisure Suit Larry 5 and The Even More Incredible Machine are apart of the Sierra Classics line but are no different from their floppy disk counterparts.

[Erwin_Br]

And I thought we Dutchmen are the cheapskates

--Erwin

[syntheticgerbil]

What the hell? Does anyone in here have any kind of knowledge of dollar theatres?!

Sure you have to wait months after the movie comes out and it usually is on a smaller screen with reasonably uncomfortable seats while you notice an odd detergent odor wafting about, but two dollars max for a movie is a deal.

And the best part is, the theatres are mostly empty, you don't have disgusting hipster ass teenagers hanging around trying to promote their image instead of actually seeing a movie, and you aren't attributing to the popularity of the high priced megaplex corporate that will only worsen with more time and money.

And even better yet, if you have a drive-in theatre is close range to where you live, you get the benefit of both sides.

Oh and on buying old games... if an item is not relatively available and out of print, the internet pretty much steadies the price to a reasonable bargain for being the only source you will ever have to any of this stuff. The only other way to get these games is to either have access to an overstock warehouse, rummage through garage sales, go to a fleamarket, or try to find one independent software store that has been in business for the past fifteen years despite CompUSA's major retail market rule.

[Shodan]

Meh, you people should all just move overseas. I'm used to seeing movies for the equivalent of under US$2.7. The price sometimes goes down by half, depending on time of day and popularity of the movie.

Quick thing about buying Sierra's CD games on eBay; if the CD sports the MPC logo, it usually means that they'll be digitized speech which the floppy versions lack BUT if it's from the Sierra Classics line double-check if there is any difference. For example, games like Leisure Suit Larry 5 and The Even More Incredible Machine are apart of the Sierra Classics line but are no different from their floppy disk counterparts.

Sorry to be a noob, but what does MPC stand for? And when you say 'usually' they're digitised speech, does that mean there's a chance they might not be?

Now I remember why I avoided Ebay until now... *cries*

[fov]

Can we stop bickering about the movies? The point was not how to get into a movie on the cheap. The point was that people are generally willing to pay a lot more for a lot of other things that last a lot less time than old games. Every time my BF and I go out for dinner we tend to drop a hundred bucks on food and drinks. Many smokers drop $10-$30 a week (or more!) on cigarettes. Everyone has *something* less permanent than games that they pay more for than they're willing to pay for an old game. THAT was the point.

Okay - having got that out of my system. The MPC symbol means "Multimedia PC." When Sierra started rereleasing games that had been on disks on CD with voices, they slapped that symbol on to indicate that that version had been "enhanced" for multimedia. There were always voices, and sometimes an extended intro movie (I'm thinking of KQ6) or the copy protection had been removed (as in KQ5). I'm not sure what other kinds of enhancements may have been made.

SierraClassics was a line of budget rereleases that came out in the mid to late 90s. I hadn't realized that they took some non-talkie games and put them on CD without voices, but it's sounding from JHousequake that they did. Those CDs would not have the MPC symbol on them.