72 replies to this topic

[A.J. Franzman]

sku_u, on Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:00 PM, said:

Why should responding to all the questions you asked me if you can't even spend two seconds to read two threads that are doing EXACTLY what you suggest already?

Excuse me, but I spent a lot more than 2 seconds reading just the 2 threads you linked, and I was unable to make any simple conclusions from them, such as, "What is the basis for determining that a cartridge falls within the range defined as 'Rarity 9'? Within that range, where does Malagai lie?" You asked me to read all the threads that those 2 threads you linked are based on, in order to understand the 2 linked threads. I still don't know which threads the 2 threads that you linked are based on, so how can I read all of them?

Reading the thread "2600 9s: malagai, out of control, color bar, river patrol", I count about 13 copies of Malagai reported over a *nearly 3 year period*. This seems low for an R9... just where is the boundary between R9 and R10?

Finally, if I had to be pointed to those 2 threads by posting in this thread, after only noticing this thread by visiting the Rarity Guide forum, it hardly constitutes a broad AA member census, now does it?

Edited by A.J. Franzman, Tue Nov 1, 2005 5:33 AM.

[Dino]

Marco, on Wed Oct 19, 2005 5:37 PM, said:

There are (1) Rare Games ™, and (2) Not-Rare games ™. The first account for 5% (or even less) of all Atari 2600 titles, Motorodeo and Ikari Warriors included. If you put a rarity 9 or 6 on them is moot.

Well, at least to me 

Cheers,
Marco

Whilst I agree wholehartedly with Marco's principle (it would make all disagreements go away), I think the rarity guide should provide more information than just "rare" and "not rare". Those of us who have been collecting for years will know exactly how rare one game is compared to another, and therefore the rarity guide is of no real consequence.

However, the rarity giude does come into play for new collectors who are unsure how rare a game is and therefore are reliant on a rarity guide that has some meaning.

Most people will agree that in about 99% of cases, the relative rarity of games in the rarity guide is reflective of the games true rarity. We just need to focus on those few games that are causing some concern. Whether a particular game should be a 7 and not an 8 should be of no consequence and should not be changed. What needs to be addressed is games that are currently listed as a 10 or a 9 and appear on e-bay almost weekly. I don't think anyone here will argue that some of the games need to be knocked down a ranking or two on the 10 point scale and once that's done, most people will be happy with the rarity guide.

Mind you, not everyone will be happy, but it doesn't have to be PERFECT, just largely accurate and for some games at the moment, the rartity guide is not largely accurate.

Thats my 2c, feel free to disagree ....

[sku_u]

A.J. Franzman, on Tue Nov 1, 2005 6:54 AM, said:

Finally, if I had to be pointed to those 2 threads by posting in this thread, after only noticing this thread by visiting the Rarity Guide forum, it hardly constitutes a broad AA member census, now does it?

How about you add all the 9s and 10s you own to the list so we can represent the broad AA member census? I guess those tallies meant nothing even though they were taken over a three year period and list every known collector who posts on Atariage. Whatever. Yes, I know they haven't been updated in a while, but I'm sure if the same people were asked again, about 80% of them would still have the same titles and the other 20% shifted around from one collector to another.

The rarity guide was started by Alex years ago and has been a constantly evolving guide since then. Games have been upgraded and downgraded according to auction trends and collector input. In addition, there is a magazine put out by Trade-n-Games that even goes as far as listing the price trends.

When it comes to 9s and 10s, obviously not very many people are going to own them because there aren't that many out there. I wish I owned more of the 10s, but I cannot afford any unless I get lucky (as in the case of motorodeo). Additionally, there are no accurate records of sales figures for these games, so assigning a production runs with these older games is an impossibility so no tangible parameters can be set. Because of these reasons, having a board census taken of rare titles would be pointless. As for lower ranked games, who's honestly going to care if a game is listed as a 1, 2 or 3? They all tend to sell for about $1 a title loose regardless. Most of the collectors who only collect boxed pristine games do not even make the distinction between a 1 and a 4 and already know which 5s, 6s and 7s are legitimately hard to find boxed and which are not. That comes with experience and no collectors guide can help you there.

If you really wanted to go forward with something like this, sure it can work, but is also a tremendous undertaking. See the threads in the Rarity forum concerning the PAL rarity guide many international members have been building to see what I mean.

Some questions to consider:

How do you plan on taking into consideration the BS factor if asking the entire community? How about the resellers and collectors who have amassed large quantities of common titles (some people like CPUWIZ can line their entire house and driveway with common titles and I doubt anyone is going to sit down and take the time to sort all of them)?

[video game addict]

Maybe some sort of online database for members here like DP has? For anyone who wants to use it, & input their collection, then Al could harvest all the lists & tally them..

[AtariAger]

video game addict, on Tue Nov 1, 2005 6:52 PM, said:

Maybe some sort of online database for members here like DP has? For anyone who wants to use it, & input their collection, then Al could harvest all the lists & tally them..

LOL...Try clicking my link below! I don't remember the last time it worked.

[video game addict]

AtariAger, on Tue Nov 1, 2005 7:55 PM, said:

video game addict, on Tue Nov 1, 2005 6:52 PM, said:

Maybe some sort of online database for members here like DP has? For anyone who wants to use it, & input their collection, then Al could harvest all the lists & tally them..

LOL...Try clicking my link below! I don't remember the last time it worked.

I mean if AA offered the same service based around the rarity guide here.

RF Generation also has a member based collection base similar to DP, only they had theirs up first.

I use cart commander to keep track of my collection. It's helpful for me when half my boxes are packed away & I want to keep track of what I have/need. I started on DP but in Mozilla I could not access more than the first page, so I couldn't add anymore games there. I'm too lazy to start up another anyway. Cart commander works well enough.

[holygrailvideogames.com]

It has been more than 5 months since I first posted this topic. It is still my opinion that the rarity level of these two games should be changed. I have purchased both games so even though it would remove a rarity 9 and a rarity 10 from my collection I still feel like these should be downgraded. There is now talk that there are more than 600 copies of these games by just one person who had copies of these games.

Does anyone still believe that these games should be a rarity 9 or 10? The price of these games are still artificially high because of the rarity that AtariAge has given them.

[Marco]

Change them both to a rarity 6, tops.

Cheers,
Marco

[Shawn Sr.]

Marco, on Sat Feb 11, 2006 9:33 AM, said:

Change them both to a rarity 6, tops.

Cheers,
Marco

That is a good idea, Hope it's taken seriously by the site admins.

[jay2068]

mcgrail0007, on Fri Feb 10, 2006 6:46 PM, said:

There is now talk that there are more than 600 copies of these games by just one person who had copies of these games.

Not that I wouldn't want to see the rarity go down because of this find and also because I purchased them for a lot higher than they are going for now . My only thought is just cause one post says I have 600 copies doesn't make it true. I could say I have 1300 copies of QUADRUN NIB. Doesn't mean I have them or want to sell them or that the rarity should change. Without actual proof of the quanity that is out there I don't think a rarity change can be made. I would however think it could be pulled down at least one notch in rarity at least.

Also since I have only been collecting for a few years and hanging out in the forums for the last 6 months my thoughts don't carry much weight.

[YOK-dfa]

jay2068, on Sun Feb 12, 2006 6:46 AM, said:

Without actual proof of the quanity that is out there I don't think a rarity change can be made.

If you'll check the amount of eBay auctions for these titles lately you'll probably agree that 600 might even be a low estimate

[jay2068]

YOK-dfa, on Sun Feb 12, 2006 4:23 AM, said:

If you'll check the amount of eBay auctions for these titles lately you'll probably agree that 600 might even be a low estimate 

I just did a quick search and foound only 5 current auctions and 5 completed auctions for motorodeo. So that makes at least 10 counted for. Not sure how long completed items stay out on ebay thou maybe 1 month?

Yes I also belive the number might be higher than 600. I'm just saying it's hard to get the actual number of copies that were found without actual proof.

[Omegamatrix]

Quantities are all pure speculation. I think dropping both to 8's right now would be a good start. After that wait a year and see how many are still selling on eBay, and adjust the guide accordingly. Albert, what do you think?

[YOK-dfa]

jay2068, on Sun Feb 12, 2006 3:20 PM, said:

I just did a quick search and foound only 5 current auctions and 5 completed auctions for motorodeo. So that makes at least 10 counted for. Not sure how long completed items stay out on ebay thou maybe 1 month?

You are forgetting that the sellers also sold a lot of copies to the second (third? etc?) bidder on those auctions. A number of members here got their copies like that...

[jay2068]

YOK-dfa, on Sun Feb 12, 2006 1:52 PM, said:

jay2068, on Sun Feb 12, 2006 3:20 PM, said:

I just did a quick search and foound only 5 current auctions and 5 completed auctions for motorodeo. So that makes at least 10 counted for. Not sure how long completed items stay out on ebay thou maybe 1 month?

You are forgetting that the sellers also sold a lot of copies to the second (third? etc?) bidder on those auctions. A number of members here got their copies like that...

Yes I did forget about that as that's also how I got both of mine. Winning one auction for Moto and offered Ikari for the same price.

so I am in agreement of a rarity 8 for this as it is.

[MattG/Snyper2099]

I think the recent flood of Moto's and Ikari's would make them easier to find than say a sealed Xenophobe or Sentinel. You would be hard pressed to find those two NTSC titles over a Moto or Ikari. And since when does the price someone paid for something determine rarity? Moto and Ikari are clearly 7's or lower right along side Xenophobe and Sentinel.

[Dino]

I don't disagree with what is said above about the rarity of these games coming down. However I dont think that you can only compare CIB versions of these two games with CIB versions of Xenophobe. To elaborate, say there were 200 copies of Motorodeo and Ikari recently found CIB. It would be reasonable to assume that these would make up 90% of Motorodeos and Ikaris in known existence today. However, say only 5% of Xenophobes are CIB. Therefore, when you compare how many Xenophobes carts are in exitence, there may be 1000, of which 50 are CIB. However, there may be only 210 Motorodeos and Ikari carts out there. so ever though there are way more CIB motorodeo/ikaris, there are far fewer acutal carts in existence.

My statistics are not meant to be accurate, but are used only to illustrate that whilst these two games are amongst the easiest to find CIB, there are probably still only limited numbers available. it all depends on how many copies of these games were found and only a couple of south american sellers can clarify this.

[Shawn Sr.]

Well plain and simple, there are TONS and TONS of Motorodeo & Ikari warriors now. I am gonna get a picture of a shitload of them and put this to rest, cause it seems that a picture will say a thousand words and also hold its wieght in pounds instead of ounces.

[MattG/Snyper2099]

Dino, on Sun Feb 12, 2006 7:59 PM, said:

I don't disagree with what is said above about the rarity of these games coming down.  However I dont think that you can only compare CIB versions of these two games with CIB versions of Xenophobe. To elaborate, say there were 200 copies of Motorodeo and Ikari recently found CIB. It would be reasonable to assume that these would make up 90% of Motorodeos and Ikaris in known existence today. However, say only 5% of Xenophobes are CIB.  Therefore, when you compare how many Xenophobes carts are in exitence, there may be 1000, of which 50 are CIB.  However, there may be only 210 Motorodeos and Ikari carts out there. so ever though there are way more CIB motorodeo/ikaris, there are far fewer acutal carts in existence.

My statistics are not meant to be accurate, but are used only to illustrate that whilst these two games are amongst the easiest to find CIB, there are probably still only limited numbers available.  it all depends on how many copies of these games were found and only a couple of south american sellers can clarify this.

It only makes sense that the same number of games were made for Ikari and Xenophobe. Why make more of one than the other? They were both arcade ports and late releases by atari. They both also seem to turn up with about the same frequency. I don't simply consider one statistic or factor into my rarity evaluation.

One games rarity is always relevant to anothers'. Otherwise, there would be no use in having the numbers 1-10. Please keep this in mind too... It doesn't matter how many of one single games were made or are available. As long as the numbers assigned (one to ten scale) are accurate, all is well with the universe. The production numbers just seem to get in the way more often than not.

Oh and one other thing. If an Atari brand game had 1,000 copies made, that would certainly be the exception and not the rule. I mean, Quadrun had 10,000 copies given away or sold and that is very few by todays marketing standards.

[homerwannabee]

I decided to bring this thread back because I noticed that Motorodeo and Ikari Warriors are still the same rarity. Is there a reason for that

[jay2068]

must be trying to keep the value up!

[Omegamatrix]

Please Al, please lower them. I can't take the pain of sellers on ePay ranting and raving something is a 10 on Atariage when they have a few thousand sitting in their garage.

[hhwolfman]

CPUWIZ, on Wed Aug 24, 2005 1:15 PM, said:

mcgrail0007, on Wed Aug 24, 2005 10:45 AM, said:

I feel that the rarity level of Motorodeo and Ikari Warriors should be lowered. A supply of 50-60 of each title was recently found and these are brand new games. Try finding 50-60 boxed copies of any other rarity 9 or 10 games. For that matter try finding 50-60 loose copies of most of the rarity 9 or 10 games. What should be the true rarity for both of these titles?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Uh, why, the same thing happened with Cakewalk and Stronghold? I believe 50 CIB copies is still bastard rare.

If they do change, Waterworld is a rarity 5.

Actually Water World CIB is at least 3 times rarer than a CIB MotoRodeo now. Sad but true.

Just thought I would bring back this thread since we are talking about it again. HHW